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[[Category:Travel|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Travel]]==Travel==__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara WheelerAlastair Humphreys|title=Access All Areas: Selected Writings 1990-2010Local
|rating=5
|genre=Travel|summary=This is a great Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the world. And then written about it. For this book he walked and cycled very close to acquire if your general knowledge of historical adventurers is as haphazard as minehome and then wrote about it. Somewhere along As he says in his introduction, the line, Ibook is an attempt 'd missed out on Scott and Shackleton, and it's very satisfying indeed to fill those gaps share what I have learnt about some big issues from such a reliable informantyear exploring a small map. Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, rewilding…'' One brisk section, of the joys of the book for exampleme was that the biggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, managed to encapsulate both Antarticano single 'right or wrong's history and further outlook, along with sufficient atmospheric detail that every upside is likely to ensure we mortals understood just what it feels like to sleep in Scott's hut during have a wintry galedownside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224090712</amazonuk>1785633678
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Butcher0957181167|title=Chasing the DevilBlue Skies and Boat Trips: On Foot Through Africa's Killing FieldsThe Norfolk of Brian Lewis|author=Alan Marshall|rating=4.5|genre=TravelArt|summary=Tim Butcher's day job from 1990 to 2009 was "journalist".  I wonder what today's school-kids imagine when they say they want to There are few positive things which can be said about a journalist… do they envisage writing about sciencesubstandard apartment when you’re on holiday but this time, or economics, or celebrities, or do they see themselves as television reporters standing in flak jackets doing trying to avoid looking at a problem I found myself looking more closely at a couple of pictures on the obligatory piecewalls -to-camera in and was completely taken by the latest war zone? work of Brian Lewis. Do they even read newspapers any more? I searched online and could only find ‘used’ versions of this book and the print I wanted was ‘not available’. Do they realise that there are still also people out there in those war zonesOh, without the glamour flakdear -jacket, just (if they're lucky) then a few doors down from the ordinary pock-marked oneapartment, that they prefer not to wear because it's way too hot? People who still ply the classic trade I found a gift shop with a stack of actually writing what they see brand new books - and trusting that they can do it well enough for a framed print of the words to stand alone without the sound effects, without (quite often) any pictures, to make it "real"?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532069</amazonuk>picture I wanted.
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Williams1785633457|title=On The Slow Train AgainCharging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson
|rating=5
|genre=Travel
|summary=A few years ago Michael WilliamsClive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, the railway expert who's written it should be a pleasant holiday for numerous newspapers Clive and magazines on the subjecthis wife, released a book called ''On The Slow Train'' about some of Britain's best railway trips. With far too many journeys to fit into one volumeJoan, heshouldn's given us a dozen more in this sequel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092857</amazonuk>t it?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John GimletteMerryn Glover|title=Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed EdgeThe Hidden Fires|rating=4.5
|genre=Travel
|summary=Apart from knowing that it borders VenezuelaIt is always about the book, Brazil and Surinamenot the writer, a fact hammered into me in Year 8 Geography, I know very little about Guiana. And while you may think thatbut there are times when the author's understandable, I'm not sure that hinterland is also the background to the book and so it isnecessary to understand that context, seeing as I read this in order to appreciate the book while living just two countries over. The thing Merryn Glover is, it's a sort of tinyAustralian parentage, forgotten countrywas born in Kathmandu, isn't it? Over grew up in the years it has been involved in border disputes, has come under various nations' rule, Annapurna and has changed names more often the P Diddy, Himalayan and even after you take all that into account, now lives in Badenoch in Scotland. I bet you can't think of no-one better a single thing there combination to go and seegive us a re-appraisal of Nan Shepherds work than the first Writer in Residence in the Cairngorms National Park. Merryn walks, not so much in the shadow of Shepherd, but in her spirit. I think the two would have gotten along famously.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846682525</amazonuk>1846975751
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Yangzom Brauen and Katy DarbyshireB0B7289HKQ|title=Conversations Across Many MountainsAmerica: Three Daughters A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of TibetAmerica|author=Kari Loya
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Fleeing your home can never be easy but when you are six, your only shoes are roughly hand-sewn and stuffed with hay, and your route is over the world's highest mountain range then it must be particularly challenging. This was the journey that Yangzom Brauen's mother took with her parents when they fled Tibet after the Chinese invasion of 1959. They were leaving behind all that they knew and travelling to India in the hope that they could find sanctuary in the country where the Dalai Lama was in exile. 'Across Many Mountains' is their story.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655344X</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Keith Hern
|title=Zimbabwe in Pictures
|rating=3
|genre=Travel
|summary=I'm a bit of an amateur photographer, and since the advent of digital cameras I always come back from holidays Kari (that rhymes with thousands of photos‘sorry’, over-excited by the fact that I am no longer limited way) wanted to 24 or 36 exposure films! I enjoy, therefore, flicking through photography books, to see the images that have captured someone else's imagination spend some time with his father and to see if I can pick up any interesting framing ideas, or subject settings.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685707</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Christopher Winn|title=I Never Knew That About the River Thames|rating=4.5|genre=Trivia|summary=Here are the remains of the building that could be said to have sired period between two important British royal dynasties. Here is the place of ill-repute, where 'Rule Britannia' was premiered, and which also bizarrely saw jobs seemed like a death by cricket ball that inspired the most famous gardens in the world. Here too is the largest lion in the world. To where am I referring? Well the answer is either the Thames valley, or this very book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091933579</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Roland Huntford|title=Race for the South Pole: The Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=In 1910 two European ships set out for the Antarctic. 'Terra Nova' was carrying British explorers under the leadership of Captain Robert Scott, while 'Fram' sailed with a rival Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen. The basic facts can be briefly summarized. Amundsen arrived at the South Pole on 14 December 1911 and returned home good time to a hero's welcome, while Scott reached the same destination 35 days later, only to perish with his men on the return journeydo it. Their bodies were found by a search party some eight months after they had died.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441169822</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Aatish Taseer|title=Stranger to History: A Son's Journey Through Islamic Lands|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Aatish Taseer was born of out of a short week of passion between a Sikh Indian mother and a Pakistani Muslim father. The mother was a journalist; the father a politician.  That week of passion decision was made to be all it was, despite subsequent attempts at hushing up the pregnancy, then pretending a marriage until finally a clean break was made when ride the boy was about 18 months old. Ah, but such breaks never are clean are they? There's always a certain amount of meddling Trans America Bike Trail from the side-linesYorktown, and then there's a child's longing Virginia to know who he isAstoria, where he is really from.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847671314</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jim Perrin|title=West: A Journey Through the Landscapes Oregon - all 4250 miles of Loss|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Where would you go if the love of your life, and your son, both died within a short few months of each other? Jim Perrin headed West it - to the scraggly patches of land off Ireland, closer to the setting sun, nearer to the further horizon, beyond the noise, information and opinion of humanity. Of course, that question could also be answered in a more metaphoric way2015. Jim went inward, before coming outward. He suffered They had 73 days to do it - "involuntarily, slightly less than the tears have come. Who would have thought that death would release so many.." He also, although he would probably hate me for saying it, went on a "psychorecommended time -geographical ramble" - both in life, and in making but there were factors which pointed this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843546116</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sam Miller|title=Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Miller is probably one up as more of the best people to take you on a tour of Delhi. He's not a native so has no in-bred partisanship, but he does love the place so will make sure you do too, but mainly because to begin with he HATED it… so he will understand if you don't share his ironic good humour about the shit squirter or the fact challenge that sometimes the only way to cross the road is to take a rickshaw taxi.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526743</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Brian W Pugh, Paul R Spiring and Sadru Bhanji|title=Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and Devon: A Complete Tour Guide and Companion|rating=4|genre=History|summary=''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' is one of the most famous mystery novels of all, and also one of the most famous English novels set in Devon. This alone it would probably give more or less enough material be for an entire book most people who considered taking it on connections between the story and the location which inspired it. Yet the authors have found several more links between the county, Merv Loya was 75 years old and Conan Doyle alongside those associated with him. The result has revealed much information of which even I, who have lived in the county nearly all my life, he was previously unawaresuffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312861</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Erling Kagge
|title=Walking: One Step At A Time
|rating=5
|genre= Lifestyle
|summary= Those who have read my reviews before will know that how much I loved a book is evidenced by the number of pages with corners turned, so let me start this one with an apology to the Norfolk Library Service: sorry! I forgot it was your book not mine. In my defence, I will say that as a reader of this type of book there is something connective about noting where prior readers were inspired (provided it is subtle – I'll allow creased corners, but not scribbles – for the latter we must buy our own copy – which I am about to do as soon as I have finished telling you why).
{{newreview|author=David Lane|title=England 'Til I Die - A celebration Erligg Kagge is a Norwegian explorer who has walked to the South Pole, the North Pole and the summit of England's amazing supporters|rating=3Everest. He knows a thing or two about walking.5|genre=Sport|summary=To start withHowever, an admission. I am an English fan this isn't a travelogue about any of footballthose epic journeys, but I am not it is instead a fan thoughtful exploration of England’s football squad. Hardly ever would I prefer what it means to see the Three Lions triumphantwalk. I never got into the habit, partly because I never saw the singularly English habit It is a plenitude of supporting the underdog as making any senseunnumbered essays about walking. Plus youThere is no 'contents'll never get me standing up page and singing that awful tune before the matchI haven't counted. In small format paperback, each essay is only a few pages long. But here are testimonies from twenty or so people who see things completely differently to mePerhaps then, better thought of as a meditation rather than an essay.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906796505</amazonuk>0241357705
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Justine HardyMonica Connell|title=In the Valley of Mist: Kashmir's Long War - One Family's Extraordinary StoryAgainst a Peacock Sky
|rating=5
|genre=Travel
|summary=Kashmir. Is that not the most romantic of names? To those of us entranced by tales from the East, it echoes with the same essence of myth as ''Shang-ri-la'' – and for good reason. Geographically situated in the Himalaya but with the abundant fertility of the valley, lakes and meadows, it should be a kind of paradise. To the people who live there, it once was. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846041511</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Booth|title=Sushi and Beyond: What the Japanese Know About Cooking|rating=4|genre=Cookery|summary=Japanese food has a tendency Monica Connell went to sound a bit freakish or even controversial. Raw fish? Octopus ice cream? Whale meat? Yet it is slowly infiltrating the UK with sushi conveyor belt restaurants popping up everywhere and noodle bars offering Westernised bowls of steaming noodles. In this book Michael Booth takes his wife and two young children Nepal to experience do the real thing, travelling across the whole of Japan tasting an enormous range of foods and learning about their history, how the foods have been produced and are cooked and eaten.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099516446</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sara Wheeler|title=The Magnetic North: Travels in the Arctic|rating=4.5|genre=Travel|summary=The title of this book suggests another travel book about adventure in the frozen north, but Sara Wheeler mixes fieldwork for her tales of her own travels with some history of polar exploration and a serious examination of the impact of visitors and of those who wish to exploit the Arctic’s natural resources on the region and its peoplePh. Rather than setting off on another expedition to reach the North Pole, she travels around bits of the Arctic divided between different countries and governments, including Chukotka (Russia), Alaska (USA), Canada, Greenland, Svalbard (Norway) and Lapland (Russia and Scandinavia)D. There is a huge amount of material in the book but Wheeler organises and presents it in a very readable, accessible stylesocial anthropology.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099516888</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mark Griffiths|title=The Lotus Quest|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Mark Griffiths is one of Britain's leading plant experts. I know this because his brief biog in the front of The Lotus Quest tells me so; just as think it tells me that he is the editor of The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening 'the largest work on horticulture ever published'. His prior works list includes five other plant book credits, three of them for the RHS. I shall take all of this on trust, since attempts important to find out more about the author and his background through the usual internet search mechanisms has failed miserably. He remains as elusive as the sacred flower know that is the subject of this latest work: the lotus.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184595100X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jason Webster|title=Sacred Sierra: A Year She went on a Spanish Mountain|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Jason Webster and his partnergrant-supported trip, Salud searched and bought forty acres of valley and mountainside halfway up the Penyagolosa Ridge in Southern Spain, complete with two derelict sets of farm buildingsa relatively specific objective. These She wasn''mas'', or smallholdings, formed the backbone of Spanish agriculture until young people abandoned rural life t a hippy wanderer looking for towns in the midShangri-twentieth centuryla. She wasn't a mere tourist passing through. The agro-economics She went with a fundamental aim of the EEC enforced obsolescence of the ''mas'' systemlearning about these people and how they lived. As old timers retired or diedShe also went, their farms were abandonedpresumably, leaving most with the academic discipline of the land returning how to wild.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099512947</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lawrence Osborne|title=Bangkok Days|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Laurence Osborne has hit upon a bizarre way find these things out, how to save money on dentistry – pay for a month's rent organise them in Bangkok and get his fillings done thereher mind, which works out cheaper than dental insurance how to "understand" them in America. During the course context of many visits to Thailandher own paradigms, he meanders around Bangkok, along with various other motley foreigners, passing through hospitals, brothels and mobile restaurants selling waterbugs.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535971</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nicholas Jubber|title=Drinking Arak off an Ayatollah's Beard |rating=3.5|genre=Travel|summary=closed doors how to keep enough notes and how people really think, challenging the idea that both countries are defined only by a religious fervour files and fundamentalism that is the accepted way photos to help her create some greater sense of life. At the heart of Jubber's quest is experience after the epic poem event. Fortunately, she also went with a sense of Persian culture, the ''Shahnameh'' which he soon learns all Iranians know open-ness and love curiosity and a willingness to muck-in doing so he unearths a vibrant culture that preceded the conversion of Persia , to Islam break her own rules and to truly connect with it the transformation people of Persia into Iranthe village where she hauled up. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0306818841</amazonuk>1780600429
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian MathieNicolas Bouvier|title=The Man of Passage|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Ian Mathie's association with Africa began when his father was posted to what was then Northern Rhodesia when Mathie was just four years old. School was in a convent and was run by German and Italian nuns and for a while he was the only white child amongst a couple of hundred Africans. Even when he was joined by others he was still part of an ethnic minority although he didn't realise it! He was taught in the local language and grew up with the local children. It was his home and was to be the centre of his life for decades to come.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955312418</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gary Blackwood|title=The Great Race: The Amazing Round-The-World Auto Race Of 1908Japanese Chronicles
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=In 1908, Henry Ford's Model T hadn't yet brought cars to the masses. The pioneers of the world of automobiles were experimenting and discovering just what the car could do, by driving right round the world. Except they didn't want to be pioneers. One of the competitors, Antonio Scarfoglio, put it so perfectly when he said 'We had set out to perpetuate an act of splendid folly, not to open up a new way for men. We wished to be madmen, not pioneers.' Isn't that about the best quote you've ever read?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0810994895</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Dervla Murphy
|title=The Island That Dared: Journeys in Cuba
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
|summary=In her latest literary outing, the now elderly and increasingly opinionated travel writer and veteran cyclist Dervla Murphy describes It never does to start a series review of trips to Cuba. The opening section deals a book with a family trip in late 2005. Readers who have followed Dervla's books quote from the beginning will have grown up with Rachelblurb, the authorbut sometimes it's daughter, who accompanied her on a number of trips between the ages of five and eighteenunavoidable. Now Dervla travels with Rachel and Rachel's three young daughtersLe Monde reviewed this book, Clodaghat some point, Rose and Zea, known for ease throughout with the book as words ''what the Trioold master craftsmen would call a masterpiece.''It is precisely that. The middle section sees Dervla return alone to spend several months trekking A masterpiece in places such the sense of the craft as well as the Sierra del Escambray mountains, and in the final third art of the book, Dervla returns writing. I'm going to hesitate to the city call it 'travel writing' because this is as much a history of Santa Clara Japan, a mythology-primer for the commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of Japanese culture as it is a personal response to living and travelling in the death of Ernesto ''Che'' Guevaracountry.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190601146X</amazonuk>1906011044
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan Buckley, Mark Ellingham and Tim JepsonStephen Fabes|title=The Rough Guide to Tuscany and UmbriaSigns of Life
|rating=5
|genre=Travel
|summary=There's a general Rough Guide to Italy, but revisiting again this regional guide in the process of writing up our trip to Tuscany two years ago, I was reminded brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of how good indeed this particular Rough Guide isfar away places. I bought it because was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I wanted to supplement didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the general Rough Guide guts to Italy simply go out and do it. I had with more detailed coverage also didn't inherit the kind of the region in which we were going steady nerve, ability to talk to spend the whole trip - strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I was extremely happy had been gifted with the result.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843530554</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Guy Delisle|title=Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Meet Guyrequisite 'bottle'. HeIn order words I's a French-Canadian animator, leaving home for a short stay in m not the capital sort of one of the world's most intriguing, unknown and alien cultures - Pyongyang, North Korea - so he can work person who will get on a TV cartoon co-productionbike outside a London hospital and not come home for six years. Forced to stay in one of the three official hotels designed for foreigners, so Fabes did precisely that the locals and people such as he do not have to mix, he see glimpses of the unique socialist dictatorship, stunning views of the buildings forced through the poverty, and thousands of unreadable faces.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224079905</amazonuk>1788161211
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charley Boorman Rob Baker|title=Right to the EdgeToubab Tales: Sydney to Tokyo by Any MeansThe Joys and Trials of Expat Life in Africa
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
|summary=Forgive me if I'm wrong'"Go to Mali, but there seems a ever-diminishing sense of surprise with Charley Boorman's continuing adventures" they said. One hopes at least "The music is amazing," they started with very daring, courageous, envelope-pushing exploits, where we might have doubted his successsaid. Now he's on his fifth trip in as many years, BBC TV crew in hand as always, and we can hardly hope for much in the way "And you get ten hours of an ordeal, or doubt concerning a failuresunshine every day. And, as he admits, this does feel much like an add-on for his Ireland-to-Sydney trek" So I did.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443516</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=Rolf Potts|title=Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Rolf Potts Rob Baker is a travel writer as well as a bit of a backpacker guru and his book distils his experiences in, exactly as the title suggests, ''an uncommon guide to long-term travel''ethnomusicologist. The operative word here is ''uncommonA what?''I hear you cry. Well, as ''Vagabonding'' is not really a guide as we know theman ethnomusicologist studies music in relation to culture, more of so rather like a pep-talk combined with folklorist studies the oral and written story traditions relating to a resource listculture.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0812992180</amazonuk>B089CSNFT7
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marika McAdamChristine Brown|title=Western Balkans (Lonely Planet Multi Country Guide) |rating=3.5|genre=Travel|summary=Lonely Planet does well from its multi-country guides as members of its peripatetic, Inter-railing, backpacker audience often 'do' more than one country (Bucket Showers and sometimes a whole continent or region at least) within one trip.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1741047293</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Thomas Cook Publishing |title=European Rail Timetable Summer 2009|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary=This volume is an absolutely essential resource for anybody travelling Baby Goats: Volunteering in Europe by train. A compilation of all major train routes, it allows not only for checking train times but also planning pretty much every conceivable major journey. Theoretically, the train timetables change twice yearly, so it's worth getting an up to date book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848481322</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sarah Johnstone |title=Europe on a Shoestring: Big Trips on Small Budgets (Lonely Planet Shoestring Guides)West Africa|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=''Europe on a Shoestring'' comes from the vast stable of Lonely Planet's travel guides and is very much aimed at the budget end of the market. Comparable to its nearest competitor, Let's Go Europe, it's a one-volume backpacker bible which attempts to provide the overview of a whole continent, every single country and the main destinations in each of the countries.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1741045916</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Pete Brown |title=Hops and Glory: One Man's Search for the Beer That Built the British Empire|rating=45
|genre=Travel
|summary=Being a beer writer canIn the summer of 2008, this book't be s author was spending her days working in an office job in the easiest route to respect USA while spending her nights dreaming about being somewhere else, doing something else. Long story short, she ended up volunteering in journalismGhana, West Africa. But with Now coincidentally, in the summer of 2010, this book Pete Brown has done much to counter review's author was spending ''her'' days working in an office job (albeit in the scepticalUK) while spending ''her'' nights dreaming about being somewhere else, even dismissivedoing something else, attitudes which must surround his trade and its subject matter. He has attempted to combine a history of British imperialism and the brewing industry with the comic 'quest' genre of travel writingshe'' ended up just 3 countries away, volunteering in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Against all So you can see why, when this book came up, said reviewer was delighted to have the odds, he has largely succeededopportunity to read and critique it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230706355</amazonuk>171024299X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rough Guides Mourby_Rooms|title=Rooms with a View: The Rough Guide to AmsterdamSecret Life of Great Hotels|author=Adrian Mourby
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
|summary=This Rough Guide is as comprehensiveAdrian Mourby has given us a flying visit to each of fifty grand hotels, up to date and well researched as most if not all Rough Guides seem to be. I have used numerous examples from fourteen regions of their guides and I found them to be among the best if not world, with the best ones there arehotels in each section being arranged chronologically rather than by region, which helps to give something of an overall picture. They do seem to have moved upmarket So what makes a bit since I hotel 'grand'? The first started hotel to use them call itself 'grand' was in Covent Garden in 1774 and it ushered in the early 90s - but they still provide beginning of a period when a hotel would be a lifestyle choice rather than a refuge for those without friends and family conveniently nearby. The hotels we visit all began life in different circumstances and each faced a different set of challenges. We begin in the best balance in descriptions covering practicalitiesAmericas, contextmove to the United Kingdom, historycircumnavigate Europe, sightseeingbriefly visit Russia and Turkey then northern Africa, entertainmentIndia and Asia. Australia, drinkingit seems, clubbing and even (in Amsterdam at least) dope smokingdoes not go for the grand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843538091</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alistair Duncan 1908745819|title=Close to Holmes: A Look at the Connections Between Historical London, Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan DoyleSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Even today, London is a remarkable compromise of the old and the new. As Alistair Duncan shows in this volume, the city of Conan Doyle and Holmes has changed – yet not changed. There have been a handful of books in the past on 'Holmes's London', but this is the first of its kind to place equal emphasis on places associated with the detective and his creator.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312500</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Lucy Wadham
|title=The Secret Life of France
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
|summary=I'm rather at a loss to describe this book for you, and I'm still uncertain how to categorise it. It's part personal memoir and part analytical. Whether you regard this particular mix as brilliant or irritating is down, I suppose, to personal taste and intellectual curiosity.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571236111</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Tim Fitzhigham
|title=All at Sea: One Man. One Bathtub. One Very Bad Idea: Conquering the Channel in a Piece of Plumbing
|rating=4.5
|genre=Travel
|summary=Once more my life is made easy by saying this book does just what it claims on the cover - takes a narrator of zesty, wacky humour, throws him into an unlikely situation (a bath) and gets him to do something unusual (row it across the Channel - and then beyond). This despite the fact he was the world's worst sculler at University.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090269</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Keith Miller
|title=St Peter's (Wonders of the World)
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=It is huge: Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not only in space , but in time and structure; and in rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the non-material sphere book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the complex interplay author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of meanings, symbols and significancesherself.'' Older. Less tethered. MillerThat's booknot a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, intentionally combining cultural of those aspects of the poetic and political historylyrical that are about style not form, art criticism and travel writingsubstance most of all, about connection. Of course, manages this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to reflect that hugeness without weighting the reader down with too much austere detailme eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861979088</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Guy Delisle1912242052|title=Burma ChroniclesO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=43|genre=Graphic NovelsArt|summary=What we have here are a male househusband and artist, and his MSF doctor wife, and their life in Burma or Myanmar ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for roughly a year. We get being ''the first person to see the life in walk the country, from the racks of bootleg softwaremountains alone, not because he had to the animation class he leadsfor work, to their efforts to get into the lush country clubsas a miner, to their baby being adored by every passing girl. We see the state of the countryquarryman, with its horrid drugsshepherd or pack-horse driver, HIV/AIDS but because he wanted to for pleasure and malaria problems, hidden beyond the gentle Buddhist retreatsadventure. We see the Delisles' interaction His rapturous encounters with this singular country - the censored presstheir natural beauty, and the fact that their road is only made more busy because its literary consequences, changed our view of the roadblock diverting everyone away from Aung San Suu Kyiworld''s house a block away.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087711</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Iain McCalmanWoolf_Great|title=Darwin's ArmadaThe Great Horizon: Four Voyagers to the Southern Oceans and Their Battle for the Theory 50 Tales of EvolutionExploration|author=Jo Woolf
|rating=3.5
|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=A look at Darwin's journey on The Beagle, as well as Jo Woolf has compiled a brilliant set of fifty short insights into the lives and achievements of some amazingly brave people. Their fearless journeys by Joseph Hookerhave helped us unlock many of the mysteries of the wildest parts of our world, Thomas Huxley and Alfred Wallacealso given us an understanding of what it is like to be faced with the most terrible conditions and still have the determination and grit to carry on. Darwin's Armada provides a broad overview that strikes This book could be viewed as a different tone taster which encourages us to other books in a crowded marketseek out and read more about some of the most iconic explorers. Casual readers who usually steer clear of non-fiction will enjoy itTheir stories are pretty incredible and Woolf does them justice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737266X</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patrick WrightHailstone_Berlin|title=A Journey Through RuinsBerlin in the Cold War: The Last Days of London 1959 to 1966|author=Allan Hailstone
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and SocietyHistory|summary=My good mood evaporated when Sue, my Bookbag partner, asked me if I'd read and review A Journey Through Ruins. She was right to ask because Thatcher's Britain is certainly an area of interest to me. The thing is, times are depressing enough. Margaret HildaBerlin in the Cold War: 1959-1966's neo-liberal legacy is crashing around us. Jobless queues are lengthening. Roofs are disappearing from over people's headscontains almost 200 photographs taken by author/photographer Allan Hailstone in his visits to the city during this period. The rampant cronyism and venal images provide an insight into the changing nature of our economic the divide between East and political elites are slowly exposing themselves West Berlin and a glimpse into life in ways likely to send my blood pressure soaringthe city during the Cold War. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0199541949</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David GrannStewart_Marches|title=The Lost City of Z: A Legendary British Explorer's Deadly Quest to Uncover the Secrets of the AmazonMarches|author=Rory Stewart
|rating=5
|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=For Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Fawcett there was more to The Observer quote on the front of the Amazonian jungle than El Doradopaperback edition of Stewart's latest book observes ''This is travel writing at its finest. His target was a treasure of a different nature – a lost city '' Perhaps, but to be discovered because call it was a city, not for any spurious material wealth 'travel writing' is to totally under-sell it might hold. Could This is erudition at its finest. Stewart has the background to do this: he had an entire civilisation have been founded international upbringing and followed his father in both the Army and the inhospitable tracks of rain forestForeign Office, and then (to his father's, bemusement, shall we say) became an MP. Oh, and left remains he might find fame walked 6,000 miles across Afghanistan in locating? As this brilliant biography shows, Fawcett was 2002. A walk along the best man around to find itScottish borders should be a doddle by comparison.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847374360</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rachel CuskBristow China|title=The Last SupperChina in Drag: A Summer in ItalyTravels with a Cross-dresser|author=Michael Bristow
|rating=4
|genre=TravelAutobiography|summary=So, there's this family, right, and Having worked for nine years in Bejing as a journalist for the parents have itchy feetBBC, so they pack everything up and say goodbye author Michael Bristow decided to write about Chinese history. Having been learning the doglocal language for several years, and leave CliftonBristow asked his language teacher for guidance - the language teacher, Bristolborn in the early fifties, and drive down to Italy and live offered Bristow a fine and different compelling picture of lifein Communist China - but added to that, and the plumbing might not be the best but the neighbours and the scrumping and the wine are all Bristow was greatly surprised to die for and it all comes right find that his language teacher also enjoyed spending his spare time in ladies clothing. It soon becomes clear that the end with lifetale told here is immensely personal -affirming brilliance.  There will be many people shuddering at that completely false description yet also paints a fascinating portrait of one of this bookthe world's most intriguing nations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571242561</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Pip Cheshire and Patrick ReynoldsHurst_Norfolk|title=Architecture UncookedOn My Way: An Architect Looks Around New Zealand Holiday HousesNorfolk Coastal Walks|author=John Hurst|rating=54|genre=TravelArt|summary=This book immediately impresses by its clearly writtenIt was pure serendipity: after a five-hour drive, we were, annoyingly, yet intelligent writingleft with an hour to fill in Blakeney before we could have the keys to our holiday cottage. There was an art exhibition in the church hall, so we went in - and its photography that captures both found a display of the structure most gorgeous pictures. I'd cheerfully have bought every one and the spirit hung them on our walls, but thought that I would have to make do with a couple of the holiday homes scattered around the New Zealand countrysidegreetings cards when I saw ''On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks'' and I couldn't resist buying it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1869621549</amazonuk>
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{{newreview|author=Dean Starnes|title=Roam|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Languages, customs, rituals, fascinating things Move on to do, places to see, people to visit – all in the one book, covering almost every nook and cranny throughout the world. This is a travel book covering, well, pretty well everything.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1869507118</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Trivia Reviews]]

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