Absolute Altitude - Martin Buckley

In this exciting and unusual travel book, Martin Buckley journeys through many places, from Benbecula to Rarotonga, from Sudan to New Zealand, from Corsica to Tucson, Arizona - but the country he explores is a romantic and dangerous place that seduces all who travel there - the sky.

Three years ago, Martin Buckley gained a pilot's licence, and set off to 'hitch-hike' by plane around the world. His encounters with a range of sometimes eccentric and always obsessive pilots led to aid flights through war zones in a UN Cessna, aerobatics in a jet fighter, chasing goats across snowy mountains by helicopter and touching the edge of the stratosphere in a Learjet.

The result is a wholly original travel book, free-spirited and often very funny, weaving a bird's-eye view of aviation's peculiar history into the narrative and offering intimate insights into the passion and perils of the pilot's seat.

Martin Buckley has lived in France, Italy, Turkey and India and has worked as a journalist in over forty countries. For ten years he was a producer with Radio 4 and is still a regular contributor to From Our Own Correspondent (Radio 4). He has presented TV travel documentaries for Discovery Channel and has been a columnist in the Daily Telegraph and the Observer. He is the author of the highly praised travel books, An Indian Odyssey, Grains of Sand and Absolute Altitude. He is married with one young son and currently divides his time between London and Corsica.