Snowdonia: Park Under Pressure

Rob Collister £11.99

At first glance, you might dismiss this as the archetypal coffee-table filler, with its sumptuous photos, matt finish and text chronicling the work of the Snowdonia Society since its founding in 1966. Actually, it's anything but. Personalised, subjective, cobbled together from anecdotal evidence and old annual reports by long-standing member Rob Collister, the book is the literary equivalent of a fireside chat as the author pours 40 years-worth of frustrations and victories onto its pages. You can feel it all: anger at the government for building a nuclear power station; suspense as the society fought - and narrowly escaped -an application to prospect for gold and copper: triumph, too, as society member Tom Kinsey blocked a fleet of ten 'unauthorised' lorries from dumping slate waste. Ultimately this is an intimate portrait of a small society battling away at the establishment to preserve a worthy cause: Snowdonia National Park.

Pesda Press, www.pesdapress.com
ISBN: 978 1 90609 501 7

Reviewed on 27/11/2007 by Ruth Somerville