Books describing the authors’ walking trips are a genre I find irresistible. Today I want to narrow down the field to 20th century accounts of walks in just one country.
When I was given a signed hardback of Alan Clark’s Diaries by politically-minded friends as a 40th birthday present I had little interest in reading them.
Kingsley Amis peaked early with Lucky Jim, published in 1954 when he was 32. He never wrote anything remotely as good and it beats me how Ending Up got nominated for the Booker Prize. I suppose the judges warmed to it as it’s only 113 pages.
When I was born there was just one, founded in 1949 in Cheltenham. Another one started in Yorkshire in 1973 and in the 1980s they proliferated. Could be country house operas or building societies but no cigar.
I had to wait a few minutes on the ground floor of Waterstones flagship branch on Piccadilly while Robert went upstairs to buy the new John Niven (not to be confused with David N).