Book excerpt: Ruskin Bond is an inveterate diarist, but over the years the nature of what he wants to record has changed, for ‘In the autumn of my life, I grow reflective’. Although Landour itself is a magical world—where every month has its own flower, every walker his own style, and the countryside is filled with a beauty all its own—in his mind Bond ranges further afield. In Landour Days, he ponders on the experience of being a writer, on writers he has known and those that he loves reading, and on critics, handwriting and typewriters. Filled with warmth and gentle humour, Landour Days captures the timeless rhythm of life in the mountains, and the serene wisdom of one of India’s best-loved writers.