Travelling a thousand miles and across three billion years, Christopher Somerville, author of The January Man and Ships of Heaven, sets out to discover how the land beneath our feet shapes our past, our present and our future. Britain is blessed with a vast variety of landscapes - from marshes to slate mountains, chalk downs to volcanic islands. How we live, work and eat has been moulded and shaped by wild, violent events that occurred thousands, millions, even billions of years ago - drownings and upheavals, the raging fires and frozen wastes that created the bones of Britain. Following the line of oldest exposed geology, from three-billion-year-old rocks at the Butt of Lewis in the far northwestern tip, down the map south eastwards to the furthest corner of Essex where new land is being recycled from old, Somerville travels across bogs and over peaks, through forests and national parks and along tow paths, revisiting old haunts and expert friends, picking out rare flora and fauna, as he uncover the changing landscape's buried secrets. Vivid, lyrical and evocative, Walking the Bones of Britain is a deep interrogation of the remarkable place we call home.
Christopher Somerville Ordre des livres







- 2023
- 2021
The View from the Hill
- 330pages
- 12 heures de lecture
A new collection of walks from one of Britain's best-known walking journalists and currently Walking Correspondent for The Times.
- 2020
Our War
- 384pages
- 14 heures de lecture
75 years on from the end of the second world war, a unique collection from veteran Commonwealth voices who tell how the war changed their lives irreversibly and blew the British Empire apart. 'Vivid reading' Telegraph
- 2020
Ships Of Heaven
- 404pages
- 15 heures de lecture
_________________ 'Something close to divine inspiration' - The Times When Christopher Somerville, author of the The January Man ('a truly wonderful, uplifting book, bursting with life' - Nicholas Crane), set out to explore Britain’s cathedrals, he found his fixed ideas shaken to the roots. Starting out, he pictured cathedrals – Britain possesses over one hundred – as great unmoving bastions of tradition. But as he journeys among favourites old and new, he discovers buildings and communities that have been in constant upheaval for a thousand years. Here are stories of the monarchs and bishops who ordered the building of these massive but unstable structures, the masons whose genius brought them into being, the peasant labourers who erected (and died on) the scaffolding. We learn of rogue saints exploited by holy sinners, the pomp and prosperity that followed these ships of stone, the towns that grew up in their shadows, the impact of the Black Death, the Reformation and icon-smashing Puritanism, the revival brought about by the Industrial Revolution, and the hope and disillusion of two world wars. Meeting believers and non-believers, architects and archaeologists, the cleaner who dusts the monuments and the mason who judges stone by its taste, we delve deep into the private lives and the uncertain future of these ever-voyaging Ships of Heaven.
- 2011
Walking in Ireland
- 266pages
- 10 heures de lecture
Walking has never been a more popular pastime and nowhere is more beautiful for walkers to explore than Ireland.
- 2011
Velká Británie
National Geographic. Velký průvodce
Velký průvodce National Geographic vyniká nesrovnatelnou kvalitou, praktičností, vkusným designem a stovkami unikátních fotografií. Ve všech průvodcích naleznete podrobné popisy a informace o nejnavštěvovanějších destinacích v dané zemi, doplňující poznatky z historie, kultury a současného života země, velké množství doplňujících barevných fotografií, desítky podrobných barevných map, cyklistické a pěší stezky, nápady na výlety vyznačené v mapách a úplné údaje pro návštěvníky včetně informací o hotelech, restauracích, nákupních možnostech a zábavních podnicích.
- 2010
Never Eat Shredded Wheat
- 192pages
- 7 heures de lecture
A lighthearted guide to the geography of Britain from The Times journalist and bestselling author of Coast Christopher Somerville.
- 2007
National Geographic Ireland, Second Edition provides in-depth information on Irish history and culture, along with practical travel advice for getting around the enchanted isle. From the cosmopolitan streets of Dublin to the horse-racing stables of County Kildare, from the fabled Ring of Kerry to the Yeats Country surrounding Sligo Town, from a walking tour of Dingle Way to a self-guided drive through the Sperrin Hills of Northern Ireland, from mountain moorlands to eerie bogs, this new edition guides you to memorable attractions throughout Ireland's many storied regions.
- 2006
The National Geographic Traveler: Great Britain
- 272pages
- 10 heures de lecture
Illustrated with 160 photographs and 20 full-colour maps, this guide to Costa Rica takes you through this varied and alluring country. It includes full-spread, mapped walking and driving tours, three-dimensional illustrations, and a section of detailed visitor information, including the author's picks of hotels and restaurants.
- 2005
A tour of the coastline of the British Isles revealing how natural wonders and historic events have shaped the lives of coastal communities, highlighting the relationship between Britain's coast people's lives.


