What do the jagged little porcupine Stac Pollaidh, the hulking rock peak Binnein Shuas and the heathery hump Tinto have in common? They're all Grahams, among the 224 Scottish hills between 2000-2499 feet high with an all-round prominence of at least 150m. Its entry criteria may be a curious mix of metric and imperial but the list does have a logic, slotting in neatly below the Munros (3000ft+) and Corbetts (2500-2999). Together they give pretty comprehensive coverage of Scotland's mountains, but if these three haven't left you with list fatigue yet more classifications do exist - the Donalds for instance, the 89 2000-foot peaks and 51 subsidiary tops found in the Scottish Lowlands (no particular prominence required, it's all a bit fuzzy and subjective).

"An attractive and authoritative guidebook, it should open your eyes to Scotland's smaller and lesser known hills" 

I'm not a list person and my eyes are beginning to glaze over writing this, but even I can see that by covering all the Scottish 2000-ers in one dense volume the SMC's new guidebook to the Grahams and Donalds has for the first time ever brought together a huge and varied collection of hills, amounting to hundreds of quality days from the Borders to the Hebrides.

Along with the inevitable shapeless Grampian lumps you'll find dozens of superb entries: Skye's Marsco; the No match for crag id:"Pap of Glencoe"; Ben Mor Coigach; the incomparable Suilven. These are rightly household names, but many others are as obscure to me as the dark side of the moon.

Existing literature on the Munros and to a lesser extent the Corbetts could probably be piled high enough to build a brand new 3000-er, but I'd challenge you to find another book that covers even a fraction of the Grahams in anything like as much detail. In opening up whole swathes of lower peaks to guidebook treatment the SMC have done us a big favour. I thought I knew the Scottish hills pretty well until I started delving into the esoteric corners of The Grahams & The Donalds. And I'm sure I won't be alone. 

This book is a follow-on from the SMC's very successful Munros and Corbetts guides, and shares their layout. Every entry is covered in some detail, with peaks either treated individually or grouped with a neighbour or two where that makes more sense. For each hill a primary route is given the full treatment, while space is allowed for alternatives, short cuts and extensions too.

Leafing through a book at home is rather different from following it point to point across the hills, but where it covers ground that I'm already familiar with the route descriptions certainly seem clear, businesslike and reliable, with word counts that feel just right - neither too perfunctory nor overburdened with extraneous detail. The prose may be a little dry at times, if anything rather under-selling a hill's attractions, but the many long-range photos do a great job of conveying the shape of each hill, and give a pretty good idea what sort of scenery and terrain to expect.

While its content is pure guidebook - detailed, authoritative, uncluttered - the format is too large, the book too fat and heavy, to be lugged around the hills. Peruse it for ideas at home - the photos provide tons of inspiration in themselves - and then photocopy the relevant chapter for your pocket.

A large scale format makes the most of these many lush pictures, while the use of big colour maps with shaded contours is a major advance on previous SMC hillwalking books. Owners of their latest climbing guides will spot the progression that the SMC's maps have been through in recent years. 

Instead of simply using OS extracts, drawing their maps in-house has allowed the team behind The Grahams etc to show just the features they want - woods, trails, major landforms - with no unnecessary extra information. In some cases they've picked up changes on the ground, such as new tracks or forestry, that have yet to make it onto the OS maps. Cleverly, three different coloured parking symbols are used on the maps to denote: official car parks; adequate off road parking; and tight spots where car spaces are hard to come by. I've never seen this done before. 'This allows you to know what you are in for before you get there, so that the day hopefully runs smoothly' explains joint editor Rab Anderson (the other Ed. is Tom Prentice), 'There's nothing worse than buggering about trying to find a parking space!'

Is it late for me to declare an interest? I am a member of the SMC, and though I've had no hand in this book I obviously want to see it do well. Luckily I'm in no danger of over-egging it when I say that this is an exemplary effort. Better yet all profit from Scottish Mountaineering Club guidebooks goes to the Scottish Mountaineering Trust, a registered charity which has distributed over £1 million to mountain-related projects since 1990. 

But in the interests of balance convention still demands that I try to pick holes somewhere. So is there anything critical to be said? Well as per the Corbetts and Munros guides the hills are grouped in rather idiosyncratic geographical slices, the reasoning behind which escapes me. I'm not a great fan of this system, which I've always found makes casual browsing a confusing affair, especially I imagine for those less familiar with Scotland's geography. Another gripe: The introductory notes are extremely brief, with only a single token paragraph on subjects that would merit pages elsewhere (bothies, access, rescue etc). And lastly, a scale marker on the maps would have been handy. Aside from these fairly minor niggles I struggle to find fault.   

Summary

Attractive, authoritative and thoroughly up to date, The Grahams & The Donalds is an excellent guidebook which should open your eyes to the unexpected wealth of quality walking to be found on Scotland's smaller and lesser known hills. But enough from me. Carnan Cruithneachd looks surprisingly spectacular; I've always meant to visit Beinn a' Mhuinidh (tr. The Mountain of Pissing - titter); and I'd never even heard of Hunt Hill: clearly it's time I stopped writing this and started plotting a date with some Grahams.

The Grahams & The Donalds is edited by Rab Anderson and Tom Prentice, and published by the Scottish Mountaineering Trust (RRP £25.00)