The Green Road Into The Trees (edició 2013)

Thomson undertakes a walk along the route of the Ichnield Way, an ancient path probably around 3000 - 5000 years old in parts.

He starts in Abbotsbury in Dorset, at the far end of the Fleet, and crosses Dorset and Wiltshire continually passing hill forts, barrows, mound, stone circles and other glimpses of prehistoric and bronze age life in this country. The journey takes him across the country to Norfolk where he end his walk at the place where Seahenge was excavated from.

I quite enjoyed it, as it combined some of my favourite subjects, history and travel, and the writing is effortless to read. He also looks back at his life, following a painful divorce, and of friends past, and journeys traveled. I think that took a little away from the essence of the book, but still glad I have read it. ( )

In theory this should have been right up my street, or, indeed, right up my country footpath. And bits of it were delightful. However, all too often the delightful was subsumed under a mass of prejudice, stereotyping, name dropping and self pity that made this a lot less enjoyable than it should have been.
After returning from a trip to Peru, he has a fit of wanderlust and sets out to travel across England following the Ickneild way, an ancient route that crosses England diagonally from the Dorset coast to the Wash. There are some fascinating sights along this route, some of them he explores, some of them he uses a s jumping off point for some irrelevant rant. His conversations with people he meets are a mixture of unrelated and repetitive but mostly just plain grumpy.
This should have been a lovely book, a hymn to the English countryside and its history. At it's best it is all of these things, but it is dragged down by the unnecessary side shows. I cannot recommend it, but note it does have a beautiful cover. ( )

A disappointing book. An experienced travel writer looking for a subject. He walks along the Ickneild Way across southern England. And what he comes up with is a series of Googled-historical description of some of the sites he comes across plus a few personal reminisences and a few grumpy old man complaints about the state of the country. A lazy book with little point to it. ( )