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[[Category:New Reviews|Travel]]==Travel==__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Siddhartha DebAlastair Humphreys|title=The Beautiful and the Damned: Life in the New IndiaLocal|rating=4.5|genre=Travel|summary=This book immediately caught my eye with its terrific front coverAlastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the world. A picture says more than a thousand words ..And then written about it. But I was conscious that, as a work of non-fiction, it may be full of rather dry facts For this book he walked and figures that I was going cycled very close to have to plough through with grace home and patiencethen wrote about it. Couple that with, As he says in my opinionhis introduction, most of the Indian writers that book is an attempt ''to share what I have readlearnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map. Nature loss, pollution, have in my experience been unnecessarily wordy land use and flowery (and exasperating) choosing to use fifteen words when one or two would be nicely. Soaccess, agriculture, the food system, a little bit rewilding…'' One of the joys of trepidation as I open the book. The first thing to strike for me is was that 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 biggest thing he learned about all of different stories vying for space on the page. Good start.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917303</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Bond|title=Paddington's Guide to London|rating=4|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Some these things are just a brilliant idea. Young Paddington Bear has written a guide book to his adopted home in the way was that only he could do it. All his old friends there are there – Mr and Mrs Brown and their children Jonathan and Judy along with their housekeeper Mrs Bird and of course we mustnno easy answers, no single 't forget Paddingtonright or wrong's old friend Mr Gruber who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of London. So, where that every upside is Paddington planning likely to take you?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007415915</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Palin|title=Ox Travels|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Ox Travels is an anthology of travel writing compiled to raise funds have a downside for Oxfam, but it is well worth buying somebody 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 Executivethat there are some hard choices ahead.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184668496X</amazonuk>1785633678

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karen Blixen0957181167|title=Out Of AfricaBlue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian Lewis|author=Alan Marshall

|genre=AutobiographyArt|summary=It's There are few positive things which can be said about a substandard apartment when you’re on holiday but this time, in trying to avoid looking at a problem I found myself looking more than closely at a quarter couple of a century since I first saw pictures on the walls - and was completely taken by the film ''Out work of Africa'' Brian Lewis. I searched online and it's one could only find ‘used’ versions of this book and the few that have stayed with me over the intervening yearsprint I wanted was ‘not available’. It wasn't just Oh, dear - then a few doors down from the storyapartment, but the personality I found a gift shop with a stack of Karen Blixen brand new books - and the wonderful landscape a framed print of the Ngong Hills, south of Nairobi, in Kenya's Rift Valley. picture 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 misswanted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951437</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sara Wheeler1785633457|title=Access All AreasCharging Around: Selected Writings 1990-2010Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson

|summary=This is Clive Wilkinson has a great book to acquire if your general knowledge history of historical adventurers is as haphazard as minetravelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. Somewhere along As he neared his eightieth birthday the line, I'd missed out on Scott and Shackletonidea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, and it's very satisfying indeed to fill those gaps from such should be a reliable informant. One brisk sectionpleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, for exampleJoan, managed to encapsulate both Antarticashouldn's history and further outlook, along with sufficient atmospheric detail to ensure we mortals understood just what t it feels like to sleep in Scott's hut during a wintry gale.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090712</amazonuk>?

 {{newreview|author=Tim Butcher|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 for the words to stand alone without the sound effects, without (quite often) any pictures, to make it "real"?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532069</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael WilliamsMerryn Glover|title=On The Slow Train AgainHidden Fires

|summary=A few years ago Michael WilliamsIt is always about the book, not the railway expert whowriter, but there are times when the author's written for numerous newspapers hinterland is also the background to the book and magazines on so it is necessary to understand that context, in order to appreciate the subject, released a book called ''On The Slow Train'' about some . Merryn Glover is of Britain's best railway tripsAustralian parentage, was born in Kathmandu, grew up in the Annapurna and Himalayan and now lives in Badenoch in Scotland. With far too many journeys I can think of no-one better a combination to fit into one volume, he's given give us a dozen more re-appraisal of Nan Shepherds work than the first Writer in Residence in this sequelthe 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>1848092857</amazonuk>1846975751

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John GimletteB0B7289HKQ|title=Wild CoastConversations Across America: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge|rating=4.5|genre=Travel|summary=Apart from knowing that it borders Venezuela, Brazil A Father and Suriname, a fact hammered into me in Year 8 Geography, I know very little about Guiana. And while you may think that's understandableSon, I'm not sure that it is, seeing as I read this book while living just two countries over. The thing is, itAlzheimer'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 300 Conversations Along the P Diddy, and even after you take all TransAmerica Bike Trail that into account, I bet you can't think Capture the Soul of a single thing there to go and see.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682525</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewAmerica|author=Yangzom Brauen and Katy Darbyshire|title=Across Many Mountains: Three Daughters of TibetKari Loya

|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 worldgood time to do it. 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' decision was carrying British explorers under made to ride the leadership of Captain Robert ScottTrans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, 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 Virginia to a hero's welcomeAstoria, while Scott reached the same destination 35 days later, only to perish with his men on the return journeyOregon - all 4250 miles of it - in 2015. Their bodies were found by a search party some eight months after they They had died.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441169822</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Aatish Taseer|title=Stranger 73 days 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 was to be all do it was, despite subsequent attempts at hushing up - slightly less than the pregnancy, then pretending a marriage until finally a clean break was made when the boy was about 18 months old. Ah, recommended time - 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>}} {{newreview|author=Jim Perrin|title=West: A Journey Through the Landscapes were factors which pointed this up as more 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 - 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, challenge that question could also it would be answered in a more metaphoric way. Jim went inward, before coming outward. He suffered - "involuntarily, the tears have come. Who would have thought that death would release so many.." He also, although he would probably hate me for saying most people who considered taking it, went on a "psycho-geographical ramble" - both in life, 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. HeMerv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer'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 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'' Erligg Kagge is one of a Norwegian explorer who has walked to the most famous mystery novels of allSouth Pole, the North Pole and also one the summit of the most famous English novels set in DevonEverest. This alone would probably give more He knows a thing or less enough material for an entire book on connections between the story and the location which inspired ittwo about walking. Yet the authors have found several more links between the countyHowever, and Conan Doyle alongside this isn't a travelogue about any of those associated with himepic journeys, it is instead a thoughtful exploration of what it means to walk. The result has revealed much information It is a plenitude of which even unnumbered essays about walking. There is no 'contents' page and Ihaven't counted. In small format paperback, who have lived in the county nearly all my lifeeach essay is only a few pages long. Perhaps then, was previously unawarebetter thought of as a meditation rather than an essay.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904312861</amazonuk>0241357705

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David LaneMonica Connell|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 Against a fan of England’s football squad. Hardly ever would I prefer to see the Three Lions triumphant. I never got into 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 the match. But here are testimonies from twenty or so people who see things completely differently to me.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906796505</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Justine Hardy|title=In the Valley of Mist: Kashmir's Long War - One Family's Extraordinary StoryPeacock Sky

|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 her tales of fieldwork for 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 Thailand, he meanders around Bangkok, along with various other motley foreigners, passing through hospitalsher own paradigms, 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 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 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 people 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 village where she hauled up with the local children. It was his home and was to be the centre of his life for decades to come.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955312418</amazonuk>1780600429

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gary BlackwoodNicolas Bouvier|title=The Great Race: The Amazing Round-The-World Auto Race Of 1908Japanese Chronicles

|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

|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

|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

|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

|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

|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>

 {{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

|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>

 {{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

|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>

 {{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

|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>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rachel CuskBristow China|title=The Last SupperChina in Drag: A Summer in ItalyTravels with a Cross-dresser|author=Michael Bristow

|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>

 {{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>

{{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]]