My second book tells the story of walking the invisible pathways of four European winds – the Helm, the Bora, the Foehn and the Mistral – to discover their effects on landscape, people and culture.
These wind-walks take me from the bleak Northern Pennines in search of Britain’s only named wind to Trieste and the Adriatic coast; from the emptiness of the Slovenian Karst to a Balkan mountain blizzard; from a journey of exhilaration and despair in the snowbound valleys of the Alps to chasing the ‘wind of madness’ over western Europe’s only steppe. They are journeys into wild wind, but also into wild landscapes and the people who inhabit them – an unconventional travelogue that makes the invisible visible.
Finalist for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year 2018, the National Geographic Traveller Readers Awards 2018, and the TGO Magazine Book of the Year 2018. Named as a Book of the Year in the Financial Times and the Spectator. Translated into Dutch, German, French and Italian.
Full to the brim with learning, entertainment, description, scientific fact and conjectural fiction. It is travel writing in excelsis
– Jan Morris in the Literary Review
An ingenious idea that [Hunt] carries off with panache and aplomb. An extremely gifted writer . . . his writing here has agreeable echoes of Leigh Fermor’s evocative prose.
– The New European
[An] exuberant, invigorating blast of a book
– Michael Kerr in the Telegraph
A thrilling and gorgeous tale, packed with meteorological wonder
– Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun
A wonderful book; reading it is like being introduced to a gang of complex characters by an entertaining and erudite host. It has been a joy getting to know them better and in all their moods.
– Tristan Gooley, author of The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs
Published in Dutch as Waar De Wind Waait by Thomas Rap, in Italian as Dove soffiano i venti selvaggi by Neri Pozza, in German as Mit Dem Wind by btb, and in French as Où vont les vents sauvages by Éditions Hoëbeke.
Buy on Bookshop.org.