Adventurer’s Paradise by Alastair Scobie

Adventurer’s Paradise by Alastair Scobie lands on the shelves of my shop.

The Travel Book Club, 1955, Hardback in dust wrapper.

Illustrated by way of: Black & White Photographs; Maps [1];

From the cover: Alastair Scobie spends his time in the wilder parts of East Africa looking for trouble principally wild-animal trouble. With a film camera and gun he wanders over the long plains and steep passes of Northern Kenya, ankle deep in volcanic dust, or through gorilla and rhino tunnels, forced passages in the massed bamboo forests of the Mountains of the Moon on the edge of the Congo. Wherever he goes he seeks sensation for the entertainment of the millions who take their thrills vicariously through the medium of cinema or television.

His book is packed with stories of his adventures and of the fantastic characters, white and black, in whose company he has found a wild and esoteric pleasure. Some of them may be crazy, some utterly degenerate, some plain savage, but the hilarious tales of their primitive lives, packed helter-skelter between the thrills of his more frightening moments in putting on film the dangers of the wild, make a book which cannot fail to keep any armchair-traveller awake into the small hours.

There have been many books of big-game hunting, but your big-game hunter does not go on safari asking for trouble ; he would much rather shoot his lion or rhino from a safe distance than wait for it to come full tilt at him face to face. For the free-lance movie cameraman the goal is just that. He can only sell action close-up action and if the camera doesnt get out from under quickly enough that merely means another camera and perhaps another cameraman. Alastair Scobie has so far managed to get out from under in the nick of time.

Very Good in Good Dust Wrapper. Unlaminated dust wrapper a little edgeworn and faded with light fraying to the spine ends and corners. Tanning to the blanks. Text complete, clean and tight otherwise.

Blue boards with Black titling to the Spine. 249 pages. Index. 8½” x 5½”.

Of course, if you don’t like this one there are plenty more available here!

Walking the Peak And Pennines by Mike Harding

Walking the Peak And Pennines by Mike Harding lands on the shelves of my shop.

Book Club Associates, 1992, Hardback in dust wrapper.

Jacket illustration: Pat Harding on an outcrop of The Roaches. Illustrated by way of: Colour Photographs; Maps; Illustrated endpapers and blanks;

From the cover: Mike Hardings latest book mixes long walks and meanders, folklore and history, gossip and conjecture along with superb colour photography to provide, in his inimitable style, an exhilarating guide to the hills, moors and valleys of that rib-cage and spine of white and dark rocks they call the Pennines.

Mike Harding has always loved walking, and has roved the land of the Peak and Pennines since he was a child. He is particularly intrigued by the multi-layered nature of the land, and by the language, place names, maps and books that provide clues to the scratches and scribbles of history: This is the way I view a landscape, as a palimpset of meanings and people, map upon map, shadow upon shadow.

The book covers an area that runs from Dovedale in the south of the Peak District National Park, over the bleak and lonely Dark Peak to the smouldering industrial valleys between Oldham and Huddersfield, then north through Todmorden, the Brontes Haworth and finally to Pendle Hill. Throughout his journey, Mike is conscious of the people who helped to mould this landscape: the summits under which the bones of Norsemen and Celts are buried, and the moors and hills where the mill poets roamed after a weeks work at the loom. This is not a country-comfortable landscape, but it has a nature all of its own.

Walking the Peak and Pennines is a book to use as a starting-point, to enjoy and discover places that are perhaps not yet over-run and where one can still walk quietly in rare solitude.

Very Good in Very Good Dust Wrapper.

Green boards with Gilt titling to the Spine. [VIII] 247 pages. Index. 7¾” x 10″.

Of course, if you don’t like this one there are plenty more available here!