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[[Category:New Reviews|Travel]]==Travel==__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dervla MurphyAlastair Humphreys|title=The Island That Dared: Journeys in CubaLocal|rating=45|genre=Travel|summary=In her latest literary outing, Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the now elderly world. And then written about it. For this book he walked and increasingly opinionated travel writer cycled very close to home and veteran cyclist Dervla Murphy describes a series of trips to Cubathen wrote about it. The opening section deals with a family trip As he says in late 2005. Readers who have followed Dervla's books from the beginning will have grown up with Rachelhis introduction, the authorbook is an attempt ''s daughter, who accompanied her on to share what I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a number of trips between the ages of five and eighteensmall map. Now Dervla travels with Rachel and Rachel's three young daughters Nature loss, Clodaghpollution, Rose land use and Zeaaccess, agriculture, known for ease throughout the book as food system, rewilding…'' One of the Trio''. 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 joys of the book, Dervla returns to the city of Santa Clara for me was that the commemoration biggest thing he learned about all of the fortieth anniversary of the death of Ernesto these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong'Che'' Guevara, that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190601146X</amazonuk>1785633678

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Buckley, Mark Ellingham and Tim Jepson0957181167|title=Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Rough Guide to Tuscany and UmbriaNorfolk of Brian Lewis|author=Alan Marshall

|genre=TravelArt|summary=There's are few positive things which can be said about a general Rough Guide to Italy, substandard apartment when you’re on holiday but revisiting again this regional guide time, in the process of writing up our trip trying to Tuscany two years ago, avoid looking at a problem I found myself looking more closely at a couple of pictures on the walls - and was reminded completely taken by the work of how good indeed this particular Rough Guide isBrian Lewis. I bought it because searched online and could only find ‘used’ versions of this book and the print I wanted to supplement was ‘not available’. Oh, dear - then a few doors down from the general Rough Guide to Italy apartment, I had found a gift shop with more detailed coverage a stack of the region in which we were going to spend the whole trip brand new books - and a framed print of the picture I was extremely happy with the resultwanted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843530554</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Guy Delisle1785633457|title=PyongyangCharging Around: 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 Exploring the capital Edges of one of the world's most intriguing, unknown and alien cultures - Pyongyang, North Korea - so he can work 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 England 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>}} {{newreviewElectric Car|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) Clive Wilkinson|rating=3.5

|summary=Lonely Planet does well from its multi-country guides as members Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of its peripateticexploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, Inter-railingit should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, backpacker audience often 'doJoan, shouldn' more than one country (and sometimes a whole continent or region at least) within one trip.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1741047293</amazonuk>t it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Thomas Cook Publishing Merryn Glover|title=European Rail Timetable Summer 2009The Hidden Fires

|summary=This volume It is an absolutely essential resource for anybody travelling in Europe by train. A compilation of all major train routesalways about the book, it allows not only for checking train the writer, but there are times but when the author's hinterland is also planning pretty much every conceivable major journeythe background to the book and so it is necessary to understand that context, in order to appreciate the book. Theoretically Merryn Glover is of Australian parentage, was born in Kathmandu, grew up in the train timetables change twice yearlyAnnapurna and Himalayan and now lives in Badenoch in Scotland. I can think of no-one better a combination to give us a re-appraisal of Nan Shepherds work than the first Writer in Residence in the Cairngorms National Park. Merryn walks, not so it's worth getting an up to date bookmuch in the shadow of Shepherd, but in her spirit. I think the two would have gotten along famously.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848481322</amazonuk>1846975751

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Johnstone B0B7289HKQ|title=Europe on a ShoestringConversations Across America: Big Trips on Small Budgets (Lonely Planet Shoestring Guides)A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America|author=Kari Loya

|summary=''Europe on a Shoestring'' comes from Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the vast stable of Lonely Planet's travel guides way) wanted to spend some time with his father and is very much aimed at the budget end of the marketperiod between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it. Comparable The decision was made to its nearest competitorride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Let's Go EuropeVirginia to Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles of it's a one-volume backpacker bible which attempts in 2015. They had 73 days to provide do it - slightly less than the overview recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of a whole continent, every single country challenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it on. Merv Loya was 75 years old and the main destinations in each of the countrieshe was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.|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 Erligg Kagge is a beer writer can't be the easiest route to respect in journalism. But with this book Pete Brown Norwegian explorer who has done much walked to counter the scepticalSouth Pole, even dismissive, attitudes which must surround his trade the North Pole and its subject matterthe summit of Everest. He has attempted knows a thing or two about walking. However, this isn't a travelogue about any of those epic journeys, it is instead a thoughtful exploration of what it means to combine walk. It is a history plenitude of British imperialism unnumbered essays about walking. There is no 'contents' page and the brewing industry with the comic I haven'quest' genre of travel writingt counted. In small format paperback, each essay is only a few pages long. Against all the oddsPerhaps then, he has largely succeededbetter thought of as a meditation rather than an essay.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230706355</amazonuk>0241357705

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rough Guides Monica Connell|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 Against 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 DoylePeacock Sky

|summary=Once more my life Monica Connell went to Nepal to do the fieldwork for her Ph.D. in social anthropology. I think it is made easy by saying this book does just what it claims important to know that. She went on the cover a grant-supported trip, with a relatively specific objective. She wasn't a hippy wanderer looking for Shangri- takes la. She wasn't a narrator 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 her mind, how to "understand" them in the context of zestyher own paradigms, wacky humourand how to keep enough notes and files and photos to help her create some greater sense of the experience after the event. Fortunately, throws him into an unlikely situation (she also went with a bath) sense of open-ness and curiosity and gets him a willingness to do something unusual (row it across the Channel muck- in, to break her own rules and then beyond). This despite to truly connect with the fact he was people of the world's worst sculler at Universityvillage where she hauled up.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848090269</amazonuk>1780600429

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Keith MillerNicolas Bouvier|title=St Peter's (Wonders of the World)|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=It is huge: not only in space but in time and structure; and in the non-material sphere of the complex interplay of meanings, symbols and significances. Miller's book, intentionally combining cultural and political history, art criticism and travel writing, manages to reflect that hugeness without weighting the reader down with too much austere detail.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861979088</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Guy Delisle|title=Burma The Japanese Chronicles|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=What we have here are a male househusband and artist, and his MSF doctor wife, and their life in Burma or Myanmar for roughly a year. We get to see the life in the country, from the racks of bootleg software, to the animation class he leads, to their efforts to get into the lush country clubs, to their baby being adored by every passing girl. We see the state of the country, with its horrid drugs, HIV/AIDS and malaria problems, hidden beyond the gentle Buddhist retreats. We see the Delisles' interaction with this singular country - the censored press, and the fact that their road is only made more busy because of the roadblock diverting everyone away from Aung San Suu Kyi's house a block away.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087711</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Iain McCalman|title=Darwin's Armada: Four Voyagers to the Southern Oceans and Their Battle for the Theory of Evolution|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=A look at Darwin's journey on The Beagle, as well as journeys by Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley and Alfred Wallace. Darwin's Armada provides a broad overview that strikes a different tone to other books in a crowded market. Casual readers who usually steer clear of non-fiction will enjoy it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737266X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Patrick Wright|title=A Journey Through Ruins: The Last Days of London |rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|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 Hilda's neo-liberal legacy is crashing around us. Jobless queues are lengthening. Roofs are disappearing from over people's heads. The rampant cronyism and venal nature of our economic and political elites are slowly exposing themselves in ways likely to send my blood pressure soaring. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0199541949</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Grann|title=The Lost City of Z: A Legendary British Explorer's Deadly Quest to Uncover the Secrets of the Amazon

|summary=SoIt never does to start a review of a book with a quote from the blurb, therebut sometimes it's unavoidable. Le Monde reviewed this familybook, rightat some point, and with the parents have itchy feet, so they pack everything up and say goodbye to words ''what the dog, and leave Clifton, Bristol, and drive down to Italy and live old master craftsmen would call a fine and different life, and masterpiece.'' It is precisely that. A masterpiece in the plumbing might not be sense of the best but craft as well as the neighbours and art of writing. I'm going to hesitate to call it 'travel writing' because this is as much a history of Japan, a mythology-primer for the scrumping and the wine are all Japanese culture as it is a personal response to die for living and it all comes right travelling in the end with life-affirming brilliance.  There will be many people shuddering at that completely false description of this bookcountry.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571242561</amazonuk>1906011044

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pip Cheshire and Patrick ReynoldsStephen Fabes|title=Architecture Uncooked: An Architect Looks Around New Zealand Holiday HousesSigns of Life

|summary=This book immediately impresses by its I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly written, yet intelligent writinghad which was the guts to simply go out and do it. I also didn't inherit the kind of steady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and its photography basic practicality that would have meant that captures both I would have survived if I had been gifted with the structure and requisite 'bottle'. In order words I'm not the spirit sort of the holiday homes scattered around the New Zealand countrysideperson who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1869621549</amazonuk>1788161211

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dean StarnesRob Baker|title=RoamToubab Tales: The Joys and Trials of Expat Life in Africa

|summary=Languages, customs, rituals, fascinating things ''"Go to doMali, places to see" they said. "The music is amazing, people to visit – all in the one book, covering almost " they said. "And you get ten hours of sunshine every nook and cranny throughout the worldday. This is a travel book covering, well, pretty well everything" So I did.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1869507118</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Tim Moore|title=I Believe in Yesterday: My Adventures in Living History|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Common opinion has it that the television programme Rob Baker is an ethnomusicologist. ''Time TeamA what?'' did a lot for the public image of archaeologists – bringing them out of their holes I hear you cry. Well, an ethnomusicologist studies music in the groundrelation to culture, and making them seem so rather like exciting, interesting people with a good way of putting their knowledge across. However it was clearly a much harder task when it came folklorist studies the oral and written story traditions relating to those background artistes they have sometimes, walking up and down in Roman centurion gear, or living the historical lifestyle as a re-enactmentculture.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224077813</amazonuk>B089CSNFT7

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Brian W Pugh and Paul R SpiringChristine Brown|title=On the Trail of Arthur Conan DoyleBucket Showers and Baby Goats: An Illustrated Devon Tour|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=This slim volume, comprising just four chapters, is both a detailed chronology of the life of Arthur Conan Doyle and, for those that want to follow Volunteering in the footsteps of ACD (I adopt the authors' abbreviation gladly), 'The Complete Arthur Conan Doyle Devon Tour' – locations that inspired The Hound of the Baskervilles and more.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846241987</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=William Gray|title=Adventure Travel (AA Travel Guides)West Africa|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Last Friday, my local branch of Cotswold Outdoor had several travel guides and physical activity handbooks on the shelves, but nothing similar to this book, a compendium of physically active travel, with some nods to responsible tourism. The format of information on activities, well-written taster articles and plenty of attractive photos make for an inspiring armchair read for dreamers and planners. 'World class' locations are always debatable, but I found interesting suggestions in several sections. I loved the book enough to brush off the toast crumbs so that I can present it to one of my adventurous offspring this Christmas, but I'm very much afraid the easy-opening pages may give the game away!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749555815</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Daniel Everett|title=Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes|rating=5

|summary=I nearly didn't select In the summer of 2008, this book to review as I thought it 's author was spending her days working in an office job in the USA while spending her nights dreaming about snakes - I was expecting some kind of Bear Grylls* adventure travel survival book for the Amazonbeing somewhere else, doing something else. How-to-survive-Long story short, she ended up volunteering in-the-jungle-armed-with-only-a-sharp-stick-and-a-six-pack sort of thingGhana, West Africa. FortunatelyNow coincidentally, I looked into in the content a little furthersummer of 2010, and found that this is review's author was spending ''her'' days working in an anthropological and linguistic study of the life of the Pirahas, a tribe living office job (albeit in the remote Amazonian jungle. The title comes from the fact that the Pirahas donUK) while spending 't have a word for 'her'goodnight'nights dreaming about being somewhere else, doing something else, and ' – their nearest equivalent when they are leaving someone for the night is 'she'Don't Sleepended up just 3 countries away, There Are Snakes''volunteering in Sierra Leone, West Africa. So you can see why, when this book came up, said reviewer was delighted to have the opportunity to read and critique it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846680301</amazonuk>171024299X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul TherouxMourby_Rooms|title=Ghost Train to the Eastern StarRooms with a View: The Secret Life of Great Hotels|author=Adrian Mourby

|summary=Some 30-odd years ago Paul TherouxAdrian Mourby has given us a flying visit to each of fifty grand hotels, then half from fourteen regions of the world, with the age he is nowhotels in each section being arranged chronologically rather than by region, travelled overland across Europe and Asiawhich helps to give something of an overall picture. The result was So what makes a hotel 'his best known bookgrand' (apparently) – ? The first hotel to call itself 'grand'was in Covent Garden in 1774 and it ushered in the 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 Great Railway Bazaar''hotels we visit all began life in different circumstances and each faced a different set of challenges. We begin in the Americas, move to the United Kingdom, circumnavigate Europe, briefly visit Russia and Turkey then northern Africa, India and Asia. Australia, it seems, does not go for the grand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241142539</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martin Buckley1908745819|title=An Indian OdysseySurfacing|author=Kathleen Jamie

|genre=TravelHistory|summary=More than Sometimes when people suggest that you read a quarter of certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a century ago Martin Buckley went rare experience. People who are sensitive to Sri Lanka and then on to Indiahearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. It In this case, I was time off before settling down to the business of earning a livingtold why. Two things happened to him – he fell in love with India and knew that he wanted to stay there - and he discovered The blurb speaks of the author considering ''Ramayanaan older, less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. ValmikiThat's epic was written round about 500 not a bad description of where I am. Add to 700 BC – much that my love of the same time as Homer's ''Odyssey'' (natural world, of those aspects of the title poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book is a very clever play had my name on words) – but it still holds a central place in the hearts and minds of Indians although it is strangely unknown in the West. ''Ramayana'' – The Wanderings of Rama – tells the story of Lord Rama's search It was written for his kidnapped wife and his subsequent battles with Ravanme. Much of it is certainly mythIt would have found its way to me eventually. Some may well be based on fact, but I am pleased to have it's inspirational and has achieved the status of Holy Writfall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091925762</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Clarke 1912242052|title=A Year in the MerdeO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=53|genre=General FictionArt|summary=''A Year In The MerdeOh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being '' was recommended the first person to me by a friend whose sense of humour is very much on a par with mine. I read it a couple of years ago and decidedwalk the mountains alone, on discovering that Stephen Clarke not because he had written a couple of not-to-be-missed follow-upsfor work, that I would treat myself to the tale once more as a warmminer, quarryman, shepherd or pack-up exercise horse driver, but because he wanted to prepare me for pleasure and adventure. His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of the world''beaucoup de merde'' to come.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552772968</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Fran SandhamWoolf_Great|title=Traversa|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary=When you reach the end of Fran Sandham's solo walk across Africa, as he finally dips his toe into the Indian Ocean, you need to go back to the beginning and start again.  Lots of books make you want to do that. In this case, you actually need toThe Great Horizon: in order to fully understand the man, and so many of the things he says and does along the way. Otherwise, you're in danger of thinking this guy was a fool for even trying to attempt a solo walk across the African continent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715637673</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Christina Thompson|title=Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All|rating=4.5|genre=Travel|summary=Subtitled ''an unlikely love story'', this was an interesting and inspiring memoir written by an American academic, who met and fell in love with a Maori - and what a beautiful tale it tells! Referred to as a 'contact' encounter (i.e., chance meeting) it sounds almost like a fairy tale, and in part it is - but a fairy tale which includes huge amount 50 Tales of hard work too.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747582521</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewExploration|author=Nicola J Watson |title=The Literary TouristJo Woolf

|genre=TravelHistory|summary=''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 have helped us unlock many of the mysteries of the wildest parts of our resident travel writer this might interest you…'' came my introduction world, and also given us an understanding of what it is like to this be faced with the most terrible conditions and still have the determination and grit to carry on. This book. Misguidedly could be viewed as it turned a taster which encourages us to seek out, for the emphasis in Watson's work is much and read more heavily on about some of the ''literary'' than on the ''tourist''most iconic explorers. Their stories are pretty incredible and Woolf does them justice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230210929</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Suzanna Clarke Hailstone_Berlin|title=A House Berlin in Fezthe Cold War: Building a Life in the Ancient Heart of Morocco1959 to 1966|author=Allan Hailstone

|genre=AutobiographyHistory|summary=Perhaps it's a little unfair to come to ''A House Berlin in Fezthe Cold War: 1959-1966'' still inspired contains almost 200 photographs taken by the storytelling of Tahir Shah's [[In Arabian Nights by Tahir Shah|In Arabian Nights]], because this is a very different take on Morocco, aimed (as a book) no doubt at a very different market, but reading the two author/photographer Allan Hailstone in quick succession it is hard his visits to avoid comparison.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091925223</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Richardson |title=A Late Dinner: Discovering the Food of Spain|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary=Although subtitled ''discovering the food of Spain'', city during this excellently written, engaging and interesting book is about so much moreperiod. Yes, the focus is on food, mouthwateringly described, but it is also about culture, people, travel, tourism, history and geography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747593809</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rowan Simons|title=Bamboo Goalposts|rating=4 |genre=Sport|summary=When it comes to football, I'm in agreement with The images provide an insight into the great Bill Shankly when he said: ''Football is not a matter changing nature of life and death, it's far more important than that''. When it comes to China, my knowledge is limited to what I've seen on the TV recently about the earthquake, the Olympics divide between East and the protests; vague memories of Tiananmen Square West Berlin and a love of the cuisine, or at least the version that comes from my local takeaway. Like many in the Western world, I have no concept of what glimpse into life is truly like in China.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230703720</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tahir Shah |title=In Arabian Nights|rating=5 |genre=Travel|summary=Once upon a time there was a traveller who travelled through Pakistan to visit far Afghanistan, where he would seek out the lost treasure of city during the MughalsCold War. Sadly the traveller had an English passport and a Muslim name, and he was travelling from one enemy state to another. His story was not believed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385612079</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Daniel Kalder|title=Strange Telescopes|rating=3 |genre=Travel|summary=''Bill Bryson with Tourette's'' was one of the epithets that met Kalder's previous travelogue ([[Lost Cosmonaut]]) along with 'sharp absurdist insight', 'deliberately crass' and 'revelatory'. I can't actually disagree with any of that if you were to apply it to the latest offering ''Strange Telescopes''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571231233</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Mole |title=I Was a Potato Oligarch: Travels and Travails in the New Russia|rating=1 |genre=Travel|summary=I remember getting this book in post, reading the title and thinking no, even though I am Russian, I will try to be unbiased and judge it like I would judge any other book about a foreign country experience. I now have to regretfully admit I failed. In my defence, John Mole's focus on mocking the nation and country made that all too easy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1857885090</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sun Shuyun Stewart_Marches|title=A Year in Tibet|rating=4 |genre=Politics and Society|summary=Tibet is an emotive word these days. Rightly so. Since long before the dawn of Communism, China has been adept at numbering the rights and wrongs of history, with the three this and the seven that. Sadly, she does not yet see the invasion of Tibet as a wrong. I am in no position to know what the majority of ordinary Chinese know about Tibet, nor what they think of their government's official standpoint on it. Along with many others, I can only hope that one day they will have full and free access to the internet and other media where they will be able to read the many and varied opinions of people from around the world, and will be allowed not only to make up their own mind – but to then debate that standpoint, publicly and freely.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007265115</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewThe Marches|author=Fuchsia Dunlop |title=Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-sour Memoir of Eating in ChinaRory Stewart

|summary=The British EmpireObserver quote on the front of the paperback edition of Stewart's latest book observes ''This is travel writing at its finest.'' Perhaps, lawd bless but to call it – so large the sun never set on 'travel writing' is to totally under-sell it. Also never resting upon This is erudition at its surface, if finest. Stewart has the background to do this book is anything to go by, was : he had an increasing spread of international upbringing and followed his father in both the Army and the moneyed classesForeign Office, gallivanting off and then (to all cornershis father's, bemusement, whether as imperial missionariesshall we say) became an MP. Oh, explorersand he walked 6, or just plain travellers000 miles across Afghanistan in 2002. A walk along the Scottish borders should be a doddle by comparison.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0316731048</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Gimlette Bristow China|title=Panther SoupChina in Drag: A European Journey in War and Peace Travels with a Cross-dresser|author=Michael Bristow

|genre=TravelAutobiography|summary=In 1945Having worked for nine years in Bejing as a journalist for the BBC, Americans came in their millions author Michael Bristow decided to liberate a Europe smashed by warwrite about Chinese history. It was a movement of men and machinery on a scale never seen before. Many men died; more are dying off today. Sixty Having been learning the local language for several years on, travel writer John Gimlette chanced upon Bristow asked his language teacher for guidance - the language teacher, born in the early fifties, offered Bristow a survivor compelling picture of life in Communist China - but added to that campaign. His meeting prompted a decision to retrace the GIs' progress through France, Austria and Germany Bristow was greatly surprised to try and relive those events, and to discover what remains of them todayfind that his language teacher also enjoyed spending his spare time in ladies clothing. ''Panther Soup'' It soon becomes clear that the tale told here is immensely personal - yet also paints a fascinating portrait of one of the story of that journeyworld's most intriguing nations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091921384</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=George Saunders Hurst_Norfolk|title=The Brain-dead Megaphone|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=American author George Saunders is known for his short stories and fiction, but he is also a journalist for publications such as ''The Guardian'', ''The New Yorker Magazine'' and ''GQ''. ''The Brain-Dead Megaphone'' is his first collection of essays and it's an interesting propositionOn My Way: sixteen pieces ranging from travel writing, literary appreciation, political essays, to surrealist short fiction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747594260</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNorfolk Coastal Walks|author=Geert Mak |title=The BridgeJohn Hurst|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryArt|summary=The current Galata Bridge in Instanbul is It was pure serendipity: after a concrete structure less than 15 years old. A bascule bridge of some 490mfive-hour drive, we were, it carries a four-lane highwayannoyingly, a tramway and pedestrian walkways on its open upper deck left with arcaded market areas beneath on an hour to fill in Blakeney before we could have the outer spans. At first sight it has little keys to recommend itour holiday cottage. None of There was an art exhibition in the grandeur church hall, so we went in - and found a display of the Charles Bridge in Praguemost gorgeous pictures. I'd cheerfully have bought every one and hung them on our walls, nor the ostentation but thought that I would have to make do with a couple of Tower Bridge in London, nor even the elegance of the Golden Gategreetings cards when I saw ''On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks'' and I couldn't resist buying it. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846551382</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Tom Fort |title=Downstream: Across England in a Punt|rating=3.5|genre=Travel|summary=In summer 2005, journalist and angler Tom Fort set off to follow the river Trent from its source near Stoke to its confluence with the Humber. ''Downstream'' is the aptly meandering story of his 170-mile trip. Travelling light, first Move on foot, then in a purpose-built 15-foot plywood punt, and finishing off on a bike, Fort traces the course of the river, surveying the towns and landscapes it shaped, and exploring the history which surrounds it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184605169X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview |title=Blood River|author=Tim Butcher|genre=Travel|rating=5|summary=Tim Butcher started working as a journalist in Africa in 2000…15 years after Live Aid gave us all hope that maybe the continent’s problems were solvable…and almost as long since we’d begun to realise that it wasn’t going to be that easy. Two years into the bloodiest war in the world, the Congo – at the very heart of Africa – was seeing 1,000 deaths a day to the violence. And the world wasn’t even looking. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099494280</amazonuk>}} {{newreview |title=Lessons From The Land Of Pork Scratchings|author=Greg Gutfeld|genre=Travel|rating=4.5|summary=Greg Gutfeld came to England to take up a job as editor of a men’s mag. Leaving New York as a stressed yet slim high-achiever, he soon settles into life in the UK and embraces a new world where the food is crap and the beer lukewarm, but where the people seem remarkably laid back and happy nonetheless. Two years later he leaves to return to his homeland, somewhat heavier and generally less fit than when he arrived, but with a newfound understanding of the secret of happiness, which weirdly has nothing to do with herpes (see chapter 66). |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847370667</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Trivia Reviews]]