Quiet for a Tuesday: Solo in the Algerian Sahara

Tom Sheppard authored two editions of his ‘Vehicle-dependent Expedition Guide’ – a book that won accolades and a reprint order (Edn 2.1) from the Royal Geographical Society and has sold worldwide. He also wrote the well-established ‘Four-by-four Driving’, the fourth in a series, used by the Land Rover driving school (UK and US). To a tally of more than 100,000 miles of desert expeditions and exploration – including the first lateral, 6000 mile, coast-to-coast crossing of the Sahara, for which he gained the Royal Geographical Society's Ness Award – Tom Sheppard now tells the tale of one of his trips: his most recent. ‘Quiet, for a Tuesday’ is the story of a solo, off-tracks Sahara expedition where the author faced ... problems. His maps and satellite images were confiscated in mid-Sahara. But despite this, he went on to complete a complex, demanding and often hazardous 700-mile, off-piste, uninhabited route to visit and photograph the extraordinary landscapes he was determined to see. Not reckless buccaneering; a carefully calculated risk, executed with considerable care. But with a few nasty surprises. The author writes well. His text has been described as ‘fluent and literary’. The story is told tongue-in-cheek – with humour, a passion for the desert, a boundless sense of wonder, a love of nature, technical detail – and suspense. It is accompanied by achingly beautiful pictures of Algeria's pristine Sahara. The story finishes with some sharp opinion and – with signs of a light at the end of the tunnel – proposals for a Protected Area in the Sahara. The design and production values of this book are truly exceptional – minutely-integrated text-and-picture placing and high-definition stochastic print; on sewn 16pp sections to lie flat when opened. As Sheppard says, with a tolerant grin, ‘Not many in our ‘Unh-wha’-nah!’ society will even notice it .