One Man and a Mule: Across England with a Pack Mule - Softcover

Thomson, Hugh

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099592576 ISBN 13: 9780099592570

Publisher: Windmill, 2018

Synopsis

In the Middle Ages, mules were used to transport goods across Britain. Strong, sturdy and able to carry a good 160 lbs of weight, they made ideal walking companions (as long as you didn’t ask them to do anything they disapproved of).

Now Hugh Thomson has revived that ancient tradition.

Taking his cue from Robert Louis Stevenson's 19th-century bestseller Travels With a Donkey, Hugh leads his trusty mule Jethro across England from the Lake District to the Yorkshire Moors, using old drovers’ roads that have largely passed into disrepair.

His previous journeys have resulted in acclaimed books on Peru, Mexico and the Indian Himalaya, and more recently on southern England for the prize-winning The Green Road into the Trees.

As he crosses the north, he combines his trademark wit and insight with a lyrical intensity about the history and the landscape; and it is his encounters with the people he meets along the way which bring that landscape to life in a manner few other contemporary travel writers attempt.

“Everywhere Thomson goes, he finds good stories to tell.”
New York Times Book Review

About this title

About the Author

Hugh Thomson is the author of a series of books:
The White Rock, Nanda Devi and Cochineal Red: Travels through Ancient Peru, all published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. His memoir Tequila Oil, about getting lost in Mexico when he was eighteen, was serialised by BBC R4 as their Book of the Week.

Preface (Random House) recently published The Green Road into the Trees: A Walk through England, in which Hugh for the first time wrote about his own country: 'An immensely enjoyable book: curious, articulate, intellectually playful and savagely candid.' The Spectator. It won the inaugural Wainwright Prize for Best Nature and Travel Writing 2014.

He has contributed feature length articles to The Times, Sunday Times, Financial Times, Guardian, Observer, Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Independent, Mojo and Harpers & Queen, among many other publications. He is also a regular book-reviewer for the Independent.

“Everywhere Thomson goes, he finds good stories to tell.”
New York Times Book Review

www.thewhiterock.co.uk

Review

"One Man and Mule is a lovely, good-natured and highly informative journey through the hinterland, emphasizing the human scale of England in all its peculiarities - evocative and wonderfully observed." -- Paul Theroux "[I]t marks rivers, county boundaries, towns and villages relevant to the story, and the route the author took from St Bees on the Irish Sea, the most westerly point of northern England, to Robin Hood's Bay on the North Sea. The remote, random, meandering nature of this hugely enjoyable peregrination could not have been better expressed... there is evocative writing of nature and landscape beyond the entertainment." -- Anthony Sattin * Observer * "A thoroughly readable and discursive ramble through visually stimulating and historically fascinating countryside... A perfect book to take on your next holiday" * Country Life * "Terrific fun" -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times * "Thomson's gently blokeish bonhomie is never less than diverting and his gently meandering account the ideal easy-going beach read" * The Lady * "Thomson writes beguilingly" * Daily Mail * "Like all travel books, it is a potpourri of journey log, historical notebook, social observation and agricultural and rural comment. Thomson writes wittily, his deep understanding of landscape and nature coupled with a powerful descriptive capacity and good ear for dialogue." * Country & Townhouse * "An enjoyable refuge from everyday life" * The Times * "A wonderful witty and personal journey, this paints a vivid and beautiful picture of Britain and its history" * NFU Countryside * "Companionable account of a coast-to-coast walk across England" * Telegraph *

About this edition

• Publisher: Windmill
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0099592576
• ISBN 13: 9780099592570
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304