Julie Brominicks

Cader Idris: Let the Mountain Speak £14.99

Cader Idris holds deep significance for people and communities across Wales. Here Julie Brominicks presents a biography of the mountain, interspersing natural history with the stories of those who relate to it. Interwoven with the evolution of the mountain itself, humanity appears fleeting but significant; time spent on the mountain a privilege for being so precious. On regular visits, she meets those who live on and around the mountain, who work on its slopes, and hold its stories – wardens, farmers and hikers, birds, trees and sheep. The result is an encompassing portrait of a landscape steeped in history, myth and mystery which awes and inspires those who have reason to know it.

The Edge of Cymru £12.99

In the course of a year Julie Brominicks walked around the edge of Wales, having left her job in environmental education at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth. As an English incomer and a Welsh learner with a long association with the country, she was interested in what Wales meant, and how she did, or didn't, fit in to it.

The result is a fascinating alternative travelogue, which merges topography, history, environmentalism and observation of nature, to produce the 'long view' of Wales, discovering the roots of the present in the past, sometimes the distant past.

Brominicks' observations of the places and people she discovers around Wales are lively and well-written, although this is her journey (in many senses of that word) the narrative is at least as interested in who she meets and what she sees, especially of 'ordinary life'. She brings the everyday to life in thought-provoking ways, her book a new way of looking at the place where we live and the people with whom we live our lives, knowingly and unknowingly. Her writing is lyrical, studded with engaging and striking coinages and images which take the reader along the journey with her, both entertained and informed. The Edge of Cymru is a refreshingly new way of looking at place, identity, memory and belonging, especially through an environmental lens. It rewards the reader, whether they are interested in Wales specifically, or the world generally.

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