' Sixty Degrees North is a story that we tell both to ourselves & to others It is a story about where
- & perhaps also who
- we are' The sixtieth parallel marks a kind of borderland It wraps itself around the lower reaches of Finland Sweden & Norway; it crosses the tip of Greenland & of South-central Alaska; it cuts the great spaces of Russia & Canada in half The parallel also passes through Shetland at the very top of the British Isles In Sixty Degrees North Malachy Tallack explores the places that share this latitude beginning & ending in Shetland where he has spent most of his life The book focuses on the landscapes & natural environments of the parallel & the way that people have interacted with those landscapes It explores themes of wildness & community of isolation & engagement of exile & memory In addition Sixty Degrees North is also a deeply personal book which begins with the author's loss of his father & his troubled relationship with Shetland Informed by the journeys described it moves towards a kind of resolution an acceptance of loss & ultimately a love of the place Tallack calls 'home'