Great reads this month

THE JOY OF WALKING

Edited by Suzy Cripps, Macmillan, £11

Here’s a joyous anthology bringing together some absolute gems from the vast genre of writing about walking. Just some of the voices within it include Charlotte Brontë,

Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, Rabindranath Tagore, Dorothy and

William Wordsworth, E.M. Forster, Jane Austen and John Clare (more about him on page 53). It’s all expertly curated by Suzy Cripps, who clearly knows what walkers are thirsty for and has tracked it down brilliantly. Tagore’s line “And with leisure and my thoughts I walk the fields, unfettered by bounds of space or time” sums the package up very sweetly.

CALL ME RED

Hannah Jackson, Ebury, £20

Who knew TV shepherdessing could be a phenomenon? First Amanda

Owen of Our Yorkshire Farm fame, and now we have the memoir of

‘Red Shepherdess’ Hannah Jackson.

Hannah changed her life completely after seeing a ewe give birth on a trip to the Lake District at the age of 20, and left behind her ‘Liverpudlian townie’ background to start sheep farming with her fiancé Danny. The book covers life lessons, the practicalities of modern hill-farming, and her devotion to her beloved animals.

THE GREAT BRITISH FOLKLORE & SUPERSTITION MAP

marvellousmaps.com, £15

The Marvellous Maps crew have done it again. Following on from their addictively dip-inable maps of everything from music and film to silly placenames, their latest foldout map details myths, legends, ghosts, goblins, freaky festivals and creepy museums, and as usual is packed with tiny minutiae; you’ll keep spotting new bits every time you come back to it. Comes with the tagline: “Warning! This map may go bump in the night.”