A biography of the city founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC, once the largest city in the world and for a thousand years the capital of Egypt. Looks at the modern period too.
The tricky business of merging the inner world with the outer - a balancing act that the generous Iyer has been practising for decades now, in Tibet, Japan, Korea, Iran and elsewhere.
Fritz D?rries was a German entomologist who first travelled to Siberia as a young man in 1877. He went on to spend a total of twenty-two years there, encountering tigers, bandits, vipers and... read more
From the Alps to the Adriatic, through Ferrara, Mantova, Parma, Cremona, Pavia and Turin. Those who read Helena Attlee's recent Lev's Violin will know something of its historical use, but no... read more
Kampfner began his career as a journalist reporting from East Berlin. Since then he has quartered the city, searched archives, interviewed widely. He loves this city. His last book - Why the... read more
The Bulgarian/Scottish writer explores the mountainous fringe of North Macedonia, Albania and Greece along the via Egnatia (which, astonishingly, joined the via Appia to link Rome with Byzan... read more
"It may be that all borderlands hum with the frequencies of the unconscious; after all, borders are where the fabric is thin". This one is that wild, once barbed strip between Turkey, Bulgar... read more
Balkan transhumance: in her fourth book on life in the Balkans, Kassabova lives and travels with the Karakachan, a small group of Greek-speaking nomadic pastoralists in the Pirin mountains.
Returning to her native Bulgaria, the acclaimed writer explores the valley of the Mesta and encounters its inhabitants and their traditions of plant-lore. Her previous books have been outsta... read more