"A Third Summer in Kintyre" completes Angus Martin's trilogy of books about consecutive summers spent walking and cycling in Kintyre, exploring the history and natural history of the places he visits and documenting his own past.
In this book, which covers the year 2015, he also looks back on his literary beginnings and mentors, in particular the poets Iain Crichton Smith, Edwin Morgan and Robin Fulton Macpherson.
Largiebaan, an area of cliffs and Atlantic seascapes, features prominently in his accounts of searches for botanical rarities.
But his journeys also take him into North Kintyre, where he visits ruined settlements in Carradale Glen, the deserted shepherd's cottage of Lagloskin, and a laird's grave in a remote glen near Killean.
As readers have come to expect, the reach of Martin's curiosity is broad, encompassing place-names, languages, literature, genealogy, social history, folklore, flora and fauna, all interspersed with human presences, people met and people remembered.
For all who love Kintyre and its little-visited scenic corners, this book will evoke the pleasures of times past and perhaps also inspire personal journeys in the author's footsteps.
