Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, for Halloween, I reviewed the movie Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Book: Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Books on Tape
Publication date: 2023

Source: e-audiobook borrowed from library

Summary: Enchantment follows Wintering, a book that helped me and others during the first winter of the pandemic. Just because Katherine May wrote a book that was applicable didn’t mean that she had free sailing through what was a hard time for everyone.

This book is about how May experienced the pandemic, the physical aftermath of her own bout with COVID (worsening symptoms related to balance), and the gradual reawakening of a desire for enchantment.

Enchantment has a self-help style subtitle — Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age. The American edition of Wintering did, too — The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. Both books are memoirs not self-help. I often find memoirs more helpful than self-help. The experiences of one human in our world can illuminate paths for other humans.

Thoughts: This book was perfect timing for me ahead of the holiday season. It was a reminder to be selective in my focus. I want to be attentive to the moments and the details that make an experience feel sacred or magical or special.

The pandemic curtailed travel, but I enjoyed learning more about May’s home location of Whitstable, a seaside town in Kent, near Margate that was a fascination for me a few months ago. Eventually, May traveled in England, so we get a few glimpses of other locations, too.

Rebecca Lee read this audiobook, as she did Wintering. The listening experience is calm and enchanting.

Appeal: The audiobook of Enchantment is a wonderful accompaniment to autumn walks as we move toward the holiday season. At five hours, it doesn’t take too many walks to complete.

Have you read this book? What did you think?