As someone who grew up in Sussex and over many years walked throughout the County, it was pleasing and refreshing to find a new collection of walks.

Eddie Start has writing a wonderful compendium of rambles in East and West Sussex. Each walk comprises of : distance and timings; starting points for circular walks , Map OS references and information about car parks, footpaths and places to stop for refreshments.

The attention to detail is excellent and considers different eventualities. The walks range in time from one and half hours to around eight hours.

It is the additional details highlighting historical facts, geographical details and general knowledge linked to the locations that make the book extra interesting .

For someone who has covered many footpaths across both counties , this is definitely a welcome addition for walkers new to the area and those familiar with Sussex.

A book fall of charm and character and some brilliant walks to try this summer .

A useful summary of walks in Southern Sussex. Each walk has a short summary of the terrain including distance and timing, where to get refreshments and which Ordinance Survey map you could take with you. There are a few illustrations of distinctive features such as mills, churches and river crossings plus a handy route map at the start of each walk. The history connected with each walk is fascinating too. It would be a great companion on your walk.

Southern Sussex Tracks, Trails & Twittens by Eddie Startis : This is a walkers guide that explores southern Sussex. Walks from the coast to the High Weald, and across the South Downs. The details for each walk include: distance, timings; OS references and information about car parks, footpaths and cafe/ refreshment stops. There is a wealth of history, geographical details, local landmarks and places of interest included. It is a great book to take along when exploring or just following one of the detailed walks. A great resource.

There's little use to going on a country walk and racing through it. Likewise, there seems little use to having a walk described by a guide such as this that skimps and speeds through things. This has relevant photos, boxouts for the history, and more than enough detail for us to follow the track. It doesn't cram a day's walk onto a couple of pages such as some volumes. And – better still – when the pictures turn up they're relevant; when the history is called for it's fun to read.

This is very commendable stuff. I mean it's not perfect – what didn't work for me was the Sussex lingo dumped on us in the introduction (between us my mother and I have almost a century of living in Sussex to our name and neither of us knew what exactly a 'bostal' was), the verb-less semi-sentences that are used to itemise the merits of each walk, and the author's, er, sense of humour? Well, I had to find a way to describe phrases such as "an oxygen-depleted altitude of 35 metres above sea level".

But set against that I know enough about the place to know this is a decent effort. The shortest walk is a trim hike round Shoreham, old and new; perhaps the most gut-busting is, of course, up to Chanctonbury Ring. The split is even between East and West Sussex, but we are in the southern half of each county for sure – those North Downs can keep to theirselves. No, these are circular additions to the South Downs Way, as recently trod by Bill Bailey, and very decent selections of tracks looping round pleasantly rural villages.

That rurality could be a hindrance here – the databank for each walk nudges us to a place to do our own research into public transport, and even where it's actually, thankfully, established (the #17 through Henfield) we don't get the actual details needed. But given a car and companionship this would easily be a walking book you could actually complete – east to west we're not talking a great stretch, and even with Sussex's notorious lack of main roads going in that direction you could find little getting in the way of notching all of these off.

Would that mean Southern Sussex was completed then? Well, there or thereabouts. A status exceeded by these pages in accuracy, detail and pleasure. It is more than the money, though – even being full-colour this seems steep as regards RRP.