JAMES CROWDEN

James Crowden was born in 1954, in Plymouth, within a stone’s throw of the naval dockyard, growing up on the southwest edge of Dartmoor. He started writing poetry at the age of thirteen, having watched Sir Francis Chichester sail into Plymouth Sound after his famous solo circumnavigation. Poetry then went underground for a few years and resurfaced when he was about twenty when writing took an increasing hold on his life.

His first book of poetry was called Blood Earth & Medicine, and this was followed by a stream of other books documenting West Country life and cider. A relative on his mother’s side was Winston Graham who wrote the Poldark series of books. He helped James to find his feet.

James’s new book, Frozen River: Seeking Silence in the Himalaya is published by Harper Collins.

WALDEN by Henry Thoreau

is very well known. I first read it when I was in a small which is about Henry Thoreau and his time living in a hut on the edge of Walden pond, Massachusetts. I had a fine limited edition given to my father by his godfather: Arthur Waugh (father of Alec and Evelyn). It has fine woodcuts by Eric Fitch Daglish and beautiful hand-made paper.