Country Life

Following in Ransome’s footsteps

36 Islands: In Search of the Hidden Wonders of the Lake District

Robert Twigger

(Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, £20)

SWALLOWS and Amazons for grown-ups? Robert Twigger has inexhaustible curiosity, a childlike desire to explore and bags of energy. You can almost sense John, Susan, Titty and Roger nodding approvingly in the background as Mr Twigger finds his way from lake to lake and island to island. He’s sometimes disappointed, often deflated as rain catches him out again, but much more often entranced by everything, from the smallest detail of an acorn’s leaf to the largest bird (a golden eagle, really?).

Mr Twigger’s book was inspired by and we hear a lot about Arthur Ransome’s own motivations, anxieties and purpose, but we get a lot else besides—the author is full of stories. Sometimes they are ghoulish ones about people

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