Book review: ‘Belonging’ by Amanda Thomson

Belonging is an unusual and enjoyable book: a blend of memoir, family history, nature- and place-writing, and lexicography. It’s about personal identities: the affinities we feel; our sense of history and of place; the different parts of us that make us into who we think of ourselves as being.

Amanda Thomson points out how we and others think of ourselves can fluctuate according to circumstances or be dictated by others:

Sometimes I have to choose between boxes that may or may not include ovo-lacto vegetarian/Black British/Black Scottish/mixed ethnicity/gay/civilly partnered; and I wonder what might be inferred about who I am, what I am like. ‘Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined,’ writes Toni Morrison.

As well as a talented writer, Thomson is a talented visual artist. Belonging is profusely illustrated with photographs, etchings and other imagery.

Appropriately for a book about personal identity, I enjoyed Belonging for daring to be different; for being one of a kind. It’s a book that’s difficult to categorise. But perhaps that’s the whole point.