The Giant on the Skyline

On Home, Belonging and Learning to Let Go

Clover Stroud author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Transworld Publishers Ltd

Published:9th May '24

£18.99

This title is due to be published on 9th May, and will be despatched as soon as possible.

The Giant on the Skyline cover

From the Sunday Times bestseller of The Red of my Blood and My Wild and Sleepless Nights comes an inspiring memoir about home, family, and belonging.

Stroud's best book yet: candid, primal, irresistibly intense.’ - Julie Myerson

'Full of personality, humour and heart … I did not want it to end.’ - Lily Dunn

'One of the books we're most looking forward to in 2024' - Good Housekeeping

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What is it that makes a home? What is a home without the roots that tie you to a place? What is a home when a family is split?

Clover's eldest children are leaving home for university. Her husband Pete's work is in America.

The only way for Clover and the younger children to live with him is to uproot, leave their rural life near the ancient Ridgeway in Oxfordshire and move to Washington DC.

Forced to leave the home she loves, Clover sets out to explore the place where she lives, understand the history of her landscape, and work out why it is that it is so hard for her to go.

In this profound and moving memoir, Clover paints a beautifully layered portrait of family, community and of belonging in a landscape that has drawn people to it for generation after generation.

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'I loved this…She writes with force, power, and a radical transparency. It's a gift.’ - Cal Flynn

'This incredibly special book will make you think of all the places and people you have ever called home.’ - Emma Gannon

'I’m blown away by Clover’s writing. So impressive, inspiring, fluid, honest and resonant.’ - James Aldred

A beautiful book, written in lyrical, liquid prose that seems to flow straight from the heart to the page.’ - Sophy Roberts

‘Few writers I know have this intense intimacy, or such an immediately engaging effect on a reader. It really is magic.’ - Lucy Atkins

‘Clover’s most profound and moving, and unquestionably her most soaringly beautiful…’ - Juliet Nicolson

Praise for Clover Stroud

'A fearless explorer of the human heart.' - Elizabeth Gilbert

'Stroud's writing is knife-sharp, beautiful and profound.' - Madeline Miller

'Clover's writing...

Clover Stroud is expert at bringing her reader right to the heart of her longing. Her writing is intimate and warm, honest and generous. A true memoirist, she looks to people and place as her canvas, in this case the psychic and physical hold of the landscape and what we call home. The Giant on the Skyline is timeless and yet firmly rooted in time, magical and mysterious and yet earthy and sensual. It is full of personality, humour and heart and I did not want it to end. -- Lily Dunn, author of Sins of My Father
In this new giant of a book, perhaps Clover’s most profound and moving, and unquestionably her most soaringly beautiful, Clover Stroud confronts the wrench from a place that might define her and shows how the resounding power of love tethers the soul. -- Juliet Nicolson, author of Frostquake
I can’t remember the last time I underlined so much and folded down so many pages in a book the way I have with this. What a wonderful, wise, magical book. I’ve loved all Clover Stroud’s books but The Giant on the Skyline is really quite incredible. -- Rachael Lucas, author of The Cottage on the Shore
Clover has turned her truth-seeing gaze on a tiny corner of the English landscape. This book is drenched in some of the most brilliant writing about place I’ve read in a long while. It’s as evocative as Laurie Lee, chalked up with Clover’s incisive, poetic encounters with magic, pain and belonging. A beautiful book, written in lyrical, liquid prose that seems to flow straight from the heart to the page. -- Sophy Roberts, author of Lost Pianos of Siberia
I was captivated by the intimacy of Clover’s writing about home, and what it means to her. The honesty and creativity with which she mines her life and heart are inspirational on so many levels. I sat down to read a chapter or two, and finished almost the entire book in a sitting - somehow this is what always happens to me with Clover’s work. Few writers I know have this intense intimacy, or such an immediately engaging effect on a reader. It really is magic. -- Lucy Atkins, author of Windmill Hill

ISBN: 9780857529152

Dimensions: 225mm x 146mm x 34mm

Weight: 451g

336 pages