To listen to the programme again click here (around 10 minutes in).  

To see the interview again click here (around 9 minutes in).  

As Ellie’s fiftieth birthday approaches and her ambitions of a steady income, a successful career and an ascent of Everest seem as far away as ever, she begins to doubt she’s capable of achieving anything at all. So when her best friend Mick suggests a gruelling cycle ride from Land’s End to John o’Groats, she takes up the challenge.

They opt for the scenic route which takes them along cycle paths, towpaths and the back roads and byways of Britain, unable to resist sampling local beers in the pubs they pass along the way. But as the pints start to stack up faster than the miles they’re putting under their tyres, Ellie wonders if they’ll ever make it to the finishing line…

‘Ellie Bennett is funny, she can talk the rear wheel off a Dawes three-speed and she loves a decent pint. I’d tag along with her any day’ Oz Clarke

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Marathons make you miserable, but they also give you the most unlikely and the most indescribable pleasures. It’s a world that I love – a world unlocked when you dress up in lycra, put plasters on your nipples and run 26.2 miles in the company of upwards of 30,000 complete strangers.

Phil Hewitt, who has completed over 20 marathons in conditions ranging from blistering heat to snow and ice, in locations from Berlin to New York, sets a cracking pace in this light-hearted account of his adventures on the road. This story of an ordinary guy’s addiction to running marathons looks at the highs and lows, the motivation that keeps you going when your body is crying out to stop, and tries to answer the ultimate question, ‘Why do you do it?’

‘A charismatic, charming, funny – and, above all, thoughtful – memoir about running, motivation, ambition. Perfect, not just for those who do run – or intend to run – a marathon, but for the hundreds and thousands of us who venture out from time to time to run just a mile or two… A complete delight.’ 

Kate Mosse, author and broadcaster

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Do you expect manuscripts to be finished, or do you ever commission people by seeing their work in progress?

Successful travel writing needs an extraordinary story, and it’s hard to be sure that a book has a satisfying shape (beginning, middle and end), that it’s a really great read, if it’s incomplete. So although a very detailed outline can help, we prefer finished manuscripts. There is always a risk for both publisher and author that the final manuscript won’t be exactly what was proposed and that can cause problems, so a travel writing proposal has to have an extraordinary premise for us to take it on unfinished. But we very often start working with authors when their manuscripts still need revision – if I think something has promise I will advise an author at an early stage. Then I also get a sense of what kind of working relationship I could have with the author. If something I’ve read has promise, it seems a waste not to pass along my impressions.

Do you ever look for authors or do they always come to you?

We do look for authors. Social media (Twitter and Facebook groups), websites and so on have revolutionised the way we find and connect with authors – it’s really useful being able to get a sense of an author so instantaneously if they have an online presence. I have found a few authors by going to travel/adventure-related speaking events too, or through travel-related newsletters. If we read in the news about something that might make a good travel book, we’ll send out an email. What I’m doing now, connecting with you, is a way of looking for authors by getting the message out about what we publish.

How important are photos to a travel story?

We rarely include photographs in a book of travel writing, because they add to the production costs and possibility of printing errors, and also they can detract from the reading experience (the writing should conjure up the pictures). Sometimes we can include them in the inside covers. But they are often essential for the promotion of your book – a magazine or newspaper will often lose interest in running an excerpt if good quality photos are not easily available.

Did the Cetti’s Warbler inspire the opening notes of the last movement of Beethoven’s Second Symphony?

Is the emu nature’s most devoted dad?

Find out the answers to these ornithological conundrums and others in this engaging book that delves into literature, science, religion, fine art and popular culture to reveal how a bird can be far more than the sum of its feathered, winged and webbed parts. Worshipped as gods and damned as agents of the Devil in equal measure, birds have also fostered scientific breakthroughs and even helped provoke a war. This entertaining guide is full of fascinating insights into the humble bird’s surprisingly large role in history and culture.

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The man, Thad Darden is a strategy consultant with Bain and Company, who have offices in forty-seven countries. He’s now written to the charity mentioned in the book, Go Help, offering his services for free and suggesting a number of projects he might work on and adding he’s keen to raise some money for them by doing the trip to Mongolia himself.

Thad told Go Help: ‘The book became impossible to put down and I realised that I had to experience it for myself’.

Go Help, who finance a number of projects which aid children in Mongolia, are getting in touch with Chad to work out how best to use his expertise.

The book’s author, David Treanor, said: ‘It’s always lovely, of course, to hear when someone has enjoyed your book — but the fact that this reader wants to take it further and help the charity is a fantastic bonus’.

For more information on Mission Mongolia click here.

It’s Summersdale Free Sample Friday. For this week only you’ll be able to read and download a free sample of the fantastic Minding My Peas and Cucumbers by Kay Sexton.

When Kay Sexton becomes the proud holder of an allotment, she hopes it will be her first foray towards self-sufficiency for her family. Instead, she finds herself in a strange and hostile world of hosepipe standoffs and arcane rules and regulations.

She finds her mud-caked wellingtoned feet and successfully navigates her way through allotment-keeping, battling biblical-scale pest invasions, learning the dark arts of the competitive vegetable grower and practising ninja-like disappearing acts to avoid yet another free cucumber from a neighbouring gardener.

Witty, well-observed and with mouth watering recipes, this book is for anyone who dreams of a slice of the good life.

‘I’ve dreamed of having an allotment, on and off, for the last 40 years, but the “too busy” excuse has always prevailed. If Kay Sexton’s witty, practical and perceptive “Tales” are the closest I’ll ever get to fulfilling my allotment dream, then it won’t have been all bad’

Jonathon Porritt

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Tired of airport security queues, delays and all those extra taxes and charges, Tom Chesshyre embarks on a series of high-speed adventures across the Continent on its fast trains instead. He discovers the hidden delights of mysterious Luxembourg, super-trendy Rotterdam, much-maligned Frankfurt and lovely lakeside Lausanne, via a pop concert in Lille.

It’s 186 mph all the way – well, apart from a power cut in the Channel Tunnel on the way to Antwerp. What fun can you have at the ends of the lines? Jump on board and find out…

‘If you’ve “done” Paris and Bruges and are wondering, “Where next?”, then this may be a quiet revelation’ Andrew Marr

‘splendid twenty-first-century railway adventure. At last, this IS the age of the train’ Simon Calder

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In her mid-thirties, fashion editor Karen has it all: a handsome boyfriend, a fab flat in west London and an array of gorgeous shoes. But when Eric leaves, she hangs up her Manolos and waves goodbye to her glamorous city lifestyle to go it alone in a run-down house in rural Poitou-Charentes, central western France.

Acquiring a host of new friends and unsuitable suitors, she learns that true happiness can be found in the simplest of things – a bike ride through the countryside on a summer evening, or a kir or three in a neighbour’s courtyard.

Perfect summer reading for anyone who dreams of chucking away their BlackBerry in favour of real blackberrying and downshifting to France.

“the author not only has something to say – she is able to include all manner of themes from renovation to travel and romance to fashion… very entertaining” French Magazine

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