Nicholas Crane

Winner of 1997 Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award. The author's 17 month adventure exploring the mountains of Spain, the Alps, Carpathian mountains and the Balkans.

Author's funny and exhilarating cycling adventures through more than 20 countries;a hilariously funny introduction to the world of cycling; he and his cousin endure the most appalling deprivations to triumph by looking at each other and saying "That was a bit of a laugh!"

The year is 1735. Twelve unruly men board ships bound for South America. Their mission? To discover the true shape of the earth. They will be exposed to a wilderness of dangers none can imagine. The survivors won't return for ten years. An almost forgotten moment in history, a story for our times, this is the true story of the mission to discover the shape of the earth. Pre-order it now . . . They knew the world wasn't a sphere. Either it stretched at the poles or it bulged at the equator. But which? They needed to know because accurate maps saved lives at sea and made money on land. But measuring the earth was so difficult that most thought it impossible.

The world's first international team of scientists was sent to a continent of unmapped rainforests and ice-shrouded volcanoes where they attempted to measure the length on the ground of one degree of latitude. Beset by egos and disease, storms and earthquakes, mutiny and murder, they struggled for ten years to reach the single figure they sought. Latitude is an epic story of survival and science set in mountain camps and remote observatories. It is also a story of exploration in which an unruly gaggle of misfits made breakthroughs in rubber and platinum, gravity and fogbows, quinine and Inca archaeology. A breathtaking tale of courage in adversity, it is celebrated today as the first modern exploring expedition.

Two degrees west is the line of longitude that runs through England from the North Sea to the English Channel.The author spent a summer walking its length, delighting in the variety of people, places and landscapes.