Book picks similar to
Summer Wine Country by Roy Clarke
rural-landscape
travel
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India(ish): An Absurd And Awful Saga In A Country Like No Other (Gonzo Travel Books, #2)
Mark Walters - 2017
(Spoiler: That lasts two days.)Then it’s buttock-bruising buses and chock-a-block trains for a farcical journey around the country, across the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, through Maharashtra and Karnataka and Tamil Nadu; to super-cities like Delhi and Mumbai and Kolkata, and sacred spots like Amritsar and Varanasi and Rishikesh, and lesser-visited locations like Madurai and Madikeri and McLeod Ganj.Along the way, Mark sees the awful and the absurd and the awesome, encounters the horrors and riches of India, a country of extreme contrasts that he struggles to survive, strives to like. He has to laugh — it was either that or cry.He meets randy perverts and mystical madmen, sees bodies barbecued beside the Ganges, goes insane when he drinks bhang lassi, wears skinny jeans to a yoga class, and visits the cult of “The Mother”.For a country like no other, it’s a travel book like no other.(*Note*: If you like yoga or knitting or The Guardian, or are the sort of person that orders a korma, this book isn't for you — you'll hate it.)
A Year on our Farm. How the Countryside Made Me
Matt Baker - 2021
Matt Baker is at his happiest on the farm.Away from the bright lights of hosting our favourite television programmes, Countryfile, The One Show, Blue Peter and many more, he is often in the company of his family, dogs, array of sheep, Mediterranean miniature donkeys and a whole host of wildlife in the farm's ancient woodland.Now, following the ever-changing seasons, Matt takes us on a journey with his family on the farm.We see woodland animals emerge after a long winter of hibernation, hear the dawn chorus in the height of summer and see the preparations unfold for the harsh and wild winter months.Peppered with hand drawn sketches, unforgettable moments from his TV career and stories of a landscape you'll fall in love with, Matt offers readers a touching insight into life on the farm, and how the power and beauty of the countryside can be an inspiration and source of joy for all of us.A celebration of the natural year, Matt Baker takes us on a journey through the seasons, his life on the farm and how the power and beauty of the countryside has made him who he is.
My Father's Island: A Galapagos Quest (Pelican Press)
Johanna Angermeyer - 1990
Like her father, she came to love the Galapagos and to dream of having a life there. Her experience was filled with the perils and incomparable pleasures of living on the Galapagos.
Lost on the Appalachian Trail
Kyle S Rohrig - 2015
Confront the terrain, severe weather, injury, dangerous wildlife and questionable characters as you grow and learn as Kyle did from start to finish of this epic adventure. Make some friends for life, learn the finer points of long distance hiking, and realize that what you take within your backpack is not nearly as important as what you bring within yourself... This exciting and often times humorous narrative does more than simply tell the story of Kyle and Katana's adventures on trail. You will be inspired, while learning what it takes mentally and physically to accomplish an undertaking such as hiking thousands of miles through mountainous wilderness while braving countless obstacles all determined to make you quit. Nobody said it was easy, but if you can make it to the end, your life will be changed forever. What are you waiting for? Adventure is calling...For more content from the Author, as well as to follow his past, present, and future adventures; check out the following pages!Website/Blog: BoundlessRoamad.comInstagram: @_roamad_Facebook: facebook.com/kyle.rohrig.7Youtube: youtube.com/c/NomadWisdom
The Kerracher Man (Non-Fiction)
Eric MacLeod - 2008
Biography
Two Million Steps: BAND-AIDS, COCKTAILS, AND FINDING PEACE ALONG SPAIN'S CAMINO DE SANTIAGO
Patrick Devaney - 2017
He has a loving family, a successful career, and good friends. He is fortunate in many ways, and he knows it. But Pat also knows one other thing. Negativity had seized him; his life’s glass always seemed half empty. Despite the blessings of a prosperous life, Pat lives with a sense of dissatisfaction. He’s haunted by a feeling of purposelessness for which he cannot seem to find a solution. When a fateful phone call puts Pat on the proverbial edge, he knows he needs answers even if he doesn’t know the questions. Pat recalls hearing of the Camino de Santiago—the five-hundred-mile spiritual path through France and Spain that ends at the traditional burial site of James the Apostle. In his state of unrest and longing, Pat makes the bold decision to embark upon the ancient pilgrimage on foot. Two Million Steps captures Pat’s incredible journey of self-discovery along his trek through Europe and the places, people, and events he encounters along the way. For Pat, physical pain becomes a badge of honor, and every step he takes leads him closer to healing his soul and to becoming a new person.
At Home in the Pays d'Oc: A tale of accidental expatriates (The Pays d'Oc series Book 1)
Patricia Feinberg Stoner - 2017
Patricia and her husband Patrick are spending the summer in their holiday home in the Languedoc village of Morbignan la Crèbe. One hot Friday afternoon Patrick walks in with the little dog, thinking she is a stray. They have no intention of keeping her. ‘Just for tonight,’ says Patrick. ‘We will take her to the animal shelter tomorrow.’ It never happens. They spend the weekend getting to know and love the little creature, who looks at them appealingly with big brown eyes, and wags her absurd stump of a tail every time they speak to her. On the Monday her owner turns up, alerted by the Mairie. They could have handed her over. Instead Patricia finds herself saying: ‘We like your dog, Monsieur. May we keep her?’ It is the start of what will be four years as Morbignanglais, as they settle into life as permanent residents of the village. “At Home in the Pays d’Oc” is about their lives in Morbignan, the neighbours who soon become friends, the parties and the vendanges and the battles with French bureaucracy. It is the story of some of their bizarre and sometimes hilarious encounters: the Velcro bird, the builder in carpet slippers, the neighbour who cuts the phone wires, the clock that clacks, the elusive carpenter who really did have to go to a funeral.
Buen Camino!
Natasha Murtagh - 2011
Peter and Natasha's journey starts in drizzle and wind as they scale Croagh Patrick, Ireland's Holy Mountain in Mayo, before setting off immediately afterwards for the Pyrenees in France. There, they start walking the Camino, the Way of St James, to Santiago de Compostela. It is a grueling trek over three mountain ranges; through fields and valleys, villages, towns and cities, to the lush countryside and forests of Galicia, and eventually to Finisterre, the pagan end of the earth. Along the way, they meet a motley collection of other pilgrims with whom they laugh, cry and above all have fun amid moments of high drama, exhilaration and sometimes exhaustion. They run with the bulls and parade in a fiesta; they pray with the faithful, and explore the Camino's rich Christian and pagan history; they stay in its sometimes Spartan pilgrim hostels and appreciate the richness of living simply. "A lovely book for those who have done the Camino, or like me, are thinking of doing it."--The Dubliner. "This is a travel book, certainly, but it is much much, more than that. It's about family and friendship and camaraderie, and it is, in the end, a wonderfully warm story about the bond between a loving adventurous father and his daughter ready to embrace the world."-The Irish Mail on Sunday.
Wild Guide Scotland: Hidden Places, Great Adventures & the Good Life
Kimberley Grant - 2017
This guide to Scotland and the Scottish highlands and islands, one of Europe's fastest growing adventure holiday destinations, explores the hidden parts of its better known tourist areas, as well many more remote regions, rarely visited by tourists. Guiding you to over 800 wild swims, ancient forests, lost ruins and hidden beaches. Including inns, wild camping, local crafts, artisan whisky distilleries and wild places to stay.
The McCandless Mecca: A Pilgrimage to the Magic Bus of the Stampede Trail
Ken Ilgunas - 2013
The Magic Bus is becoming a national shrine, a holy pilgrim site, a modern-day Mecca. And I was determined to see it, too." So writes author and adventurer Ken Ilgunas, who, in the summer of 2011, moved up to Alaska and, like thousands before him, embarked on pilgrimage to explore the storied bus of the Stampede Trail, the very bus in which Chris McCandless of "Into the Wild" died twenty years before. What was supposed to be little more than a "literary tour" to a bus from a book that Ilgunas had "merely enjoyed" would become a humorous, enthralling, and, at times, treacherous journey, leading him to the very heart of Alaska.
STORM PASSAGE: Alone Around Cape Horn
Webb Chiles - 1977
Alone at sea for 310 days on his 37-foot cutter EGREGIOUS, he covered 38,000 miles in five difficult passages. He became the first American to round Cape Horn alone, complete one of the longest solo passages of all time, and make the fastest solo circumnavigation ever in a monohull.He writes at the outset: 'I will know defeat, despair, fear, beauty, serenity and peace. I will be tested far beyond anything I have ever imagined.' And tested he was--by storms, three capsizes, hurricane force winds, cyclones, week-long calms, sleet, snow, frostbite. He endured to experience exhilaration and accomplishment in solitude , and the peace of being in supreme harmony with the sea-world around him."STORM PASSAGE is about the first of legendary writer/sailor Webb Chiles' now five circumnavigations, all made without sponsorship, shore teams, PR agents, or any means of calling for help. Many talk loosely about living on the edge. Webb Chiles has for decades.
Home is Forward: Hiking and Travel Adventures from Around the World
Gary Sizer - 2017
No matter how much time he spends outside, it's never enough. Whether being thrashed by drill instructors at Parris Island or drenched by a squall in some high tundra, the same calming thought always prevailed: It’s good to be outside."Home is Forward" is much more than a collection of travel stories. As a prequel to "Where's the Next Shelter?" it answers the question of how someone can go from having a (somewhat) normal life to casting it all aside and wanting to go live in the woods. Hilarious, poetic and often thoughtful, "Home is Forward" is also a story about people. From ancient ruins to frozen volcanos, lessons are learned, friendships are forged, and on top of it all, love blooms. So if you yearn to visit far off lands, or simply love a well spun tale, you’re in the right place.
Fly-Fishing the 41st: Around the World on the 41st Parallel
James Prosek - 2003
. . . he has taken us on an unforgettable journey.” — Thomas McGuane, author of The Cadence of Grass and The Longest Silence: A Life in FishingThe New York Times has called James Prosek "the Audubon of the fishing world," and in Fly-Fishing the 41st, he uses his talent for descriptive writing to illuminate an astonishing adventure. Beginning in his hometown of Easton, Connecticut, Prosek circumnavigates the globe along the 41st parallel, traveling through Spain, Greece, Turkey, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, China, and Japan. Along the way he shares some of the best fishing in the world with a host of wonderfully eccentric and memorable characters.
Fatal Descent: Andreas Lubitz and the Crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 (Kindle Single)
Jeff Wise - 2015
All 144 passengers and six crew members were killed. In the ensuing days, a picture of the flight’s harrowing final moments began to emerge. Shortly after reaching cruise altitude, a 27-year-old first officer named Andreas Lubitz locked the captain out of the cockpit, took control of the plane and deliberately caused its descent. In Fatal Descent, journalist and aviation expert Jeff Wise travels to Lubitz’s hometown in Germany and pieces together a definitive and haunting portrait of the killer and the system he betrayed, revealing in heart-pounding detail how a lifelong super-achiever like Lubitz could have committed such an unthinkable act, what actually happened inside the cockpit, and whether current airline regulations leave us vulnerable to similar attacks in the future.Jeff Wise is a science journalist specializing in aviation and psychology. He is the author of the bestselling Kindle Single The Plane That Wasn’t There, about the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. A licensed pilot of gliders and light airplanes, he also has stick time in powered paragliders, trikes, World War II fighter planes, Soviet jet fighters, gyroplanes, and zeppelins, as well as submarines, tanks, hovercraft, dog sleds, and swamp buggies. A contributing editor at Travel + Leisure magazine, he has written for New York, the New York Times, Time, Businessweek, Esquire, Details, and many others. His Popular Mechanics story on the fate of Air France 447 was named one of the Top 10 Longreads of 2011. His last book was Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger. A native of Massachusetts, he earned his Bachelor of Science degree at Harvard and now lives in New York City with his wife and two sons.Cover design by Kerry Ellis.
The Wild Side of Alaska
Donna Morang - 2013
However, this is only the beginning of her lifelong dream of hunting and fishing in the Last Frontier of Alaska.She will take you to the Brooks Range, north of the arctic circle, where she and her mate hunt for dall sheep, come face-to-face with a grizzly bear that wants to eat them, and an angry moose trying to trample her hunting partner.Return to the Brooks Range to live with Donna, her mate, and one-year-old daughter in a cabin deep in the wilderness while mining for the elusive gold. Live an authentic life in the Bush of Alaska (The Bush is a term Alaskans use to describe regions of the state not connected to civilization) where she bakes her own bread, has no electricity, no running water, and wolves try to eat her baby.Fish along side her in the famous Katmai and Resurrection Bay, or do some crazy dip-net fishing for salmon at Chitna, Alaska. Catch a few grayling, salmon, or northern pike,and float the Delta river where she almost lost her life.Fly in small airplanes over the Brooks Range to view forest fires waiting to trap them in the wilderness, or hold on tight as they cruise over the majestic Prince William Sound to land on Hinchinbrook Island, and hunt for Alaskan brown bear.Return to the new life-style in the wild and wooly north after the discovery of oil, and the not-so-civilized changes to the Last Great Frontier of Alaska. As author David VanDyke says, "The Wild Side of Alaska will pull you in and keep you laughing, crying and gasping at the amazing true story of one of the last real American frontier women. You won't want to miss this down-to-earth tale of woman versus wilderness.