This is an account of a walk from Edinburgh to the River Swale. Each of 21 chapters tells the tale of a section of the walk but also discusses a land use or issue relevant to that part of the journey. Such an approach must take quite some planning but the account has a steady pace and a fair eye is cast over many contentious subjects.
Readers of this blog may well find chapters subtitled Floods, Grouse Moors, Nature, National Parks and Peat of particular interest but everywhere the author is good at explaining things and does so in a balanced manner. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on quarrying and mining.
This is the third ‘walking and writing’ book I have reviewed already this year (see also The Restless Coast and Seascape). I wonder what a write-off would look like if a handful of authors walked the same route and wrote their own accounts of their journeys?
In such an imaginary world, Andrew Bibby would be a very experienced competitor and I’m tempted to read some of his other journeys because I enjoyed this one so much.
The cover? An attractive landscape. I’d give the cover 7/10.
The Borders: The Lands We Share: landscape and life in Scottish and English border country by Andrew Bibby is published by Gritstone Press.
Buy this book direct from Blackwell’s – a proper bookshop (and I’ll get a little bit of money from them).
