I have loved every book Tom Cox has written and this is no exception. Nature, walking, life, folklore - a breath of fresh air in every way.

A lovely book but the wrong time for me to be reading it as there's a sad theme around his elderly cats.

Thank you to Unbound for a digital edition via NetGalley of ‘Ring the Hill’ by Tom Cox in exchange for an honest review.

From Tom’s Unbound page: “A book about hills. Actually, that’s not true. It’s a book around hills: the magical names we have given hills over the centuries, the legends associated with them, the history hidden in their folds, the exhilarated feeling you get when you’ve walked at pace to the top of one on a crisp autumn day, the perspective they give us on the land, on life.”

I have read and enjoyed a number of Tom Cox’s memoirs, though mainly those that were focused on his adventures with his various cats. This was a little different in its focus though his cats also made appearances.

This was a delight to read. It’s as though you are sitting around a cosy fire being entertained by a friend who is a gifted storyteller. It’s very rich in imagery and infused with Tom Cox’s deep love of nature, the landscape and history. There is certainly a great deal of humour throughout and yes a few tears as well.

It also sparked memories of my own visits to the various locations especially those in Somerset and Devon.

Highly recommended.

First book I’ve read by this author,I willbe collecting all his books.This was a fun interesting memoir a walk around the U.K. full of the authors witty commentary .Not all fun and laughs moments of sadness.An all around wonderful read.#netgalley #riIngthehill

I really enjoyed Help the Witch so I was hoping for something similar. This book is more of a memoir in which Cox regales us with his jaunts around the English countryside.

I can't say there is anything wrong with this book whatsoever but with it being so deeply personal it really necessitates the reader connecting with Cox. Unfortunately, I can't say that I did. It's not you, it's me Tom.

I think this book would make a lovely gift for someone who enjoys a ramble, has a slighty twee and irreverent sense of humour and feels a connection to the natural world.

This book was an absolute joy to read, from start to finish. I'd guessed from the cover that it might touch on things I find interesting, but had no idea to what extent it would resonate with me. Almost from the word go I was noting down things to quote later (something I rarely do, actually), referencing it in conversation and telling people to check it out. For some reason, after finishing the excellent first chapter I had presumed that the interesting bit was over and that the rest of the book could not maintain the same level of quality. How wrong I was. From folklore to politics to history to music, every page had something which held my interest. Read this now! More please.

A highly enjoyable roam around parts of Devon, Dorset and the Peaks. It is essentially a love letter from the author to places he has lived in which have had a considerable effect on his life and outlook. I’ve amassed a list of walks I have to do as well as a visit to Dartington Hall – he makes even the snowed-in spooky house on a hill sound idyllic. You’ll probably be aware of his cats who are the fulcrum and constant of his nomadic life. Needless to say they make numerous cameos throughout which brought tears of joy and sadness. I always look forward to his writing and this book is a brilliant example of why.

This book is a nice memoir that involves nature, in a stream of consciousness style. I'm not a fan of it actually, but in this case I think it works. It's very charming, cute and sad at the same time.
If you like nature writing, I think you'll enjoy it.

Thanks a lot to netgalley and the publisher for this copy.

Ring the Hill is another in Tom Cox' s excellent rambly styled books covering life in the English countryside. Very enjoyable and funny in places but also extremely sad when you get to the final chapter and the death of The Bear and Shipley stars of previous books.Not a game-changer then But enjoyable.

Ring the Hill is a book written around, and about, hills: it includes a northern hill, a hill that never ends and the smallest hill in England. Each chapter takes a type of hill – whether it’s a knoll, cap, cliff, tor or even a mere bump – as a starting point for one of Tom’s characteristically unpredictable and wide-ranging explorations.

Tom Cox’s writing style is so beautiful and it shines in this book. How he describes the places in this book he does with so much elegance throughout and it truly allows you to see the picture the writer creates - and then gives us a small insight with the inclusion of pictures from the places he is visiting which work so well with each chapter/hill. It’s just really well written prose that makes for captivating reading from start to finish.

I love books that are both something to learn from, like this book, finding all these places to explore, but also how these places are little glimpses into the life of the writer, and the memories the author shares in this book brings each place ever more alive throughout. Ring The Hill is an excellent exploration of the natural world and the stories we collect along the way throughout our lives.

More books like this please.

Ring the Hill is a wonderful book that wanders with an almost stream-of-consciousness air around the hills and valleys that have been home to author Tom Cox. Descriptive and atmospheric, I found myself lost in the pages, smiling and laughing out loud at anecdotes (especially those involving the author's father) and wanting to visit these places myself. Ambling along a path of hills and the stories of the people in, on and around them, we join Cox as he wonders what these places mean to him and those around him.
Growing up in the Peak District, I especially loved the descriptive, freezing Peak winter at the top of a desolate hill above Eyam. The landscape there is beautiful but harsh, and heading into the depths of a dark, icy winter, I felt every word chill cold in my bones, evoking memories of the landscape and hills full of secrets that my eyes grew up with. That's what I especially liked about this book, I sort of fell into it head first. The writing style felt comfortable, thoughts shared with the reader like a friend.
I followed Cox's Twitter account @mysadcat for a number of years, and it was bittersweet to share the pages with The Bear and sweary Ralph again, peeking into their final months from a place more magical and more intimate than the odd social media post - it felt like a fitting tribute to them to read the story of their final days lived out in such a magical place.
I just loved this book - as someone who loves to be 'up' in the landscape, it felt familiar but over-layered with something deeper, a pull to climb and seek out new hills to listen to.

I loved this book! It's well written, full of interesting descriptions and make crave to the in the places it describes.
It's the first book I read by this author and won't surely be the last.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

A genial, occasionally very funny account of assorted rambles around and residencies in the British countryside, taking as its starting point the way that there's a lot written about the grandeur of mountains, but not enough about the gentler charm of hills. It's not going to win over anyone concerned about how much of the nature writing revival seems to centre on white guys with the sort of security that lets them hop into rivers or wander off through the woods whenever the urge takes them, though he's not entirely a middle class cliché, coming, like me, from the End Of The Middle (in his case Nottingham) and with at least one accented parent. For all of which, Cox is amiable enough company, and he does evoke the landscapes well, from that lingering sense of sea-ness which pervades the Somerset Levels to the arsiness of Dartmoor's ponies. And who among us would not be curious upon learning that a nearby village has a street named 'Teapot Lane (Worms Lane)'?

One darker interlude follows his ill-advised winter in the grim heart of the Peak District, the bit nobody visits for a daytrip – just up out of Eyam, only 500 feet off being a mountain. I can confirm that, extreme as this section may sometimes read, having once and only once in all my years in Derbyshire ended up in these parts, if anything he's underselling it. There are bleak places up there. And here as elsewhere, Cox has that lovely balance of not going full believer about the supernatural, but not disbelieving either, just recounting the stories as they stand, and (in Ken Campbell's formulation) supposing.

(Netgalley ARC)