The Swiss Alps is the latest in the Cicerone Series of World Mountain Range Guides. These are no pocket guide books but rather works of reference that provide you with a massive amount of information, all in one place, that can be used to plan a holiday or a trek.  This still relatively new range also cover’s Kev’s book on the Pyrenees and Chris Townsend’s book on Scotland.

If a trip to the Alps is on your mind at the moment then you’ll want to have a good look at this. These guides are very comprehensive and carry all the information you need to make informed choices about your trip, including: travel details, moving around the country, accommodation, day walks, treks, popular places and places where you can almost be sure to be alone!

These guides must be hell to write. Kev designed the concept of this series and a number of other writers have had a crack at producing one, but so far only Chris Townsend has able to deliver and still remain in one piece! The great achievement of these guides is they give you just enough information about a place or a walk for you to make more informed choices. I have used both the Pyrenees and the Scotland guides a lot!

Looking at the book — and talking to Kev — it’s clear that while this book was a mammoth task it was also a Labour of love. He told us that while he was writing he would start every day by looking forward to the short trip from the bedroom to his study and word processor. He knew he was going to have a great time remembering routes, places and people. I guess it’s not that often any of us can approach a word processor with that much enthusiasm!

Any how, if the Alps are you thing (or you think they may be), this is well worth checking out.

The Swiss Alps has 465 pages and over 90 detailed maps. It is designed with the beautiful clarity that we now expect from the Cicerone design team. It is a soft cover with a flap and costs £25. The ebook version has not been launched at the time of writing but I’m sure it won’t be too far behind.

More details, sample routes and so on can be found at:

The Swiss Alps, Cicerone Books

I recorded the usual fun and informative interview with Kev, and you can expect to see this on the Outdoors Station shortly (with a bit of luck).

‘The Wild Coast’ is the story of travels in Guiana — the Land of Many Waters — named by local Amerindians. Guiana has 900 miles of muddy coastline and no natural ports. 80% of the land is covered by rainforest. According to Gimlette “… nowhere in South America is quite like it”.

Today Guiana,as a result of Colonialism is three different but connected territories: the ex-British colony of Guyana; the ex Dutch colony of Suriname; and French Guiana which is still part of France — Guiana still has members sitting in the French National Assembly.

Gimlette travels around each of the territories, through the fading colonial capitals and the marginal towns and cities on the edge of forests. He takes trips into the jungle and revisits a whole series of past projects aimed at levering, largely, mythical riches.

As an explorer and a writer gimlet serves us well. He is historical briefing is fascinating without getting in the way of the story. The people he meets along the way – who provide hospitality and who look after him on his travels — are affectionately remembered.

Guiana may be a backwater but, as an explorer, Gimlette was following is the footsteps of a number of illustrious predecessors, including Walter Raleigh, Evelyn Waugh and V.S. Naipaul. We learn much from the lives and experiences of these explorers.

The towns seem like almost any you can come across in South America, except more marginal. The forest — at times — has an almost ‘Heart of Darkness’ feel to it. And you might not be surprised that this marginalised country throws up all kinds of fascinating stories. Here are modern dictators, the cult of Jim Jones and the Jonestown Massacre, the true story (perhaps) of Herni Charriere — or Papillon — of Devil’s Island (who seems to have been a model prisoner). El Dorado is here – yet it really is — as are many household names who come from these nations, inlcuding politicians Bernie Grant and Trevor Philips, musician Eddy Grant and football superstar Ruud Gullit.

Above all this is a story of settlement and revolution, tribal wars fermented by western powers dashed hopes and dreams and of the strange, often twilight worlds, that have been left by the differing colonial powers. Each of the three territories is, of course, very similar but we do get a fascinating feel here of how each of the three powers, the British, the Dutch and the French, have created a new framework for the land they influenced.

There seems to be little hope here for dramatic growth or an economic miracle, anther these are nations that look to have a future much dependent on foreign aid. As a result I guess most of us will have few opportunities, or fewer reasons, to visit here. Yet Gimlette’s book is enlightening in all kinds of ways.

The best kinds of travel books are a wonderful mixture of travelogue, historical account, mythical tales and fascinating encounters. You will find all of these in the Wild Coast.

Gimlette proves that there is life yet in the travel genre. A very good read.

As so many of you liked the natural nature of the photographs I thought I’d feature one of the other stunning landscapes that I’ve go hold of during the last twelve months.

Mike Brown is a Yorkshireman who relocated to West Cork in Ireland during the 70′s and who now resides in the charming seaside resort of Courtmacsherry. West Cork is a wonderful land of rugged coastlines, unspoilt beaches, lush rolling hills and harsh, rigged, peninsulas. Brown captures this landscape as only a long-term resident can. These are stunning seascapes, featuring almost every weather condition and each of the seasons. The photographs are natural in the sense that they are not over-processed and reminds me very much of how my memory sees the land.

West Cork is certainly worth a visit some time. It is a charming place which remain largely unspoilt; in many ways it reminds me of Cornwall 30 or 40 years ago.

Anyhow, see for yourself by following the link below.

http://www.mikebrownphotography.com/

Have a look. These are worth sniffing out as real books or ebook downloads.

A Moveable Feast — The Restored Edition, Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway was one of the 20th century’s great stylists. The man himself was something of an acquired taste but his prose was as if written by angels. Hemmingway’s writing looks effortless. His economical style is marvellous in the way it seems to say so much with so few words. Hemingway remains the stylistic hero of many a contemporary writer.

A Moveable Feast was virtually the last thing that Hemingway wrote. In this gorgeous collection of short articles he looks back from the end of his life to his time spent in Paris during the in between war years. They were some years. As a poor writer (initially at least) Hemingway brushed shoulders with F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce and Ezra Pound, to name but three. These were the days of the original Shakespeare and Co bookshop. Hem was also friends with the formidable Gertrude Stein, although she did fall out with him.

The short pieces here I think are amongst his best ever writing. The book covers a turbulent time in his life during which he left his wife Hadley and went off with Pauline. Looking back over the years he is clear about his own failures. He takes repsonisbility for everything. And there is a complete absence of bitterness about anything he experienced.

When the boom was originally published Hemingway’s surviving wife cut out some stories and in some case went with earlier versions of text. The resorted edition not only includes some previously unpublished stories but also includes the final, or latest version of stories. The changes to some stories you know may be subtle but they are telling. And some of the new pieces add another dimension to the overall feel of the book. Introductions from Hemngway’s son and grandson also add some interesting background.

I often think about Moveable Feast as a travel book. The account of the road journey the Hemingway and Fitzgerald took from Lyon to Paris is exceptionally funny.

The first story, A Good Cafe on the Place de St. Michel is my favourite ever piece of writing about a walk. You can allow the walk to this day. The Rue Mouffetard may be a little more modern these days but with a little imagination you can be back 100 years ago. As you walk on Hemingway’s description is uncanny, not so much in terms of descriptive writing but in the way in which his writing invokes a feel and spirit of a place which still lingers on.

Buy as a hardback or paperback. This is not a book for the Kindle. It is a book to share. Great value.

The Memory of Love, Aminatta Forna

What happens to a country after civil war? We’re not thinking hee about the economic or political effects of conflict but of the effects that it has on ordinary people.

I bought this book after Amazon threw it up for me; I’d never come across Forna before. But wow, what a book.

The book’s story is anchored around Sierra Leone, a country in which psychologists once estimated that 90% of the population were suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome. Here we have an old man — an academic who has lived through insurgency and revolution — making his piece by telling his story. The story is told to a British psychologist whose family had been involved in colonial Sierra Leone and who is searching for something on a 6 month placement to work in loco hospitals. His best friend is a remarkably skilled, African, Surgeon who’s abilities in dealing with firearm wounds would find him an easy post in the USA if he could decided to join his oldest friend practicing there.

These disparate lives are united through one remarkable woman, a fine musician and someone who seems to have the gift or curse of only being able to live in the present.

This is great fiction, easy to red and a cracking story. It provides moving insights into civil conflict and into the massive task that Africa faces in building its future.

Half Blood Blues, Esi Edugyan

One for music aficionados and musicians! Short-listed for this years Booker Prize.

Half Blood Blues follows the experiences of two black Americans from Baltimore who make their home in Germany during the 30s. They are jazz musicians, the narrator the bass player and his outrageous friend the drummer. In Germany they make a good living by playing with a band of European Jazz musicians for whom the authentic rhythm section give them some real clout. Into the mix is thrown a remarkable young trumpet player, a mixed race African/German — a rare person in Nazi pre war Germany.

As war beckons our heroes are summoned to Paris to back Louis Armstrong who is living and working in France. The band have to flee Germany and loose a couple of their members along the way but, of course, life in Paris is not that hot as France falls and the band reacquaint themselves with the Nazis. They have to get out. Forged papers are secured to get the band to the US, all except for the Half Blood, young, genius. The genius is picked up by the Gestapo and is never seen again. Was his arrest inevitable or as a result of a great act of betrayal or jealousy?

The action runs through modern times with the narrator reminiscing back to the story of Germany and the flight to France. He and the drummer are on there way back to Germany to be the guests of honour at a festival that has been called in honour of the half-blood trumpet genius. A copy of the bands one album has been discovered in an archive. As the festival approaches the full horror of their story is unveiled.

The book is written in musician lingo which might take a bit of getting used to. It is a cracking yard, a great setting and the use of Louis Armstrong as a character is inspired. I must admit I didn’t quite see the end coming.

This won’t win the Booker, but I’d be very happy if it did!

And finally, two greta books of short stories. For me I think the short story is the very best kind of reading there is. Both of these writers are direct literary descendants of Hemingway in terms of simple by stunning style and technique. And they are both great story tellers.

Colm Toibin is, for me, the best English stylist writing today. it’s funny how wonderful Irish writers seem to me to be. I was heartbroken when John McGavern died a few years ago but somehow Toibin has filled the gap.

The Empty Family: Stories collection is wonderful, lonely and haunting writing. Some of these stories are clearly personal while others are perhaps based on the observation of the experiences of friends and colleagues. Toibin is gay. I mention this simply because this is important to some of the stories,  much the way that Jack Harness’ sexuality is important to Torchwood. I mention this just in case you are a homophobic maniac. But for most of us we should simply see this is writing of the first order. The first story here — about the death of his mother, across the ocean in Ireland — is one of the most moving piece of writing I have read in years. Poignant. Lonely. Sad. Wonderful.

USA writer Richard Ford is arguably the very best of those American Short Story writers who can trace their inheritance back to Hemingway. Rock Springs is only available in book form, and somehow this feels right. The book echoes another American great short story writer, Raymond Carver. Like Carver, Ford writes about the lives of those on the margins of the mid rest, unemployed, living in trailers, from broken homes, or suffering from broken relationships. Not a greta barrel of laughs I grant you, but some of the finest writing you are likely to come across this decade.

5 stars.

Chris Townsend is one of the UK’s most respected outdoor writers and long distance trekkers. He is also a very fine photographer and this wonderful collection of Cairngorms photographs showcases the very best of his work.

The Cairngorms Mountains are the UK’s only example of high, arctic, habitat. For Chris these are his local mountains and he knows them as well as anyone; he has used his local knowledge to superb effect in this wonderful large scale book of photographs.

As the title suggests Chris follows the seasons and his does so with superb observational skill. Whenever I stroll through this area I’m tempted to think that the hills always look the same, well at least when there is snow on the ground. Changes in the seasonal flora can be subtle here and Chris captures this well. A picture of the higher Feshie seems to show the barren scree that always shoots to the front of the memory; but look carefully and the summer growth of green, on the trees, lichens and grasses, are beginning to assert themselves.

There is, of course, plenty of snow on show. You’ll also find wonderful photographs high hills, treeless uplands and plateau, lush pastures and caledonian forest.

I sometimes think that the Scottish Highlands have been photographed to death. All too often collections and calendars are full of images that “sparkle” too or are saturated to a point that they seldom resemble my mind’s recollection of the landscape. For me, it is a great compliment to say that these photographs are all ‘natural’. There’s no over-the-top processing on show here, just an honestly rendered record the Cairngorm year. This is pure photography at its best.

It could be argued that taking stunning mountain pictures is relatively easy; the trick is to be up there overnight to catch the sunset and sunrise. The trouble is you have to be up there in all weathers and, well, most of us simply aren’t there that often and that often! Few photographers and snappers are as dedicated as Chris.

The collection is complete with a superb essay on the Cairngorms, their history, culture and geography.

Over the last couple of days I’ve fund myself constantly returning to this book. It beings back many memories, of trudging through snow, splashing on sub block to deal with aqua blue skies and stunning sunshine ,struggling through mean gales and driving winds, taking a break while watching rainbows form, rushing of hills to avoid lightening, watching the early morning movement of the deer and chilling out with a stroll through the Rothiemirchus forest.

Anyone who has walked through these mountains will find this a book to treasure. And if you’ve not been yet, but always wanted to, I can’t think of a better book to entice you more! I wish I’d been able to reproduce some of the images here, but then again you;ll just have to go out and buy a copy of the book

No doubt, as I write, Chris will be up in the mountains again, with a collection of new gear to review and his trusted Canons at the ready. Keep on snapping Chris and thanks a lot!

A Year in the Life of the Cairngorms is published on the 4th August and, of course, can be pre-ordered.

Full review coming up soon.

This collection — with an introduction by Michael Palin — is a fundraising project for Oxfam. But that being said, the compilation is a superb one. Here you will find a collection of complete pieces and excerpts from bigger works. each of the contributions vividly brings alive the experience of travelling and the range of experiences featured here are very different. This is a book to dip into, no chapter too long to not be able to read in one go. There is some profoundly beautiful writing here. Some of it is quirky. Some of it is from some of the most respected writers of their generation. Some of it is from promising new talent that I have not come across before. Some of the stuff is very, very, special indeed.

The established writers include Nicholas Shakespeare, John Julius Norwich, Dervla Murphy, Chris Stewart Jason Webster and Rory McLean. New talent includes Jasper Winn, Sara Wheeler, Tim Butcher and Sonia Falerio — great writers who are a pleasure to get to know. (At least these writers were new to me).

The superstars of travel writing include Paul Theroux, Colin Thubron, William Dalrymple ad Jan Morris.

And then there is the final bonus which is worth the price of this book alone. Patrick Leigh Fermor is for me the best travel writer of the 20th Century. The last volume of his London to Constantinople walk may never see the light of day as Fermor died a few months ago. But, here we have a story from the last part of the journey, from the book that may never see the light of day.

Definitely worth reading this summer Ox Tales will not only entertain but give you some new names to search out. Even when I’d read the stories before I found I didn’t mind that much — only great stories are here and like all great stories they benefit from telling more than once!

Paul Theroux is one of the finest living travel writers working in English. but this book is not a travelogue it is a attempt to distill the heart of travel, and to consider the philosophy that underpins travel and  — because this is a book — those who write about it.

To distil the philosophy the underpins travel may seem like a rather ambitious undertaking but this is a thoroughly satisfying read — informed, charming, funny, provocative and challenging.

The scene is set with the first Chapter, The Importance of Elsewhere. Theroux announces his intentions in dramatic fashion. He is nothing if not ambitious, sharing sentiments that I know will resonate with a lot of you.

“This book of insights, a distillation of travellers’ visions and pleasures, observations from my work and others’, is based on many decades of my reading travel books and travelling the earth. It is also intended as a guidebook, a how-to, a miscellany, a vade mecum, a reading list, a reminiscence. And because the notion of travel is often a metaphor for living a life, many travellers, expressing a simple notion of a trip, have written something accidentally philosophical, even metaphysical. In the spirit of Buddha’s dictum “You cannot travel the path before you have become the path itself’, I hope that this collection shows, in its approaches to travel, ways of living and thinking too”.

Theroux shows us, in the early chapters, that is he is no mean entertainer. Here the quotes and contributions and short and punchy with many of them being quips of the superior kind. Many of the comments here are from his own books and it is fascinating to see how the same issues and themes are dealt with in different places or at different times in the author’s life. Those that are not from Theroux are simply little gems. These earlier chapters have the effect of sucking the reader into the book. Reading it at first is pure joy as you can just dip in and dip our, but as we progress the pieces become more thoughtful, longer and altogether more satisfying.

Here are some of the Chapter Headings:

The Navel of the World; The Pleasures of Railways; Murphy’s Rule of Travel; How Long Did the Traveller Spend Travelling? Travel Wisdom of Samuel Johnson; The Things they Carried; Fears, Neurosis and Other Conditions; Travel as an Ordeal.

These are a little mis-leading as each Chapter contains a mass of variation and ‘Side Trips’.

Here is Theroux on cities:

My ideal of travel is just to show up and head for the bush, because most big cities are snake pits. In the bush there is always somewhere to pitch your tent.

Big cities seem to me like destinations, walled-in stopping places, with nothing beyond their monumental look of finality breathing You’ve arrived to the traveller.

“Athens is a four-hour city,” one man said, meaning that was all the time you needed to see it in its entirety. That hourly rate seemed to me a helpful index for judging”.

Here is Theroux on adventure:

Adventure travel seems to imply a far-off destination, but a nearby destination can be scarier, for no place is more frightening than one near home that people you trust have warned you against.

For me the best sort of travel always involves a degree of trespass. The risk is both a challenge and an invitation. Selling adventure seems to be a theme in the travel industry, and trips have become trophies.

And:

“Travel is at its most rewarding when it ceases to be about your reaching a destination and becomes indistinguishable from living your life”.

You get the idea! If I keep reproducing any more of this stuff I will get into trouble.

There is a lot here. Much of it is very profound and thought provoking while never seeming to be heavy or preachy. I’ve always found Theroux to be a bit grumpy when he travels but somehow that grumpy old man approach really suits this kind of reflective mussing.

This book is a little gem.

Isolation Shepherd is the story of four years that Thomson spent as a shepherd in Strathfarrar in the Scottish Highlands. Thomson was there at the end of the fifties, living with his young family on an isolated estate on the banks of Loch Monar; their only neighbours were to the South on the opposite side of the Loch at Pait Lodge.

This is a fascinating story and historical document. the way of life experienced by Thomson was more or less the same as it would have been anytime from the clearances on. While this isn’t the best prose i’ve read recently the content is, in the main, fascinating. Thomason walks us through life in the glen and on the loch. There are stories of the changing seasons, working with sheep dogs, the rearing and caring of sheep, life in the glen as well as accounts of stalking deer, catching foxes and so on. This was clearly a harsh and hard life, but it was led within the rhythm of the seasons and the land. The only concession to modernity here seems to have been the outboard engines on the small boats that provided the crucial link to the main Glen to the East.

The continuity of life on the Loch has an almost surreal effect at times. Thomson can be talking about, say, an incident when out rounding up sheep or hunting deer. He’ll then refer to another great story of the glen which sounds contemporary but which features incidents and characters from several generations before. But the certainty of the seasons and the continuity of tasks means that these reminiscences remain as relevant as if they had only happened the year before. And while the life was hard there’s a lot of joy here as we get to know the tiny community that live around the Loch.

As a result we not get a fascinating account of life at the end of this period of tradition but we get a wonderful pen picture of historic life in this isolated part of the Highlands although, of course like elsewhere in the Highlands, these areas were more heavily populated than we can imagine before the coming of the sheep.

Sometimes this book feels dis-jointed and the author lost me but inevitably I found that dragged me back with the next section. This book will appeal to anyone who loves the highlands and especially to anyone who has ever walked the paths and the hills in this area.

Tomson was there until the end. The construction of the dam at the East of the Loch — and the creation of the reservoir — spelt the end of this way of life. The neighbours over the water at Pait left first with Tomson and his family leaving just as the dam was completed.

The dam raised the level of the Loch by 100 metres of so. The small croft that was home was demolished before being flooded, a fate shared by many of the other places referenced in the book although Pait remains though now much closer to the water line.

There is much to admire about this timeless account of a more genuine and innocent time. I guess it will be in print for a long time. Recommended.

Thubron started his travelling, as a young man, in the post war years. His early books involved a young man travelling around the middle east and the Mediterranean, usually on foot, camping high and wild — very much the stuff that would be appreciated by those who love trekking and the great outdoors. Incidentally, these early books are worth searching out not least because such travel in Syria, Lebanon and the other places has not been so viable for a long time now.

Over the years Thubron developed a philosophy that sought to exclude himself from the story telling as much as possible. Other prominent writers integrated themselves into the story. Bruce Chatwin famously invented his own, exotic character. Paul Theroux moans, whinges and grumbles his way across countries and continents. Thubron prefers to give the space to allow local people to tell the story of both themselves and their land.

As his career developed Thubron moved away from the backpacking image of his younger days. Nevertheless, the books he came up with were super as he explored Russia as it began to open up and China in the aftermath of the cultural revolution. His recent books have explored the Silk Road and the lesser known and mainly Muslim nations of the ex-Soviet Union. Oh, and there is a pretty good book on Siberia as well.

But with ‘To a Mountain in Tibet’ Thubron has gone back to the walk or the trek, walking to Mount Kailas in tibet, which is one of the most sacred of the world’s mountains, a regular place of pilgrimage for both Hindus and Buddhists.

Thubron undertook this walk after the death of his father, the last family member of his generation i think. As a result there is more of Thubron himself in this book than we have experienced before. But it is the life of the local people’s that still shine through. Thubron’s own personal reflections serve mainly to contrast with the lives of the local Tibetan and Nepalese people, whether in traditional settings or in newer and urban environments. I think Thubron gives us the best feel yet for those who’s livelihood is now centred around the western traveller. His writing on local customs, on the mystical beleifs of the pilgrims he meets, and on the local families that support him is unparalleled in my view.

This book is wonderful, achingly beautiful and a joy to read. You won’t read a better book all year. Go treat yourselves.