The quest for the world’s highest peaks
Daniel Light’s colourful account of early mountaineering across the globe takes in imperial surveyors, sporting alpinists and the first man to attempt Everest
‘Now I have been made whole’: Lucy Sante’s experience of transition
Until the age of 66, Sante lived as a deeply divided man. In this story of self-realisation, she describes how transitioning finally ‘lifted the veil’ over her existence
‘I glimpse her ahead of me’ – a solo female traveller follows her hero across Turkey
Gertrude Bell travelled extensively through Turkey before and after the first world war and the author plays dogged detective in her wake
Jonathan Raban’s last hurrah
Aged 69, the travel writer had a stroke and spent his last 20 years as a hemiplegic – and writing this memoir of his father’s life intertwined with snapshots of his own
Celebrity photographer and conservationist: Peter Beard’s life of extremes
The New York socialite devoted much of his time to saving wild life in Kenya – though a new biography ignores some of his less reputable views
Our provision for adults with learning disabilities is seriously inadequate
This book reveals one man’s determination to enable his brother to live his best life. It is also a fable…
How Putin manipulated history to help Russians feel good again
Every country has an origin story but nonehas ‘changed it so often’ as Russia, according to Orlando Figes. The subject…
How inoculation against smallpox became all the rage in Russia
The concept of vaccination evolved from 18th-century inoculation practices and many people contributed to the accretion of knowledge. This book…
For ruthless inhumanity, the Bolsheviks were unbeatable
Sara Wheeler describes the appalling brutality of the Russian Revolution and its far-reaching aftermath
A meditation on exile and the meaning of home
What does home mean? Where your dead are buried, as Zulus believe? Or where you left your heart, as a…
The heartbreak left in the wake of the Terra Nova
The story of the five women waiting at home for Captain Scott and his doomed polar party is naturally occluded…
A mighty river with many names: adventures on the Amur
The Amur is the eighth or tenth longest river in the world, depending on whom you believe. The veteran travel…
A story of women and weaving – a new retelling of the Greek myths
What are myths for? Do they lend meaning and value to this quintessence of dust? Like religion, perhaps they help…
The strangest landscapes are close to home
This pleasant volume, the author announces in the introduction, is ‘not a nature book, or even a travel book, so…
Does William Barents deserve to have a sea named after him?
Narratives of frozen beards in polar hinterlands never lose their appeal. Most of the good stories have been told, but…
Sybille Bedford — a gifted writer but a monstrous snob
Sybille Bedford died in 2006, just short of 95. She left four novels, a travel book, two volumes of legal…
Iceland is bursting with cabinets of curiosities
Competition is stiff among museums in Iceland. The Phallological Museum in Húsavík, devoted to the penis, stands tall in a…
Is it true that men navigate better than women?
Some years ago I participated in a late-night Radio 3 show on exploration and travel. When I left the studio…
The exotic Silk Road is now a highway to hell
This engaging book describes the Norwegian author’s travels round the five Central Asian Stans — a region where toponyms still…
Whatever happened to glasnost and perestroika?
This is a timely book. It addresses the challenges of a fractious and fractured Europe. The first word of the…
Gales and Gaels — sailing solo from Cornwall to the Summer Isles
This is the story of a solo voyage in a 31ft- wooden sailing boat called Tsambika. Philip Marsden pilots his…
The unearthly powers of the North Pole
Having spent too much of my life at both poles (writing, not sledge-pulling), I know the spells those places cast.…
The gambler and the hooker: Awful Beauty, by Andrei Navrozov, reviewed
This book — the title is from Pasternak —is billed as ‘literary fiction’. The narrator, a Russian gambler and drinker…
Staggering to Jerusalem — a journey from darkness into light
Guy Stagg walked 5,500 km from Canterbury to Jerusalem, following medieval pilgrim paths, and he records the expedition in The…
The unfamiliar Orwell: the writer as passionate gardener
Sara Wheeler 27 November 2021 9:00 am
This is a book about George Orwell’s recognition that desire and joy can be forces of opposition to the authoritarian…