Max Leonard – författare

lanterne rouge (French | noun): The competitor who finishes last in the Tour de FranceFroome, Wiggins, Merckx – we know the winners of the Tour de France, but what about the men who finish last?Lanterne Rouge tells the forgotten, often inspirational and occasionally absurd stories of the last-placed rider. We learn of stage winners and former yellow jerseys who tasted life at the other end of the bunch; the breakaway leader who stopped for a bottle of wine and then took a wrong turn; the doper whose drug cocktail accidently slowed him down and the rider who was recognised as the most combative despite finishing at the back.Flipping the Tour de France on its head and examines what these stories tell us about ourselves, the 99% who don’t win the trophy, Lantern Rouge forces us to re-examine the meaning of success, failure and the very nature of sport.‘A lively account of largely forgotten men... It’s not easy to come up with an original angle on Le Tour, but with this rear view Leonard has managed the feat in style’ Independent on Sunday

Why do road cyclists go to the mountains? Many books tell you where the mountains are, or how long and how high. None of them ask ‘Why?’After all, cycling up a mountain is hard – so hard that, to many non-cyclists, it can seem absurd. But, for some, climbing a mountain gracefully (and beating your competitors up the slope) represents the pinnacle of cycling achievement. The mountains are where legends are forged and cycling’s greats make their names.Why are Europe’s mountain ranges professional cycling’s Wembley Stadium or its Colosseum? Why do amateurs also make a pilgrimage to these high, remote roads and what do we see and feel when we do?Why are the roads there in the first place?Higher Calling explores the central place of mountains in the folklore of road cycling. Blending adventure and travel writing with the rich narrative of pro racing, Max Leonard takes the reader from the battles that created the Alpine roads to the shepherds tending their flocks on the peaks, and to a Grand Tour climax on the ‘highest road in Europe’. And he tells stories of courage and sacrifice, war and love, obsession and elephants along the way.

The eight guides in the City Cycling Europe series are each devoted to a different city: London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Antwerp/Ghent, Berlin, Paris, Barcelona and Milan. Each compact volume features cycle-friendly neighbourhoods, itineraries, cycle maps and places to visit where cyclists are always welcome. Aimed primarily at those looking to take casual weekend breaks, there is also information for hardcore racing enthusiasts and special routes for those wishing to escape the traffic.

The hidden history of modernism in the mountainsIn southern France, high above the villas and the pleasure palaces of the Côte d’Azur, there is the Alpine Extension of the Maginot Line. These little-known fortifications were built before the Second World War to protect France from Mussolini. But nobody has successfully invaded over the Alps since Napoleon, and things didn’t quite turn out as the French expected…Now, the bunkers are marooned, forlorn and crumbling, in some of the most beautiful and remote parts of France. They are disappearing into the landscapes they once commanded, stray facts from a future passed, still waiting for an onslaught that never came.Join writer Max Leonard and photographer Camille McMillan as they uncover and document these hidden sites…New, expanded edition with additional photography120pp with a 24pp insert on grey paper stock75 full colour photographs and 30 one-colour photos by Camille McMillan, plus maps and diagramsEssay by Max Leonard227 x 170mm, portraitSoftcover with flaps

Taking us from the beginning of our story to the present day, A Cold Spell examines how ice has shaped our thoughts, actions and societies – and what it means for us that it is rapidly disappearing from our planet'A warm-hearted tale of the bizarre, something to cuddle up with in the bleak midwinter . . . Astonishing' THE TIMES 'Bracingly original . . . As the earth warms threateningly, there could hardly be a more pertinent time for a story like this’ MICHAEL PALIN'A book of limitless fascinations' OLIVIA LAING'Brightly written, nimbly researched and really quite delightful' LITERARY REVIEWIce has confounded, delighted and fascinated us since the first sparks of art and culture in Europe and it now underpins the modern world. Without ice, we would not feed ourselves or heal our sick as we do, and our towns and cities, countryside and oceans would look very different. Science would not have progressed along the avenues it did and our galleries and libraries would be missing many masterpieces.A Cold Spell uses this vital link to understanding our past to tell a surprising story of obsession, invention and adventure – how we have lived and dreamed, celebrated and traded, innovated, loved and fought over thousands of years. It brings together a sacrificial Incan mummy, Winston Churchill’s secret plans for unusual aircraft carriers, strange bones that shook Victorian beliefs about the world and a macabre journey into the depths of the human body. It is an original and unique way of looking at something that is literally all around us, whose loss confronts us daily in the news, but whose impact on our lives has never been fully explored.'[An] extraordinary, complete and utter history of the human experience of the cold stuff' JOHN LEWIS-STEMPEL, COUNTRY LIFE‘A thought-provoking chronicle of humanity . . . Leonard consistently frames ice in surprising and insightful ways, and in doing so lends it a magical quality’ GEOGRAPHICAL

Taking us from the beginning of our story to the present day, A Cold Spell examines how ice has shaped our thoughts, actions and societies – and what it means for us that it is rapidly disappearing from our planet'A warm-hearted tale of the bizarre, something to cuddle up with in the bleak midwinter . . . Astonishing' THE TIMES 'Bracingly original . . . As the earth warms threateningly, there could hardly be a more pertinent time for a story like this’ MICHAEL PALIN'A book of limitless fascinations' OLIVIA LAING'Brightly written, nimbly researched and really quite delightful' LITERARY REVIEWIce has confounded, delighted and fascinated us since the first sparks of art and culture in Europe and it now underpins the modern world. Without ice, we would not feed ourselves or heal our sick as we do, and our towns and cities, countryside and oceans would look very different. Science would not have progressed along the avenues it did and our galleries and libraries would be missing many masterpieces.A Cold Spell uses this vital link to understanding our past to tell a surprising story of obsession, invention and adventure – how we have lived and dreamed, celebrated and traded, innovated, loved and fought over thousands of years. It brings together a sacrificial Incan mummy, Winston Churchill’s secret plans for unusual aircraft carriers, strange bones that shook Victorian beliefs about the world and a macabre journey into the depths of the human body. It is an original and unique way of looking at something that is literally all around us, whose loss confronts us daily in the news, but whose impact on our lives has never been fully explored.'[An] extraordinary, complete and utter history of the human experience of the cold stuff' JOHN LEWIS-STEMPEL, COUNTRY LIFE‘A thought-provoking chronicle of humanity . . . Leonard consistently frames ice in surprising and insightful ways, and in doing so lends it a magical quality’ GEOGRAPHICAL

VINTAGE ALPINE POSTCARDS celebrates our relationship with Europe's great mountain range. These dispatches from the Alps take us from men in bowler hats with stout ropes nonchalantly crawling over crevasses, through the gilded age of grand hotels and sleigh rides, to the modernist concrete infrastructure of mountaintop restaurants and cable-car stations - framing the changing the way we've experienced landscape and leisure over more than a hundred years. Underlying the Alpenkitsch is a serious examination of our relationship to nature and how we have used and abused the beauties of the natural world. Postcards travel through time as well as space, they arrive with messages from our former selves. But, like sun-burnished memories of holidays past, they do not necessarily correspond to reality. Postcard makers have always combined reality with artifice to conjure fantastic spaces, worlds in which the sky is always blue, the pine trees resplendent and there is always plenty of fresh powder. These skaters, skiers, sledgers and St Bernards will surprise and delight mountain aficionados, transporting them to a high altitude holiday wherever they are.

The first book to celebrate the history, vintage style and visual heritage of the UK's outdoor clothing brands. When a British expedition reached the summit of Everest in 1953, it put British mountaineering at the top of the world. In the decades that followed, there was an explosion in the popular love of the outdoors, and outdoor clothing boomed. What hikers and mountaineers wore evolved from woolly jumpers, army surplus and cotton or tweed into highly technical specialist gear. Mostly responsible for this was a small group of climbers, who couldn't buy the products they needed and so decided to make them, sowing the seeds for the global brands - Berghaus, Craghoppers, Karrimor, Mountain Equipment, Rab, Sprayway and others - we know today. Still worn in the toughest environments imaginable, British outdoor clothing is also now ubiquitous - equally seen on hikers, everyday dog-walkers and vintage gear lovers in east London, Manchester's Northern Quarter or Tokyo. Mountain Style: British Outdoor Clothing 1953-2000 is the first illustrated book to tell this story, from the days of postwar austerity, through the colour explosion of the 1980s, to the 1990s, when outdoor clothing became embedded in football and rave subcultures and crossed into the mainstream. It celebrates the outsiders, the problem solvers and the mavericks: the manufacturing pioneers and the mountaineers who from humble beginnings went further, faster and higher -setting the template for what we all wear in the outdoors, and inadvertently creating style classics along the way. Alongside interviews with those at the birth of the brands, Mountain Style features vintage brochures, adverts and photos, plus new studio photography. From down jackets that summited Everest in 1953 to the first Gore-Tex and multicoloured fleeces, via logos, materials and more, it is an indispensable companion for outdoor and style lovers in the UK and beyond.