Book review: “The Land of the White Horse: visions of England” by David Miles
.. the Uffington White Horse has always been both ancient and modern. It is an ephemeral figure which needs the active participation of every generation, to scour it, in order to survive."
Book review: “Review of The Buried” by Peter Hessler and “Only the Dead” by Ted Gorton
Peter Hessler’s The Buried is, however, a masterpiece of contemporary travel writing
Book review: “On Travel and The Journey Through Life”
It also offers practical tips to make the most of your trip, ranging from advice on cleaning a wound to tethering a camel.
Book review: “The Carians - from Seafarers to City Builders”, edited by Olivier C. Henry and Ayse Belgin-Henry
Caria might look just a small province within the national frontiers of Turkey, but under this sort of close attention to detail it expands to become a cultural universe of its own.
Book review: “The Discovery of Albania, travel writing and anthropology in the 19th-century Balkans” by Johann Georg von Hahn
The sight of a beautiful youth awakens astonishment in the lover, and opens the door of his heart to the delight which the contemplation of this loveliness affords.
Review: “The Only Minds Worth Winning” - T. E. Lawrence at The Imperial War Museum, 2005
He was also full of remorse at the staff job in Cairo that kept him safe for two whole years while two of his beloved brothers died in the trenches.
Book review: “Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art”, by Peter Barber and Tom Harper - published and shown by the British Library, 2010
The meticulous bird’s-eye views of the streets and docks of Venice in 1500, Seville in the time of Philip II and Augsburg (caught mid-siege) in the reign of Emperor Charles V are like a species of time travel.
Where travel writing is now
... like inspiring pin-pricks in the night sky, there are still travel books that keep shining and have kept generation after generation of readers enthralled.
Book review: “Madder Red: A history of luxury and trade” by Robert Chenciner
He has a historian's eye for continuity, a chemist's interest in the telling detail, a merchant-like enthusiasm for the roller-coaster laws of supply and demand combined with a salesman’s appreciation of a winning pitch.
Book review: “Al-Britannia, My Country” by James Fergusson
Three children of Pakistani bus drivers are now working at the very peak of Britain's meritocratic society; Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, Baroness Warsi and cabinet minister Sajid Javid.
Book review - “Victorian Muslim: Abdullah Quilliam and Islam in the West”, edited by Jamie Gilham and Ron Geaves
Queen Victoria not only read Quilliam’s book on Islam but bought copies for all her children.
Book review of “In the Name of God: A History of Christian & Muslim Intolerance”, by Selina O’Grady
Selina O’Grady is a first-rate story-teller with a finely tuned ear for character and an impressive eye for atmosphere and the telling detail.
Book review of “Islamic Empires: Fifteen cities that define a Civilization”, by Justin Marozzi
His chapter on the city of Samarkand, informed by an earlier biography of Tamburlane, is so knowledgeable and intimate that one is in danger of briefly warming to this murderous but garden-loving tyrant, worthy of being listed alongside Stalin, Mao and Hitler.
Review of “Mudlark'd: Hidden Histories from the River Thames” by Malcolm Russell, published by Thames & Hudson
It is one of the joys of being a mudlark that you are not trespassing on the jealously preserved of an archaeological dig, but rummaging around in one of the last great common spaces of England - the tidal shore.
Review: “The Art of Exile” by John Freely
We learn the harshness of those times when he asks his mother if they are working class and is told that they could be if his father could only hold down his job – and by inference keep a lid on his drinking.
My first copy of Stamboul Sketches by John Freely
But the gift of the book that day, Stamboul Sketches - kick-started a lifelong love of drifting through Istanbul, on the look out for the odd things, as well as its ancient, glorious and modern monuments.
Review: 123 Places in Turkey: A Private Grand Tour by Francis Russell
You will also require a stick, thick trousers and tough boots if you aspire to follow in his footsteps, let alone join him in enjoying the view from the acropolis.
Review: “East of Asia Minor, Rome's Hidden Frontier” by Timothy Bruce
Until the publication of this book, no archaeologist had ever worked out the five-hundred-mile route, no historian had written about its forts and no travel writer had marched its length. Yet it guarded some of the richest and most civilized provinces of the entire Empire.
Review - “Syrian Episodes: Sons, Fathers, and an Anthropologist in Aleppo”, by John Borneman
For the respect so freely given to fathers and grandfathers is part of a pattern of obedience which extends to other patriarchal authority figures - to the rulers of the house, be they socialist Presidents, hereditary Kings, scholarly Sheikhs or coup-leading Colonels.
Review - “Cleopatra’s Wedding Present; Travels through Syria” by Robert Tewdwr Moss
These various transformations and ambitions are so honestly drawn, so fiercely fought-for and imagined that the reader is at once drawn entranced in his wake.