ROMANCE

The Oldest Post Office in the World: And Other Scottish Oddities

by Hamish Brown
Sandstone, dist. by Dufour. 2012. 192p. photogs. maps. ISBN 9781905207954. $21.95. TRAV
COPY ISBN
Scottish travel writer Brown (Hamish's Mountain Walk: The First Traverse of All the Scottish Munros in One Journey) has produced one of the more peculiar travel guides currently available. It's a handsome volume, fully illustrated with color photographs, featuring detailed driving instructions for locating the 94 "oddest locations" in Scotland, with maps and even Ordnance Survey Land Ranger reference numbers. Brown's concept of an oddity is occasionally at odds with the average reader's concept of the truly strange: how out of the ordinary is a portrait painted on glass at the Clan Macpherson Museum in Newtonmore, or a statue of the Virgin Mary in the Hebrides? On the other hand, Kelburn castle near Glasgow with its exterior decorated with graffiti certainly qualifies as an unusual sight, as does furniture made from coal at the Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery.
VERDICT Considered a popular veteran outdoor and travel writer in Scotland, Brown has a chatty style and charming sense of humor, which make his book an enjoyable armchair read. However, it will have limited appeal owing to its narrow focus.
Reviewed by Janet N. Ross, formerly with Washoe Cty. Lib. Syst., Sparks, NV , Jan 11, 2013
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