Across a Waking Land (eBook)

A 1,000-Mile Walk Through a British Spring

Roger Morgan-Grenville

A veteran nature writer walks the length of Britain in pursuit of spring, and of hope

Fed up with bleak headlines of biodiversity loss, acclaimed nature writer Roger Morgan-Grenville sets out on a 1,000-mile walk through a British spring to see whether there are reasons to be hopeful about the natural world. His aim is to match the pace at which the oak leaves emerge, roughly 20 miles north each day.

Fighting illness, blizzards and his own ageing body, he visits every main habitat between Lymington and Cape Wrath in an epic eight-week adventure, encountering, over and over again, the kindness of strangers and the inspiring efforts of those fighting heroically for nature. With surprising conclusions throughout, what unfolds is both life-affirming and life-changing.

Roger Morgan-Grenville was a soldier from 1978-86. In 2007, he helped to set up the charity Help for Heroes, and in 2020 he was a founding member of the conservation charity, Curlew Action. His earlier titles, Liquid Gold, Shearwater, Taking Stock and Across a Waking Land are also published by Icon. He lives in West Sussex.

Here Comes the Fun (eBook)

A Journey Into the Serious Business of Having a Laugh

Ben Aitken

'What Aitken writes about fun is worth reading' Mail on Sunday
'Irresistible' Christopher Somerville, author of The January Man and Walking the Bones of Britain
'A great book' Simon Rimmer, Sunday Brunch
'Aitken's writing is always a delight' Madeleine Bunting, author of The Seaside

Are you getting enough? Bestselling travel writer Ben Aitken wasn't.

Increasingly flat and decreasingly zen, Ben gave boredom the boot and stress the cold shoulder by embarking on a whimsical journey into the serious business of having a laugh.

He did a pilgrimage in Spain, a summer camp in Kent, and a cruise of the Baltic with 2,000 grannies. And when he wasn't on the road, he searched for merriment at home: by giving bridge a go, volunteering a chance, and gardening a crack of the whip.

By incorporating the thoughts of key thinkers and boffins, Here Comes the Fun offers a satisfying balance of the playful and the profound, the serious and the silly, the daft and the deep.

Ben Aitken was born under Thatcher, grew to 6ft then stopped, and is an Aquarius. He was conceived by a nurse and a shipwright, grew up in Portsmouth and was in a boyband for a spell in the noughties, then worked as a carer throughout his twenties. He is the author of six books: Dear Bill Bryson, A Chip Shop in Poznan (a Times bestseller), The Gran Tour ('Both moving and hilarious', Spectator), The Marmalade Diaries, Here Comes the Fun and Shitty Breaks. He writes for The Guardian and The Times, was the TCG Travel Journalist of the Year in 2024, and is an occasional lecturer at the University of Portsmouth.

The Life Cycle (eBook)

8,000 Miles in the Andes by Bamboo Bike

Kate Rawles

'A gripping read for anyone who cares about what we're doing to the planet and how we can change it' DAVID SHUKMAN, FORMER BBC NEWS SCIENCE EDITOR

'Searing observations focused on our need to protect biodiversity – A tour de force' SIR TIM SMIT OBE, CO-FOUNDER OF THE EDEN PROJECT

'An informative, uplifting and truly important book' JONATHON PORRITT, AUTHOR AND CAMPAIGNER

One woman's journey through South America – and the devastating story of our planet's disappearing biodiversity

Pedalling hard for thirteen months, eco adventurer Kate Rawles cycled the length of the Andes on an eccentric bicycle she built herself. The Life Cycle charts her mission to find out why biodiversity is so important, what's happening to it, and what can be done to protect it.

From the Pacific Ocean to rainforests and salt flats, Kate learns that armadillos can cross rivers by holding their breath, that Colombia has more species of birds than North America and Europe combined, and that in threatening ecosystems, we're tearing down our own life support system. En route, she witnesses the devastation of goldmining and oil drilling but finds hope in the incredible people working to regenerate habitats and communities. As she reaches the 'end of the world', she realises that to tackle biodiversity loss we all have a role to play.

KATE RAWLES is a writer, cyclist and former university lecturer in environmental philosophy who uses adventurous journeys to raise awareness about environmental challenges. She writes for a range of publications, is a mountain and sea kayaking leader and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. She lives in the South Lakes, Cumbria.

Unravelling the Silk Road (eBook)

Travels and Textiles in Central Asia

Christopher Alexander

Veteran traveller and textile expert Chris Aslan explores the Silk, Wool and Cotton Roads of Central Asia

The Orwell Tour (eBook)

Travels Through the Life and Work of George Orwell

Oliver Lewis

A travelogue exploring the life and work of George Orwell through the places he lived, worked and wrote

Following in the footsteps of his literary hero, researcher and historian Oliver Lewis set out to visit all the places to have inspired and been lived in by George Orwell.

Over three years he travelled from Wigan to Catalonia, Paris to Motihari, Marrakesh to Eton, and in each location explored both how Orwell experienced the place, and how the place now remembers him as a literary icon.

Beginning in Northern India, where Orwell was born in 1903, and ending in the Oxfordshire village of Sutton Courtenay, where he was laid to rest in 1950, The Orwell Tour offers an accessible and informative new biography of Orwell through the lens of place.

Oliver Lewis was born in Oxford and educated at Magdalen College School, Brackley, the London School of Economics and King's College, London. He is currently completing his Doctorate, on the privatisation of British Rail, at the University of Oxford. He teaches History and Politics at SciencesPo in Paris and Reims, and lives in Montgomery on the England/Wales border.