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The first volume in Tim Robinson's phenomenal Connemara Trilogy - which Robert Macfarlane has called 'One of the most remarkable non-fiction projects undertaken in English'. In its landscape, history and folklore, Connemara is a singular region: ill-defined geographically, and yet unmistakably a place apart from the rest of Ireland. Tim Robinson, who established himself as Ireland's most brilliant living non-fiction writer with the two-volume Stones of Aran, moved from Aran to Connemara nearly twenty years ago. This book is the result of his extraordinary engagement with the mountains, bogs and shorelines of the region, and with its folklore and its often terrible history: a work as beautiful and surprising as the place it attempts to describe. ISBN 9781844880669 -
John Creedon has always been fascinated by place names, from when he was a young boy growing up in Cork City to travelling around Ireland making his popular television show. In this brilliant new book, he digs beneath the surface of familiar place names, peeling back the layers of meaning behind them to reveal stories about the nature of the land of Erin and the people who walked it before us. Travel the highways, byways and boreens of Ireland with John and become absorbed in the place names such as 'The Land of Robins', 'Patrick's Bed', 'The Eagles Nest', 'Hidden Treasure' and 'The Valley of the Crazy'. All hold clues to help uncover our past and make sense of that place we call home, feeding both mind and soul along the way. That Place We Call Home is an absorbing non-fiction debut from one of Ireland's broadcasting national treasures. ISBN 9780717192021 -
Wes Anderson's beloved films announce themselves through a singular aesthetic - one that seems too vivid, unique, and meticulously constructed to possibly be real. Not so - in Accidentally Wes Anderson, Wally Koval collects the world's most Anderson-like sites in all their faded grandeur and pop-pastel colours, telling the story behind each stranger than-fiction-location. Based on the viral online phenomenon and community of the same name, Accidentally Wes Anderson celebrates the unique aesthetic that millions of Anderson fans love - capturing the symmetrical, the atypical, the unexpected, the vibrantly patterned, and distinctively coloured in arresting photographs from around the world. Authorised by Wes Anderson himself, and appealing to the millions who love his films, this book is also for fans of Cabin Porn and Van Life - and avid travellers and aspiring adventurers of all kinds. ISBN 9781409197393 -
Journeying from county to county, this guide to fifty of Ireland's best wild swims will inspire readers to get off the beaten track and find amazing locations for swimming, diving, and snorkeling... ISBN 9781848892804 -
From her first life-changing solo trip to Australia as a young graduate, Rosita Boland was enthralled by travel. In the last thirty years she has visited some of the most remote parts of the globe carrying little more than a battered rucksack and a diary. Documenting nine journeys from nine different moments in her life, Elsewhere reveals how exploring the world - and those we meet along the way - can dramatically shape the course of a person's life. From death-defying bus journeys through Pakistan to witnessing the majestic icescapes of Antarctica to putting herself back together in Bali, Rosita experiences moments of profound joy and endures deep personal loss. In a series of jaw-dropping, illuminating and sometimes heart-breaking essays, Elsewhere is a book that celebrates the life well-travelled in all its messy and wondrous glory. ISBN 9781784164379 -
How does a sushi bar explain a Japanese poem? Why do Japanese couples plan matching outfits for their honeymoon? Why are so many things in Japan the opposite of what we expect? After thirty-two years in Japan, Pico Iyer knows the country as few others can. In A Beginner's Guide to Japan, he dashes from baseball games to love-hotels and from shopping malls to zen temple gardens to find fresh ways of illuminating his adopted home. Playful and surreptitiously profound, this is a guidebook to a Japan few have ever seen before. Winner of the Edward Stanford Travel Memoir of the Year 2020 ISBN 9781526611512 -
Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years, is terminally ill, their home is taken away and they lose their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall. Carrying only the essentials for survival on their backs, they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey. The Salt Path is an honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways. ISBN 9781405937184 -
The untold story of a mysterious mountaineering legend - Maurice Wilson - and his heroic attempt to climb Everest. Alone. In the 1930s, as official government expeditions set their sights on conquering Everest, a little-known World War I veteran named Maurice Wilson conceived his own crazy, beautiful plan: he would fly a Gipsy Moth aeroplane from England to Everest, crash land on its lower slopes, then become the first person to reach its summit - all utterly alone. Wilson didn't know how to climb. He barely knew how to fly. But he had pluck, daring and a vision - he wanted to be the first man to stand on top of the world. Traumatised by his wartime experiences and leaving behind a trail of broken hearts, Wilson believed that Everest could redeem him. This is the tale of an adventurer unlike any you have ever encountered: an unforgettable story about the power of the human spirit in the face of adversity. Maurice Wilson is a man written out of the history books - dismissed as an eccentric and a charlatan by many, but held in the highest regard by renowned mountaineers such as Reinhold Messner. The Moth and the Mountain restores him to his rightful place in the annals of Everest and in doing so attempts to answer that perennial question - why do we climb mountains? 'A towering, tragic tale rescued from oblivion by Ed Caesar's magnificent writing' Dan Snow. ISBN 9780241262313 -
For over 300 years, Japan closed itself to outsiders, developing a remarkable and unique culture. During its period of isolation, the inhabitants of the city of Edo, later known as Tokyo, relied on its public bells to tell the time. In her remarkable book, Anna Sherman tells of her search for the bells of Edo, exploring the city of Tokyo and its inhabitants and the individual and particular relationship of Japanese culture - and the Japanese language - to time, tradition, memory, impermanence and history. Through Sherman's journeys around the city and her friendship with the owner of a small, exquisite cafe, who elevates the making and drinking of coffee to an art-form, The Bells of Old Tokyo presents a series of hauntingly memorable voices in the labyrinth that is the metropolis of the Japanese capital: An aristocrat plays in the sea of ashes left by the Allied firebombing of 1945. A scientist builds the most accurate clock in the world, a clock that will not lose a second in five billion years. A sculptor eats his father's ashes while the head of the house of Tokugawa reflects on the destruction of his grandfather's city ('A lost thing is lost. To chase it leads to darkness')... The result is a book that not only engages with the striking otherness of Japanese culture like no other, but that also marks the arrival of a dazzling new writer as she presents an absorbing and alluring meditation on life through an exploration of a great city and its people. ISBN 9781529000498 -
"This odd yet beautiful small book contains the stories of fifty strange islands from across the globe. Each story makes you consider the world that we live in, and what a diverse and amazing place it really is. It’s a bit pricey (sorry!) but beautifully produced and bound. A wonderful quirky discovery." Bob ISBN 9781846143496 -
'My dictionary's first two definitions of 'comrade' are: A close companion. An intimate associate or friend. The third one is: A fellow soldier. My friends have been all those things to me.' In this stunning essay collection, award-winning journalist Rosita Boland explores the many friendships that have shaped her life. Surprising and beautiful, she writes about the imaginary friends of early childhood, books that have provided companionship and joy, kindred spirits met while travelling, the friend she hoped might become something more, and also the friendships that become lost over time. Life-affirming, affecting and wise, Comrades is a powerful exploration of what it is to live, to connect, and to be human in this world. 'I was fascinated, moved and entertained by every page. This is the kind of book the world needs right now' DONAL RYAN 'A moving, beautiful and deeply felt meditation on friendship, loyalty and connectedness in a disconnected world' HILARY FANNIN ISBN 9781529176940 -
The triumphant conclusion to Tim Robinson's extraordinary Connemara trilogy, which Robert Macfarlane has called 'one of the most remarkable non-fiction projects undertaken in English'. Robinson writes about the people, places and history of south Connemara - one of Ireland's last Gaelic-speaking enclaves - with the encyclopaedic knowledge of a cartographer and the grace of a born writer. 'He is that rarest of phenomena, a scientist and an artist, and his method is to combine scientific rigour with artistic reverie in a seamless blend that both informs and delights.' John Banville, Guardian. ISBN 9780141049595 -
From the internationally bestselling, prize-winning author of Landmarks, The Lost Words and The Old WaysIn Underland, Robert Macfarlane takes us on a journey into the worlds beneath our feet. From the ice-blue depths of Greenland's glaciers, to the underground networks by which trees communicate, from Bronze Age burial chambers to the rock art of remote Arctic sea-caves, this is a deep-time voyage into the planet's past and future. Global in its geography, gripping in its voice and haunting in its implications, Underland is a work of huge range and power, and a remarkable new chapter in Macfarlane's long-term exploration of landscape and the human heart. ISBN 9780141030579 -
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. Wherever she goes, Ana Kinsella looks around her with a keen eye for small, illuminating details, and a love for variety and emotional connection. Look Here is a gorgeous, layered portrait of a city and its people, a book that urges us to slow down, look closer and find beauty. ‘I loved strolling through London with Ana Kinsella, noticing all the things she notices, what people are wearing on the Tube or at the Tate Modern, listening in on her chats with the locals, reading about the history of Embankment, the privatization of public spaces, or the pandemic passeggiata. And the shoes! A whole anthropology of London through its footwear. Look Here renewed my desire to get up and out into the streets of the city I now call home, but not without first practising that other great and under-appreciated act of joy and self-determination: deciding what to wear when I hit the pavement.’ Lauren Elkin ISBN 9781914198120 -
Monisha Rajesh has chosen one of the best ways of seeing the world. Never too fast, never too slow, her journey does what trains do best. Getting to the heart of things. From the cloud-skimming heights of Tibet's Qinghai railway to silk-sheeted splendour on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, Around the World in 80 Trains is a celebration of the glory of train travel and a witty and irreverent look at the world. Packing up her rucksack - and her fiance, Jem - Monisha Rajesh embarks on an unforgettable adventure that takes her from London's St Pancras station to the vast expanses of Russia and Mongolia, North Korea, Canada, Kazakhstan, and beyond. The journey is one of constant movement and mayhem, as the pair strike up friendships and swap stories with the hilarious, irksome and ultimately endearing travellers they meet on board, all while taking in some of the earth's most breathtaking views. ISBN 9781408869772 -
The second volume in Tim Robinson's phenomenal Connemara Trilogy - which Robert Macfarlane has called 'One of the most remarkable non-fiction projects undertaken in English'. The first volume of Tim Robinson's Connemara trilogy, Listening to the Wind, covered Robinson's home territory of Roundstone and environs. The Last Pool of Darkness moves into wilder territory: the fjords, cliffs, hills and islands of north-west Connemara, a place that Wittgenstein, who lived on his own in a cottage there for a time, called 'the last pool of darkness in Europe'. Again combining his polymathic knowledge of Connemara's natural history, human history, folklore and topography with his own unsurpassable artistry as a writer, Tim Robinson has produced another classic. 'The Proust & Ruskin of modern place-writing, deep-mapper of Irish landscapes, visionary thinker, and human of exceptional intellectual generosity & kindness. He was an immense inspiration to & encourager of me & my work' Robert Macfarlane. 'One of the greatest writers of lands... No one has disentangled the tales the stones of Ireland have to tell so deftly and retold them so beautifully' Fintan O'Toole. ISBN 9780141032696 -
Over the course of a year, leading historian and nature writer David Gange kayaked the weather-ravaged coasts of Atlantic Britain and Ireland from north to south: every cove, sound, inlet, island. The idea was to travel slowly and close to the water: in touch with both the natural world and the histories of communities on Atlantic coastlines. The story of his journey is one of staggering adventure, range and beauty. For too long, Gange argues, the significance of coasts has been underestimated, and the potential of small boats as tools to make sense of these histories rarely explored. This book seeks to put that imbalance right. Paddling alone in sun and storms, among dozens of whales and countless seabirds, Gange and his kayak travelled through a Shetland summer, Scottish winter and Irish spring before reaching Wales and Cornwall. Sitting low in the water, as did millions in eras when coasts were the main arteries of trade and communication, Gange describes, in captivating prose and loving detail, the experiences of kayaking, coastal living and historical discovery. Drawing on the archives of islands and coastal towns, as well as their vast poetic literatures in many languages, he shows that the neglected histories of these stunning regions are of real importance in understanding both the past and future of the whole archipelago. It is a history of Britain and Ireland like no other. COLLECTIVE WINNER OF THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 'This is the book that has been wanting to be written for decades: the ragged fringe of Britain as a laboratory for the human spirit' Adam Nicolson ISBN 9780008225148 -
From the beet fields of North Dakota to the National Forest campgrounds of California to Amazon's CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older Americans. Finding that social security comes up short, often underwater on mortgages, these invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in late-model RVs, travel trailers, and vans, forming a growing community of nomads: migrant laborers who call themselves "workampers." On frequently traveled routes between seasonal jobs, Jessica Bruder meets people from all walks of life: a former professor, a McDonald's vice president, a minister, a college administrator, and a motorcycle cop, among many others-including her irrepressible protagonist, a onetime cocktail waitress, Home Depot clerk, and general contractor named Linda May. In a secondhand vehicle she christens "Van Halen," Bruder hits the road to get to know her subjects more intimately. Accompanying Linda May and others from campground toilet cleaning to warehouse product scanning to desert reunions, then moving on to the dangerous work of beet harvesting, Bruder tells a compelling, eye-opening tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy-one that foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, she celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these quintessential Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive. Like Linda May, who dreams of finding land on which to build her own sustainable "Earthship" home, they have not given up hope. ISBN 9781800750302