The Pembrokeshire Coast Path

John Cleare, www.franceslincoln.com, £16.99, ISBN 978 0 71123 034 7

Published to coincide with the national trail’s 40th anniversary, this beautiful collection of images is photographer John Cleare’s loving birthday card to the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. Thankfully, not all of the 298km/186-mile route from Amroth to St Dogmaels is bathed in predictable sunshine, since some of the most evocative shots are those of rocks rising out of stormy seas and thick sea mist. But what strikes you most thumbing through these pages – apart from this undoubtedly being one of the world’s finest walks – is that the rocks really are the stars of the show. It’s a symphony of stratal sandstone, lichen-blotched limestone, pebble-strewn beaches and dramatic caves that had the geologist in me enraptured. Dominic Bates