In this new book Sinclair has abandoned London for Peru, in an attempt to understand his great-grandfather's colonial career. The narrative Sinclair grew up with ends up as self-serving flot... read more
By the author of 'The Moor's Last Stand', a biography of Boabdil, whose sigh, looking back at the beautiful Granada he had fled, still resonates. Illustrated.
A book of photographs by an Iranian-Australian photographer documenting the islands in the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran, their eerie, wind-carved landscapes and their wind-haunted inhab... read more
A cultural history of ice and icy places, written between Northern Greenland and the Bodleian Library, in the Alps and at the Kinross Curling Club. NC, a poet, deftly blends memoir, literary... read more
A cultural history of ice and icy places, written between Northern Greenland and the Bodleian Library, in the Alps and at the Kinross Curling Club. NC, a poet, deftly blends memoir, literary... read more
The fiendish young man, having driven poor Verlaine out of his wits and his marriage, abandoned poetry, then Europe, setting in Aden in 1880. A reprint from Eland.
A thousand-mile walk that took Martineau from Accra to Ouidah: a spell-binding account of a young man's journey into the world around him as well as himself. Remarkable meetings open doors t... read more
Nick Hunt has previously walked in the footsteps of Paddy Leigh Fermor, and in search of Europe's great winds. His latest takes him - and us - to the remote and extreme: vestiges of ancient ... read more
The author moved to Japan aged 21, immersing herself in language and culture with such success that she is now a literary translator. Her route there was by no means straightforward; this bo... read more
A fascinating Great-Game-ish romp with yaks , spies, political intrigue and a cast that includes not only the Viceroy Curzon but the rather overlooked figure of Sir Charles Bell, British Pol... read more
In 1849 Garibaldi gave up the defence of Rome to the besieging French troops and made his way northwards with a few thousand volunteers; this is an earlier phase of the attempt at Italian li... 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
Explores what happens to places where people no longer live: Chernobyl, swathes of Detroit, Caribbean volcanoes, Scottish mining regions - redemptive, reflective.
From the C7th to the present day... It transported Vikings to the Caspian and was crucial in the Battle of Stalingrad... a remarkable account of diversity and strategic significance.
A delicious anthology of ambling, strolling, pausing, looking, thinking... A feast that combines Joseph Roth and Rebecca Solnit, George Sand and Werner Herzog, Joseph Conrad and Kate Humble,... read more
A marvellous history of pilgrimage around the world. Sacred landscapes, geographical hotspots where cultures, religions and trade routes meet, the remote and the metropolitan - and humanity'... read more
PS accompanied the fashion photographer Eric Boman on a shoot in 1976; the Yemen Arab Republic they entered has been closed to foreigners for years and this book documents what they saw trav... read more
Sands, the overloaded former editor of the Today programme, visited ten monasteries around the world hoping to understand what they have in common and how monastic life might help her in her... read more
A life of the indefatigable and intrepid Bird (1831-1904) who travelled in her mid-life to Australia, the United States, Hawaii, Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, and Malaya; later sh... read more
Kneale knows the city like few others (viz his Rome: A History in Seven Sackings, pbk £10.99). His writing is also a delight, so his account of lockdown is worth reading.
An illustrated book examining our fascination with islands. Interweaving his own travels with psychology, philosophy and literary voyages, the author explores our contradictory needs for con... read more