Footnotes

A must have for those who love both the outdoors and reading, this book explore the landscape of Britain as author Fiennes follows the trails of writers, from their personal correspondence and diaries and the books that made them famous. Entertaining and enlightening at the same time

What a gorgeous read a book about authors their lives through diaries ,books I was swept away by the intimate view into Enid Blyton's marriage life children .A travel book a book for all lovers of books to read to travel with the author to visit these authors private places,. I will be gifting this book to my friends who I know will find it as special as.I did.I was so engaged I could not put it down,#netgalley #oneworldpublications.

4.5 stars
Footnotes is a literary journey through Britain following the travels of great writers. From 12th century author Gerald de Barry to Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbrindge, Peter Fiennes embarks on a voyage through history, writing about the writers' lives interwoven with colourful descriptions of places then and now.
It is an immensely enjoyable read which sparks a lot of wanderlust. I especially loved the chapters about Scotland, and E. Somerville and Violet Martin.

This is a wonderful read, combining a deep appreciation of landscape and cityscape with the lives and work of several, very different, authors. Peter Fiennes follows in the footsteps of writers and travellers as diverse as Samuel Johnson, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, JB Priestley, Beryl Bainbridge and Enid Blyton on journeys around England, Wales and Scotland, reflecting on how places have changed and whether that change might be for the better or the worse. He includes some fascinating background detail about his chosen authors, some of them completely unfamiliar to me (Edith Somerville and Martin Ross really caught my attention), and describes his own experiences in a charming, pithy manner that appealed to me enormously. His love of his country and his love of literature shine through every page. Terrifically well written and researched, this is a book I’m bound to return to next time I’m passing close to one of his paths. Highly recommended.

A book that made me crave to be in the places it describes and discover them through the eyes of writers.
It was an engaging and interesting read, well written and lovely.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

What a terrific anthology! I really enjoyed this one!

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

This book is a complete delight. For those interested in the changes in our towns and cities over time or those fascinated by the writerly progress through the UK, this lovely work gives much to chew on. I particularly enjoyed the section on Birmingham to Liverpool featuring the earlier journeys of Beryl Bainbridge and JB Preistly. I cannot imagine two better people to have at my fantasy dinner party - and now I'm going to invite Peter Fiennes as well.

This book would make a magnificent gift or a lovely travelling companion wherever your summer break takes you.

Huge gratitude to Netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this book prior to publication. This was a real treat x

A charming, whimsical, eclectic travelogue. Fiennes sets out to follow the footsteps of great British writers, and each chapter covers a different author's lifetime. This could be read cover-to-cover, or dipped into as the reader follows along on a trip. Will appeal to fans of Bill Bryson, with well-researched and witty episodes.

Footnotes seamlessly combines autobiographical information, nature writing and follows the paths of some of the finest writers to have ever lived; this original and potent mix had me captivated for the entirety of the book. I mean, this amalgamation of two of my favourite topics: the natural world and the history of Britain through the eyes of writers such as Enid Blyton and Charles Dickens - what could be better? I very much enjoyed the fact that it was entertaining as Fiennes's writing is full of pep and pizazz and his observational skill is a joy to behold. If I'm honest I didn't have a clue whether this would work as a book or not but luckily the author knows exactly how to engage you and immerse you in the times and places he explores throughout.

I appreciated this so much that I was sad when I came to the end; I feel this could become a series as I'm sure a lot of people, including myself, would read the follow-ups and there are certainly plenty of other authors who could be featured. You can tell just how enthused Fiennes is about both nature and literature as this is a well-researched, beautifully written lit-travelogue. I enjoyed that quite a few of the authors were obscure as a lot of other books tend to cover the most famous, so this was refreshing. It is also a very accessible and eminently readable book I feel a lot of readers would delight in. A must-read for nature and lit connoisseurs. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Oneworld Publications for an ARC.

This book is a simple idea very well executed. The author visits various parts of Britain which held some meaning to a writer, philosopher or poet. He talks about the places, the writers and their works. So there it is. And yet this book is so much more than that. There is humour, there is pathos. He is honest about the subjects (places and people) and it isn’t all gorgeous and glory. He touches on the difficulties of some writers and their works and he writes in great depth about a diverse group of people. We have Wilkie Collins, JB Priestley, Charles Dickens and others.

When Mr Fiennes talks about Enid Blyton, for instance, and her trips to Swanage and Corfe Castle, he also talks about whether she was a bad mother, whether she was racist, what makes her stories so fascinating for children, etc. He wears his learning lightly and the whole book is fun and a fast read. But it isn’t simple, there is complexity and there is respect.

Recommended for the literary ramblers in your life who are difficult to buy gifts for.

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

I’d first seen Footnotes on a review website I occasionally visit and decided to take a look, I’d not heard of Peter Fiennes before but the description of the book was certainly appealing enough for me to buy a copy. “A Journey Round Britain in the company of Great Writers” emblazoned across the front cover certainly adds to the impending adventure awaiting revelation on every page and Footnotes certainly delivers on its claim. Regardless of our personal favourites we cannot deny that almost everyone of the writers that undertook these journeys originally have touched our lives in some way, learning more about Enid Blyton (regardless of the opinion of her youngest daughter, Imogen and other surrounding issues ) I enjoyed reminiscing about my younger days reading my mothers’ copies of Blyton’s books at my grandmothers house.

Fiennes, however, follows Blyton on her trips to Swanage and around Dorset, where many of her stories are based and reveals a personal side of Blyton that many readers, such as myself, were previously unaware and for any reader who may, or may not, have an interest in Blyton this is a revealing and enjoyable romp around Dorset with one of the country’s most prolific children’s writers.

Aside from traversing around following such great writers, Footnotes paints pictures not just of the country that has long past but blends the old in with the new with seamless perfection, and Footnotes is by no means just a simple book, which I’d first assumed. Delving deeper following in the footsteps of Gerald of Wales, we come to the idyllic little church of St Issui’s, near Abergavenny, in Monmouthshire. It is really from here that there is a shift in the narrative that becomes more ‘observational’ and noting the changes in the world with the old and the new, reminded me very much of what I’d recently read in Julian Hoffman’s Irreplaceable where the reader is taken through a tour around the world of places and wildlife disappearing all in the name of ‘progress’ and ‘development’ . Fiennes succinctly declares “We have drained the wild from this world, even in the empty places” and looking at many places I’ve visited and read about in numerous books recently I don’t think I could put it better. I did wonder if at Saint issues did he go inside to see the portrait of doom on the wall, or see the beautiful Bible or even visit the well which has been a site of pilgrimage for centuries. It may not have been mentioned by Gerald but it’s certainly worth a visit.

Moving throughout the country at the frenetic pace of a locomotive which took Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins to Doncaster, we are taken further north to Liverpool, which saw staggering economic decline during the 1980s and has since risen to become (in 2008) City of Culture and a destination for any self affirmed Beatles fan. Our time with Beryl Bainbridge and J.B. Priestley act as a mirror from the 1930s to the modern day, with Bainbridge acting as a go-between negotiating the past and the present with her travels during the 1980s. Travelling through the North East and Jarrow, Fiennes narrates the views of Priestley and Bainbridge on the history of the North East, the poverty and deprivation of the earlier part of the twentieth century with a skill that is some of the best written work I’ve read on the subject for a long time.

Footnotes, however isn’t just a juxtaposition of the old and new, it’s discovering the old worlds of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, Samuel Johnson and James Bosworth and Edith Somerville and Violet ‘Martin’ Ross who have all made their indelible marks on the psyche of the country. Their works are now many of the views and streets we walk, we even look at aspects of social decline in some areas and describe them as ‘Dickensian’, something Fiennes reminds us of throughout the book.

Footnotes started with following some of the great writers around the country on their journeys, but what came from reading was so much more, and not just a renewed interest in some authors I’d dismissed in my youth. These authors did not just travel the country, they created a social document that we should keep in mind with our more disposable society, and Peter Fiennes reveals them to us in not just an informative way but a human and witty style that keeps the reader captivated from start to finish.

•  Footnotes by Peter Fiennes is published by One World (£16.99). To order a copy go to www.oneworld-publications.com