Travel
On The Map by Simon Garfield
You might think that there's not a lot which could be said about maps - but you'd be completely wrong. This is staggeringly good - one of the very best non-fiction books I've read all year. Garfield takes us from the Great Library of Alexandria to a map of the brain, via maps in films, treasure maps and JM Barrie's hatred of folding maps. Alternating between full chapters which tell the stories of cartographers and their maps in roughly chronological order, and shorter entries bearing the title 'Pocket Map' which pick out particularly interesting trivia, there's not a dull entry in the book. Full review...
Walking Home by Simon Armitage
Poet Simon Armitage decided in 2010 to walk the Pennine Way 'in reverse' - instead of heading to Scotland, he'd start just across the border and walk in the direction of his native Yorkshire. As if doing it this way, with the sun, wind and rain in his face wasn't hard enough, he also challenged himself to do it without a penny to his name, earning cash for the journey by giving poetry readings in pubs, village halls and living rooms. Could he make a 256-mile journey supported only by the kindness of strangers and his own willpower? Full review...
Touching The World: A Blind Woman, Two Wheels and 25,000 Miles by Cathy Birchall and Bernard Smith
Consider the world. There might not be enough of it to go around in some over-crowded places, but there is enough variety in it - and us - for us all to have our own version of it; our own perceptions, experiences and expectations. Those are drastically altered from those of you and I if one is blind, as Cathy Birchall is. But that simple fact did not stop her taking a year out, and starting in August 2008, perch herself on her husband's pillion seat and be taken from one end of the earth to the other and back again. Full review...
Up In The Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell
One of the joys of reviewing books is when you stumble across something, know you are going to love it, ask for it, have it delivered and then spend a week or so being absolutely entranced. It could so easily have been a disappointment.
Joseph Mitchell is one of those men, one feels one should have heard of, should know about. Not just that, he is one of those, one wishes one could have known. Full review...
On The Road to Babadag by Andrzej Stasiuk
Sometimes we should trust our instincts. When I saw Babadag on the Shelf I knew I would love it. When I sat in my garden on a hot sunny evening and struggled my way through the first chapter, I had my doubts.
Oh, ye of little faith...! Full review...
Narrow Dog to Wigan Pier by Terry Darlington
You might not realise, but there is a hierarchy in publishing of narrowboat travelogue trilogies. At the bottom is Shane Spall, mostly for the fact her and husband Timothy's boat isn't narrow, and partly for the fact she's only published the first volume. With three volumes under his belt, we have Steve Haywood, but top of the pile is Terry Darlington. One example of the proof of this is that Mr Haywood was front page news in the Leicester Mercury when he wrote them a letter about the graffiti near his mooring, while Mr Darlington trended number two on the BBC news sites when his boat burned down, such is the esteem he, his wife, his narrowboat and his narrow dog (Jim the whippet) is held in. Full review...
Strands: A Year of Discoveries on the Beach by Jean Sprackland
Sprackland is a poet, and a good one. At least I assume she's a good poet – I rarely read poetry these days. Her first collection was shortlisted for the Forward Prize, her second was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award and her third won the 2007 Costa Poetry Award. Unless all of the panels harbour the same judges, that's a lot of people thinking this is someone special. Full review...
Life On The Line by Jeremy Bullard
Jeremy Bullard began his working life as a Chartered Accountant but eventually realised that the most exciting part of the day was his journey to work on his moped. Next came a spell as a IT Consultant into which he put heart and soul and only just escaped with his sanity. A mental breakdown and a spell in The Priory convinced him that he had to rethink his life choices and high on the list was a long-distance trip on a motorbike. The first two trips - from London to Cape Town and the reverse - were aborted and we join him as he attempts his most ambitious journey. He's heading from New York to the very south of South America. Oh, and he's taking in the Galapagos and Easter Island. Full review...
A Journey to Nowhere: Among the Lands and History of Courland by Jean-Paul Kauffmann
When I turn to travel writing, it is a healthy balance of that about places I have been to, and places I've not. But without sounding too big-headed it is seldom places I have never heard of in any context - especially those I have passed through, what's more. The 'nowhere' in focus here is Courland, which was more-or-less the coastal slither of the top of Latvia, and was once an independent Duchy. In one fell swoop Kauffmann seems to become the only travel writer to have written a book about the place, at least for many a generation, and, it's pleasant to say, probably the best one could have hoped for. Full review...
The Grand Tour: Letters and photographs from the British Empire expedition by Agatha Christie and Mathew Prichard (editor)
In 1922 Agatha Christie, already the author of three very successful books, was happily married with a small daughter, and her heart's desire was to continue writing while she led a quiet life in the country. However her husband Archie was becoming increasingly restless and disenchanted with working in the City, and his longing for a change was suddenly to be fulfilled in a most unexpected way. An old friend, Major Belcher, 'blessed with great powers of bluff', presented them both with the opportunity of a lifetime – to join him on a trip to several imperial outposts in preparation for the forthcoming British Empire Exhibition to be staged at Wembley. Archie would be his financial adviser, and Agatha was cordially invited for the trip, as his wife. (Two-year-old Rosalind would have to stay at home, a decision which involved some soul-searching). Full review...
Home to Roost by Tessa Hainsworth
There seems to be a plethora of books about people who have moved to unusual places, or changed lifestyle in middle age for a variety of reasons. This book features a London family who have moved to Cornwall, and is the third (so far) in a series about their transition. Full review...
Underground Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube by Andrew Martin
Although he was born in Yorkshire, Andrew Martin has long been enthralled by the London Underground. His father worked on British Rail, and Andrew himself therefore had free travel on the system as well as a Privilege Pass which entitled him to free first-class train travel on the national rail network. Having lived in London for twenty-five years, commuting to various newspaper offices in his employment as a journalist, a job which has included writing a regular magazine column, Tube Talk, he is well qualified to write this entertaining and enlightening social history of the world's most famous underground railway. Full review...
Tout Soul by Karen Wheeler
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 about a relocated life in rural France and after her previous tales of upping and leaving Blighty (book 1) and falling in love with the aforementioned dashing hunk (book 2) she’s now moved her focus to the pursuit of happiness. Full review...
Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea by Donovan Hohn
In January 1992 a container ship was on its way from China to 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 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. Full review...
Up Pohnpei: A quest to reclaim the soul of football by leading the world's ultimate underdogs to glory by Paul Watson
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. Full review...
To a Mountain in Tibet by Colin Thubron
This must go down as the least apposite indefinite article in a book title yet. Yes, there are many other mountains dotting the plains of Tibet, but calling this one just 'a' mountain, when it is sacred to a fifth of the world's religious people... Hindu and Buddhist faiths alike venerate Mount Kailas, and devotees are supposed to visit and circle round it to cleanse a lifetime's sins. Thubron takes us on his own pilgrimage, from impoverished cliff-side villages in Nepal, through to Chinese-occupied Tibet and to the sacred route around the mountain. Full review...
Wanderlust by Elisabeth Eaves
Egypt. Australia. Papua New Guinea. Spain. Pakistan. New Zealand. France. For some that list will be a random list of places, mixing those they know with those they’ve never considered. Others might tick off a few and have the remainder on a ‘to do’ list. It’s probably only a small subset who will have passed through all of them, and an ever tinier one who will have spent considerable time in each. Canadian native Elisabeth Eaves is one of the lucky few who has been there, done that, and this book is essentially her travel diaries of those years wandering the globe. Full review...
Shadow of the Titanic by Andrew Wilson
Lesson one in writing non-fiction articles and journalism seems to be to find out what is topical. April 2012 is the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic, and there are going to be hoards of people finding it topical to celebrate that. Lesson two seems to be to find your own unique angle on the story. Wilson approaches the Titanic disaster by sinking her at the end of chapter one, for he looks more at the lives of the people on board, and how they took the calamity and dealt with it. Full review...
Amexica: War Along the Borderline by Ed Vulliamy
More than 38,000 people have been killed in the last 3 years in what Ed Vulliamy argues is an unacknowledged war, on the long border (2,100 miles) between Mexico and the United States. The war is between drug trafficking gangs over control of the lucrative drugs trade from Mexico to the US. In this compelling and disturbing work of reportage Vulliamy travels through the borderlands meeting some of the people affected. Full review...
The London of Sherlock Holmes - Over 400 Computer Generated Street Level Photos by Thomas Bruce Wheeler
Should I trust a book that has a typo on the FRONT cover? Would I purchase a book that practically says, as its first words, the e-book version is better than this paper thing? This, despite setting up very much the wrong impression, is a gateway into the world of Sherlock Holmes - but does, as I say, blatantly show itself up as flawed, while the electronic version could count as a very worthwhile app for the Conan Doyle buff. Full review...
Supper With The President by Ian Mathie
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. Full review...
Under the Sun. The Letters of Bruce Chatwin by Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare (ed)
Bruce Chatwin was best known as a travel writer – this collection both confirms his 'wanderlust' but also clearly establishes that his writing was far more of a creative process than the usual journalistic approach to travel writing. Nicholas Shakespeare’s selection and passages of narration makes this a mix of the biographical and the autobiographical, a fascinating insight into a restless spirit, but also into the experimentation and literary reflection that made him outstanding amongst his peers. Full review...
Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars by Sonia Faleiro
In 2005, there were 1,500 dance bars in Bombay, so called because they employed women to dance to popular music. Bar dancers could earn a lot of money compared to women in other traditional female jobs outside the sex industry, such as cleaners. Many of them also slept with men for money, but because her job was dancing not sex, a bar dancer could also see herself as infinitely superior to sex workers, whether street prostitutes, those working in brothels or call girls. Full review...
Eat, Pray, Eat by Michael Booth
I really enjoyed Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Initially I thought I'd picked up a Me too variant with 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, I was away. This is a story of a family adventure to India, a hard-fought encounter with yoga, and some culinary interest thrown in. But like Elizabeth Gilbert, like most other visitors, India moved his life-view dramatically and for the better. Full review...
How to Climb Mont Blanc in a Skirt: A Handbook for the Lady Adventurer by Mick Conefrey
Scott, 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 explorers, travel pioneers and adventurers. But give them a gold star if they can name a single female entrant to history's list. Hence this book, for while some mountains have been topped by a lady first 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 world. Full review...
Bred of Heaven: One man's quest to reclaim his Welsh roots by Jasper Rees
Jasper Rees is a Welshman in his dreams. Despite his surname, he was born in England, 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 the land of his fathers trying to work out what it means to be Welsh. Full review...
The Beautiful and the Damned: Life in the New India by Siddhartha Deb
This book immediately caught my eye with its terrific front cover. A picture says more than a thousand words ... But I was conscious that, as a work of non-fiction, it may be full of rather dry facts and figures that I was going to have to plough through with grace and patience. Couple that with, in my opinion, most of the Indian writers that I have read, have in my experience been unnecessarily wordy and flowery (and exasperating) choosing to use fifteen words when one or two would be nicely. So, a little bit of trepidation as I open the book. The first thing to strike me is the intriguing contents page. As Deb is going 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 start. Full review...
Paddington's Guide to London by Michael Bond
Some things are just 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 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? Full review...
Ox Travels by Michael Palin
Ox Travels is an anthology of travel writing compiled to raise funds for Oxfam, but it is well worth buying and reading in its own right. Its generous 432 pages offer the chance to meet 36 writers, including travel writers, journalists and novelists, with an introduction by Michael Palin and an afterword by Barbara Stocking, Oxfam's Chief Executive. Full review...
Out Of Africa by Karen Blixen
It's more than a quarter of a century since I first saw the film Out of Africa and it's one of the few that have stayed with me over the intervening years. It wasn't just the story, but the personality of Karen Blixen and the wonderful landscape of the Ngong Hills, south of Nairobi, in Kenya's Rift Valley. I remember looking for this book at the time, but being unable to find it, so the opportunity to read it now was too good to miss. Full review...
Access All Areas: Selected Writings 1990-2010 by Sara Wheeler
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. Full review...
Chasing the Devil: On Foot Through Africa's Killing Fields by Tim Butcher
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 for the words to stand alone without the sound effects, without (quite often) any pictures, to make it "real"? Full review...
On The Slow Train Again by Michael Williams
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. Full review...
Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge by John Gimlette
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. Full review...
Across Many Mountains: Three Daughters of Tibet by Yangzom Brauen and Katy Darbyshire
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. Full review...