Cycling & Reading

Twice happy he who. not mistook, 
Hath read in Nature's mystic book.

[Andrew Marvell, Upon Appleton House]


There are many books and people who have inspired me to learn more of my habitat and the shires (Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Dunbartonshire, Stirlingshire, and Ayrshire) which surround and perforate the city where I live. Moreover, my own travels abroad have inspired me to discover more of the greater area in which I grew up and have a close land-relationship.

Many fellow travellers and champions of the local have confirmed what I have always intuited: that land and body are one, and that climate and mind are one. To be sure, now in the era of air-travel and speed, the idea of the local is soon dismissed. But it needn't be. 'Wonder, like charity,' writes Hugh McDonald in Rambles Round Glasgow in the 1850s, 'should begin at home.'

Anyway, these thoughts aside, here is a list of books that have engaged and inspired my own local cyclings around Glasgow:

H. McDonald, Rambles Round Glasgow in the 1850s

T.C.F. Brotchie, Some Sylvan Scenes Near Glasgow

T.C.F Brotchie, Glasgow Rivers and Streams

J.F. Anderson, The Country Houses, Castles & Mansions of Renfrewshire

J. Hood, The Country Houses, Castles & Mansions of Dunbartonshire

S. Hothersall, Archaeology Round Glasgow

G. Mason, The Castles of Glasgow & The Clyde

K. White, On Scottish Ground

R. Sutcliffe, Wildlife Around Glasgow

A. McIntosh, Soil & Soul

D. Semple, Joy in Living; A Free Man’s Philosophy

A. Cramb, Fragile Land: Scotland’s Environment

I.C. Lees, The Campsies and the Land of Lennox

D. Alexander & G. McCrae, Renfrewshire: A Scottish County’s Hidden Past

F.A. Walker, The South Clyde Estuary: An Illustrated Architectural Guide

E.B. Wilkie, 25 Cycle Routes in and around Glasgow

N. Shepherd, The Living Mountain

J. Dickson, The Wild Plants of Glasgow 

Butterfly Conservation Scotland, Butterflies & Day-flying moths of Glasgow

F.Mort, Dumbartonshire (also, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire)


And many of the 'Old Glasgow' series of books by John Hood, Sandra Malcolm, et al.

These are just a fraction of the books that have formed (or perhaps, unformed) my mind. I cannot thank Glasgow City Council library system (and by extension, Andrew Carnegie) enough for some of the gems they have thrown forth. Equally, the 12 floors of wonder at Glasgow University Library, and the Glasgow Room in the Mitchell Library, have provided me with days of unfettered bliss in opening my eyes to the world and beyond. Also, the Heritage Centre in Saltcoats for providing me with two very hard to find books by Dugald Semple, and the collective libraries of Dunbartonshire, Ayrshire and Lanarkshire for just being there. A world without libraries is a world without world, and I consider myself more just a little fortunate for having been born into a country where libraries are still considered important.

That being said, and to paraphrase Andrew Marvell, Nature’s book itself, though at times difficult to read beneath the side-notes of man, is perhaps the finest ‘book’ of them all, and it's only by getting out there under our own steam, whether cycling, walking or crawling, with plenty of pauses along the way, that we will be able to decipher its cryptic and mystic messages.

Level 5 Glasgow University Library : Biology, Botany, Zoology.