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The Green Road Into The Trees

byHugh Thomson

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WINNER OF THE 2014 THWAITES WAINWRIGHT PRIZE

In the past, Hugh Thomson has written acclaimed books about Peru, Mexico and the Indian Himalaya. Now he returns to the most exotic and foreign country of them all – his own.

Walking right across England, along ancient trackways and green grass roads, Hugh explores the way the country was and the way it is today: the legends, literature and natural world that define us, and the undercurrent of regret running throughout our history; what he calls ‘the unicorn disappearing into the trees’.

From coast-to-coast and through the heart of the countryside, he shows how older,forgotten cultures like the Celts, Saxons and Vikings lie much closer to the surface than we may think. It is a journey enriched and partly told by the characters he meets along the way. By taking it, Hugh casts unexpected light – and humour – on the way we live now.

He is an illuminating companion…frequently comic, his voice is original and engaging; proof that it is the walker, not the path, that counts.

Independent

About Hugh Thomson

Hugh Thomson’s travel books include The White Rock: An Exploration of the Inca Heartland and Cochineal Red, both about Peru, as well as Nanda Devi, a journey to a usually inaccessible part of the Himalaya. His memoir Tequila Oil: Getting Lost in Mexico was serialised by BBC Radio 4.

Hugh has led many research expeditions to Peru and is one of Britain's leading explorers of Inca settlements. He has also taken filming expeditions to Mount Kilimanjaro, Bhutan, Afghanistan and the Mexican Sierra Madre.

‘Thomson belongs to a rare species of explorer. He is a writer who explores and not an explorer who writes. And it is Thomson’s extreme humility in the face of both danger and extraordinary success that places him in the same tradition as Eric Newby.’ Geographical.

For The Green Road into the Trees, he returned to Britain to write about his own country. It won the inaugural Wainwright Prize for Nature and Travel Writing.

For the sequel, One Man and a Mule, Hugh decided to have ‘a South American adventure in England’ by taking a mule as a pack animal across the North.

'Everywhere Thomson goes, he finds good stories to tell.' New York Times Book Review

www.thewhiterock.co.uk
Details
  • Imprint: Windmill Books
  • ISBN: 9780099558392
  • Length: 320 pages
  • Dimensions: 197mm x 23mm x 130mm
  • Weight: 280g
  • Price: £10.99
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