A lot of writers were kind enough to take me along with them on their journeys last year...
It is by chance that I seem to have been on a journey each month (more or less) with these twelve amazing books. Links back to original scribbles with just my thoughts on paddling down the Yukon still to come...
The Mighty Dead ~ Adam Nicolson
In Pursuit of Spring ~ Edward Thomas
St Kilda - The Silent Islands ~ Alex Boyd
Swimming With Seals ~ Victoria Whitworth
A Single Swallow ~ Horatio Clare
The Odyssey ~ Homer (trans. Emily Wilson)
The Rings of Saturn ~ W.G. Sebald
At the Loch of the Green Corrie ~ Andrew Greig
Something of His Art ~ Horatio Clare
Central to all the journey reading before and since has to have been that June read of The Odyssey. I really wasn't prepared for the impact of this book. The understanding of all that had gone before and all that I have read since. I see it everywhere to say nothing of now being especially appreciative of a 'rosy-fingered dawn' when it happens. I'm hoping to read it again through next June too; it's a book that set the seal on summer.
I've been scouring the shelves for a few more journeys that might take my fancy this year. A sort of counter to all the holiday adverts that proliferate about now and knowing that we have committed ourselves to a project nearer home that will preclude much journeying for a while. It will be spur of the moment if we do.
Meanwhile nothing is certain in the journey reading either. Much depends on mood and whim but these seem like a good starter for some virtual packing and setting off...
Hungary and Transylvania with Patrick Leigh Fermor in Between the Woods and the Water
Stones of Aran - A Pilgrimage with Tim Robinson
Dublin to Tibet on a bicycle with Dervla Murphy in Full Tilt. (I do still have the padded attire from that 100 miles plus in New Zealand, might as well get the wear out them.)
From Wales to New Zealand and the Himalayas with Rebecca Loncraine's post-humous memoir Skybound about learning to fly a glider.
And perhaps a tramp around the Lake District with Samuel Taylor Coleridge in O Joy For Me! an account of the origins of fell-walking in the late eighteenth century by Keir Davidson.
And at the last minute I feel I must add another by Adam Nicolson as it was thanks to his patient, diligent and accessible explanation of Homer that I set off on The Odyssey in the first place, so Sea Room is added to the pile of potentials.
Meanwhile please do share any of your own journey-reading recommendations, because nothing is booked yet, I am armchair-ready for the off ...
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