I was in a little thrift store the other day and decided to give their limited selection of books a glance, on the off chance they might have something remotely interesting (note the skeptical attitude). 
I was surprised to find myself drawn to a travel, or rather, trekking, book, Clear Waters Rising: A Mountain Walk Across Europe by Nicholas Crane. Maybe it was the picture of mountains and alpine tundra on the cover, but something about this book called to me, even though I am not a devotee of the genre. (As far as I can recall I've only read one trek book, Full Tilt by Dervla Murphy, and that was only because it was a Christmas present! And OK, I did watch Long Way Round.)
When I got it home I realized that this book has possibilities. This fellow walked along the mountain spine of Europe from Santiago del Compostela to Istanbul, i.e., from the greatest pilgrimage destination in Christianity to the city that was essentially the centre of Christianity until it fell to the Ottomans in 1453. The second to last plate in the book is of Hagia Sofia, once the greatest church in Christendom, later converted to a mosque and now a museum. His path is also the dividing line between Northern and Southern Europe, and the half-way mark is where the Iron Curtain used to fall, with Western nations on one side of this "fulcrum" and former Soviet states on the other.
Judging by the reviews on Amazon the author doesn't get very deeply into the various philosophical angles of his journey, but that doesn't mean his readers can't. I've just read the highly amusing introduction (in which he describes his many attempts to propose to his wife, also an accomplished trekker) and can't wait to get into the rest of it.
UPDATE: So far so good. First literary reference, page 14 (Gabriel García Márquez); first word I didn't know, page 16 (apothegm). I like it.
