From The Gaeltacht to Galicia: A Son’s Tale, by Paul Murray ( large paperback Sept 2021)

£12.99

The inspirational story of how the love a Belfast Doctor had for his Gaeltacht sweetheart prevailed despite the horrors of captivity in Japanese POW camps during World War Two. 

Frank Murray and Eileen O'Kane met in Donegal and struck up a friendship. Frank later joined the British army as a medic and was deployed to Singapore. He and teacher Eileen wrote extensively to each other, and it is through these letters and Frank's journals that we gain a remarkable insight into life during these times.

From the description of the BBC I Player documentary - search Litir Grea Dara ...

 

Scéal inspioráideach an dochtúra as Béal Feirste a thit i ngrá le bean agus é tréimhse sa Ghaeltacht, agus an bealach ar tháinig sé slán as campaí géibhinn na Seapánach le linn an Dara Chogaidh Dhomhanda. Casadh Frank Murray agus Eileen O’Kane ar a chéile i Rann na Feirste ar chúrsa Gaeilge. Cháiligh seisean mar dhochtúir agus liostáil sé in Arm na Breataine. Cuireadh go Singeapór ansin é mar dhochtúir leis an Arm. Thosaigh sé féin agus Eileen comhfhreagras litreach. Bhí sise ina múinteoir faoin am seo. 

Tugann na litreacha agus an dialann a choinnigh Frank an-léargas ar an saol mar a bhí le linn an chogaidh. Ó am go ham, scríobhadh sé giotaí i nGaeilge. Bhí sé ina Cheann Feadhna ar an champa géibhinn a raibh sé féin ina phríosúnach ann i dtuaisceart na Seapáine. 

Ní fios cén bhrúidiúlacht nó cén chiapadh a chonaic Frank agus a chuid comrádaithe sa phríosún. Tháinig sé slán as an uafás. Sheas Eileen leis ar feadh 42 mí go dtí gur ghéill an tSeapáin, tír a bhí briste, brúite ar deireadh, i mí Lúnasa, 1945. Tháinig sé abhaile agus trí mhí ina dhiaidh sin, phós an bheirt acu. 

Insítear an scéal trína gcuid litreacha, trí chuntas an teaghlaigh agus le hionchur ó staraithe, iarshaighdiúirí agus síceolaithe. 

 

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Ponies At the End of the World, Catherine Munro ( paperback August 2023)

£11.99

The Ponies At The Edge Of The World : A story of hope and belonging in Shetland.

A meditation on connection between humans and animals, and the homes we make in wild places. I was completely immersed' Katherine May, bestselling author of Wintering

Catherine Munro transforms her life when she moves to Shetland to study the hardy ponies who call this archipelago home. Over the course of her first year, she is welcomed into the rhythms and routines that characterise life at the edge of the world.

When faced with personal loss, Catherine finds comfort and connection in the shared lives of the people, animals and wild landscapes of Shetland. Ponies at the Edge of the World is a heartfelt love letter to the beauty and resilience of these magical ponies and their native land. This is a stunning book on community, hope and finding home.


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Stories from the Sea : Legends, adventures and tragedies of Ireland's coast, by Jo Kerrigan ( hardback)

£17.99

Ireland is an island nation, inextricably linked with and dependent upon the sea which surrounds us. From earliest times, ships from distant lands have brought goods, ideas, invaders, influencers. Our legends, and particularly the 'imramma' or magical Otherworld voyage tales, show how deep our involvement with the ocean goes.

Jo Kerrigan has discovered and retold tales from all around the Irish coast of storms, shipwrecks, pirate attacks and smuggling, as well as shipping stories, both of long distance trading and the little boats which took supplies from major harbours to smaller communities. The sea has an enduring fascination: let Jo's tales and Richard Mills' evocative photographs transport you to the coast to rediscover the tales gathered over the centuries by its communities.
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La Serenissima | The Story of Venice, Jonathan Keates (paperback Nov 2023)

£14.99

A stunningly illustrated history of Venice, from its beginnings as 'La Serenissima' - 'the Most Serene Republic' - to the Italian city that continues to enchant visitors today. 'Everything about Venice,' observed Lord Byron, 'is, or was, extraordinary - her aspect is like a dream, and her history is like a romance.' Dream and romance have conditioned myriad encounters with Venice across the centuries, but the city's story embodies another kind of experience altogether - the hard reality of an independent state built on conquest, profit and entitlement and on the toughness and resilience of a free people. Masters of the sea, the Venetians raised an empire through an ethos of service and loyalty to a republic that lasted a thousand years.

In this new study of key moments in Venice's history, from its half-legendary founding amid the collapse of the Roman empire to its modern survival as a fragile city of the arts menaced by saturation tourism and rising sea levels, Jonathan Keates shows us just how much this remarkable place has contributed to world culture and explains how it endures as an object of desire and inspiration for so many.
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Ulysses: A Reader’s Odyssey ( Daniel Mulhall, Pb Jan 2022)

£13.99

Marking the centenary of Ireland’s – and possibly the world’s – most famous novel, this joyful introductory guide opens up Ulysses to a whole new readership, offering insight into the literary, historical and cultural elements at play in James Joyce’s masterwork.

Both eloquent and erudite, this book is an initiation into the wonders of Joyce’s writing and of the world that inspired it, written by Daniel Mulhall, Ireland’s ambassador to the United States and an advocate for Irish literature around the world.

One hundred years on from that novel’s first publication, Ulysses: A Reader’s Odyssey takes us on a journey through one of the twentieth century’s greatest works of fiction. Exploring the eighteen chapters of the novel and using the famous structuring principle of Homer’s Odyssey as our guide, Daniel Mulhall releases Ulysses from its reputation of impenetrability, and shows us the pleasure it can offer us as readers.

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Shannon Country, Paul Clements ( large paperback, Sept 2020)

£14.99

In August 1939 the Irish travel writer Richard Hayward set out on a road trip to explore the Shannon region just two weeks before the Second World War broke out. His evocative account of that trip, Where the River Shannon Flows, became a bestseller. The book, still sought after by lovers of the river, captures an Ireland of small shops and barefoot street urchins that has long since disappeared.

Eighty years on, inspired by his work, Paul Clements retraces Hayward's journey along the river, following - if not strictly in his footsteps - then within the spirit of his trip. From the Shannon Pot in Cavan, 344 kilometres south to the Shannon estuary, his meandering odyssey takes him by car, on foot, and by bike and boat, discovering how the riverscape has changed but is still powerful in symbolism. While he recreates Hayward's trip, Clements also paints a compelling portrait of twenty-first century Ireland, mingling travel and anecdote with an eye for the natural world.

He sails to remote islands, spends times in rural backwaters and secluded riverside villages where the pub is the hub, and attempts a quest for the Shannon connection behind the title of Flann O'Brien's novel At Swim-Two-Birds.  On a quixotic journey by foot, boat, bike and car, Paul Clements produces an intimate portrait of the hidden countryside, its people, topography and wildlife, creating a collective memory map, looking at what has been lost and what has changed. Beyond the motorways and cities, you can still catch the pulse of an older, quieter Ireland of hay meadows and bogs, uninhabited islands and remote towpaths. This is the country of the River Shannon that runs through literature, art, cultural history and mythology with a riptide pull on our imagination.

* signed copies available * 

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Hitching for Hope, Ruari McKiernan ( pb, March 2021)

£14.99



Hitching for Hope : A Journey into the Heart and Soul of Ireland

by Ruairi McKiernan (Author)

#1 Irish Times Bestseller!
A book about hope when the world was collapsing Irish Times
A modern travel tale, part personal pilgrimage, part political quest that captures the power of human resilience"
McKiernan sticks his thumb out, and somehow a healthy dose of humanity manages to roll up alongside him. . .
Perfect for fans of Bill Bryson
Following the collapse of Ireland's economy, social activist Ruairi McKiernan questions whether he should join the mounting number of emigrants searching for greater opportunity elsewhere.

McKiernan embarks on a hitchhiking odyssey with no money, no itinerary and no idea where he might end up each night. His mission: to give voice to those emerging from one of the most painful periods of economic and social turmoil in Ireland's history. Engaging, provocative and sincere, Hitching for Hope is a testimony to the spirit of Ireland.

It is an inspirational manifesto for hope and healing in troubled times.
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AfterLives : Abdulrazak Gurnah (PAPERBACK, Sept 2021)

£8.99

'One of Africa's greatest living writers' Giles Foden

'Effortlessly compelling storytelling ... You forget that you are reading fiction, it feels so real' Leila Aboulela

Restless, ambitious Ilyas was stolen from his parents by the Schutzruppe askari, the German colonial troops; after years away, he returns to his village to find his parents gone, and his sister Afiya given away.

Hamza was not stolen, but was sold; he has come of age in the army, at the right hand of an officer whose control has ensured his protection but marked him for life. Hamza does not have words for how the war ended for him. Returning to the town of his childhood, all he wants is work, however humble, and security - and the beautiful Afiya.

The century is young. The Germans and the British and the French and the Belgians and whoever else have drawn their maps and signed their treaties and divided up Africa. As they seek complete dominion they are forced to extinguish revolt after revolt by the colonised.

The conflict in Europe opens another arena in east Africa where a brutal war devastates the landscape. As these interlinked friends and survivors come and go, live and work and fall in love, the shadow of a new war lengthens and darkens, ready to snatch them up and carry them away.

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Slow Seasons : A Creative Guide to Reconnecting with Nature the Celtic Way by Rosie Steer

£16.99

In her late-twenties, feeling utterly overwhelmed by the pace of modern city life, Rosie Steer found solace in the traditions she had been brought up with, influenced by her Scottish roots, that celebrated nature and observed the small steady shifts in the seasons. The Celtic Wheel of the year is an ancient seasonal cycle that aligns with solar events - the solstices, equinoxes and their midpoints.

For each mini-season, Rosie shares nature notes for what we can look out for as the days get warmer or cooler, the nights longer or shorter, alongside activities, things to make, flowers or fruit to forage, seasonal recipes to enjoy and a modern take on the traditional celebrations. As the Wheel turns towards Imbolc on 1st February, we can make hand poured candles to welcome the return of the light, embrace the chill of a wintery walk with a flask of hot chocolate, and fill our homes with the scent of citrus making batches of marmalade. By slowing down and paying attention to the ebbs and flows of nature, we can find moments of calm whenever we need them.
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The Language of Trees, Katie Holten (hardback Feb 2024)

£16.99

The Language of Trees : How Trees Make Our World, Change Our Minds and Rewild Our Lives

by Katie Holten 

One of the most inspired items of environmental literature in recent years.' Irish Independent

If trees have memories, respond to stress, and communicate, what can they tell us? And will we listen?A stunning international collaboration that reveals how trees make our world, change our minds and rewild our lives – from root to branch to seed. In this beautifully illustrated collection, artist Katie Holten gifts readers her visual Tree Alphabet and uses it to masterfully translate and illuminate pieces from some of the world’s most exciting writers and artists, activists and ecologists. Holten guides us on a journey from prehistoric cave paintings and creation myths to the death of a 3,500 year-old cypress tree, from Tree Clocks in Mongolia and forest fragments in the Amazon to the language of fossil poetry.

In doing so, she unearths a new way of seeing the natural beauty that surrounds us and creates an urgent reminder of what could happen if we allow it to slip away. Printed in deep green ink, The Language of Trees is a celebratory homage filled with prose, poetry and art from over fifty collaborators, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert Macfarlane, Zadie Smith, Radiohead, Elizabeth Kolbert, Amitav Ghosh, Richard Powers, Suzanne Simard, Gaia Vince, Tacita Dean, Plato and Robin Wall Kimmerer.

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Himalaya : Exploring the Roof of the World, by John Keay ( paperback Oct 2023)

£12.99

History has not been kind to Himalaya.

Empires have collided here, cultures have clashed. Buddhist India claimed it from the south, Islam put down roots in its western approaches, Mongols and Manchus rode in from the north, and, from the east, China continues to absorb what it prefers not to call Tibet. Hunters have decimated its wildlife and mountaineers have bagged its peaks.

Today, machinery gouges minerals out of its rock. Roughly the size of Europe, the region is one of the most seismically active on the planet. Summers bring avalanches, rainfall triggers landslides and winters obliterate trails.

Glaciers retreat, rivers change course and whole lakes quietly evaporate. To some, Himalaya is an otherworldly realm, profoundly life-changing, yet forbidding and forbidden. It has mesmerised scholars and mystics, sportsmen and spies, pilgrims and mapmakers who have mingled with the farmers and traders on the ˜Roof of the World'.

Himalaya is the story of one of the last great wildernesses and, in particular, of the bizarre discoveries and improbable achievements of its pioneers. Ranging from botany to trade, from the Great Game to today's geopolitics, John Keay draws on a lifetime of exploration and study to enlighten and delight with this lively biography of a region in crisis.
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Dust Child, Nguyen Phan Que Mai ( paperback Feb 2024)

£9.99

Trang and Quynh are sisters who leave their rural village for the bustling city of Saigon, desperate to find work to help their impoverished parents. When they take jobs as bar girls, paid to flirt with American GIs, they must decide whether they are willing to turn their backs on the people they used to be.

Phong: one of the thousands of mixed-race children abandoned by their American fathers and Vietnamese mothers. Phong grows up surrounded by rejection, insulted as a ‘Black American imperialist, and a child of the enemy. But he never gives up hope of finding his parents and proving he is more than a 'bui doi': more than the dust of life.

Dan: A former American helicopter pilot still plagued by regrets about his actions during the VietNam war.

Now he has returned in the hope of confronting the demons that refuse to fall silent.Set between the Vietnam war and the present day,Dust Childis a sweeping epic of family secrets and hidden heartache, from an internationally celebrated author

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Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald (paperback, August 2021)

£9.99

Thrilling dispatches from a vanishing world' Observer

Animals don't exist to teach us things, but that is what they have always done, and most of what they teach us is what we think we know about ourselves. From the bestselling author of H is for Hawk comes Vesper Flights, a transcendent collection of essays about the human relationship to the natural world. Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best-loved writing along with new pieces covering a thrilling range of subjects.

There are essays here on headaches, on catching swans, on hunting mushrooms, on twentieth-century spies, on numinous experiences and high-rise buildings; on nests and wild pigs and the tribulations of farming ostriches. Vesper Flights is a book about observation, fascination, time, memory, love and loss and how we make the world around us. Moving and frank, personal and political, it confirms Helen Macdonald as one of this century's greatest nature writers.

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Urban Wild, Helen Rook ( hardback 2022)

£20.00

Urban Wild : 52 Ways to Find Wildness on Your Doorstep

Learn how to de-stress, relax and connect with the wildness you can find on your doorstep even in urban and suburban settings. Increasing workload, nervous tension, trouble sleeping? Wondering whether there is more to life? You're not having a mid-life crisis. Like so many others, you are feeling the call of the wild.


Today's urban living makes it easy for us to feel divorced from nature. This practical book is filled with 52 varied and inspiring activities illustrated with beautiful colour photographs that will get you out and about whatever the weather. Featuring a combination of creative, culinary, herbal and mindful projects, all with nature at their heart, you'll be surprised how much wildness you can find on your doorstep when you know where to look.

Organised by month, Urban Wild's simple, seasonal, step-by-step activities open the door to nature in urban and suburban landscapes to help you increase your potential for health and well-being and take your first steps on a journey of discovery towards a lifelong connection with the natural world.
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This Is My Sea, Miriam Mulcahy ( hardback August 2023 / paperback May 2024)

£14.99

Full of wisdom and poetry and epic emotion, This is My Sea explores grief, memory and loss through vivid words and striking imagery. It echoes lost summers and the beauty of life, like a shell held to the ear' - Ed O'Loughlin.

Over the course of seven difficult years Miriam Mulcahy lost her mother, father and sister, each grief threatening to drown her. But instead of going under she discovered the lessons of the sea, letting the water teach her how to get through anything in life: one breath builds on another, another stroke, another kick and you will get home.

THIS IS MY SEA takes our greatest fear, death, and wraps it up in language so fine and beautiful that the reader is carried along and comforted by how completely lost Miriam was and how she found solace in all the things that sustained her: books, music, art, friends, love, swimming, and of course the sea.

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The Flow : Rivers, Water and Wildness - by Amy-Jane Beer (Author)

£10.99

WINNER OF THE 2023 WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING

A visit to the rapid where she lost a cherished friend unexpectedly reignites Amy-Jane Beer's love of rivers setting her on a journey of natural, cultural and emotional discovery. On New Year's Day 2012, Amy-Jane Beer's beloved friend Kate set out with a group of others to kayak the River Rawthey in Cumbria.

Kate never came home, and her death left her devoted family and friends bereft and unmoored. Returning to visit the Rawthey years later, Amy realises how much she misses the connection to the natural world she always felt when on or close to rivers, and so begins a new phase of exploration. The Flow is a book about water, and, like water, it meanders, cascades and percolates through many lives, landscapes and stories.

From West Country torrents to Levels and Fens, rocky Welsh canyons, the salmon highways of Scotland and the chalk rivers of the Yorkshire Wolds, Amy-Jane follows springs, streams and rivers to explore tributary themes of wildness and wonder, loss and healing, mythology and history, cyclicity and transformation.

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The Meaning of Geese, Nick Acheson (paperback Sept 23)

£12.99

The Meaning of Geese is a book of thrilling encounters with wildlife, of tired legs, punctured tyres and inhospitable weather. Above all, it is the story of Nick Acheson's love for the land in which he was born and raised, and for the wild geese that fill it with sound and spectacle every winter.

Renowned naturalist and conservationist Nick Acheson spent countless hours observing and researching wild geese, transported through all weathers by his mother's 40-year-old trusty red bicycle. He meticulously details the geese's arrival, observing what they mean to his beloved Norfolk and the role they play in local people's lives - and what role the birds could play in our changing world. During a time when many people faced the prospect of little work or human contact, Nick followed the pinkfeet and brent geese that filled the Norfolk skies and landscape as they flew in from Iceland and Siberia.

In their flocks, Nick encountered rarer geese, including Russian white-fronts, barnacle geese and an extremely unusual grey-bellied brant, a bird he had dreamt of seeing since thumbing his mother's copy of Peter Scott's field guide as a child. To honour the geese's great athletic migrations, Nick kept a diary of his sightings as well as the stories he discovered through the community of people, past and present, who loved them, too. Over seven months Nick cycles over 1,200 miles - the exact length of the pinkfeet's migration to Iceland.
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The Cures of Ireland : A Treasury of Irish Folk Remedies by Cecily Gilligan

£22.99

It’s said that almost everyone in Ireland, particularly in rural communities, will know of someone with a ‘cure’. It might be for the mumps, a stye in the eye, or a sprain. Indeed the author of Cures of Ireland, Cecily Gilligan was herself cured of jaundice and ringworm by a ‘seventh son’ in her local Sligo during her childhood.

Cecily Gilligan has been researching the rich world of Irish folk cures for almost forty years and, given the tradition has largely been an oral one, has been interviewing a broad range of people from around the country who possess these mystical cures, and those who have benefited from their gifts. One has a cure for eczema that comprises herbal butter balls, another ‘buys’ warts from the sufferer with safety pins. There are stories of clay from graves with precious healing properties and pieces of cords from potato bags being sent across the world to treat asthma.

While the Ireland of the twenty-first century continues to develop at lightning speed, there is something deeply comforting and reassuring in the fact that these ancient healing traditions, while fewer in number, do survive to this day. Cures of Ireland is an exquisite book that will be treasured by many generations to come.

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The Joy of Wild Swimming ( Lonely Planet) Sept 2023

£19.99

Dive into 60 of the world's most joyous wild swimming spots and discover a further 120 ideas for uplifting bathing experiences. Packed with inspirational expert insights, immersive photography, and essential trip planning tips, this remarkable book explores the open-water swims guaranteed to exhilarate, rejuvenate, restore and above all, spark joy. Wade into Hawaii's crystal clear sea where tropical fish weave through the coral reefs of the Kona coast; or experience the magnificence of Slovenia's Lake Bled, where swimmers tread through the other-worldly Alpine blue waters to reach the iconic island at its heart.

With 60 mesmerising wild-swimming wonders to tour, readers will soon be immersed in the culture, landscape and characteristics of each life-affirming swim. Inside The Joy of Wild Swimming:- 60 in-depth profiles of wild swimming spots, organised by region and accompanied by beautiful photography, plus first-hand accounts from writers who have experienced the joy of each swim- 120 extra must-visit natural water destinations-
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Out of The Woods, Will Cohu ( paperback 2015)

£8.99

Out of the Woods : The armchair guide to trees.

Out of the Woods takes you on a revelatory ramble through country and city - from woodlands of majestic oak and ash to mean streets lined with cherries. Containing myriad tips for recognition and rich in tree-biography and gossip, this book will enable you to tell your birch from your beech as you pass at 70mph, and will inspire even the most unreformed couch potato to pull on the wellies and brave the local park in search of the national treasures scattered all around us.

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Sacred Nature : Karen Armstrong ( paperback June 2023)

£10.99

In this hugely powerful book, Karen Armstrong argues that if we want to avert environmental catastrophe, it is not enough to change our behaviour: we need to learn to think and feel differently about the natural world - to rekindle our spiritual bond with nature. For most of human history, and in almost all the world's cultures, nature was believed to be sacred, and our God or gods to be present everywhere in the natural world.

When people in the West began to separate God and nature in modern times, it was not just a profound breach with thousands of years of accumulated wisdom: it also set in train the destruction of the natural world. Taking themes that have been central to the world's religious traditions - from gratitude and compassion to sacrifice and non-violence - Armstrong offers practical steps to help us develop a new mindset to reconnect with nature and rekindle our sense of the sacred. Sacred Nature reveals the most profound connections between humans and the natural world.

It speaks to anyone interested in our relationship with nature, worried about the destruction of our environment, and searching for new ways of thinking to shape the action needed to save our planet. 
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Landlines, Raynor Winn ( paperback May 2023)

£10.99

Some people live to walk. Raynor and Moth walk to live . Raynor Winn knows that her husband Moth's health is declining, getting worse by the day. She knows of only one cure.

It worked once before. But will he - can he? - set out with her on another healing walk? The Cape Wrath Trail is over two hundred miles of gruelling terrain through Scotland's remotest mountains and lochs. But the lure of the wilderness and the beguiling beauty of the awaiting glens draw them northwards.

Being one with nature saved them in their darkest hour and their hope is that it can work its magic again. They embark on an incredible thousand-mile journey from Scotland back to the familiar shores of the South West Coast Path. From Northumberland to the Yorkshire moors, Wales to the South West, Raynor and Moth map with each step the landscape of an island nation facing an uncertain path ahead.

In Landlines, she records in luminous prose the strangers and friends, wilderness and wildlife they encounter on the way - it's a journey that begins in fear but can only end in hope. 
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A Line Above The Sky, Helen Mort ( paperback April 2023)

£10.99

'A wonderful book - exhilarating and taut, fearless in its explorations of wildness, risk, motherhood, and the inner and outer worlds of the writer' Jon McGregor'

Climbing gives you the illusion of being in control, just for a while, the tantalising sense of being able to stay one move ahead of death. Helen Mort has always been drawn to the thrill and risk of climbing: the tension between human and rockface, and the climber's powerful connection to the elemental world. But when she becomes a mother for the first time, she finds herself re-examining her relationship with both the natural world and herself, as well as the way the world views women who aren't afraid to take risks.

A Line Above the Sky melds memoir and nature writing to ask why humans are drawn to danger, and how we can find freedom in pushing our limits. It is a visceral love letter to losing oneself in physicality, whether climbing a mountain or bringing a child into the world, and an unforgettable celebration of womanhood in all its forms.

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To the Lake : A Journey of War and Peace by Kapka Kassabova (paperback March 2021)

£10.99

A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week

Lake Ohrid and Lake Prespa. Two vast lakes joined by underground rivers. Two lakes that have played a central role in Kapka Kassabova's maternal family.

As she journeys to her grandmother's place of origin, Kassabova encounters a civilizational crossroads. The Lakes are set within the mountainous borderlands of North Macedonia, Albania and Greece, and crowned by the old Roman road, the via Egnatia. Once a trading and spiritual nexus of the southern Balkans, it remains one of Eurasia's oldest surviving religious melting pots.

With their remote rock churches, changeable currents, and large population of migratory birds, the Lakes live in their own time. By exploring the stories of dwellers past and present, Kassabova uncovers the human history shaped by the Lakes. Soon, her journey unfolds to a deeper enquiry into how geography and politics imprint themselves upon families and nations, and confronts her with questions about human suffering and the capacity for change.

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Wild Atlantic Women, Walking Ireland's West Coast, Grainne Lyons ( paperback May 2023)

£14.99

At a crossroads in her life, Grainne Lyons set out to travel Ireland's west coast on foot. She set a simple intention: to walk in the footsteps of eleven pioneering Irish women deeply rooted in this coastal landscape and explore their lives and work along the way. As a Londoner born to Irish parents, she also sought answers in her own identity.

As Grainne heads north from Cape Clear Island where her great-grandmother was a lacemaker, she considers Ellen Hutchins, Maude Delap, Edna O'Brien, Granuaile and Queen Maeve among others from her unique perspective. Their homes - in places that are famously wild and remote - are transformed into sites of hope, purpose, opportunity and inspiration. Walking through this history, her journey reveals unexpected insight into emigrant identity, travelling alone, femininity and the trappings of an 'ideal' life.

Against the backdrop and power of this great ocean, Wild Atlantic Women will inspire the twenty-first-century reader and walker to keep going, regardless of the path.
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France. An Adventure History, Graham Robb ( paperback March 2023)

£10.99

Original, knowledgeable and endlessly entertaining, France: An Adventure History is an unforgettable journey through France from the first century BC to the present day. Drawn from countless new discoveries and thirty years of exploring France on foot, in the library and across 30,000 miles on the author's beloved bike, it begins with Gaulish and Roman times and ends in the age of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, the Gilets Jaunes and Covid-19. From the plains of Provence to the slums and boulevards of Paris, events and themes of French history may be familiar - Louis XIV, the French Revolution, the French Resistance, the Tour de France - but all are presented in a shining new light.

Frequently hilarious, always surprising, this is a sweeping panorama, teeming with characters, stories and coincidences, and offering a thrilling sense of discovery and enlightenment.
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The Half Known Life, Pico Iyer ( paperback Jan 2024)

£10.99

The Half Known Life : Finding Paradise in a Divided World

STANFORDS BOOK OF THE MONTH - JANUARY 2023'Nothing less than a guided tour of the human soul' Elizabeth Gilbert

One of our most perceptive travel writers embarks on an exploration of the world's holiest places and where we might find paradise on Earth. It's so easy, I thought, to place Paradise in the past or the future - anywhere but here. After half a century of travel, from Ethiopia to Tibet, from Belfast to Jerusalem, Pico Iyer asks himself what kind of paradise can ever be found in a world of unceasing conflict.

In a spectacular journey, both inward and outward, Iyer roams from crowded mosques in Iran to a film studio in North Korea, from a holy mountain in Japan to the sometimes spooky emptiness of the Australian outback. At every stop, he makes connections with unexpected strangers - mystics and taxi drivers and fellow travellers - and draws on his own memories, of time spent in a Benedictine monastery high above the Pacific, of regular travels with the Dalai Lama, of hearing his late mother speak of sunlit moments in pre-Partition India. By the end, he has upended many of our expectations and dared to suggest that we can find paradise right in the heart of our angry, confused and divided world.

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If The River is Hidden. Cherry Smyth ( paperback, Nov 22)

£9.99

If the River is Hidden charts the journey of two writers from the source to the mouth of the Bann, Northern Ireland's longest river. Through a dialogue of prose and poetry the history, landscape and divisions that have come to define the North are explored and challenged. With backgrounds from each side of the sectarian divide, theirs is a journey of uncovering a sense of place and of searching for meaning; a reshaping of the authors' own memories, experiences and expectations.

For like the river, it is not just what is visible, but what is hidden, that comes to define us.
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Wandering Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way, Paul Clements ( paperback)

£13.99

Following the spirit of the world's longest coastal driving route, Paul Clements sets out to discover the real west of Ireland. Along the way he encounters memorable characters living on the Atlantic edge and presents a unique portrait of their lives. We meet the last man standing on a remote Galway island, listen to the banter at Puck Fair, and hear from a descendant of the original sixteenth-century wild Atlantic woman. Tagging along on his meandering journey is the swashbuckling presence of the Celtic sea god, Manannan Mac Lir. For his first travel book in 1991, Paul hitchhiked the same route. Now retracing his steps along the Wild Atlantic Way - this time by car and bike, on horseback and on foot - he looks at how Ireland has changed and realises everyone still has a story to tell. Laced with wry humour and endless curiosity, this is a distinctive mix of travel writing, social history and nature.
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Look Here : On the Pleasures of Observing the City, Ana Kinsella I paperback July 2022)

£9.99

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 thrum of activity and these private spots of solitude, inspiration, emotion and memory are drawn.

Exploring the delight to be found in everyday interactions and chance observations, Look Here charts an affecting map of London, navigating ideas of anonymity and identity, freedom, ownership and community, while reflecting on whether the carousel of clothing we see on those around us holds some deeper meaning.

Wherever she goes, Irish born 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.

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The French Art of Not Trying Too Hard, Ollivier Pourriol ( paperback Jan 2022)

£9.99

Sick of striving? Giving up on grit? Had enough of hustle culture? Daunted by the 10,000-hour rule? Relax: As the French know, it's the best way to be better at everything. In the realm of love, what could be less seductive than someone who's trying to seduce you? Seduction is the art of succeeding without trying, and that's a lesson the French have mastered. We can see it in their laissez-faire parenting, chic style, haute cuisine, and enviable home cooking: they barely seem to be trying, yet the results are world-famous, thanks to a certain je ne sais quoi that is the key to a more creative, fulfilling, and productive life.

For fans of both Mark Manson's The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life, philosopher Ollivier Pourriol's book draws on the examples of such French legends as Descartes, Stendhal, Rodin, Cyrano de Bergerac and Francoise Sagan to show how to be efficient a la francaise, and how to effortlessly reap the rewards.
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Spring cannot be Cancelled, David Hockney ( paperback Apr 2022)

£14.99

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'A burst of springtime joy' Daily Telegraph 'A springboard for ideas about art, space, time and light' The Times

David Hockney reflects upon life and art as he experiences lockdown in rural Normandy On turning eighty, David Hockney sought out rustic tranquility for the first time: a place to watch the sunset and the change of the seasons; a place to keep the madness of the world at bay. So when Covid-19 and lockdown struck, it made little difference to life at La Grande Cour, the centuries-old Normandy farmhouse where Hockney set up a studio a year before, in time to paint the arrival of spring. In fact, he relished the enforced isolation as an opportunity for even greater devotion to his art.

Spring Cannot be Cancelled is an uplifting manifesto that affirms art's capacity to divert and inspire. It is based on a wealth of new conversations and correspondence between Hockney and the art critic Martin Gayford, his long-time friend and collaborator. Their exchanges are illustrated by a selection of Hockney's new, unpublished Normandy iPad drawings and paintings alongside works by van Gogh, Monet, Bruegel, and others.

We see how Hockney is propelled ever forward by his infectious enthusiasms and sense of wonder. A lifelong contrarian, he has been in the public eye for sixty years yet remains entirely unconcerned by the view of critics or even history. He is utterly absorbed by his four acres of northern France and by the themes that have fascinated him for decades: light, colour, space, perception, water, trees.

He has much to teach us, not only about how to see... but about how to live.

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ALPENGLOW - THE FINEST CLIMBS ON THE 4000M PEAKS OF THE ALPS, by Ben Tibbetts

£50.00

The ultimate gift for the mountain lover. Stunning photography and detailed information

ALPENGLOW takes the reader through a journey of personal adventure, immersive art and breathtaking scenery, combining inspiration with detailed local knowledge. Climbing the 4000m peaks of the Alps is one of the great and enduring challenges in mountaineering. It is a project that requires endurance, courage, skill, and humility.

Whether you are a lover of mountain landscapes, an aspiring alpinist, or already a veteran of many adventures, this book will provide a wealth of original and inspiring material to help with planning future excursions or simply immersing yourself in the beauty of the high mountains.

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