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Travel writing
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The Hero's Way
In the summer of 1849, Giuseppe Garibaldi was finally forced to abandon his defence of Rome. He and his men had held the besieged city for three long months, but now it was clear that only surrender would prevent slaughter and destruction at the hands of a much superior French army. Against all odds, Garibaldi was determined to turn defeat into moral victory. In 'The Hero's Way', Tim Parks follows the hair-raising journey of Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, 250-miles on foot from Rome to Ravenna, to explore Italy's past and present.
£10.99
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Red Sauce Brown Sauce
The charming and joyful follow-up book from 'the nation's taster in chief,' Felicity Cloake.
£16.99
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Lev's Violin
From the moment she hears Lev's violin for the first time, Helena Attlee is captivated. She is told that it is an Italian instrument, named after its former Russian owner. Eager to discover all she can about its ancestry, and the stories contained within its delicate wooden body, she sets out for its birthplace, Cremona, once the hometown of famous luthier Antonio Stradivari. This is the beginning of a beguiling journey whose end she could never have anticipated.
£10.99
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Look Here
This is a book about the joy of city life. The joy that comes from chance encounters, unexpected sights and sounds, glimmers of beauty flashing out from the grey and the rush of the everyday. The mix of people, shoulder to shoulder, sunbathing in parks, having a coffee, jumping on a bus, daydreaming on a bench. From this theatre of life, from this thrum of activity and private spots of solitude, can be drawn inspiration, emotion, memory. Exploring the delight to be found in everyday interactions and chance observations, 'Look Here' will chart an affecting map of London, navigating ideas of anonymity and identity, freedom and space (and who has access to these things), and community, while reflecting on whether the never-ending carousel of clothing we see on strangers holds some deeper meaning.
£9.99
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Wish You Were Here
This book will give tourists and travellers a description of each of 50 leading destinations from around Europe with a personal explanation offering an insight as to why, and how, these destinations consistently deliver high-quality visitor experiences.
£25.00
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The Lost Pianos of Siberia
Siberia's story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell. Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos - grand instruments created during the boom years of the 19th century, and humble, Soviet-made uprights that found their way into equally modest homes. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood. How these pianos travelled into this snow-bound wilderness in the first place is testament to noble acts of fortitude by governors, adventurers and exiles. That stately instruments might still exist in such a hostile landscape is remarkable. That they are still capable of making music in far-flung villages is nothing less than a miracle. But this is Siberia, where people can endure the worst of the world.
£10.99
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Small Bodies of Water
Home is many people and places and languages, some separated by oceans. Where is the place your body is anchored? Which body of water is yours? Is it that I've anchored myself in too many places at once, or nowhere at all? The answer lies somewhere between. Nina Mingya Powles first learned to swim in Borneo - where her mother was born and her grandfather studied freshwater fish. There, the local swimming pool became her first body of water. Through her life there have been others that have meant different things, but have still been, in their own way, home: from the wild coastline of New Zealand to a pond in northwest London. This collection of essays explores the bodies of water that separate and connect us, as well as everything from migration, food, family, earthquakes, and the ancient lunisolar calendar to butterflies.
£10.99
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Sea Fever
Can you interpret the shipping forecast? Do you know your flotsam from your jetsam? Or who owns the foreshore? Can you tie a half-hitch - or would you rather splice the mainbrace? Full of charming illustrations and surprising facts, 'Sea Fever' provides the answers to all these questions and more.
£9.99
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Ancient Paths
From the bestselling author Graham Robb, The Ancient Paths contains a discovery that will transform your understanding of pre-Roman Europe.
£12.99
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Outlandish
In 'Outlandish', travel writer Nick Hunt takes us across landscapes that should not be there, wildernesses found in Europe yet seemingly belonging to far-off continents: a patch of Arctic tundra in Scotland; the continent's largest surviving remnant of primeval forest in Poland and Belarus; Europe's only true desert in Spain; and the fathomless grassland steppes of Hungary. From snow-capped mountain range to dense green forest, desert ravines to threadbare, yellow open grassland, these anomalies transport us to faraway regions of the world. Against the rapid climate breakdown of deserts, steppes, and primeval jungles across the world, this book discovers the outlandish environments so much closer to home - along with their abundant wildlife.
£10.99
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Windswept
The story of extraordinary women who lost their way - their sense of self, their identity, their freedom - and found it again through walking in the wild. A feminist exploration of the power of walking in nature, following in the footsteps of Gwen John, Georgia O'Keeffe, Frieda Lawrence, Clara Vyvyan, Simone de Beauvoir and Nan Shepherd. Recovering from a life-threatening accident, Annabel Abbs rediscovered a lost love of long, wild hikes. Consequently fascinated by the art, literature and philosophy of walking in nature, she realised it had never before been told from a woman's point of view. She retraces the lives and walks of remarkable women who found solace, redemption and personal and artistic freedom in walking.
£10.99
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End to End
The End to End record is the longest place-to-place cycling record in Britain. It is a daunting 842 miles and for the men and women who attempt to break the record, there can be no second place, only the binary outcome of total success or failure. Paul Jones decided to ride from Land's End to John o' Groats in an attempt to understand the relentless physical and mental challenges involved. 'End to End' is a captivating and beautifully written narrative. A portrayal of hope and ambition, of what happens when things go wrong and how hard it is to make them right. It is about courage, obsession and joy, but above all else, it is a compelling exploration of why journeys matter for all of us.
£12.99
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Waypoints
Unhappy in his office job, Robert Martineau craves an experience that will shake his feeling of inertia. Aged 27, he buys a flight to Accra, and begins to walk. He walks 1,000 miles through Ghana, Togo and Benin, to Ouidah, an ancient animist centre on the West African coast. Martineau walks alone across desert, through rainforests, over mountains, carrying everything he needs on his back, sleeping in villages or on the side of paths, travelling shrine to shrine. Along the way he meets shamans, priests, local historians, archaeologists and kings. He begins to confront the lines of slavery and exploitation that binds his home to theirs. Through the process of walking each day, and the lessons of those he walks among, Martineau starts to find the freedom he craves, and to build connections with the natural world and the past.
£9.99
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Walking the Invisible
See through the eyes of the Brontës as you immerse yourself in their lives and landscapes, wandering the very same paths they each would have walked in search of the inspiration behind their novels and poetry.An 'imaginative and elegant trek through the landscape of the Brontës' Grazia
£10.99
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Clanlands
From their faithful camper van to boats, kayaks, bicycles, and motorbikes, join stars of 'Outlander' Sam and Graham on a road trip with a difference, as two Scotsmen explore a land of raw beauty, poetry, feuding, music, history, and warfare. Unlikely friends Sam and Graham begin their journey in the heart of Scotland at Glencoe and travel from there all the way to Inverness and Culloden battlefield, where along the way they experience adventure and a cast of highland characters. In this story of friendship, finding themselves, and whisky, they discover the complexity, rich history and culture of their native country.
£12.99
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Shalimar
'Shalimar' is a conjured place, but it is also an inheritance. A blend of nature-writing, magical realism and memoir, it is an incantation, but also a ship carrying a family safe inside, a sorrow-song and a fever dream. This book tells the story of Quinlivan's Anglo-Asian family whose extraordinary mythology haunts her own sense of time and place over the course of ten years and seven house moves through England, finally settling in rural Devon with a young family of her own. Quinlivan's story takes on an Odyssean cadence as she meets her grandmother in the form of a teak tree in Ireland, trespasses through a replica of Virgil's Tomb in a Lutyens garden in Surrey and comes face to face with the Green Man beneath ancient oaks in Hampshire. This book is sure to make its home in the heart of anyone who has ever moved, or migrated, however major or minor in scale.
£16.00
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Greatest British Railway Journeys
Michael Portillo has presented ten seasons of this ever-popular show on BBC Two, covering every part of the existing train network in Britain, as well as others that were closed as a result of the Beeching Report in 1963. Across a decade of these journeys, Michael has discovered the historical and cultural past of every corner of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, giving railway fans a unique insight into our shared past of train travel since the Victorian era. With the anniversary, this book celebrates Michael's top 50 journeys from the hundreds he has covered.
£12.99
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Meander
The Meander, like Turkey itself, has for centuries symbolised the boundary between East and West, and Jeremy's journey transports him from one extreme to the other.
£11.99
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The Land of Maybe
The way of life on the 18 remote, mysterious islands which make up the Faroes in the North Atlantic is a fast disappearing world. The islands are home to a small close-knit society of 50,000 people who share Viking roots and a language that is unlike any other in Scandinavia. Buffeted by the weather and the demands of a volatile natural environment, they still hunt seabirds and herd pilot whales for a significant portion of their basic food needs. Structured around the natural cycles of the year, 'The Land of Maybe' captures the essence of 'slow life': we follow the arrival of the migratory birds, the over-wintering of the sheep and the way food is gathered and eaten in tune with the seasons. This is not a travelogue, but a deeper exploration of how 'to be' in a tough landscape, a study of a people and a way of life that represents continuity and a deep connection to the past.
£10.99
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Tales from the Tillerman
'Tales from the Tillerman' is both Steve Haywood's tribute to Britain's canals, rivers and countryside and a celebration of Britishness in all its eccentric glory. Unlike Steve's previous titles, which have each focussed on one particular journey that Steve has taken, this book is casting the net wider and drawing from his full fifty years of experience, recounting the many hair-raising escapades he's had up and down the country and reflecting on how the country and the cruising landscape has changed in those fifty years.
£12.99
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Unofficial Britain
'Unofficial' Britain is made up of the places that are often left behind. This is a journey into the overlooked spaces that really tell the modern story of our island.
£9.99
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The Art of Exploration
With lessons from 100 countries, this is Levison Wood's most personal story yet, as he shares his ten most valuable rules to live life by, learned from fifteen years travelling through one hundred countries.
£16.99
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Shadow City
When Indian journalist Taran Khan arrives in Kabul in 2006, she imagines it as a return - a journey to the land her forebears hailed from centuries ago. She finds an unexpected guide in her grandfather who - despite never visiting the city - knows it intimately through books and stories, poetry and myth. With his voice in her head, and falling in with poets, doctors and other Kabulis, Khan uncovers a place quite different from the one she anticipated. Her wanderings reveal a fragile city in a state of flux: stricken by near-constant war, but flickering with the promise of peace, a shape-shifting place governed by age-old codes but experimenting with new modes of living. These walks take her to the unvisited tombs of the dead, and to the land of the living: the booksellers, archaeologists, intrepid film-makers and entrepreneurs who are remaking and rebuilding this ancient 3000-year-old city.
£10.99
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Hope in Hell
A polemical book about climate change and what is needed to confront the climate emergency.
£9.99
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