In accordance with The Post Office, the last recommended date for Christmas posting is 18th December (2nd Class) and 20th December (First class). Written during the Second World War, it took another 30 years for The Living Mountain book to be published, but today Nan Shepherd’s novel is considered one of the greatest pieces of mountain literature ever written. I live in a terribly flat country right now (Denmark), but reading this, I felt like I was there in Scotland, climbing my way through the looming crags and glimpsing the wondrous little worlds they contain. A gap in a hedge, a smooth rock surfacing a narrow lane, a view of a woody meadow, the stream at the junction of four small fields – these are as much as a man can fully experience…’ this is really her doctrine, the beauty of the minutiae as much as what is visible through a wide angle lens. She brings a very detailed picture of what can be seen and experienced on the Cairgorms: the sights, the sounds, the light, the water, the smells , the plants and animals, the human tracks, and so on.

There are so many songs and albums that are connected in my brain to a certain moment, a time of my life and a particular place.Reading, one becomes aware of what one has missed, what one has failed to pay attention to when walking.

And Shepherd's book is a grace accorded to her readers, who seek inspiration to engage with mountains and geese, deer and rivers, clouds and mist, and by doing so, to regain a sense of their humanity in a world that rarely takes the time to listen, really listen. Skill with the written word is most definitely a necessity if a book wants 3 star or higher out of me, but to get into the 4 and 5 star range a book has to offer more than fine writing and nice structure. When the air is quite still, there is always running water; and up here that is a sound one can hardly lose, though on many stony parts of the plateau one is above the watercourses. It is like a new element, and if water is still sounding with a low far-off murmur, it is no more than the last edge of an element we are leaving, as the last edge of land hangs on the mariner’s horizon. The first great English detective novel, Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone is presented in a Folio Society limited edition of 750 numbered copies.

So there I lie on the plateau, under me the central core of fire from which was thrust this grumbling grinding mass of plutonic rock, over me blue air, and between the fire of the rock and the fire of the sun, scree, soil and water, moss, grass, flower and tree, insect, bird and beast, wind, rain and snow--the total mountain. Publication dates are subject to change (although this is an extremely uncommon occurrence overall). From which detail you may deduce that this was written, or experienced, at a time when hob-nailed climbing boots were the norm.