Rough Edges
Where Land Meets Water, the Untold Stories of Coastline Communities
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Rough Edges
Narrated by:
Natasha Carthew
Buy Now for ₹500.00
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Narrated by:
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Natasha Carthew
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Written by:
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Natasha Carthew
Fiona Robertson, author of Stone Lands
'Natasha Carthew writes with an insight and an acuity of vision that few can match'
Sally Huband, author of Sea Bean
'Fascinating ... affecting ... illuminating ... [Carthew] has genuinely interesting things to say'
The Sunday Times
Beyond the picture postcards, Britain's coastal communities are suffering.
Crowds flood the beaches during summer heatwaves but they quickly vanish again, leaving behind drifts of rubbish and unstable seasonal jobs. Seaside property is in high demand but affordable only for landlords and gentrifiers. The cost-of-living crisis and the ongoing pains of austerity trap those at the vulnerable edges of our nation in poverty.
Having grown up in rural Cornwall, Natasha Carthew leaves the county in search of a new home. Travelling the country and exploring the villages, towns and cities of our coast, she meets the people fighting to keep these places alive. With fierce compassion, she shares their voices and their stories.
Rough Edges is a rallying cry for the beauty and importance of our coast and its people.
'Bracing, insightful and compassionate, the book shines a light on communities too often unseen and unheard'
Jini Reddy, author of Wanderland
'A forceful but compassionate polemic, delivered with Carthew's trademark robustly lyrical prose style'
Tim Hannigan, author of The Granite Kingdom©2026 Natasha Carthew (P)2026 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
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Critic Reviews
I was impressed by Natasha Carthew's Rough Edges, which uses the structure of life over the four seasons to explore how much Britain's seaside communities are in trouble . . . She brings a light, entertaining touch to a choppy subject (Martin Chilton)
Fascinating . . . affecting . . . illuminating . . . [Carthew] has genuinely interesting things to say.
[Carthew] approaches these places not as some Hampstead anthropologist parachuting in for atmosphere, but as someone emerging from the same conditions . . . the book is part memoir, part political meditation, part travelogue and part polemic on class, heritage and exclusion. (Jack Burke)
[Carthew] approaches these places not as some Hampstead anthropologist parachuting in for atmosphere, but as someone emerging from the same conditions . . . the book is part memoir, part political meditation, part travelogue and part polemic on class, heritage and exclusion. (Jack Burke)
Rough Edges brings the reality of severe coastal poverty into sharp focus in an urgent and compassionate blend of candid memoir and compelling literary reportage. Natasha Carthew writes with an insight and an acuity of vision that few can match, and the messages of Rough Edges land with great integrity. Rough Edges unflinchingly scrutinises the systematic inequalities wrecking coastal communities and sets out a vision in which people in the 'salt belt' shorelines of these islands can thrive (Sally Huband, author of SEA BEAN)
Natasha Carthew is a brilliant chronicler of life at the salty margins and Rough Edges is a forceful but compassionate polemic, delivered with her trademark robustly lyrical prose style. It deserves to be widely read - an important and original voice (Tim Hannigan, author of THE GRANITE KINGDOM)
With profound fairness, generosity, pride and warmth, Natasha Carthew extends her voice and deep empathy to the forgotten communities eking out existence when the holidaymakers have gone home; to those left living on the selvedge edges of the coast so many hanker for, but don't stick around long enough to understand. With her trademark fierce, yet elegant lyricism, Carthew illuminates the lives, hardship and beauty of those who live on the 'salt belt,' squeezed between land and sea, in and out of season, and asks us to reconsider the coastal margins of our island with compassion, intelligence, tenderness and fresh eyes. Essential holiday reading (Nicola Chester, author of GHOSTS OF THE FARM)
Bracing, insightful and compassionate, the book shines a light on communities too often unseen and unheard (not least in coastal nature-writing narratives). As the child of immigrants, I was also heartened to read Natasha Carthew's moving plea for a borderless world. Rough Edges ought to be required reading for UK politicians across the spectrum (Jini Reddy, author of WANDERLAND)
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