Hot Footing Around The Emerald Isle by Ian Middleton (Schmetterling Productions, £6.99)

THIS is the story of a two-month journey across the Emerald Isle with a backpack and a guidebook for company, plus the people and places the author meets and comes to on the way.

An entertaining travalogue in the Pete McCarthy and Tony Hawks' mould, it is the indomitable spirit of the Irish and their sideways swipe at life that always shines through.

David Chapman