This is what is being said about my recent title: Forty Degrees of Latitude: A Journey of Extremes

The enticing title tells the story of Howard Beck’s journey through Chile from south to north and it is a good read. The author’s writing is sometimes lyrical, often lively and amusing, always informative as he describes the pains (Paines?) and pleasures of travelling alone. The author travels to places most of us will only know from television, magazines and, of course, books.

It is a country of contrasts which the writer revels in, from the windblown south, to mountains, glaciers, volcanoes and earthquakes, to forests and to the deserts of the north. He meets many ‘characters’ as he takes boats, buses, light aircraft of dubious provenance and “an individual prepared to drive me” to areas of Chile very few English will have visited. This is not a journey with a rigid timetable; he hears of unusually good weather in Chiloé so he postpones his passage north for a while to visit this isolated and mysterious island archipelago.

I was fascinated by the flora, fauna and varied terrain he describes so well with only the occasional lapse into simile overload. Having said that, some of Howard’s comparisons are brilliantly observed and often amusing. like his depiction of a busy bus station where ‘the place resembles “an anthill poked with a stick.” It is in his descriptions of his love for wild forests that the writing becomes poetical and moving, probably partly because I would be uncomfortable, at the least, to be in this situation.

Why does he do it? The author gives us several insights into why he loves to travel and to travel alone; the most evocative for me was when he is in the high Andes and “Suddenly I was filled with a euphoric glee at my … release from civilisation by coming to Chile” with nobody there to interrupt his thoughts with alternative ideas. Add to this his “thirst” for knowledge about the history, customs and differing lifestyles and I began to understand why he undertook, what to me appears to be, such a hazardous trip.

I would have loved some maps and pictures but of course publishing these days is expensive so I got the atlas out to follow the writer’s journey and visited each area via the internet, finding stunning photographs to back up the descriptions.

I feel I haven’t been able to do justice to this excellent book; if you want to know more about the pains and pleasures of travelling several thousand kilometres, alone in a remote and varied country I would urge you to read it.

Barbara J Pickersgill
13 Oct 2014

For details visit: http://www.howardmbeck.co.uk