Nestled between the Pennines and the Lake District Fells, the beautiful Eden Valley combines lush green countryside, abundant wildlife in hedgerows and woodlands, fertile farmland, ancient landmarks, and historic market towns and villages. Much like the valley itself, this book is a meeting of the natural world, the people who inhabit it, and their stories, history and skills - traditional and modern. Dick Capel takes us on a series of introspective ramblings from the source of the river in Mallerstang to the Solway Firth at Carlisle. He follows the Poetry Path, the Eden Benchmarks and the Goldsworthy Sheepfolds, and ventures into history with enchanting stories of old churches, hidden artefacts, and signs of ancient cultivation. As a long-time countryside manager for the Eden Valley, few people know this area quite as intimately as Dick Capel - and even fewer have worked as hard to protect the natural and built heritage of this unspoiled part of Cumbria. Covering natural history, myth and legend, this is an unrivalled companion to an unspoiled gem of the English countryside.

The Alps have seen the march of armies, the flow of pilgrims and Crusaders, the feats of mountaineers and the dreams of engineers—and some 14 million people live among their peaks today. In The Alps, Stephen O’Shea takes readers up and down these majestic mountains, journeying through their 500-mile arc across France, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. He explores the reality behind Hannibal’s crossing; he reveals how the Alps have influenced culture from Frankenstein to Heidi and The Sound of Music; and he visits the spot of Sherlock Holmes’s death scene, the bloody site of the Italians’ retreat in the First World War and Hitler’s notorious Eagle’s Nest. Throughout, O’Shea records his adventures with the watch makers, salt miners, cable-car operators and yodelers who define the Alps today.