Nick Havely, Apennine Crossings: Travellers on the Edge of Tuscany

Review of Nick 'Havely's Apennine Crossings: Travellers on the Edge of Tuscany'. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024. As generous as scholarly, Nick Havely’s latest gift to the community of readers is a treasure trove of travelling impressions, quotes and trekking itineraries. Its richness and diversity place it at the crossroads of various literary genres, enabling reviewers to approach it – like a pea – from different sides. This review presents it as the latest fruit in a genealogy of mountain writing that includes Nan Shepherd’s 'The Living Mountain' (written at the time of WW2, but published only in 1977) and Robert Macfarlane’s mountain trilogy, opening with 'Mountains of the Mind. A History of a Fascination' (2003).