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[[Category:New Reviews|Travel]]==Travel==__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrew WilsonAlastair Humphreys|title=Shadow of the TitanicLocal|rating=45|genre=HistoryTravel |summary=Lesson one in writing non-fiction articles Alastair Humphreys has walked and journalism seems to be to find out what is topicalcycled all over the world. And then written about it. April 2012 is the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic, For this book he walked and there are going cycled very close to be hoards of people finding home and then wrote about it topical to celebrate that. Lesson two seems As he says in his introduction, the book is an attempt ''to be to find your own unique angle on the storyshare what I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map. Wilson approaches Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the Titanic disaster by sinking her at food system, rewilding…'' One of the end joys of chapter one, the book for me was that the biggest thing he looks more at the lives learned about all of the people on boardthese things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and how they took the calamity and dealt with itthat there are some hard choices ahead.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847377300</amazonuk>1785633678

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ed Vulliamy0957181167|title=AmexicaBlue Skies and Boat Trips: War Along the BorderlineThe Norfolk of Brian Lewis|author=Alan Marshall

|genre=Politics and SocietyArt|summary=More than 38There are few positive things which can be said about a substandard apartment when you’re on holiday but this time,000 people have been killed in the last 3 years in what Ed Vulliamy argues is an unacknowledged war, trying to avoid looking at a problem I found myself looking more closely at a couple of pictures on the long border (2,100 miles) between Mexico walls - and was completely taken by the United Stateswork of Brian Lewis. The war is between drug trafficking gangs over control I searched online and could only find ‘used’ versions of this book and the lucrative drugs trade print I wanted was ‘not available’. Oh, dear - then a few doors down from Mexico to the US. In this compelling apartment, I found a gift shop with a stack of brand new books - and disturbing work of reportage Vulliamy travels through the borderlands meeting some a framed print of the people affectedpicture I wanted. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546566</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Thomas Bruce Wheeler1785633457|title=The London Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of Sherlock Holmes - Over 400 Computer Generated Street Level PhotosEngland by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=35

|summary=Should I trust a book that Clive Wilkinson has a typo on the FRONT cover? Would I purchase history of travelling by unconventional means with a book that practically says, as its first words, preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the e-book version is better than this paper thing? This, despite setting up very much idea of exploring the wrong impressionedges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, is it should be a gateway into the world of Sherlock Holmes - but doespleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, as I sayJoan, blatantly show itself up as flawed, while the electronic version could count as a very worthwhile app for the Conan Doyle buff.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780922094</amazonuk>shouldn't it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian MathieMerryn Glover|title=Supper With The PresidentHidden Fires

|summary=Bruce Chatwin was best known as a travel It is always about the book, not the writer – this collection both confirms his , but there are times when the author'wanderlust' but s hinterland is also clearly establishes the background to the book and so it is necessary to understand that his writing context, in order to appreciate the book. Merryn Glover is of Australian parentage, was far more born in Kathmandu, grew up in the Annapurna and Himalayan and now lives in Badenoch in Scotland. I can think of no-one better a creative process than the usual journalistic approach combination to travel writing. Nicholas Shakespeare’s selection and passages of narration makes this give us a mix re-appraisal of Nan Shepherds work than the biographical and first Writer in Residence in the autobiographicalCairngorms National Park. Merryn walks, a fascinating insight into a restless spiritnot so much in the shadow of Shepherd, but also into in her spirit. I think the experimentation and literary reflection that made him outstanding amongst his peerstwo would have gotten along famously.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224089897</amazonuk>1846975751

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sonia FaleiroB0B7289HKQ|title=Beautiful ThingConversations Across America: Inside the Secret World of BombayA Father and Son, Alzheimer's Dance Bars|rating=4.5|genre=Travel|summary=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 and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the sex industry, such as cleaners. Many Soul 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857861697</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewAmerica|author=Michael Booth|title=Eat, Pray, EatKari Loya

|summary=I really enjoyed ''EatKari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, Pray, Love'' by Elizabeth Gilbert. Initially I thought I'd picked up a ''Me too'' variant the way) wanted to spend some time with ''Eat, Pray Eat'' his father and must admit the period between two jobs seemed like a good time to my heart sinkingdo it. But no The decision was made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, here is a different personality with another story and writing style and after a fewVirginia to Astoria, doubting pages, I was away. This is a story Oregon - all 4250 miles of a family adventure to India, a hardit -fought encounter with yoga, and some culinary interest thrown in2015. But like Elizabeth Gilbert, like They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of a challenge that it would be for most other visitors, India moved his lifepeople who considered taking it on. Merv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-view dramatically and for the betterstage Alzheimer's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224089633</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Mick Conefrey|title=How Erligg Kagge is a Norwegian explorer who has walked to Climb Mont Blanc in a Skirt: A Handbook for the Lady Adventurer|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=ScottSouth Pole, Amundsen, Bleriot, Stanley the North Pole and Livingstonethe summit of Everest. He knows a thing or two about walking. However, John Glenn, et all - any child should be drummed out of school if they canthis isn't name half a dozen explorerstravelogue about any of those epic journeys, travel pioneers and adventurers. But give them it is instead a gold star if they can name a single female entrant thoughtful exploration of what it means to history's listwalk. Hence this book, for while some mountains have been topped by It is a lady first plenitude of all, unnumbered essays about walking. There is no 'contents' page and some landmark achievements by the guys have been quickly followed by the galsI haven't counted. In small format paperback, there each essay is just too much ground to be made up in recognising what the fairer sex have done in the world only a few pages long. Perhaps then, better thought of, well, going round our worldas a meditation rather than an essay.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1851688412</amazonuk>0241357705

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jasper ReesMonica Connell|title=Bred of Heaven: One man's quest to reclaim his Welsh rootsAgainst a Peacock Sky|rating=3.5

|summary=Jasper Rees 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 Welshman grant-supported trip, with a relatively specific objective. She wasn't a hippy wanderer looking for Shangri-la. She wasn't a mere tourist passing through. She went with a fundamental aim of learning about these people and how they lived. She also went, presumably, with the academic discipline of how to find these things out, how to organise them in his dreams. Despite his surnameher mind, he was born how to "understand" them in Englandthe context of her own paradigms, but wishes he was from Wales. Seeking and how to keep enough notes and files and photos to find his inner Welshman – he's sure he has one as he had Welsh grandparents – he journeys around help her create some greater sense of the experience after the land event. Fortunately, she also went with a sense of his fathers trying open-ness and curiosity and a willingness to work out what it means muck-in, to break her own rules and to be Welshtruly connect with the people of the village where she hauled up.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846682991</amazonuk>1780600429

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Siddhartha DebNicolas Bouvier|title=The Beautiful and the Damned: Life in the New IndiaJapanese Chronicles|rating=4.5|genre=Travel|summary=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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917303</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Bond|title=Paddington's Guide to London|rating=4|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=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?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007415915</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Palin|title=Ox Travels|rating=4

|summary=Ox Travels is an anthology It never does to start a review of travel writing compiled to raise funds for Oxfama book with a quote from the blurb, but sometimes it 's unavoidable. Le Monde reviewed this book, at some point, with the words ''what the old master craftsmen would call a masterpiece.'' It is precisely that. A masterpiece in the sense of the craft as well worth buying and reading in its own rightas the art of writing. Its generous 432 pages offer the chance I'm going to hesitate to meet 36 writers, including call it 'travel writerswriting' because this is as much a history of Japan, journalists a mythology-primer for the Japanese culture as it is a personal response to living and novelists, with an introduction by Michael Palin and an afterword by Barbara Stocking, Oxfam's Chief Executivetravelling in the country.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184668496X</amazonuk>1906011044

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Karen BlixenStephen Fabes|title=Out Of Africa|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=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 Signs 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951437</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sara Wheeler|title=Access All Areas: Selected Writings 1990-2010Life

|summary=This is a great book to acquire if your general knowledge I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of historical adventurers is as haphazard as minefar away places. Somewhere along the lineI was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, Ididn'd missed t inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out on Scott and Shackleton, and do it. I also didn's very satisfying indeed t inherit the kind of steady nerve, ability to fill those gaps from such a reliable informant. One brisk section, for example, managed talk to encapsulate both Antartica's history strangers and further outlook, along basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with sufficient atmospheric detail to ensure we mortals understood just what it feels like to sleep in Scottthe requisite 'bottle'. In order words I's hut during m not the sort of person who will get on a bike outside a wintry galeLondon hospital and not come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224090712</amazonuk>1788161211

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tim ButcherRob Baker|title=Chasing the DevilToubab Tales: On Foot Through The Joys and Trials of Expat Life in Africa's Killing Fields|rating=4.5

|summary=Tim Butcher's day job from 1990 '"Go to 2009 was Mali," they said. "The music is amazing," they said. "journalistAnd you get ten hours of sunshine every day."So I did. ''

I wonder Rob Baker is an ethnomusicologist. ''A what today?'s school-kids imagine when they say they want to be a journalist… do they envisage writing about science' I hear you cry. Well, or economics, or celebrities, or do they see themselves as television reporters standing an ethnomusicologist studies music in flak jackets doing the obligatory piece-relation 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 zonesculture, 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 so rather like a folklorist studies the classic trade of actually writing what they see oral 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>}} {{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 story traditions relating to fit into one volume, he's given us a dozen more in this sequelculture.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848092857</amazonuk>B089CSNFT7

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John GimletteChristine Brown|title=Wild CoastBucket Showers and Baby Goats: Travels on South America's Untamed EdgeVolunteering in West Africa

|summary=Apart from knowing that it borders VenezuelaIn the summer of 2008, this book's author was spending her days working in an office job in the USA while spending her nights dreaming about being somewhere else, Brazil and Surinamedoing something else. Long story short, a fact hammered into me she ended up volunteering in Year 8 GeographyGhana, I know very little about GuianaWest Africa. And while you may think that's understandableNow coincidentally, I'm not sure that it isin the summer of 2010, seeing as I read this book while living just two countries over. The thing is, itreview's a sort of tiny, forgotten country, isnauthor was spending ''her''t it? Over days working in an office job (albeit in the years it has been involved in border disputesUK) while spending ''her'' nights dreaming about being somewhere else, has come under various nations' ruledoing something else, and has changed names more often the P Diddy''she'' ended up just 3 countries away, and even after you take all that into accountvolunteering in Sierra Leone, I bet West Africa. So you can't think of a single thing there see why, when this book came up, said reviewer was delighted to have the opportunity to go read and seecritique it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846682525</amazonuk>171024299X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Yangzom Brauen and Katy DarbyshireMourby_Rooms|title=Across Many MountainsRooms with a View: Three Daughters The Secret Life of TibetGreat Hotels|author=Adrian Mourby

|summary=I'm Adrian Mourby has given us a bit 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 amateur photographer, overall picture. So what makes a hotel 'grand'? The first hotel to call itself 'grand' was in Covent Garden in 1774 and since it ushered in the advent beginning of digital cameras I always come back from holidays with thousands 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 photoschallenges. We begin in the Americas, over-excited by move to the fact that I am no longer limited to 24 or 36 exposure films! I enjoyUnited Kingdom, thereforecircumnavigate Europe, flicking through photography booksbriefly visit Russia and Turkey then northern Africa, to see the images that have captured someone else's imagination India and to see if I can pick up any interesting framing ideasAsia. Australia, it seems, or subject settingsdoes not go for the grand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685707</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Winn1908745819|title=I Never Knew That About the River ThamesSurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=4.5|genre=TriviaHistory|summary=Here are the remains of the building Sometimes when people suggest that could be said to have sired two important British royal dynasties. Here is the place of ill-reputeyou read a certain book, where they tell you ''this one has your name on it'Rule Britannia' was premiered. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, and which also bizarrely saw a death by cricket ball but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that inspired we didn't like the most famous gardens in the worldbook. 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. Here too is The blurb speaks of the largest lion in the worldauthor considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself. '' To Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am I referring? . Well Add to that my love of the answer is either natural world, of those aspects of the Thames valleypoetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, or this very bookhad my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091933579</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roland Huntford1912242052|title=Race O Joy for the South Pole: The Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsenme!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=43|genre=BiographyArt|summary=In 1910 two European ships set out ''Oh Joy for the Antarctic. me!'Terra Nova' was carrying British explorers under the leadership of Captain Robert Scott, while gives Coleridge credit for being '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 first person to walk the mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a hero's welcomeminer, quarryman, while Scott reached the same destination 35 days latershepherd or pack-horse driver, only but because he wanted to perish for pleasure and adventure. His rapturous encounters with his men on their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of the return journey. Their bodies were found by a search party some eight months after they had diedworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441169822</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aatish TaseerWoolf_Great|title=Stranger to HistoryThe Great 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

|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>

 {{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

|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

|genre=TravelHistory|summary=Kashmir. Is that not The Observer quote on the most romantic front of names? To those of us entranced by tales from the East, it echoes with the same essence paperback edition of myth as Stewart's latest book observes 'Shang-ri-la'This is travel writing at its finest.'' – and for good reason. Geographically situated in the Himalaya Perhaps, but with the abundant fertility of the valley, lakes and meadows, to call it 'travel writing' is to totally under-sell it should be a kind of paradise. To the people who live there, it once wasThis is erudition at its finest. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846041511</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Booth|title=Sushi and Beyond: What Stewart has the Japanese Know About Cooking|rating=4|genre=Cookery|summary=Japanese food has a tendency background 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 do this book Michael Booth takes his wife and two young children to experience the real thing, travelling across the whole of Japan tasting : he had an enormous range of foods international upbringing 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 followed his father in both 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 Army and its people. Rather than setting off on another expedition to reach the North PoleForeign Office, she travels around bits of the Arctic divided between different countries and governments, including Chukotka then (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 Britainto his father'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 bemusement, 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 miserablywe say) became an MP. 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 partnerOh, Salud searched and bought forty acres of valley and mountainside halfway up the Penyagolosa Ridge in Southern Spainhe walked 6, 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 000 miles across Afghanistan in the mid-twentieth century2002. The agro-economics of A walk along 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 wildScottish borders should be a doddle by comparison.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099512947</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lawrence OsborneBristow China|title=Bangkok DaysChina in Drag: Travels with a Cross-dresser|author=Michael Bristow

|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 childrenlanguage teacher, born in the early fifties, offered Bristow a compelling picture of life in Communist China - but added to that, Bristow was greatly surprised to find that his language teacher also enjoyed spending his spare time in ladies clothing. It was his home and was to be soon becomes clear that the centre tale told here is immensely personal - yet also paints a fascinating portrait of his life for decades to comeone of the world's most intriguing nations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955312418</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary BlackwoodHurst_Norfolk|title=The Great RaceOn My Way: The Amazing Round-The-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 of the world of automobiles were experimenting and discovering just what the car could do, by driving right round the world. Except they didn't want to be pioneers. One of the competitors, Antonio Scarfoglio, put it so perfectly when he said 'We had set out to perpetuate an act of splendid folly, not to open up a new way for men. We wished to be madmen, not pioneers.' Isn't that about the best quote you've ever read?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0810994895</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNorfolk Coastal Walks|author=Dervla Murphy|title=The Island That Dared: Journeys in CubaJohn Hurst

|genre=TravelArt|summary=In her latest literary outingIt was pure serendipity: after a five-hour drive, we were, annoyingly, left with an hour to fill in Blakeney before we could have the now elderly and increasingly opinionated travel writer and veteran cyclist Dervla Murphy describes a series of trips keys to Cubaour holiday cottage. The opening section deals with a family trip There was an art exhibition in late 2005. Readers who have followed Dervla's books from the beginning will have grown up with Rachelchurch hall, the author's daughter, who accompanied her on so we went in - and found a number display of trips between the ages of five and eighteenmost gorgeous pictures. Now Dervla travels with Rachel and Rachel I's three young daughters, Clodagh, Rose d cheerfully have bought every one and Zeahung them on our walls, known for ease throughout the book as but thought that I would have to make do with a couple of greetings cards when I saw ''the TrioOn My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks''. The middle section sees Dervla return alone to spend several months trekking in places such as the Sierra del Escambray mountains, and in the final third of the book, Dervla returns to the city of Santa Clara for the commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the death of Ernesto ''Che'I couldn' Guevarat resist buying it.|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 in the process of writing up our trip to Tuscany two years ago, I was reminded of how good indeed this particular Rough Guide is. I bought it because I wanted to supplement the general Rough Guide to Italy I had with more detailed coverage of the region in which we were going to spend the whole trip - and I was extremely happy 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 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>}} {{newreview|author=Charley Boorman |title=Right to the Edge: Sydney to Tokyo by Any Means|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Forgive me if I'm wrong, but there seems a ever-diminishing sense of surprise with Charley Boorman's continuing adventures. One hopes at least they started with very daring, courageous, envelope-pushing exploits, where we might have doubted his success. 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 of an ordeal, or doubt concerning a failure. And, as he admits, this does feel much like an add-on for his Ireland-to-Sydney trek.|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 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''. The operative word here is ''uncommon'', as ''Vagabonding'' is not really a guide as we know them, more of a pep-talk combined with a resource list.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0812992180</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Marika McAdam|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 (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 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)|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=4|genre=Travel|summary=Being a beer writer can't be the easiest route to respect in journalism. But with this book Pete Brown has done much to counter the sceptical, even dismissive, 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 writing. Against all the odds, he has largely succeeded.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230706355</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rough Guides |title=The Rough Guide to Amsterdam|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=This Rough Guide is as comprehensive, up to date and well researched as most if not all Rough Guides seem to be. I have used numerous examples of their guides and I found them to be among the best if not the best ones there are. They do seem to have moved upmarket a bit since I first started to use them in the early 90s - but they still provide the best balance in descriptions covering practicalities, context, history, sightseeing, entertainment, drinking, clubbing and even (in Amsterdam at least) dope smoking.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843538091</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alistair Duncan |title=Close to Holmes: A Look at the Connections Between Historical London, Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Even today, London is a remarkable compromise of the old and the new. As Alistair Duncan shows in this volume, the city of Conan Doyle and Holmes has changed – yet not changed. There have been a handful of books in the past on 'Holmes's London', but this is the first of its kind to place equal emphasis on places associated with the detective and his creator.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312500</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Trivia Reviews]]