Outside Days

Max Hastings is best known as an acclaimed journalist and military historian. But what is perhaps less well known is his love of the countryside and its pursuits, above all fishing and shooting, which he indulges as often as he can escape his urban working environment. In this classic selection of gentle, contemplative musings, Max Hastings shares some of his favourite rural moments; tramping the snipe bogs of Waterford; dogging hedges in Hampshire and moors in Sutherland; casting a fly from Scotland to Iceland and Alaska; and shooting in India and the west of Ireland. Combining a journalist's knack for storytelling with the enthusiasm of the dedicated amateur, Outside Days is the perfect companion for anyone who revels in the freedom of the outdoors.

Max Hastings is the author of thirty books, most about conflict, including Bomber Command, Armageddon, Das Reich, The Korean War, The Battle for the Falklands, Vietnam, Operation Pedestal and Abyss, and editor of two anthologies. He worked as a reporter for BBC television and British newspapers, covering eleven wars, including Vietnam, the 1973 Yom Kippur war and the Falklands war. Between 1986 and 2002 he served as editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, then editor of the Evening Standard. He has won many prizes for both journalism and his books. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of King's College, London, and was knighted in 2002. He has two grown-up children, Charlotte and Harry, and lives with his wife Penny in West Berkshire, where they garden enthusiastically.

Introduction - i: Introduction Chapter - 1: Great expectations Chapter - 2: Paternal blessings Chapter - 3: Scottish idylls Chapter - 4: Pointing and setting Chapter - 5: 'Wind him in, then!' Chapter - 6: The art of the possible Chapter - 7: Not exactly Halford Chapter - 8: Ireland in the rough Chapter - 9: Limited rods Chapter - 10: Running away to the river bank Chapter - 11: Smoked salmon for break fast Chapter - 12: High days and by-days Chapter - 13: A few arguments for fox hunting Chapter - 14: A taste of Alaska Chapter - 15: Confessions to a gamebook Chapter - 16: Not so pukka sahibs Chapter - 17: Porridge and kippers Chapter - 18: Grouse fever Chapter - 19: The sporting wife Chapter - 20: In praise of the yeoman dog Chapter - 21: A stalk without a stalker Chapter - 22: The Tweed 'auxiliary' Chapter - 23: Guineas and tigers Chapter - 24: Duck soup Chapter - 25: Long Pond Chapter - 26: A shoot in the shires Chapter - 27: Bag and baggage Chapter - 28: Hit and miss in Argyll Chapter - 29: Reflections on a December pheasant peg Chapter - 30: Chancing a snipe Chapter - 31: Literary diversions Chapter - 32: Unsporting occasions Chapter - 33: Back-end day Chapter - 34: A future for field sports