In his youth, Peter Finch wove his way through a series of exploits and adventures. Travels took him to Canada, where a fateful encounter in the Rocky Mountains opened up new horizons. In midlife he and his wife Gundi made the shift to country living, ushering in a new phase in their life, as they set down roots in the hills and settled into a deliberately simplified lifestyle.

Peter relates how he and Gundi immersed themselves in ways guided by nature. As she created and sold glass sculptures, he sunk his hands and tools into pure glacial-till soils, sowing, planting, and growing culinary and medicinal herbs, heirloom vegetables and salad greens to take to farmers markets and restaurants in and around Toronto. Invigorated by the pleasures and health benefits of growing, selling, and eating fresh organic food, Peter reveals how he became a passionate advocate of traditional, small-scale, chemical-free farming.

"High Up in the Rolling Hills" shares the personal journey of an independent couple as they explore the vital role of nature, creativity, and healthy food in life.

The Real Series moves to west Wales with a new volume focused on Tenby and its hinterland. Poet, past resident and frequent visitor Tony Curtis roams south Pembrokeshire, from the coastal resorts of Tenby and Saundersfoot, west to the surfers of Stackpole and Barafundle and north to the Landsker, the cultural boundary between English speaking south Pembs and the Welsh speaking north. In keeping with the series Curtis view his area through the eyes of a local and as a visitor, digging into his own Pembrokeshire backstory - and deeper into is history but also observing keenly the Pembrokeshire of the new century.

In his first full collection for six years, Peter Finch, premier exponent of modernism, works once more at the brink of culture. Employing a range of styles, techni ques and forms, he explores what late 20th century life is l ike. '

Zen Cymru is the new collection of poems by that master of modern angst, Peter Finch. Not one for quiet meditations, this voice is: loud, bewildered, satirical, furious, sad, fearful and funny. This is a Wales that missed its revolution in 'I Chew Gum and Think of Rifles'. This is a Wales beset by: rain, the ghosts of hard-drinking poets, of holy wells guarded by heifers, of sports crowds, Ikea, sheep, enormous storm cloudsA", and the 'Entry of Christ Into Cardiff, 2005'. A health scare merits a mini-epic in 'The Clinic'. Elvis is seen in Asda, Merthyr. Travel brings little respite, only access to foreign anxieties and temptations. We visit 'The Miro Mini-bar' in Barcelona, look for Bella Bartok in Hungary, take a road trip to Ireland, find more rain and that The land gives out in an emerald flail.A"America offers defunct bluesmen, a murderous Phil Spector, and over-zealous security personal near the Chelsea Hotel, NYC. Finch is a well-known performance poet and his poems have the immediacy and the dramatic impact of pieces conceived for the stage. Formal innovation is allied with themes that are resonant and deeply humane. Zen Cymru will win yet more fans to the Finch cult.

Collection of eleven classic films from influential filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. 'The Battle of the River Plate' (1956) tells the true story of the famous 1939 naval battle. Hans Langsdorff (Peter Finch) is captaining the crack German battleship Graf Spee through the South Atlantic, unaware that a small number of lightweight British battle cruisers are hot on his trail. When the British cruisers manage to trap the powerful German ship in the Uruguayan harbour of Montevideo, they attempt to trick Langsdorff into believing that an entire battle fleet is waiting to destroy his vessel at sea. In 'A Canterbury Tale' (1944), a British sergeant, a land girl and a United States Army officer arrive at a Kent village on the same train. The newcomers are brought face to face with the bizarre menace causing bewilderment in the tight-knit community: someone is pouring glue onto the hair of girls who dare to venture out at night with visiting servicemen. Powell and Pressburger offered this 'propaganda' piece as their contribution to the war effort, but the authorities were unsure how its oddball tone would go down with the Allies. In '49th Parallel' (1941), Laurence Olivier and Leslie Howard are among the stars who try to prevent Nazi sailors, from a sunken U-Boat, reaching neutral USA through Canada in this classic war film, which was intended to persuade America to join World War II. Pressburger won an Academy Award for the story and the film was directed by Powell. In 'I Know Where I'm Going!' (1945), a woman (Wendy Hiller) has always known what she wanted in life, and now she is about to marry a millionaire. But when she ends up stranded on a Hebredian island due to a storm, she begins to see things a little differently. 'Ill Met By Moonlight' (1957) was the final film created by Powell and Pressburger together. Set on the island of Crete during the Nazi occupation, the film stars Dirk Bogarde and David Oxley as British officers assigned to kidnap the German commander-in-chief General Kreipe (Marius Goring) and spirit him back to Cairo. If successful, the morale of the Germans would be weakened and the resistance would be stronger. But once he is captured, the British officers have to get him past German patrols at almost every turning. In 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp' (1943), stuffy ex-soldier Clive Candy (Roger Livesey) recalls his career which began as a dashing officer in the Boer War. As a young man he lost the woman he loved (Deborah Kerr, who plays three roles) to a Prussian officer (Anton Walbrook), whom he fought in a duel only to become lifelong friends with. Candy cannot help but feel that his notions of honour and chivalry are out of place in modern warfare. The film's title comes from 'Evening Standard' cartoonist David Low's satirical comic creation, Colonel Blimp. In 'The Red Shoes' (1948), ballet impressario Boris Lermontov (Walbrook) hires up-and-coming ballerina Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) and talented young composer Julian Craster (Goring) to work with him on a new ballet, an adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story 'The Red Shoes'. The show is a great success and Victoria and Julian fall in love, but Boris is jealous and makes moves to spoil their happiness. 'A Matter of Life and Death' (1946) is a classic wartime propaganda movie, commissioned by the Ministry of Information, but turned into a fantastical allegory by the Archers, aka Powell and Pressburger. David Niven plays an RAF pilot who is ready to be picked up by the angels after bailing out of his plane. But an administrative error in Heaven leads to a temporary reprieve, during which he must prove his right to stay on Earth. A tribunal in heaven ensues to decide the case. In 'They're a Weird Mob' (1966), Nino Culotta (Walter Chiari) is an Italian immigrant who arrives in Australia with the promise of a job as a journalist on his cousin's magazine, only to find that when he gets there the magazine has folded, the cousin has done a runner and the money his cousin sent for the fare was borrowed from the daughter of the boss of a local construction firm. 'The Tales of Hoffman' (1951) is an adaptation of Jacques Offenbach's opera and follows Hoffman's (Robert Rounseville) tales of his love for the doll Olympia, the courtesan Giuletta (Ludmilla Tcherina) and the frail diva Antonia (Anne Ayars), and of how his quest for the eternal woman was always thwarted by evil. Finally, in 'Black Narcissus' (1946), a group of British nuns are sent into the Himalayas to set up a mission in what was once the harem's quarters of an ancient palace. The clear mountain air, the unfamiliar culture and the unbridled sensuality of a young prince (Sabu) and his beggar-girl lover (Jean Simmons) begin to play havoc with the nuns' long-suppressed emotions. Whilst the young Mother Superior, Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), fights a losing battle for order, the jaunty David Farrar falls in love with her, sparking uncontrollable jealousy in another nun, Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron).

This sequel offers another unorthodox travel guide to Cardiff, Wales. Part history, part topographical writing, and part traditional guidebook, this work explores Cardiff's best off-the-beaten-path destinations such as Ninian Park, Howell's Girls School, Cae'r Castell, and Steep Holm.

In The Roots of Rock, from Cardiff to Mississippi and Back Peter Finch reflects on how popular music has shaped both his life and the culture in which he lives, from first hearing American music on the radio in his Cardiff home in the 1950s to the compendious and downloadable riches of digital files. Finch has always gone to gigs and now he travels to the bars of Ireland, the clubs of New York, the plains of Tennessee, the flatlands of Mississippi and the mountains of North Carolina to get a feel for the culture from which his favourite music originates. The resulting book mixes musical autobiography with an exploration of physical places in western Europe and the US. It is a demonstration of the power of music to create a world for the listener that is simultaneously of and beyond the place in which it is heard. Finch marks his journey with reminiscences of music in Britain from skiffle and early Cliff Richard pop to Bill Cotton and his Band to Champion Jack Dupree playing the local British Legion. There are asides on forming your own (destined to fail) band, the rise of folk music, the arrival of the blues and the burgeoning Welsh language scene. In the US come visits to Dollywood, Graceland, Muscle Shoals, Grand Ole Opry and Stax, plus the Appalachian mountains and the crossroads on Highway 49 where Robert Johnson made his devilish pact. The cast of musicians includes Muddy Waters, Taylor Swift, Bessie Smith, Tommy Steele, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Chris Tweed and singing cowboys. They are joined by music historians like Cecil Sharp, Maud Kapeles and Harrison Mayes who helped formalise and save traditions, by jugbands, gospel choirs and Anne Nichols, the tragic Knoxville Girl. Each chapter is accompanied by a multi-track play list to help the reader have the full flavour of what Finch's musical experiences and bring alive the many sharp witted stories and thoughtful cultural connections. The result is an entertaining, informative book from which the reader will learn much and hear more.

The penultimate film from the celebrated teaming of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger ('Black Narcissus', 'A Matter of Life and Death') tells the true story of the famous 1939 naval battle. Hans Langsdorff (Peter Finch) is captaining the crack German battleship Graf Spee through the South Atlantic, unaware that a small number of lightweight British battle cruisers are hot on his trail. When the British cruisers manage to trap the powerful German ship in the Uruguayan harbour of Montevideo, they attempt to trick Langsdorff into believing that an entire battle fleet is waiting to destroy his vessel at sea.

Ageing television presenter Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is on the edge of a mental breakdown when he is fired. He decides to open his heart to his audience, breaking down live on TV. Incredibly, this boosts his ratings, and Beale is re-hired and given his own show on which he can scream and shout. The film won three Oscars, with Paddy Chayevsky winning an award for the Best Original Screenplay.

In his youth, Peter Finch wove his way through a series of exploits and adventures. Travels took him to Canada, where a fateful encounter in the Rocky Mountains opened up new horizons. In midlife he and his wife Gundi made the shift to country living, ushering in a new phase in their life, as they set down roots in the hills and settled into a deliberately simplified lifestyle.

Peter relates how he and Gundi immersed themselves in ways guided by nature. As she created and sold glass sculptures, he sunk his hands and tools into pure glacial-till soils, sowing, planting, and growing culinary and medicinal herbs, heirloom vegetables and salad greens to take to farmers markets and restaurants in and around Toronto. Invigorated by the pleasures and health benefits of growing, selling, and eating fresh organic food, Peter reveals how he became a passionate advocate of traditional, small-scale, chemical-free farming.

"High Up in the Rolling Hills" shares the personal journey of an independent couple as they explore the vital role of nature, creativity, and healthy food in life.

Roy Boulting directs this 1950s British comedy starring Glynis Johns as a woman whose sympathy for those in need plays havoc with her love life. Though it may seem to outsiders that Josephine Luton (Johns) is a good match for her fiancé, businessman Alan Hartley (Donald Sinden), there is a major problem - Alan is doing too well to elicit her sympathy. This goes instead to his friend David Hewer (Peter Finch), a playwright whose lack of success thus far leaves him in a melancholy state of mind. Josephine duly begins a romantic relationship with David to try and cheer him up, but are there men in even more desperate straits that could steal her from him?

Peter Finch has long been a significant figure in Welsh-poetry-in-English and a busy editor and publisher. The Welsh Poems, a title which pays homage to poet John James, is a survey of his more experimental work from the past two decades, including visual work, sound poems, and a number of playful texts that riff on language, grammar and typography. The Welsh language seeps into Finch's work at all levels, sometimes penetrating the poems to the core, and at other times held at arm's length.

Julie Christie stars in this adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 19th-century story of a woman's passion. Set in Victorian England, the film follows Bathsheba Everdene (Christie), a beautiful, independent woman who runs the farm she was left by her uncle. She becomes romantically involved with three very different men: handsome and wayward soldier Frank Troy (Terence Stamp); prosperous gentleman William Boldwood (Peter Finch); and ever-patient shepherd Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates).

Julie Christie stars in this adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 19th-century story of a woman's passion. Set in Victorian England, the film follows Bathsheba Everdene (Christie), a beautiful, independent woman who runs the farm she was left by her uncle. She becomes romantically involved with three very different men: handsome and wayward soldier Frank Troy (Terence Stamp); prosperous gentleman William Boldwood (Peter Finch); and ever-patient shepherd Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates).

A collection of four classic films starring Julie Christie. In 'Billy Liar' (1963), undertaker's clerk Billy (Tom Courtenay) escapes his dreary small town existence in a 1950s Northern town by living in a fantasy world where he realises his ambitions. When his job, unsympathetic working class family and two fiancees threaten to become too much, he meets the fashionable Liz (Christie), who offers him his one chance for real escape. Christie won an Oscar for her role in 'Darling' (1965). In the film she plays Diana Scott, an ambitious model determined to make it to the top. Using her sexuality, she manipulates powerful men, but in so doing becomes a prisoner of the jet-setting lifestyle she once yearned for. Dirk Bogarde co-stars as Diana's long-suffering boyfriend. 'Far From The Madding Crowd' (1967) is an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 19th-century story of a woman's passion. Bathsheba (Christie) is in love with three very different men who are also in love with her: her first love is a handsome and wayward soldier; the second is the local noble Lord, and the third is an ever-patient farmer. 'The Go-Between' (1970) is an adaptation of the classic novel by L.P. Hartley. A young teenage boy, Leo (Dominic Guard), is invited to a wealthy school friend's rich family estate and is drawn into a love affair between his friend's twenty-something sister, Marian (Christie), and the family neighbour, even though she is engaged to be married. She uses Leo as a go-between, sending messages to her lover. Despite feeling he is betraying her fiance Hugh (Edward Fox), Leo carries on being the messager boy and discovers more about the attraction between men and women along the way.

In the Middle Ages the port of Cardiff stretched from Chepstow to Gower. Peter Finch, archetypal Cardiffian, sets out to explore his heritage, walking the Welsh side of the Severn Estuary and reclaiming his personal memories in addition to discovering the lives of others. And with a detour to Maismore, the highest tidal point of the estuary, he walks the English side too, taking in the differences with Wales, reviving past links and looking at his homeland from abroad. On his journey he sees the estuary as border, a highway for trade and ideas, an industrial zone, and a place where people spend their leisure. Rich in anecdote, evocative in description, Finch's book takes in villages and cities, power stations and fishermen, castles and caravans, leg-aching walks and deckchairs on the beach. The tragedy of Lynmouth, the competing delights of Porthcawl, Barry and Weston-super-Mare, the industrial sites of Usk and Port Talbot, the fate of Cardiff, Newport and Swansea docks, the ancient trackways of Swansea Bay and the Star Inn at Neath are just some of the many stories which punctuate Finch's epic walk along some of the most beautiful coastline in Britain.