After the summer September somehow seems a very much "back to the desk" month (there's certainly plenty to catch up on at it!) but I've been at two very interesting book launches this month. One conjured up a very different, mythical world, the other was literally very much down to earth.
"The Land of Lost Things" is the sequel to the very popular "The Book of Lost Things" by John Conolly. With his Irish heritage, full of ancient folklore, he explores the recovery of Phoebe, a young girl involved in a car accident, through myth and legend. It's certainly a good read - as is, in a very different way, "Walking the Bones of Britain" by Christopher Somerville, the walking correspondent at The Times. Although his is the story of the rocks of which the UK is composed, in no way is it a dry geological textbook. He takes the reader on a fascinating journey from the ancient stones of the Isle of Lewis to the newest rocks on the south coast, never losing you on the way. He's also a poet of course, and his prose is a definite testament to that.
And it's also been good to take the opportunity for the odd day out to continue photographing places that will feature in my forthcoming Welsh tales book. There are many places in Wales that lay claim to Arthurian legends. Was Caerleon the site of Camelot? Is Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island) really Avelon? Only a couple of miles from where I live there's a series of caves in a hillside - and one, where a very tall skeleton was unearthed in the early nineteenth century, rejoices under the name of King Arthur's cave. Whether or not it has any Round Table connections, it certainly has some atmosphere and it doesn't take much imagination to people it with knights of old and courtly romancing in the woods ...
