Bradt’s Lebanon sets this now peaceful and increasingly popular destination within the context of its rich historical and religious background enabling visitors to travel with awareness and sensitivity.

Lebanon offers extraordinary diversity. Here, some of the oldest human settlements in the world at the Phoenician ports of Tyre, Sidon and Byblos sit alongside modern Beirut, popular for its cuisine, eclectic nightlife and mosaic of peoples. In Lebanon’s second city, Tripoli, busy medieval souks are watched over by a vast Crusader castle. Outside the city, snow-capped mountains and the lush Qadisha Valley with its snaking river and waterfalls provide entertainment for skiers and hikers, while the Mediterranean Sea draws sun and watersports enthusiasts.

The guide describes skiing opportunities and ski resorts in detail with coverage of trekking and hiking in the Qadisha Valley and Chouf Mountains, including the 275-mile Lebanon Mountain Trail (LMT).

A specialist in Lebanon and the Middle East, Paul Doyle has travelled extensively in the region as both writer and photographer.

 To request a review copy or for more details contact Debbie Hunter press@bradtguides.com

Tel +44 (0)1753 893444

 Title:                Lebanon                       Author: Paul Doyle

Publisher:        Bradt Travel Guides     Publication:     6^th December 2011

Price:  

            £15.99                          ISBN:               9781841623702

Amazon Highlights

Roger Harris has been travelling to the Amazon region for nearly 20 years, documenting the area’s natural history.
The Amazon is the world’s biggest rainforest, falling within the confines of nine countries and luring millions of visitors. Trying to decide where to go is a challenge for any traveller. Should you visit the Iguaçu Falls in Brazil, or Peru’s Pongo de Manseriche? Should your base be in Manaus or Iquitos? Where can you see a giant otter or swim with pink dolphins? Amazon Highlights showcases the best of the region – example itineraries and ideal starting points, a selection of ‘tried and tested’ lodges, and a review of leading tour operators and tour guides.  

Title:  South Africa Highlights      Author: Philip Briggs 
Publisher: Bradt Travel Guides     Publication: 17^th November 2011
Price:  £15.99       ISBN:  9781841623689

Title:  Amazon Highlights       Author: Roger Harris
Publisher: Bradt Travel Guides     Publication: 17^th November 2011
Price:  £15.99       ISBN:  9781841623740

Ben le Vay’s new Eccentric Cambridge commences with a caveat from the author, ‘ “Eccentric” carries no judgement or moral value, it just means not in the real centre… Bonkers, doolally, off-the-wall, barking, amusing, odd or crackers… those are judgements. Eccentricity is just a fact.’

That Cambridge is already a popular city for tourists keen to take a look at an old English university town is without doubt. Similarly, the recent Windsor, Middleton nuptials giving us the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have done no harm either.  However, Bradt’s new guide unearths many of the town’s less obvious, bizarre and scandalous aspects, whilst also providing important insights on how to pole a punt without looking like a complete prat!  From dotty Dons and what the colleges don’t want you to know, to hardy naked cyclists, bin-bound buskers, quirky pubs, wacky museums and weird walking tours, le Vay leads readers on merry and macabre jaunts around Cambridge’s curiosities.  As well as eating, shopping and staying eccentric, along with getting there in the first place, the guidebook offers a calendar of oddities to be explored throughout the year.  Though confessing only to A-levels at Cambridge Tech College, ‘I was far too thick/rebellious etc…’, Ben le Vay’s writing almost buzzes his new guide off the table with eccentric vibrations.

Benedict le Vay is a features editor on a leading British newspaper. He spends his spare time researching zany facts about the British and their way of life. He is also the author of Bradt’s Eccentric London and Eccentric Britain

Title:        Eccentric Cambridge
Author:       Benedict le Vay
Publisher:    Bradt Travel Guides
Publication:  10th November 2011
Price:        £9.99
ISBN:         978 1 84162 427 3

Eccentric Oxford romps through the city’s oddities, which like the town, its population, and architecture, are both ancient and modern.  Oxford’s literary connections are impossible to obscure, from Hardy and his Wessex novels, via CS Lewis’s conversion to Christianity – on a motorcycle ride from the city, to the last piece of middle England’s earth occupied by JRR Tolkein – in a cemetery in north Oxford.  Great writers aside, from an initial calendar events that is odd in anybody’s book, to its analysis of converging ley lines of cosmic forces, seemingly lined up along Magdalen Road, Eccentric Oxford is an amusing and informative companion for any visitor.  Including walks, shops and practical travel tips to circumvent an eccentric traffic system, Eccentric Oxford blows away preconceptions of a city that’s much more than one half of the boat race.

Benedict le Vay is a features editor on a leading British newspaper. He spends his spare time researching zany facts about the British and their way of life. He is also the author of Bradt’s Eccentric London and Eccentric Britain.

Title:        Eccentric Oxford
Author:       Benedict le Vay
Publisher:    Bradt Travel Guides
Publication:  10th November 2011
Price:        £9.99
ISBN:         978 1 84162 426 6

Sacred Britain’s chapters explore London, Southeastern England, Southwestern England, Central and Eastern England, Northern England, Wales and Scotland.  The Grave of the Unknown Warrior ‘among kings’ in Westminster Abbey; the witch of Cumbria’s mysterious Long Meg stone circle; Lindisfarne’s monkish redoubt at the wet end of the 62-mile St Cuthbert’s Way footpath; and the Scottish Borders’ Kagyu Samye Ling Tibetan Centre, a homage to a people and culture China would rather have us forget, are all intriguing if not surprising inclusions.  Karl Marx’s Highgate tomb warrants an entry too, despite the big beard’s godless creed.  And as football usurps religion as the contemporary mass’s opiate of choice, verses on Old Trafford’s hallowed turf, floodlight spires reaching skywards, dubious prophets jogging on hallowed turf and disciples singing songs of praise… fit right in.  Featured elsewhere, the sycamore tree altar to 20th Century Boy, Marc Bolan, and Diana’s island tomb on the Althorp estate resonate differently.  Martin’s conclusion is that ‘the innate and acquired atmosphere of a place is what makes it ‘sacred’… a sacred place is one that needs to be felt in the heart as well as viewed with the eye.’ – a subtlety captured sensitively in his book.

Martin Symington is a UK-based travel journalist and author who has written for national newspapers, travel magazines and publishers in a career spanning more than 20 years. Martin has won numerous awards including, in 2005, the British Guild of Travel Writers’ Travel Writer of the Year.  He lives with his family quite near the mysterious Avebury Stone Circle.

Title:        Sacred Britain
Author:       Martin Symington
Publisher:    Bradt Travel Guides
Publication:  October 2011
Price:        £16.99
ISBN:         978 1 84162 363 4

Buses may have dodged the 60s ‘Beeching Axe’ but there was no escape from 80s deregulation – in a competitive market private operators counted costs and valued public service as nothing.  Profitability was key and in parts of rural Britain buses soon achieved the same semi-mythical status as free school milk and candy cigarettes in tales recalled by granny.  However, despite the term ‘charabanc’ having recently been declared extinct by Collins dictionary, Bradt’s new guide suggests that bus travel is back in fashion, boosted by its sustainable profile, a growing cohort of bus-pass holders, and those with a weather eye to economical exploration who prefer to look at the view rather than the traffic ahead.  ‘Buses divert to what was described by a fellow passenger on one journey as ‘all those silly places.’  They meander through villages, potter down country lanes, and squeeze between cottages nearly removing their thatched roofs, while we are free to gaze into gardens and over the countryside.’ says Hilary Bradt in her foreword.  Journeys featured range from 30 minutes to three hours, traversing rural and urban settings, mixing small independent operators and large nationally recognisable companies. Revealing recommended pubs and cafes, nearby walks, historical gems and informative background along each route, Bus-Pass Britain is an enticing invitation to partake in serendipitously sociable discovery via the medium of local buses.

Title:        Bus-Pass Britain
Editors:      Nicky Gardner & Susanne Kries
Publisher:    Bradt Travel Guides
Publication:  October 2011
Price:        £15.99
ISBN:         978 1 84162 376 4

Hilary Bradt introduced Kate Simon, Travel Editor of The Independent on Sunday, and then Joanna Marsh, from the Turkish Culture and Tourism Office, before travel writer, political commentator and former MP Matthew Parris commended all the finalists, reading out a favourite passage from each.   The overall winner was Simon Duncan for his piece The Disappearing Beach recounting a narrow escape whilst driving in New Zealand.  Simon wins a holiday for two in Eastern Turkey, a copy of Bradt’s new Eastern Turkey and a future commission from the Independent on Sunday, as well as having his winning article published in the paper’s travel section on 31st July.

The prize for the ‘Best Unpublished Writer’ was chosen by Jonathan Lorie.  This went to Helen Watson for her piece The Art of Stillness, describing a becalming experience in Nicaragua.  Helen wins a place on one of Jon’s acclaimed Travellers’ Tales residential travel-writing courses.

Before leaving, Matthew Parris was presented with a wire-mesh llama sculpted by Hilary Bradt as a thank you for his encouragement to budding writers, and for supporting this event over several years – for those who don’t know, Matthew keeps several llamas at his Derbyshire home.

So great is the problem posed by alien species that a consensus amongst conservation groups has discerned it to be the third greatest threat to the planet’s ecology after habitat destruction and overpopulation. 100 Alien Invaders’ author Gill Williams states ‘The biggest impacts of invasive species are felt on small islands. Here, the specialist natives haven’t needed to develop systems to cope with tough competition. They’re not able or equipped to move with the times.’ Gill goes on to quote some alarming statistics; 10,000 – the number of invasive species in Europe; 75% – the rise in Europe’s alien species since 1980. The RSPB, Europe’s largest wildlife conservation charity, states that ‘invasive non-native species have been involved in the extinction of 68 out of the 135 bird species lost in the wild globally over the last 500 years.’ 100 Alien Invaders describes plants and animals – spread sometimes as stowaways and sometimes during misguided attempts at biological control – that thrive outside the natural checks and balances built up over millennia of evolution. Chapters examine killer bees and cane toads, which have proved obvious terrors, but also focus on others, like harlequin ladybirds and water hyacinth, that pose a more insidious threat. The result of exhaustive research, 100 Alien Invaders catalogues some of the planet’s most destructive life forms in a hardback exposé that may change forever your view of house sparrows and hedgehogs…

Gill Williams was born in New Zealand and has been writing, broadcasting and making TV programmes about travel, wildlife and conservation for more than three decades. Together with her filmmaker husband Steve Hills, she runs travel and wildlife film unit Wildside UK Productions. The pair is also the team behind greentravelguides.tv – internet TV that shows how to travel without trashing the planet.

Title: 100 Alien Invaders
Author: Gill Williams
Publisher: Bradt Travel Guides
Publication: August 2011
Price: £16.99
ISBN: 978 1 84162 359 7

By Donald Greig, MD Bradt Travel Guides

Kaieteur Falls, Guyana

Independent since 1966, Guyana was part of the British psyche for a century and a half, but in the years since, though it remains the only country in South America where English is the official language, its presence has faded from the national consciousness. However, recently a degree of recognition has returned with leading experts such as David Attenborough broadcasting loudly the importance of Guyana’s vast swathes of untouched rainforest and staggering array of wildlife. I visited this one-time outpost of sugar and cotton in May on a trip designed to coincide with the development of the second edition of Kirk Smock’s excellent guide to Guyana. It’s fair to say I haven’t been so inspired by an adventure/wildlife destination since first visiting Tanzania over 20 years ago. The sense of discovery at that time – when my guide and I camped at the bottom of the Ngorongoro Crater, alone save for the wildlife – is something I found again in this little-visited corner of South America.

Guyana typifies for me the sort of emerging destination that Bradt has supported in its guidebooks since Hilary Bradt founded the company almost 40 years ago. Eco-tourism – real eco-tourism, of the sort where local people own, staff and reap the benefits from the village lodges, is developing here at a pace which is as sustainable as it is engaging. And the wildlife is world-class: in one week we spotted capybara, black caiman (the world’s largest alligator), giant anteater and jaguar, as well as around 60 of Guyana’s 800 bird species, including harpy eagle and the startlingly orange cock-of-the-rock, Guyana’s national bird.

Since returning I have been asked frequently ‘Would you go back?’, perhaps the most telling of all verdicts for any destination. The answer? You bet.

Bradt’s second edition Guyana guide is due out in August; for more details click here

New Titles

100 Alien Invaders, by Gill Williams.  Publication August 2011

No, not little green men, though it’s true some invaders are both little and green, rather an exploration of non-native species and the dramatic, often unforeseen, effects they can have on delicate indigenous eco-systems.  So great is the problem that a consensus amongst conservation groups considers the impact of non-native species to be the third greatest threat to the planet’s ecology after habitat destruction and overpopulation. In a specific example the RSPB states that ‘invasive non-native species have been involved in the extinction of 68 out of the 135 bird species lost in the wild globally over the last 500 years.’  In Europe, controlling non-native species has become a political priority and draft EU legislation is scheduled for debate in 2012.  Spread sometimes as stowaways, sometimes by misguided attempts at biological control, non-native species exist outside the natural checks and balances built through millennia of evolution.  Some aliens, such as killer bees and cane toads, are obvious terrors, others like harlequin ladybirds and water hyacinth pose a more insidious threat.  100 Alien Invaders is the result of exhaustive research by author Gill Williams and brings together some of the planet’s most destructive species in a hard back exposé that may change forever the way you look at house sparrows and hedgehogs…  More…

New Editions

Cameroon, edition 3 by Ben West. Publication July

Nestled between Chad, Nigeria, Central African Republic, Gabon, Congo and Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon occupies a colourful West African neighbourhood leading some to call it ‘the melting pot of Africa’.  Details of city life in Youndé and Doula have been fully updated, along with descriptions of colourful local culture, from markets to makossa music.  For trekkers, if tackling the highest mountain in West Africa appeals, Bradt’s guide points the way for an ascent of Mount Cameroon’s sulphurous 4,095m summit.  Elsewhere, chapters feature Cameroon’s wildlife-rich rain forests, home to over a thousand native species, including critically endangered lowland gorillas. Finally, highly pertinent health and security advice, often much overstated for life in the rubberised easy-wipe reality of Western Europe, is presented rationally and clearly.  This new edition, still the only dedicated English language travel guide, remains essential reading for all those visiting Cameroon.  More…

Cape Verde, edition 5 by Aisling Irwin and Column Wilson. Publication Out Now!

The peak of the property boom fuelled by pre financial crisis holiday home purchases has definitely passed.  However, the Cape Verde archipelago, loosely moored off the coast of West Africa, still holds an intriguing allure for travellers. Whale-watching, diving, surfing and windsurfing are all explored in the fifth edition of Bradt’s guide, along with birdwatching and hiking amongst the islands’ volcanic peaks.  Updated insights into the Cape Verde music scene sit easily with a handy Crioulo primer, and in the event that the islands really get under your skin, a step-by-step guide to buying a house…  More…

Georgia, edition 4 by Tim Burford.  Publication Out Now!

Georgia is one of those countries evoking strong sentiments amongst those who have visited.  Almost without exception these feelings centre on heart-warming tales of generous hospitality, excellent food, fine wine and excellent brandy.  Historically, life in the Caucasus has always been a difficult balancing act, the wind of change that ushered the collapse of the Soviet Union just making the wobbles more visible.  This was self evident in 2008 when Georgia’s ongoing tensions with Russia surrounding the breakaway regions of South Ossetia in the north and Abkhazia in the west exploded into outright war.  Author Tim Burford’s concise chapter on Georgian history succinctly places the country’s current geopolitical situation in context.  From the nouveau riche resorts of the Black Sea coast, and cafés and culture of Tbilisi, to the well-versed Khevsureti inhabitants of pagan villages near the Chechen border, and wilderness hikes in the High Caucasus, edition four of Georgia succeeds in being both the definitive country guide and a good read to boot.  More…

Southern Africa Wildlife, edition 2 by Mike Unwin. Publication July

Naturalist Mike Unwin’s updated second edition of Southern African Wildlife, like its subject, disregards political boundaries and offers an overview of the best wildlife areas encompassed in a broad region south of the Zambezi and Kunene rivers: Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, southern Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. All major animal groups and their behavioural characteristics are covered, together with a synopsis of key wildlife sites and the diverse habitats within the southern African region. Over 320 colour photographs and numerous original line drawings make Southern African Wildlife a real pleasure to leaf through, and provide an enduring souvenir for a memorable trip.  More…

And Finally…

Bradt Travel Guides founder Hilary Bradt features at length in a BBC Fast Track documentary (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/fast_track/default.stm) describing her unconventional entrée into travel publishing, the subsequent evolution of Bradt Travel Guides, and Hilary’s quiet retirement in Devon with a cup of tea and a packet of Rich Tea biscuits…  That last bit was of course a little wide of the mark.  Hilary’s 70th birthday may be approaching but 10th July sees here running the Asics British 10K London Run 2011 in aid of Money for Madagascar (those interested in donating may do so at http://www.justgiving.com/Hilary-Bradt).  As Hilary herself says, ‘I’m 70 this year and goodness knows how much longer I will be able to wobble around the streets of London in their annual 10K race in July; to add to the masochism I’m also signed up for the Great South Run (10 miles, October). But if Money for Madagascar benefits then it’s all worth while. If you know me, you’ll know what Madagascar means to me, and even the smallest donation will make a difference.’