FORTY DEGREES OF LATITUDE: A Journey of Extremes by Howard M Beck,£10.35

HOWARD Beck is a adventurous Yorkshireman, who now lives over the county border in Lancashire. He has written close to 20 books since penning his first, published in 1984, about 150 years of cave exploration centred on Gaping Gill near Ingleton.

He is also a regular short story contributor on a variety of themes to publications such as the Dalesman and Yorkshire Ridings magazines.

Over the years, Beck's love of caving, nature and photography have taken him to some of the world's most remote and inhospitable locations - including Papua New Guinea and the Atacama Desert in South America.

In this book, he returns to that region to explore Chile - a land he describes initially as like "an uncut diamond".

This is an eminently readable travelogue, carrying the reader with him on his 15,000 kilometre journey - traversed on foot and by a variety of transport means, including bus, ferry, bicycle, taxi, aircraft and inflatable Zodiac.

The book is peppered with fascinating information about Chilean people and their history - and the story of their country is told with both humour and affection.

ALLAN TUNNINGLEY