CHRIS TITLEY looks into books with a local interest...

WHAT connects trains, toilets and little green men? Given time, you could probably dream up all manner of answers, but the one pertinent to this page is that they are all subjects of books with local interest.

Yorkshire authors are a creative lot, covering an astonishing diversity of topics. Retired York GP Dr Michael Thompson could have written about any number of things. His medical interests include psychiatry and ear, nose and throat complaints.

Furthermore, Dr Thompson is known as 'batman' because he is a world-renowned expert on Britain's pipistrelle bat. But his book, Al Mashrek (Sessions, £7.50), is not a medical or naturalist treatise, but a travel book.

Subtitled "a Quaker travel journal in the Levant", Dr Thompson's book describes his experiences in the Middle East, and the Quaker communities at Brummana, Lebanon, and Ramallah on the West Bank.

Along the way we learn about the author's early life - he registered as a conscientious objector in 1960 and did his alternative National Service at The Retreat in York. The book also draws on his lifelong interest in wildlife.

Also from Sessions, based on Huntington Road, York, comes What Are They Talking About? This is by another Thompson, Eric G Thompson, a former St Peter's schoolboy who later returned to teach there.

The 60-page book, price £3.95, explains the true meanings of terms used in church services, from 'absolution' to 'word'. Meanwhile, In Sickness And In Health by Christine Hallas is a history of Aksrigg Friendly Society (£6.50). More details on these three titles from Sessions on (01904) 659224.

Our fascination with steam locomotives shows no sign of diminishing, long after they were replaced by diesel engines. But how much do you know about the technology that powered the golden railway age?

If you read Peter Semmens' latest work, you will know it inside out. How Steam Locomotives Really Work (Oxford University Press, £19.99) is co-written by AJ Goldfinch and Semmens, the former deputy head of the National Railway Museum in York.

They consider the origins of steam locomotion, the trial and error advances on the Victorian railways, locomotive designs and even maintenance practices. Enthusiasts will be riveted.

An earlier form of transport is considered by Pat Jones in Navigation On The River Derwent (Oakwood Press, £9.95). This takes the reader on an historical trip upstream, as the river was developed for use by trade and pleasure traffic.

The epilogue calls the 1999 floods "the inevitable consequence of neglecting the channel and embankments of the main river".

Harry Mead was born and brought up on the North York Moors and casts his insider's eye over the area in A Prospect Of The North York Moors (Hutton Press, £9.95).

From the Creteblock shipwreck to the Maharajah at Mulgrave, his cameos of the area are full of diverting detail.

Mead has an easy and entertaining style, as you would expect from the former chief feature writer of our sister paper The Northern Echo.

Irene Megginson is another familiar name from local journals, most notably from 20 years of contributions to The Dalesman. Her latest book, A Life On The Wolds (Ridings Publishing, £5.50) is, to coin a phrase, an every day tale of country folk. Now 81, Irene tells the tale of the harsh realities and firm friendships of the farming community in the Wolds down the years.

At last we come to the toilets and green men I mentioned at the start. Taking them in reverse order, The Green Man: A Field Guide (Compass Books, £8.99) is Clive Hicks' pictorial guide to carvings of the Green Man of folklore. They can be found at York Minster, Ripon Cathedral and in similar buildings.

Finally, we go Down The Yorkshire Pan (Countryside Books, £7.95). Author Dulcie Lewis is known in Leyburn as "the woman who gives talks on the lavatory". This is her humorous history of the bath and lavatory in North Yorkshire, and boasts York's famous Bile Beans advert on the front cover.

One for the smallest room, perhaps.