Never Leave the Dog Behind
Our love of dogs and mountains
- Paperback
- ISBN: 9781839810381128 pages
- Author
- Helen Mort
- Publication date
- 14 Jan 2021
Paperback available now
‘We live in a world populated by dog lovers, where many of us regard them as members of the family. We are fascinated by them: either anthropomorphising our pets or obsessing about the ways they differ from us. And mountains – theatres of risk, drama and heroism – provide the perfect stage for us to enact our canine fascination in all its pathos and poetry. In short, the hills bring into focus just how much we love being with dogs.’
Dogs specialise in getting on with humans, and tales of faithful hounds in hostile environments form part of our cultural history. Award-winning writer Helen Mort sets out to understand the singular relationship between dogs, mountains and the people who love them. Along the way, she meets search and rescue dogs, interviews climbers and spends time on the hills with hounds. The book is also a personal memoir, telling the author’s own story of falling in love with a whippet called Bell during a transformative year in the Lake District.
Never Leave the Dog Behind is a compelling account of mountain adventures and misadventures, and captures the unbridled joy of heading to the hills with a four-legged friend.
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Available as an ebook:
Helen Mort is a writer, trail runner and climber who lives in Sheffield. She teaches creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, and her published work includes poetry, fiction and non-fiction, with a particular interest in women and mountaineering. Her first poetry collection, Division Street (Chatto & Windus, 2013), was shortlisted for the Costa Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize, and won the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. In 2015, Helen was chosen as one of the Next Generation poets. Her first novel, Black Car Burning (Chatto & Windus, 2019), was longlisted for the Portico Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize. Helen is the author of Lake District Trail Running (Vertebrate, 2016) and editor of Waymaking (Vertebrate, 2018); and she has written for Alpinist, Climb, the Guardian, the Independent and Radio 3. In 2017, she was a judge for the Man Booker International Prize and chair of judges for the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature. She was a judge for the 2019 Banff Mountain Book Prize. She has lived with a variety of dogs, but thinks a house is not a home without a whippet.
- Title: Never Leave the Dog Behind
- Subtitle: Our love of dogs and the mountains
- Author: Helen Mort
- Imprint: Vertebrate Publishing
- ISBN: 978-1-912560-88-2 (hardback); 978-1-83981-038-1 (paperback)
- Rights: World
- Publication date: 1 October 2020 (hardback); 14 January 2021 (paperback)
- Edition: First
- Size: 198mm x 129mm
- Extent: 128 pages
- Cover: Hardback/paperback
- Weight: 400/300g
- Retail price: £15.99 (hardback); £8.99 (paperback)
Also available as an ebook:
- Imprint: Vertebrate Digital
- ISBN: 978-1-912560-89-9
- Publication Date: 1 October 2020
- Price: £12.99
Even though this is non-fiction, there is a beauty to the writing, with moments that really made me stop and think. – Liz Robinson, LoveReading
For both dog lovers and the rest of the readership, this is a fascinating book by Helen Mort of life in the mountains with different types of canines – Whippets to Border Collies, Staffies to Retrievers. An excellent read! – John Burland, Ilkley Gazette
The book is a personal memoir, but also features the tales of climbers and search and rescue dog handlers among others alongside a varied cast of dogs to fall in love with, so there’s something for all dog lovers to enjoy. – Dog Friendly Sheffield
Each chapter is a melodic short story reminiscent of another favourite author, Nan Shepherd. Helen’s stories take you from the flanks of Helvellyn, to sleeping under the stars, and trail running and climbing in my old stomping grounds in the Peak District, interspersed with snippets of poetry including the author’s own wonderful, The Dogs. A fantastic, evocative book, perfect for any hillwalker or dog lover. – Love, From Scotland