A book blog – or rather, an irregular series about books related to travel, adventure or the outdoors. Perhaps a better name would be Polar Bear Book Club but it’s too late for that. These books are perfect for between your travels and adventures or for cold winter evenings when you’re stuck at home. These are books about the world and about adventurers and explorers. Maybe your next adventure will be to follow in their footsteps?
Well, it feels very late to be publishing this considering I started reading it at 7am on official release day on January 11th but there’s been so much Georgia stuff and I had other stuff to slot in but finally, it’s time for Alastair Humphreys’ Local. I read his Ask An Adventurer last year and… More Travel Library: Local by Alastair Humphreys
I know, it’s only been two weeks since the last Travel Library but a) I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of Georgia posts that are starting on Thursday and b) I wanted a bit of breathing room between getting home and getting the first post out. Of course, today’s book isn’t technically about travel.… More Travel Library: Kvachi by Mikheil Javakhishvili
I read a lot of non-fiction in 2023, for someone who doesn’t really read non-fiction. The plan for this year is mostly to read more fiction from around the world – or at least from the Nordic region. But I read this in December and it fits the theme too well not to talk about… More Travel Library: Adventure Revolution by Belinda Kirk
My absolute favourite life and outdoors manual is my 1992 Guide Handbook. Not even joking. There’s a lot that’s Guide-specific but it’s got entire chapters on Skills for Living, The Great Outdoors, Camp, All About You, Express Yourself and One World and I still like to sit and read it as a book, even now… More Travel Library: Do Your Best: How To Be A Scout by Bear Grylls
I was a tiny bit dubious about this book, simply because the author goes by the name Jules. If you were at school with me, you can probably hear the same allegedly “slimy but satisfying” voice that I hear, declaiming, “Hi, I’m Jules!”. I say this as a person who could go by Jules but… More Travel Library: Not Cool: Europe by Train in a Heatwave by Jules Brown
I’m slightly surprised that the Travel Library series has not yet included a book by Al Humphreys, given that he’s one of the adventurers I look to whenever I’m running low on ideas. I’ll be making up for it – during the plague years, he explored a single OS map, his local one, and I… More Travel Library: Ask An Adventurer by Alastair Humphreys
Is this technically a Travel Library? As far as I’m concerned, it is. It’s all about volcanoes – volcanoes around the planet and around the solar system and as there are no volcanoes in the vicinity of my house, and as I associate volcanoes with going to Iceland, this fits the bill. I’ve been looking forward to… More Travel Library: Super Volcanoes by Robin George Andrews
I thought for this month’s Travel Library, I’d choose an Icelandic book while I was in Iceland and read that. So off I went to Eymundsson and I stood in front of the shelf of English-language Icelandic books and dithered. I’ve read a couple by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, I’ve read Jar City (aka The Bog in the… More Travel Library: Quake by Auður Jónsdóttir
I like Anna McNuff. She’s an adventurer, runner, swimmer and Girlguiding ambassador and she has a lovely habit of turning her adventures into books. I want to be Anna when I grow up. Barefoot Britain is, I think, her sixth book and it covers her 2019 adventure running from Shetland to London, covering the distance… More Travel Library: Barefoot Britain by Anna McNuff
This is a bit of a rarity. Today’s Travel Library is a work of fiction, and it’s not even children’s fiction (see What Katy Did Next!) No, this is firmly in the realm of adult fiction and set firmly in the modern day. Snug in Iceland by Victoria Walker, as the title suggests, is a… More Travel Library: Snug in Iceland by Victoria Walker