Is it to exalt the mountain or the climber that the mountain should be climbed? Or to gain a good vantage point for telling things, pace James Baldwin?
The author of Oblomov spent the years 1852-1854 as secretary to Admiral Putyatin on board the Pallada; they sailed to Java, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Shanghai, the Philippines and Korea. ... read more
Its second subtitle is "an adventurous history of botany". JG is a scientist and an historian of exploration (his "The Rattlesnake: A Voyage of Discovery to the Coral Sea" was excellent).
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
Drawing on the Kon-Tiki Museum archive in Oslo and illustrated with many of Heyerdahl's photographs, this is published on the 75th anniversary of the Norwegian explorer's astonishing and per... read more
Louis-Antoine de Bougainville and Pierre Magnol to Sir David Attenborough, via Lady Gaga... The author is, amongst other roles, the president of the Linnaean Society.
How the daughter of Babur, first Mughal Emperor, wrangled her way out of the harem (for a while) to travel around India, to Persia and beyond. Based on her own account.
Plant-hunting did not die with Frank Kingdon-Ward in 1958: very important work continues, highly skilled, technical and complex, but brings little or no fame to this intrepid band. We hope t... read more