Anyone picking up Thames & Hudson’s new semi auto-biographical book Cabin will undoubtedly be looking for vicarious thrills about off-the-grid living and the tantalising idea of being able to step away from the world. Cabin is the work of Will Jones, a journalist and author who gave up life in London to live the quiet life in rural Canada with his family.
‘Cabin’: inspiring off-the-grid living
The subtitle, ‘How to Build a Retreat in the Wilderness and Learn to Live With Nature’, gives you some idea of what to expect: this is part how-to, part personal journey, part survey and musing on the ongoing hunger for cabin living. The latter chapters are threaded through the main narrative, which charts Jones and his family’s search for a site and the process of design and construction. The cabin occupies a very particular spot in modern culture, a symbol of escape and retreat from the modern world that is nevertheless disseminated and distributed endlessly over social media.
Jones provides us with a fascinating insight into the history of cabins around the world, their origins and construction, their use of local materials, and the tools used to build them. Images of these historic and vernacular examples are interspersed with specially commission illustrations by Sarah Obtinalla.
It’s a tiny minority of people who manage to live their best life in a remote and basic cabin; the majority of us are happy to dreamscroll at our desks. Cabin gives another, deeper insight into the often harsh realities of cabin living, one that’ll invigorate but hardly deter the dreamers.
A traditional hytte, illustration by Sarah Obtinalla
Cabin: How to Build a Retreat in the Wilderness and Learn to Live With Nature, Thames & Hudson, £20, is released on 24 August 2023
Also available from amazon.co.uk
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