Best books… Nicholas Crane

Author Nicholas Crane picks six of his favourite books. On 29 April, he’ll talk about his own book, The Making of the British Landscape (W&N £20) at the Stratford Literary Festival (www.stratfordliteraryfestival.co.uk).

Over the Moon by Imtiaz Dharker, 2014 (Bloodaxe Books £12). Set mainly in London, these poems can be as exuberant and as dark as the capital itself, and one of them includes the best line ever written about this uneasy, riparian foundation on the Thames.

The Hidden Landscape: A Journey into the

Geological Past by Richard Fortey, 1993 (Bodley Head £20). My battered paperback has travelled to countless film shoots on Britain’s coasts. No other modern writer has managed so deftly to span the aeons between geology and our living landscapes.

Britain Begins by Barry Cunliffe, 2012 (OUP £25). From tundra to town, this is the complex, indivisible, 11,000-year story shared by the inhabitants of Europe’s largest island. An extraordinary feat of synthesis, packed with maps, diagrams and photographs.

Hidden Histories: A Spotter’s Guide to the

British Landscape by MaryAnn Ochota, 2016 (Frances Lincoln £20). This new field guide is just the job for exploring Britain’s landscapes, both rural and urban. Next time I gaze in wonder at a drystone wall, I’ll know a smoot from a lunky hole.

Athelstan by Tom Holland, 2016 (Allen Lane £12.99). As exquisite as the Alfred Jewel, this pocket story describes the emergence of “Englalonde” from the shrieks and ashes of Viking onslaught.

Paul Smith’s Cycling

Scrapbook edited by Richard Williams, 2016 (Thames and Hudson £29.95). My new favourite cycling book is this treasure trove of memories and archive photos from one of Britain’s most creative minds. I find it impossible to turn the pages without thinking of that Louis Macneice line about grasping the summer in “the heat of the handlebars”. Look, ride and smile.