What I’ve been reading this week, 13 July 2019

This will be my final set of weekly reads for a while, as I’m off to the Pyrenees for the rest of the summer. Enjoy!

Long-distance hiking

CDT first month – Inaki’s first month on the Continental Divide Trail.

Outdoors

Happy Birthday Thoreau—How The Life Lessons in Walden Are Invaluable – ‘Thoreau taught me that it was wise to act with intention. That it was perfectly okay to live the way you chose, provided it was a choice.’

An interview with Mark Horrell – ‘But it’s not just operators who are to blame. There is not enough respect for Everest any more.’

Confessions of a non runner – a good piece by David Lintern, who has a new book out about the big mountain challenges of the UK.

Remote bothies in south of Scotland ‘not law-free zones’ – a bizarre story, but bothies are getting busier. Is there an easy answer to the growing problem of litter in popular bothies? I’m not sure there is.

Off the clock – metrics can enslave us as well as inform us.

Environment

Country diary: the shocking pink of foxgloves calls for caution – a nice piece of writing by Carey Davies.

Writing

Sky Dance novel – an update from John Burns on his new novel, which I edited.

Writing with pen and paper – a blog post about the huge benefits that come from writing out your first draft by hand.

Death of the novel is greatly exaggerated, say UK booksellers – ‘The hottest properties for acquiring editors right now … are non-fiction authors who can write well, provocatively and become brands.’