Robert Twigger – ’36 Islands: In Search of the Hidden Wonders of the Lake District and a Few Other Things Too’
For those who enjoy adventures in the great outdoors, look no further than Robert Twigger’s new book ’36 Islands: In Search of the Hidden Wonders of the Lake District and a Few Other Things Too’. It takes readers on a trip around the islands in the Lake District, the popular English tourist destination in Cumbria. This book is especially insightful for those who know well and fondly the Lakes, both great and small. Coming across as a bit like travel writer Bill Bryson, Twigger guides his readers through destinations both on the tourist hotspot radar as well as off the beaten track. It’s likely that anyone coming fresh to the book, from seasoned Lake District holidayers to first-timers, will learn new and engaging facts about the place from these pages.
Twigger is inspired by Arthur Ransome, the author behind the bestselling ‘Swallows and Amazons’ children’s books. His tales were set in the Lake District, and Twigger is especially keen to hunt down Peel Island in Lake Coniston (where Donald Campbell famously met his end when his Bluebird crashed in 1967) as it was the inspiration for Ransome’s Wild Cat Island. For any enthusiast, recognising Twigger’s level of devotion and fanaticism for finding locations and retracing the steps of a beloved author is a highly-relatable activity. This level of fanaticism isn’t universal though, and indeed Twigger spends some of his adventures in the company of a friend, but for much of his time, he makes his discoveries alone.
’36 Islands’ will inspire readers to seek out the islands whose descriptions in these pages fire their imaginations. It is a paean to the Lake District and the writings of Ransome. As he faces life in the great outdoors, Twigger encounters over-subscribed car parks as well as damp sleeping bags, tics, prickly bracken, hostile signposts and other vagaries and menaces of nature. None of it, even the negatives, will dissuade readers who know and love the beauty of the Lake District from planning a return visit.
Buy Robert Twigger’s ‘36 Islands: In Search of the Hidden Wonders of the Lake District and a Few Other Things Too‘.
