The Snow Tourist

The transformation begins as the first snowflakes swirl downwards, icing rooftops, blanketing fields, muffling sounds, and gradually repainting the world white. People walk with penguin steps, and children waddle in their layers, wide-eyed and amazed…

What is it about snow that leaves us spellbound? What draws us to play with it, sledge over it, tell stories about it, build our homes out of it, and sometimes even risk our lives in it? In this unique book – a sparkling mixture of eulogy, history and travelogue – self-confessed snow obsessive Charlie English wraps up warm and goes in search of the answers.

Combining on-the-slopes experience with off-piste research, Charlie follows in the footsteps of the Romantic poets across the Alps; learns how to build igloos with the Inuit on Baffin Island; counts snow-patches on the Cairngorms to detect signs of global warming; and tests his mettle on some of the most perilous peaks on earth, along the way meeting up with a flurry of fellow enthusiasts from avalanche survivors and champion skiers to climate scientists and snow-plough drivers.

Beautifully written and packed full of snowy facts, this is a book to delight anyone who reaches for their woolly hat the moment the flakes begin to fall.