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The Worst Journey In The World

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The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard is the inspiring, hair raising and wonderfully written account of Scott's second expedition to the Antarctic. Apsley Cherry-Garrard was one of the youngest members of the team which set out in 1910.

The working title for the book was "Never Again, Scott, Some Penguins and the Pole" the author also toyed with the title "To Hell With Scott". "Worst Journey," "Never Again" and "To Hell" are all words which sum up this unbelievable Antarctic adventure.

In addition to being a scientific venture, Scott and four companions also hoped to become the first men to reach the South Pole. As we know they were beaten to their goal by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, only perished in a blizzard on their return journey only 11 miles from a food depot. Read the rest of this entry

Three Men In A Boat

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Jerome K. Jerome – Three Men In A Boat

No personal library should be without a copy of "Three men In A Boat." Although it was written in 1889 it is timeless. It is a book I find myself reading every other year or so. It is in the top three or four of my all time favourite good books to read.

This is also probably the funniest book you will ever come across. Although he wrote this more than a hundred years ago, Jerome K. Jerome's humour is something that we can all identify with, proving that a good sense of humour is ageless.

The book is based on events which actually happened, and as Jerome wrote in his preface to the first edition: "all that has been done is to colour them; and, for this, no extra charge has been made".

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Tim Moore

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Tim Moore – Travels With My Donkey

The tag line for this book is "One Man and His Ass on a Pilgrimage to Santiago", the book is also available under the title Spanish Steps. Tim Moore is a British writer and humorist who in addition to several very amusing travel books has also written for a number of newspapers and magazines including The Sunday Times and Esquire.

In this book the author does something that I would love to do some day. He walks the ancient pilgrimage route or Camino to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

The route he takes is a five hundred mile hike from St. Jean Pied de Port on the French side of the Pyrenees to the Cathedral at Santiago, the resting place of St. James.

Many people do this pilgrimage each year, but Tim Moore, always on the look out for ways to make his adventures more interesting and unusual, decides to enlist the help of a donkey named Shinto.

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Tim Mackintosh-Smith

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Travels With A Tangerine by Tim Mackintosh-Smith

The Tangerine in question is not an orange in someone's pocket or backpack but Ibn Battutah, born in Tangier, Morocco in 1304. At the age of twenty one he set out on a journey that would eventually cover some 75,000 miles at a time when travelling was not a simple, safe or comfortable affair.

Ibn Battutah was Islam's greatest traveler and his wanderings took him to such places as Iraq, Persia, the Arabian Peninsula, Somalia, the coast of East Africa, the Byzantine Empire, central Asia, India and China.

Tim Mackintosh-Smith is an Arabist who studied classical Arabic at Oxford University and is also fluent in colloquial Arabic. Like IB he set out at twenty one for Arabia, eventually settling in Yemen.

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Tim Butcher

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Blood River by Tim Butcher

Tim Butcher worked for the Daily Telegraph newspaper of London from 1990 to 2009. During that time he held different positions including Africa Bureau Chief. While working in Africa he became fascinated by the Congo River and hatched a plan to follow the route of explorer Henry Morton Stanley’s expedition of 1874-1877 down the Congo River to the Atlantic. Despite dire warnings that he would end up dead.

Before reaching the river he traveled through the eastern provinces of the DRC ( Democratic Republic of the Congo ) from the former Albertville on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, North East to the head waters of the Congo. This alone was a trying and very dangerous journey. Of the many possible hazards confronting the mai-mai were among the most terrifying. Watch the video at then end to get the flavour of the book.

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Tim Butcher Chasing the Devil

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It is probably timely to recommend this book as Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia has just been convicted at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. As President of Liberia not only presided over the civil war that engulfed his country, but he also threatened Tim Butcher with death.

In Chasing the Devil, Tim Butcher recounts his experiences in 2010 traveling with a companion and two guides by bus through Sierra Leone and then by foot across a large part of Liberia with a detour into Guinea. In all he treks through 350 miles of rainforest and swamp. He describes Liberia as "one of the most lawless and unstable countries in Africa..".

The purpose of the trip was to retrace a similar journey by Graham Greene. In 1935 Greene and his cousin Barbara did journey by train, lorry, foot and boat, a journey Greene may not have survived without his cousin. Following the adventure Graham Greene wrote "Journey without Maps" which was his first travel book. Watch the video at the end to get a flavour of the trip.

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Annie Hawes

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Annie Hawes first book "Extra Virgin" refers to olive oil not to anything steamy. This is the first of three books that Annie Hawes wrote about her life in the small coastal town of Diano San Pietro in Liguria, Italy.

This is a marvelous book which belongs on the same shelf alongside books by Peter Mayle and France Mayes. If you have ever wanted to chuck everything in and flee to Italy to start a new life, this book will let you do that vicariously.

In Extra Virgin Hawes describes how her love affair with Liguria and Diano San Pietro began after she and her sister arrive from England in 1983 to take up a summer job grafting roses.

Wonderful Characters

After the grafting season the girls are somehow manouvered by a larger than life and crafty local into buying a derelict house and small piece of land amongst the olive trees in the hills above town. So begins an engaging and often hilarious story. The book is much more than just Hawes experiences trying to fix up the house, it is a wonderful and very affectionate look into everyday life in this part of Italy.

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Annie Hawes Ripe For The Picking

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Ripe for the Picking is Annie Hawes second book and is a follow up to her first one Extra Virgin. With this book Annie Hawes has produced another first rate read in which she updates us on her life in Liguria.

When I started reading it I felt as if I was back amongst friends in a familiar landscape. The eccentric and charming characters from the previous book are still around along with the odd new one.

Wood Beetles In The Beams

Annie Hawes is still repairing her house and now has to tackle wood beetles which have eaten the beams holding up the roof. Despite what must have been for her a very worrying experience she had me laughing out loud as she describes the beetle infestation and the recommended methods for dealing with the problem.

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Annie Hawes Journey To The South

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Journey to the South is Annie Hawes third book about life in Italy. So if you have finished "Ripe for the Picking" here is the next one. The tagline for this book is A Calabrian Homecoming.

As you will have discovered from the second book Ciccio's ( Annie's gentleman friend or fidanzato in Italian ) family is originally from Calabria, and so we get a taste of a part of Italy at the opposite end of the country from Liguria.

Annie, Ciccio, Francesca his mother, his sister and nephew drive down to Calabria to attend the funeral of Francesca"s brother. In the family's home town we meet a new group of characters and relatives. This is an introduction to a what in many ways turns out to be a completely different Italian culture from that in Liguria.

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Rosie Swale Pope

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Just A Little Run Around the World by Rosie Swale Pope. What a fantastic story. The tagline description for this book is 5 years, 3 packs of wolves and 53 pairs of shoes. That isn't even half of this amazing adventure run. Rosie Swale Pope decided to run around the world at the age of 57 following the death of her husband from cancer. This is the extraordinarily brave and compelling story of a 20,000 mile journey which she endured alone.

Rosie Swale Pope's story is one of amazing courage and tenacity. With no back up team, no safety net, no one to help her out in the most appalling circumstances this is an incredible read.

The run takes her around the Northern Hemisphere. She crosses Europe, Russia, Asia, Alaska, Canada, the U.S., Greenland, Iceland and finally back to the UK where she continues to run down Britain from Scotland to her home in Wales.

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