Where the Wild Winds Are: Walking Europe's Winds from the Pennines to Provence

Where the Wild Winds Are: Walking Europe's Winds from the Pennines to Provence

Nick Hunt
$25.95
Publication Date: November 7th, 2017
Publisher:
Nicholas Brealey
ISBN:
9781857886566
Pages:
272

Description

Selected as a Book of the Year by the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator

"Travel writing in excelsis." -Jan Morris, author of Venice


"A thrilling and gorgeous tale, packed with meteorological wonder." -Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun

Nick Hunt sets off on an unlikely quest: to follow four of Europe's winds across the continent.

His wind-walks begin on Cross Fell, the highest point of the Pennines, as he chases the roaring Helm - the only named wind in Britain.In southern Europe he follows the Bora - a bitter northerly that blows from Trieste through Slovenia and down the Croatian coast. His hunt for the "snow-eating" Foehn becomes a meandering journey of exhilaration and despair through the Alpine valleys of Switzerland, and his final walk traces an ancient pilgrims' path in the south of France on the trail of the Mistral - the "wind of madness," which animated and tormented Vincent Van Gogh.

These are journeys into wild wind, but also into wild landscapes and the people who inhabit them - a cast of meteorologists, storm chasers, mountain men, eccentric wind enthusiasts, sailors and shepherds. Soon Nick finds himself borne along by the very forces he is pursuing, through rain, blizzards, howling gales, and back through time itself. For, where the wild winds are, there are also myths and legends, history and hearsay, science and superstition - and occasionally remote mountain cabins packed with pickles, cured meats and homemade alcohol.

Where the Wild Winds Are is a beautiful, unconventional travelogue that makes the invisible visible.



About the Author

Nick Hunt has walked and written across much of Europe. His articles have appeared in The Economist, The Guardian, and other publications, and he also works as a storyteller and co-editor for the Dark Mountain Project.
His first book, Walking the Woods and the Water (Nicholas Brealey, 2014) was a finalist for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year. He currently lives in Bristol.

Praise for Where the Wild Winds Are: Walking Europe's Winds from the Pennines to Provence

Where the Wild Winds Are is full to the brim with learning, entertainment, description, scientific fact and conjectural fiction. It is travel writing in excelsis.—Jan Morris, Literary Review

A thrilling and gorgeous tale, packed with meteorological wonder.—Amy Liptrot, author of 'The Outrun'

A wonderful book; reading it is like being introduced to a gang of complex characters by an entertaining and erudite host. It has been a joy getting to know them better and in all their moods.—Tristan Gooley, author of 'The Walker's Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs'

An ingenious idea that [Hunt] carries off with panache and aplomb. An extremely gifted writer . . . his writing here has agreeable echoes of Leigh Fermor's evocative prose.—New European

Nick Hunt's writing is powerful, playful, searching and often strikingly original. As he walks through the world, his journeys always reveal more than they set out to find.—Paul Kingsnorth, author of 'The Wake'

Praise for Walking the Woods and the Water

A glorious book, rich with insight and wit, about walking his way both across and into contemporary Europe. A book about gifts, modernity, endurance and landscape, it represents a fine addition to the literature of the leg.

This moving and profoundly honest book sometimes brings a sense of unlimited freedom, sometimes joy, sometimes an extraordinary, dream-like dislocation: always accompanied by a dazzling sharpness of hearing and vision.

Hunt's narrative mixes description elegantly with reportage—New Statesman

Illuminating—Wall Street Journal

A good old-fashioned adventure—Geographical