Many of us are accustomed to walking in the majestic hills and peaks of the Lake District - but what about the lakes themselves, and more specifically the islands? There are 36 islands of reasonable size (there are 38 in all, but two are little more than rocks). All are named and have fascinating histories, from hosting aristocratic homes to inspiring Beatrix Potter, from kennel islands for hunting dogs to saints' retreats to the model for Arthur Ransome's classic 'Swallows and Amazons'. Many are uninhabited - except by wildlife. Some you are welcome to stay on, some are private and require permission to land. Some are easy to get to, others more remotely placed. Robert Twigger has spent 36 days sleeping a different night on a different island. He follows a route through the Lake District, wild swimming to islands and using a super lightweight pack-raft to transport his gear. Each chapter covers a different lake. Within it, Twigger details his journey from lake to lake and from island to island. Woven into the narrative will be stories and historical material relating to the lake and island in question. Each island will be introduced with a hand-drawn map and illustrations will detail some of what he experiences and discovers. 36 Islands is modern book of Treasure Islands.
Author
Robert Twigger is a British author who has been described as, 'a 19th Century adventurer trapped in the body of a 21st Century writer'. He attended Oxford University and later spent a year training at Martial Arts with the Tokyo Riot Police. He has won the Newdigate prize for poetry, the Somerset Maugham award for literature and the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. In 1997, whilst on an expedition in Northern Borneo, he discovered a line of menhirs crossing into Kalimantan. In 1998 He was part of the team that caught the world's longest snake- documented in the Channel 4/National Geographic film and book Big Snake; later he was the leader of the expedition that was the first to cross Western Canada in a birchbark canoe since 1793. Most recently, in 2009-2010, he led an expedition that was the first to cross the 700 km Great Sand Sea of the Egyptian Sahara solely on foot. He has also written for newspapers and magazines such as The Daily Telegraph, Maxim and Esquire, and has published several poetry collections, including one in 2003, with Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing. Robert has published Real Men Eat Puffer Fish (2008), a humorous but comprehensive guide to frequently overlooked but not exclusively masculine pastimes, while his latest novel Dr. Ragab's Universal Language, was published to acclaim in July 2009. Robert now lives in Cairo, a move chronicled in his book Lost Oasis. He has lead several desert expeditions with 'The Explorer School'. Robert has given lectures on the topic of 'Lifeshifting', an approach which emphasises the need to centre one's life around meaning-driven motivation. Drawing on experiences working with indigenous peoples from around the world, he has spoken on 'work tribes' and polymathy. He has also spoken on leadership. Some of these talks have been to companies such as Procter and Gamble, Maersk Shipping, SAB Miller and Oracle computing.
