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Britain's Best Country Walks -
Country Walking
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Price:
£6.99
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Weight: 939 grammes
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Features:Hardback,
full colour book published in conjunction with Haynes, 183
pages, 27 walks.
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Nice pictures, pleasantly non-macho writing.
The route information could be more detailed.
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The Concept It's an illustrated book of walking routes
extracted from the pages of Country Walking Magazine and co-published
with Haynes - yes, the car manual people - along the same lines as the two Trail books we reviewed
earlier this year. The aim is to be inspirational but also provide
the practical information you need.
Features The book's broken down ito 16 area sections, some
with one or two walks, other with several. Each section has a lavish
garnish of photographs together with a rather sweet outline map
illustration and a brief route description. There's also practical
information on where to stay, information contact details and details
on local cultural attractions. Oh, it's a hardback so you can smack
unruly kids or dogs over the head with it when you're trapped inside.
In
Action To be honest, we're not great Country Walking readers and
probably never will be, but this is actually a really refreshing,
energising book. You have to start with the photography because a lot
of it is simply beautiful - hats off to Matthew Roberts - and
captures the edible green lushness that makes the UK so lovely, but
you often forget about until you've been exiled to some beige-hued
high altitude desert for a month or two.
The writing's pleasant too. It just has a relaxed, gentle pace and
tone to it that's light years away from all the macho, 'conquer the
mountain', 'make Ben Nevis your sex slave' posturing that seems to
mar a lot of more mountain-orientated magazine writing. Even when the
book does alight on mountains, the Lakes are covered for example, it
does it with a light touch and without a load of macho hyperbole.
It covers pretty much the whole UK in passing, from the South West
Coast Path , via the Cotswold, Peak, Dales, Pembrokeshire and so on,
right up to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. The walks tend
towards the mellow and shortish rather than the sharp and brutal, but
in the spirit of the book, you'll want to look around and appreciate
rather than just march on nose to the ground.
We reckon it would be an excellent source of inspiration for
family walking holidays as well as a passport to some lesser known
walks even in popular areas like Snowdonia. On top of that, the pics
make it a great book to just flick through.
Not a hard core mountain book, though there are plenty of mountains
in it, Britain's Best Country Walks is an altogether more mellow
affair with the beautiful photography being the icing on the cake.
It'd be a great basis for some family walking trips and it's a
reminder that there's a lot more to walking in Britain than pure
mountain trekking.
Some people will want longer route descriptions, but if you have
half a brain and the ability to use an OS map and compass you'll get
on just fine. All in all a very pleasant surprise. We like it.
Marcus Crompton
The second book by Mick Fowler, the 'mountaineers' mountaineer', On Thin Ice is a guided tour through some of the varied projects of one of the world's best alpine climbers.
