Thunderstone A true story of losing one home and discovering another

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE WATERSTONES’ NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH: Fifty Words for Snow ___ Can a tiny caravan provide the space to rebuild a life? ___ ‘ It was believed lightning would not strike a house that held a thunderstone. And so these fossils were placed on top of clocks, under floorboards, over stable doors . . . But there are some storms that thunderstones cannot prevent.’ In the wake of a traumatic lockdown, Nancy Campbell buys an old caravan and drives it into a strip of neglected woodland between a canal and railway. It is the first home she has ever owned. As summer begins, Nancy embraces the challenge of how to live well in a space in which possessions and emotions often threaten to tumble – clearing industrial junk from the soil to help wild beauty flourish. But when illness and uncertainty loom once more, it is this van anchored in the woods, and the unconventional friendships forged off -grid, that will bring her solace and hope. An intimate journal across the space of a defining summer, Thunderstone is celebration of the people and places that hold us when the storms gather; an invitation to approach life with imagination and to embrace change bravely.

Nancy Campbell is a poet and non-fiction writer whose books include Fifty Words for Snow, a Waterstones Book of the Month; The Library of Ice: Readings in a Cold Climate; Disko Bay and How to Say ‘ I Love You’ in Greenlandic. Her work has engaged with the environment since a winter spent as Artist in Residence at the most northern museum in the world on Upernavik in Greenland in 2010. She was appointed Canal Laureate by The Poetry Society in 2018 and received the Ness Award from the Royal Geographical Society in 2020. She lives in a van outside Oxford.

CONTENTS October 2019, and aftermath 1 June 31 July 107 August 147 September 187 Acknowledgements 229 Notes 233