An account of a journey through western Ireland made in 1984, fulfilling a childhood dream of a long-distance ride. The story centres on the growing bond between the author and her Connemara pony, Mollie and the many challenges that they face before the tragic conclusion in the mountains of Kerry. It is also a portrait of rural Ireland before the "Celtic Tiger" era, built up from conversations with the local people. The journey takes them through Counties Galway, Mayo, Clare and Kerry, the obstacles to their progress ranging from bogs, stone walls, and the River Shannon. "I've never tried hitchhiking with a horse before" comments the author. "It's not easy." She travelled with no set route, extending her backpacking knowledge acquired in the Andes to horse packing, "seeing the obvious advantage of climbing mountains on someone else's legs and using another's back for the packing."

'Black Beauty' meets 'Dharma Bums' in this tale of jumping horses and the people who live by them. First on the scene of a horrific van crash that involves her best friend, a shady owner in the 'insurance' business, and four world-class horses, professional jump rider 'Chelle Martin finds herself in the middle of an intrigue where drugs and dreams collide - while juggling horses, an out-of-control-teenaged daughter, potential romance, & even, perhaps, a new career.

The triumphant conclusion to Tim Robinson's extraordinary Connemara trilogy, which Robert Macfarlane has called 'one of the most remarkable non-fiction projects undertaken in English'. Robinson writes about the people, places and history of south Connemara - one of Ireland's last Gaelic-speaking enclaves - with the encyclopaedic knowledge of a cartographer and the grace of a born writer. From the man who has been praised in the highest terms by Joseph O'Connor ('One of contemporary Ireland's finest literary stylists''), John Burnside ('one of the finest of contemporary prose stylists'), Fintan O'Toole ('Simply one of the best non-fiction prose writers currently at work') and Giles Foden ('an indubitable classic'), among many others, this is one of the publishing events of 2011 and the conclusion of one of the great literary projects of our time. 'He is that rarest of phenomena, a scientist and an artist, and his method is to combine scientific rigour with artistic reverie in a seamless blend that both informs and delights.' John Banville, Guardian 'A masterpiece of travel and topographical writing, and an incomparable and enthralling meditation on times past ... This perfectly pitched work opens readers up to the world around them' Sunday Times 'Anyone willing to get lost in this book will be left with indelible mental images of places they may never have visited but will now never forget' Dermot Bolger, Irish Mail on Sunday 'Will endure into the far future ... He knows this world as no one else does, and writes about it with awe and love, but also with measured grace, an artist's eye and a scientist's sensibility' Colm Toibin, Sunday Business Post Books of the Year 'Robinson is a marvel ... the supreme practitioner of geo-graphy, the writing of places' Fintan O'Toole, Observer Books of the Year

In this sequel to her 2000 anthology, Valerie Sanders again brings together an influential group of women whose autobiographical accounts of their childhoods show them making sense of the children they were and the women they have become. The fourteen women included juxtapose recollections of the bizarre with the quotidian and accounts of external events with the development of a complex inner life. Reading and acting are important themes, as is the precariousness of childhood, whether occasioned by a father's financial pressures or the early death of a parent. Significantly, most grew up expecting to earn their own living. The collection includes children's authors (Frances Hodgson Burnett and E. Nesbit), political figures (Emmeline Pankhurst and Louisa Twining), and well-known writers (Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Anne Thackeray Ritchie, Sarah Grand). Of relevance to scholars working in the fields of women’s autobiography, the history of childhood, and Victorian literature, this anthology includes a scholarly introduction and brief biographical sketches of each woman.