Books by Chris Townsend

Guide to 50 walks and easy scrambles in north-western Scotland, covering Southern Torridon, Northern Torridon, Letterewe and Fisherfield, and the Fannichs. Ascents of 27 Munros, 20 Corbetts and 14 Grahams are included, with highlights including Liathach, Beinn Eighe, Beinn Alligin, An Teallach and Slioch. The walks are suitable for those with good navigation skills who are competent in a mountain environment. All the walks in the guide are graded, with summary statistics provided, and each includes clear route description and mapping. There's also a route summary table to help with choosing appropriate walks. Background information on local geology, wildlife and history, and planning details on when to go, where to stay and what to take are included to make the most out of any trip to Torridon. The region boasts spectacular and distinctive landscapes and breathtaking views. Steep-sided rocky mountains rise above long winding lochs, both freshwater and sea. From the hills there are vast panoramas out across the sea to the Hebrides and of mountains stretching out to the north, south and east. This is a land for those who love open spaces, vast horizons, and the domination of nature.

Everything readers need to know about backpacking before they hit the trails

Nerd gangstas, weed, and The Boss combine in a darkly comedic story of resurrecting shattered dreams within a bureaucratic circus. Fight Club meets a Half-Baked Big Bang Theory with a CSI twist in an Office Space, but only cake gets punched. Yes, that's right, cake. Pharmers is a fictional story written for the newly found literary genre of 'dark nerd-comedy'. Meet Deymann, a down and out medicinal scientist slaving away in corporate America. He feels trapped in a godless machine, toiling for the Boss and a thick-witted supervisor, a man he calls Dummy-Bear (not to his face, but he probably wouldn't get it anyway). After surviving the most embarrassing Piñata debacle in human history, Deymann meets a secret white-collar group of misfits knows as the Pharmers, who help him break out of his rut with some corporate espionage and herbal chemistry experimentation. What's that smoke and funny odor coming from the incinerator? Did I hear laughter in there?

Drawing from more than forty years of experience as an outdoorsman, and probably the world's best known long distance walker who also writes, Chris Townsend describes the landscapes and wildlife, the walkers and climbers, and the authors who have influenced him in this lucid and beautiful book. Writing from his home in the heart of the Cairngorms he discusses the wild, its importance to civilisation and how we cannot do without it.

Looks at the way contemporary Western artists negotiate death, both as personal experience and in the wider community. This book discusses and moves beyond the 'spectacle of death' in work by artists such as Damien Hirst to see how mortality brings us face to face with profound ethical issues.

The author's engaging account of his solo hike along the Arizona Trailfrom the Mexican border to Utah.