Nature Writing

Shortlist 2014

The Green Road into Trees

A Walk Through England

By Hugh Thomson

In the past, award-winning travel writer and explorer Hugh Thomson has written books about Peru, Mexico and the Indian Himalaya. Now he returns to explore the most exotic and foreign country of them all – his own.

From the very centre of England – literally, as his village is furthest from the sea – he travels to its outermost edges. The Green Road into the Trees is a journey made rich by the characters he meets along the way. And the ways he takes are the old ways, the drover-paths and tracks, the paths and ditches half covered by bramble and tunnelled by alder, beech and oak: the trails that can still be traced by those who know where to look.

Explore the Shortlist

About Hugh Thomson

Hugh Thomson is the author of five previous travel books, the most recent of which, Tequila Oil: Getting Lost in Mexico, was serialised by BBC Radio 4. He has led many research expeditions to Peru and is a leading explorer of Inca settlements. He has also taken filming expeditions to Mount Kilimanjaro, Bhutan, Afghanistan and the Mexican Sierra Madre.