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[[Category:Travel|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Travel]]==Travel==__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrew MartinAlastair Humphreys|title=Underground Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube Local|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryTravel |summary=Although he was born in Yorkshire, Andrew Martin Alastair Humphreys has long been enthralled by walked and cycled all over the London Undergroundworld. His father worked on British Rail, And then written about it. For this book he walked and Andrew himself therefore had free travel on the system as well as a Privilege Pass which entitled him cycled very close to free first-class train travel on the national rail networkhome and then wrote about it. Having lived As he says in London for twenty-five yearshis introduction, commuting the book is an attempt ''to various newspaper offices in his employment as share what I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a journalistsmall map. Nature loss, pollution, a job which has included writing a regular magazine columnland use and access, Tube Talkagriculture, the food system, rewilding…'' One of the joys of the book for me was that the biggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is well qualified likely to write this entertaining have a downside for somebody and enlightening social history of the world's most famous underground railwaythat there are some hard choices ahead.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846684773</amazonuk>1785633678
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karen Wheeler0957181167|title=Tout SoulBlue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian Lewis|author=Alan Marshall|rating=4.5|genre=TravelArt|summary=Meet Karen. Expat fashion writer. French cottage owner. Devoted mother of Biff. Frustrated girlfriend of a dashing Portuguese hunk. Tout Soul is her 3rd book There are few positive things which can be said about a relocated life substandard apartment when you’re on holiday but this time, in rural France trying to avoid looking at a problem I found myself looking more closely at a couple of pictures on the walls - and after her previous tales was completely taken by the work of upping Brian Lewis. I searched online and leaving Blighty (could only find ‘used’ versions of this book 1) and falling in love with the aforementioned dashing hunk (book 2) she’s now moved her focus to print I wanted was ‘not available’. Oh, dear - then a few doors down from the pursuit apartment, I found a gift shop with a stack of brand new books - and a framed print of happinessthe picture I wanted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957106602</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Donovan Hohn1785633457|title=Moby-DuckCharging Around: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=In January 1992 a container ship was on its way from China to Exploring the USA when it was caught in a storm and two containers broke loose from the deck. They held nearly thirty thousand bath toys - yellow ducks, green frogs, red beavers and blue turtles - which were freed when the containers broke up and have circumnavigated the globe for almost twenty years. Donovan Hohn was a teacher and when one Edges of his students wrote an essay describing what had happened to the toys it caught Hohn's imagination. The rest is - as they say - history and a very good book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908526009</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Watson|title=Up Pohnpei: A quest to reclaim the soul of football England by leading the world's ultimate underdogs to glory|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=I'm a huge fan of both football and reading, so a book about football is always likely to appeal to me as the best way of combining the two. Recently, I've read books set at the pinnacle of the game in [[Life with Sir Alex: A Fan's Story of Ferguson's 25 Years at Manchester United by Will Tidey]] and about one man's struggle to bring football to a foreign land in [[Bamboo Goalposts by Rowan Simons]]. ''Up'' ''Pohnpei'' is firmly in the latter category, treading very similar ground to Simons' book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668501X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewElectric Car|author=Colin Thubron|title=To a Mountain in Tibet Clive Wilkinson|rating=45
|genre=Travel
|summary=This must go down as the least apposite indefinite article in Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a book title yetpreference for slow travel. Yes, there are many other mountains dotting As he neared his eightieth birthday the plains idea of Tibet, but calling this one just 'a' mountain, when it is sacred to a fifth exploring the edges of the world's religious people..England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. Hindu and Buddhist faiths alike venerate Mount KailasIn fact, and devotees are supposed to visit and circle round it to cleanse should be a lifetime's sins. Thubron takes us on pleasant holiday for Clive and his own pilgrimagewife, from impoverished cliff-side villages in NepalJoan, through to Chinese-occupied Tibet and to the sacred route around the mountain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532646</amazonuk>shouldn't it?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elisabeth EavesMerryn Glover|title=WanderlustThe Hidden Fires|rating=4.5
|genre=Travel
|summary=Egypt. Australia. Papua New Guinea. Spain. Pakistan. New Zealand. France. For some It is always about the book, not the writer, but there are times when the author's hinterland is also the background to the book and so it is necessary to understand that list will be a random list of placescontext, mixing those they know with those they’ve never considered. Others might tick off a few and have in order to appreciate the remainder on a ‘to do’ listbook. It’s probably only a small subset who will have passed through all Merryn Glover is of themAustralian parentage, was born in Kathmandu, grew up in the Annapurna and Himalayan and an ever tinier one who will have spent considerable time now lives in Badenoch in eachScotland. Canadian native Elisabeth Eaves is I can think of no-one better a combination to give us a re-appraisal of Nan Shepherds work than the first Writer in Residence in the lucky few who has been thereCairngorms National Park. Merryn walks, done thatnot so much in the shadow of Shepherd, and this book is essentially but in her travel diaries of those years wandering spirit. I think the globetwo would have gotten along famously.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1580053114</amazonuk>1846975751
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew WilsonB0B7289HKQ|title=Shadow Conversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of the TitanicAmerica|author=Kari Loya
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=Lesson one in writing non-fiction articles Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the way) wanted to spend some time with his father and journalism seems the period between two jobs seemed like a good time to be to find out what is topicaldo it. April 2012 is the centenary of The decision was made to ride the sinking of the TitanicTrans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, and there are going Virginia to be hoards Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles of people finding it topical to celebrate that- in 2015. Lesson two seems They had 73 days to be to find your own unique angle on do it - slightly less than the story. Wilson approaches the Titanic disaster by sinking her at the end recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of chapter one, a challenge that it would be for he looks more at the lives of the most people who considered taking it on board, . Merv Loya was 75 years old and how they took the calamity and dealt with ithe was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847377300</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ed VulliamyErling Kagge|title=AmexicaWalking: War Along the BorderlineOne Step At A Time
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=More than 38,000 people Those who have been killed in the last 3 years in what Ed Vulliamy argues read my reviews before will know that how much I loved a book is an unacknowledged war, on evidenced by the long border (2number of pages with corners turned,100 miles) between Mexico and the United States. The war is between drug trafficking gangs over control of the lucrative drugs trade from Mexico so let me start this one with an apology to the USNorfolk Library Service: sorry! I forgot it was your book not mine. In my defence, I will say that as a reader of this compelling and disturbing work type of reportage Vulliamy travels through 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 borderlands meeting some of the people affectedlatter we must buy our own copy – which I am about to do as soon as I have finished telling you why). |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546566</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Thomas Bruce Wheeler|title=The London of Sherlock Holmes - Over 400 Computer Generated Street Level Photos|rating=3|genre=Travel|summary=Should I trust Erligg Kagge is a book that Norwegian explorer who has a typo on walked to the FRONT cover? Would I purchase a book that practically says, as its first wordsSouth Pole, the e-book version is better than this paper North Pole and the summit of Everest. He knows a thing? Thisor two about walking. However, despite setting up very much the wrong impressionthis isn't a travelogue about any of those epic journeys, it is instead a gateway into the world thoughtful exploration of what it means to walk. It is a plenitude of Sherlock Holmes - but does, as unnumbered essays about walking. There is no 'contents' page and I sayhaven't counted. In small format paperback, blatantly show itself up as flawedeach essay is only a few pages long. Perhaps then, while the electronic version could count better thought of as a very worthwhile app for the Conan Doyle buffmeditation rather than an essay.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780922094</amazonuk>0241357705
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian MathieMonica Connell|title=Supper With The PresidentAgainst a Peacock Sky
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's such a pleasure to read an Ian Mathie book, so I really looked forward to 'Supper with the President'. No surprises, then, to find this book every bit as delightful, intriguing and informative as his others. Ian Mathie knows exactly how to stitch up a good story; the occasional photographs - proving the stories are not fiction – come almost as a surprise. The books are helpfully illustrated with simple maps placing the stories in geographical context. To me, Ian Mathie is simply the best of the relatively unknown writers I have come across as a reviewer. Interestingly, the two men in my household grab and devour Ian Mathie's books, and I imagine anyone interested in development issues and/or Africa would welcome one or two of his titles for Christmas.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906852103</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare (ed)
|title=Under the Sun. The Letters of Bruce Chatwin
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
|summary=Bruce Chatwin was best known as Monica Connell went to Nepal to do the fieldwork for her Ph.D. in social anthropology. I think it is important to know that. She went on a grant-supported trip, with a travel writer – this collection both confirms his relatively specific objective. She wasn'wanderlustt a hippy wanderer looking for Shangri-la. She wasn' but t a mere tourist passing through. She went with a fundamental aim of learning about these people and how they lived. She also clearly establishes that his writing was far more went, presumably, with the academic discipline of a creative process than how to find these things out, how to organise them in her mind, how to "understand" them in the usual journalistic approach context of her own paradigms, and how to travel writing. Nicholas Shakespeare’s selection keep enough notes and files and passages of narration makes this a mix photos to help her create some greater sense of the biographical and experience after the autobiographicalevent. Fortunately, she also went with a fascinating insight into sense of open-ness and curiosity and a restless spiritwillingness to muck-in, but also into to break her own rules and to truly connect with the people of the experimentation and literary reflection that made him outstanding amongst his peersvillage where she hauled up.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224089897</amazonuk>1780600429
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sonia FaleiroNicolas Bouvier|title=Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance BarsThe Japanese Chronicles|rating=4.5
|genre=Travel
|summary=In 2005It never does to start a review of a book with a quote from the blurb, there were 1but sometimes it's unavoidable. Le Monde reviewed this book,500 dance bars in Bombayat some point, so called because they employed women to dance to popular musicwith the words ''what the old master craftsmen would call a masterpiece.'' It is precisely that. Bar dancers could earn a lot A masterpiece in the sense of money compared to women in other traditional female jobs outside the sex industry, such craft as well as cleanersthe art of writing. Many I'm going to hesitate to call it 'travel writing' because this is as much a history of them also slept with men for money, but because her job was dancing not sexJapan, a bar dancer could also see herself mythology-primer for the Japanese culture as infinitely superior it is a personal response to sex workers, whether street prostitutes, those working living and travelling in brothels or call girlsthe country.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857861697</amazonuk>1906011044
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael BoothStephen Fabes|title=Eat, Pray, EatSigns of Life|rating=45
|genre=Travel
|summary=I really enjoyed was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and do it. I also didn'Eatt inherit the kind of steady nerve, Pray, Love'' by Elizabeth Gilbert. Initially ability to talk to strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I thought would have survived if I'd picked up a ''Me too'' variant had been gifted with the requisite 'bottle'Eat, Pray Eat'' and must admit to my heart sinking. But no, here is a different personality with another story and writing style and after a few, doubting pages, In order words I was away. This is a story 'm not the sort of person who will get on a family adventure to India, bike outside a hard-fought encounter with yoga, London hospital and some culinary interest thrown innot come home for six years. But like Elizabeth Gilbert, like most other visitors, India moved his life-view dramatically and for the better Fabes did precisely that.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224089633</amazonuk>1788161211
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mick ConefreyRob Baker|title=How to Climb Mont Blanc Toubab Tales: The Joys and Trials of Expat Life in a Skirt: A Handbook for the Lady AdventurerAfrica
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
|summary=Scott''"Go to Mali, Amundsen, Bleriot, Stanley and Livingstone, John Glenn, et all - any child should be drummed out of school if " they can't name half a dozen explorerssaid. "The music is amazing, travel pioneers and adventurers. But give them a gold star if " they can name a single female entrant to history's listsaid. Hence this book, for while some mountains have been topped by a lady first "And you get ten hours of all, and some landmark achievements by the guys have been quickly followed by the gals, there is just too much ground to be made up in recognising what the fairer sex have done in the world of, well, going round our worldsunshine every day." So I did.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851688412</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=Jasper Rees|title=Bred of Heaven: One manRob Baker is an ethnomusicologist. ''A what?''s quest to reclaim his Welsh roots|rating=3.5|genre=Travel|summary=Jasper Rees is a Welshman in his dreamsI hear you cry. Despite his surnameWell, he was born an ethnomusicologist studies music in Englandrelation to culture, but wishes he was from Wales. Seeking to find his inner Welshman – he's sure he has one as he had Welsh grandparents – he journeys around so rather like a folklorist studies the land of his fathers trying oral and written story traditions relating to work out what it means to be Welsha culture.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846682991</amazonuk>B089CSNFT7
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Siddhartha DebChristine Brown|title=The Beautiful Bucket Showers and the DamnedBaby Goats: Life Volunteering in the New IndiaWest Africa
|rating=4.5
|genre=Travel
|summary=This In the summer of 2008, this book immediately caught my eye with its terrific front cover. A picture says more than a thousand words 's author was spending her days working in an office job in the USA while spending her nights dreaming about being somewhere else, doing something else... But I was conscious thatLong story short, as a work of non-fictionshe ended up volunteering in Ghana, it may be full of rather dry facts and figures that I was going to have to plough through with grace and patienceWest Africa. Couple that withNow coincidentally, in my opinion, most the summer of the Indian writers that I have read2010, have this review's author was spending ''her'' days working in my experience been unnecessarily wordy and flowery an office job (albeit in the UK) while spending ''her'' nights dreaming about being somewhere else, doing something else, and exasperating) choosing to use fifteen words when one or two would be nicely''she'' ended up just 3 countries away, volunteering in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Soyou can see why, a little bit of trepidation as I open the when this book. The first thing came up, said reviewer was delighted to strike me is have the intriguing contents page. As Deb is going opportunity to concentrate on a mere handful of individuals I'm not going to feel bombarded by hundreds of different stories vying for space on the page. Good startread and critique it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670917303</amazonuk>171024299X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael BondMourby_Rooms|title=Paddington's Guide to London|rating=4|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Some things are just Rooms with a brilliant idea. Young Paddington Bear has written a guide book to his adopted home in the way that only he could do it. All his old friends are there – Mr and Mrs Brown and their children Jonathan and Judy along with their housekeeper Mrs Bird and View: The Secret Life of course we mustn't forget Paddington's old friend Mr Gruber who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of London. So, where is Paddington planning to take you?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007415915</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewGreat Hotels|author=Michael Palin|title=Ox TravelsAdrian Mourby
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
|summary=Ox Travels is Adrian Mourby has given us a flying visit to each of fifty grand hotels, from fourteen regions of the world, with the hotels in each section being arranged chronologically rather than by region, which helps to give something of an anthology overall picture. So what makes a hotel 'grand'? The first hotel to call itself 'grand' was in Covent Garden in 1774 and it ushered in the beginning of travel writing compiled to raise funds a period when a hotel would be a lifestyle choice rather than a refuge for Oxfam, but it is well worth buying those without friends and reading family conveniently nearby. The hotels we visit all began life in its own rightdifferent circumstances and each faced a different set of challenges. Its generous 432 pages offer We begin in the chance Americas, move to meet 36 writersthe United Kingdom, including travel writerscircumnavigate Europe, journalists briefly visit Russia and novelistsTurkey then northern Africa, with an introduction by Michael Palin India and an afterword by Barbara StockingAsia. Australia, it seems, Oxfam's Chief Executivedoes not go for the grand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668496X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karen Blixen1908745819|title=Out Of AfricaSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyHistory|summary=ItSometimes 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, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's more than a quarter of rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a century since book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I first saw was told why. The blurb speaks of the film author considering ''Out an older, less tethered sense of Africaherself.'' and it Older. Less tethered. That's one not a bad description of the few that have stayed with me over the intervening yearswhere I am. It wasn't just Add to that my love of the storynatural world, but the personality of Karen Blixen and the wonderful landscape those aspects of the Ngong Hillspoetic and lyrical that are about style not form, south and substance most of Nairobiall, about connection. Of course, in Kenya's Rift Valleythis book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I remember looking for this book at the time, but being unable am pleased to find have it, fall onto my path so the opportunity to read it now was too good to missquickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951437</amazonuk>
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 {{newreview|author=Sara Wheeler|title=Access All Areas: Selected Writings 1990-2010|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary=This is a great book to acquire if your general knowledge of historical adventurers is as haphazard as mine. Somewhere along the line, I'd missed out on Scott and Shackleton, and it's very satisfying indeed to fill those gaps from such a reliable informant. One brisk section, for example, managed to encapsulate both Antartica's history and further outlook, along with sufficient atmospheric detail to ensure we mortals understood just what it feels like to sleep in Scott's hut during a wintry gale.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090712</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Butcher1912242052|title=Chasing the Devil: On Foot Through Africa's Killing Fields|rating=4.5|genre=Travel|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 be a journalist… do they envisage writing about science, or economics, or celebrities, or do they see themselves as television reporters standing in flak jackets doing the obligatory piece-to-camera in the latest war zone? Do they even read newspapers any more? Do they realise that there are still also people out there in those war zones, without the glamour flak-jacket, just (if they're lucky) the ordinary pock-marked one, that they prefer not to wear because it's way too hot? People who still ply the classic trade of actually writing what they see and trusting that they can do it well enough O Joy for the words to stand alone without the sound effects, without (quite often) any pictures, to make it "real"?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532069</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Williams|title=On The Slow Train Again|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary=A few years ago Michael Williams, the railway expert who's written for numerous newspapers and magazines on the subject, 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 volume, he's given us a dozen more in this sequel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092857</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Gimlette|title=Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge|rating=4.5|genre=Travel|summary=Apart from knowing that it borders Venezuela, Brazil and Suriname, a fact hammered into me in Year 8 Geography, I know very little about Guiana. And while you may think that's understandable, I'm not sure that it is, seeing as I read this book while living just two countries over. The thing is, it's a sort of tiny, forgotten country, isn't it? Over the years it has been involved in border disputes, has come under various nations' rule, and has changed names more often the P Diddy, and even after you take all that into account, I bet you can't think of a single thing there to go and see.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682525</amazonuk>}} {{newreview!|author=Yangzom Brauen and Katy Darbyshire|title=Across Many Mountains: Three Daughters of Tibet|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 PicturesKeir Davidson
|rating=3
|genre=TravelArt|summary=I'm 'Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a bit of an amateur photographerminer, and since the advent of digital cameras I always come back from holidays with thousands of photosquarryman, overshepherd or pack-excited by the fact that I am no longer limited horse driver, but because he wanted to 24 or 36 exposure films! for pleasure and adventure. I enjoyHis rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, thereforeand its literary consequences, flicking through photography books, to see changed our view of the images that have captured someone elseworld''s imagination 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 two important British royal dynasties. Here is the place of ill-repute, where 'Rule Britannia' was premiered, and which also bizarrely saw 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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roland HuntfordWoolf_Great|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 to a hero's welcome, while Scott reached the same destination 35 days later, only to perish with his men on the return journey. 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 HistoryGreat Horizon: A Son's Journey Through Islamic Lands|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Aatish Taseer was born of out of a short week 50 Tales 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 was 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 the boy was about 18 months old. Ah, but such breaks never are clean are they? There's always a certain amount of meddling from the side-lines, and then there's a child's longing to know who he is, where he is really from.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847671314</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewExploration|author=Jim Perrin|title=West: A Journey Through the Landscapes of LossJo Woolf
|rating=3.5
|genre=AutobiographyHistory|summary=Where would you go if Jo Woolf has compiled a brilliant set of fifty short insights into the love lives and achievements of your life, and your son, both died within a short few months some amazingly brave people. Their fearless journeys have helped us unlock many of each other? Jim Perrin headed West - to the scraggly patches mysteries of land off Ireland, closer to the setting sunwildest parts of our world, nearer and also given us an understanding of what it is like to be faced with the further horizon, beyond most terrible conditions and still have the noise, information determination and opinion of humanitygrit to carry on. Of course, that question This book could also be answered in viewed as a taster which encourages us to seek out and read more metaphoric way. Jim went inward, before coming outward. He suffered - "involuntarily, about some of the tears have comemost iconic explorers. Who would have thought that death would release so many.." He also, although he would probably hate me for saying it, went on a "psycho-geographical ramble" - both in life, Their stories are pretty incredible and in making 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 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 Woolf 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 that sometimes the only way to cross the road is to take a rickshaw taxithem justice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526743</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian W Pugh, Paul R Spiring and Sadru BhanjiHailstone_Berlin|title=Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and DevonBerlin in the Cold War: A Complete Tour Guide and Companion1959 to 1966|author=Allan Hailstone
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=''The Hound of Berlin in the BaskervillesCold War: 1959-1966'' is one of contains almost 200 photographs taken by author/photographer Allan Hailstone in his visits to the most famous mystery novels of all, and also one of the most famous English novels set in Devoncity during this period. This alone would probably give more or less enough material for The images provide an entire book on connections between insight into the story and changing nature of the location which inspired it. Yet the authors have found several more links divide between the county, East and West Berlin 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, was previously unaware.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312861</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Lane|title=England 'Til I Die - A celebration of England's amazing supporters|rating=3.5|genre=Sport|summary=To start with, an admission. I am an English fan of football, but I am not a fan of England’s football squad. Hardly ever would I prefer to see the Three Lions triumphant. I never got glimpse into life in the habit, partly because I never saw the singularly English habit of supporting the underdog as making any sense. Plus you'll never get me standing up and singing that awful tune before city during the matchCold War. But here are testimonies from twenty or so people who see things completely differently to me.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906796505</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Justine HardyStewart_Marches|title=In the Valley of Mist: Kashmir's Long War - One Family's Extraordinary StoryThe Marches|author=Rory Stewart
|rating=5
|genre=TravelHistory|summary=Kashmir. Is that not The Observer quote on the most romantic front of names? To those the paperback edition of us entranced by tales from the EastStewart's latest book observes ''This is travel writing at its finest.'' Perhaps, but to call it echoes with the same essence of myth as 'travel writing'Shangis to totally under-ri-la'' – sell it. This is erudition at its finest. Stewart has the background to do this: he had an international upbringing and for good reason. Geographically situated followed his father in both the Himalaya but with Army and the abundant fertility of the valleyForeign Office, and then (to his father's, bemusement, shall we say) became an MP. Oh, lakes and meadowshe walked 6, it 000 miles across Afghanistan in 2002. A walk along the Scottish borders should be a kind of paradisedoddle by comparison. To the people who live there, it once was. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846041511</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael BoothBristow China|title=Sushi and BeyondChina in Drag: What the Japanese Know About CookingTravels with a Cross-dresser|author=Michael Bristow
|rating=4
|genre=Cookery
|summary=Japanese food has a tendency 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 to experience 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 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 people. 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). There is a huge amount of material in the book but Wheeler organises and presents it in a very readable, accessible style.
|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 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 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 that is the subject of this latest work: the lotus.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184595100X</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Jason Webster
|title=Sacred Sierra: A Year on a Spanish Mountain
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
|summary=Jason Webster and his partner, 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 buildings. These ''mas'', or smallholdings, formed the backbone of Spanish agriculture until young people abandoned rural life for towns in the mid-twentieth century. The agro-economics of the EEC enforced obsolescence of the ''mas'' system. As old timers retired or died, their farms were abandoned, leaving most of the land returning 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 to save money on dentistry – pay for a month's rent in Bangkok and get his fillings done there, which works out cheaper than dental insurance in America. During the course of many visits to Thailand, 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 and how people really think, challenging the idea that both countries are defined only by a religious fervour and fundamentalism that is the accepted way of life. At the heart of Jubber's quest is the epic poem of Persian culture, the ''Shahnameh'' which he soon learns all Iranians know and love and in doing so he unearths a vibrant culture that preceded the conversion of Persia to Islam and with it the transformation of Persia into Iran.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818841</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Ian Mathie
|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 Having worked for nine years old. School was in Bejing as a convent and was run by German and Italian nuns and journalist for a while he was the only white child amongst a couple of hundred AfricansBBC, author Michael Bristow decided to write about Chinese history. 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 Having been learning the local language and grew up with for several years, Bristow asked his language teacher for guidance - the local children. It was his home and was to be language teacher, born in the centre early fifties, offered Bristow a compelling picture of his life for decades in Communist China - but added to that, Bristow was greatly surprised to comefind that his language teacher also enjoyed spending his spare time in ladies clothing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955312418</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gary Blackwood|title=The Great Race: The Amazing Round-TheIt soon becomes clear that the tale told here is immensely personal -World Auto Race Of 1908|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 also paints a fascinating portrait of the world one 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 pioneerss most intriguing nations. 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>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dervla MurphyHurst_Norfolk|title=The Island That DaredOn My Way: Journeys in CubaNorfolk Coastal Walks|author=John Hurst
|rating=4
|genre=TravelArt|summary=In her latest literary outing, the now elderly and increasingly opinionated travel writer and veteran cyclist Dervla Murphy describes a series of trips to Cuba. The opening section deals with a family trip in late 2005. Readers who have followed Dervla's books from the beginning will have grown up with Rachel, the author's daughter, who accompanied her on It was pure serendipity: after a number of trips between the ages of five and eighteen. Now Dervla travels with Rachel and Rachel's three young daughters-hour drive, Clodaghwe were, Rose and Zeaannoyingly, known for ease throughout the book as ''the Trio''. The middle section sees Dervla return alone left with an hour to spend several months trekking fill in places such as Blakeney before we could have the Sierra del Escambray mountains, and in the final third of the book, Dervla returns keys to the city of Santa Clara for the commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the death of Ernesto ''Che'' Guevaraour holiday cottage.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190601146X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jonathan Buckley, Mark Ellingham and Tim Jepson|title=The Rough Guide to Tuscany and Umbria|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary=There's a general Rough Guide to Italy, but revisiting again this regional guide was an art exhibition in the process of writing up our trip to Tuscany two years agochurch hall, I was reminded so we went in - and found a display of how good indeed this particular Rough Guide isthe most gorgeous pictures. I 'd cheerfully have bought it because every one and hung them on our walls, but thought that I wanted would have to supplement the general Rough Guide to Italy I had make do with more detailed coverage a couple of the region in which we were going to spend the whole trip - greetings cards when I saw ''On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks'' and I was extremely happy with the resultcouldn't resist buying it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843530554</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Guy Delisle|title=Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Meet Guy. He's a French-Canadian animator, leaving home for a short stay in the capital of one of the world's most intriguing, unknown and alien cultures - Pyongyang, North Korea - so he can work Move on a TV cartoon co-production. Forced to stay in one of the three official hotels designed for foreigners, so 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079905</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Trivia Reviews]]

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