As well as our site’s own book reviews, we have now added a series of quotes from some of our favourite travel books. It is possible to cycle through these quotations quite quickly, by clicking the link at the end of each page. We hope these will entice you to find out more about the books and their authors. They only represent a small sample of those owned, but I have read them from cover to cover, so there must be something about them! Watch this space for further additions.
Orhan Pamuk …. Ma Jian …. Sven Lidqvist …. Antoine de Saint-Exupery …. Stuart Maconie … Patrick Leigh Fermor …. Adrian Hartley …. Marie Colvin …. Rosemary Mahoney …. Dervla Murphy …. Beryl Markham …. Trevor Fishlock …. Jan Morris …. Haruki Murakami.
About the writer Jan Morris – Jan Morris, Welsh patriot, historian, lucid writer, roving reporter and much else. Well what a life. Aged 20, as James, he sat on the water’s edge in Trieste at the close of World War II. He was part of a peace keeping force. Trieste, a kind of mini-Berlin, a…
Rosemary Mahoney was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1961. She holds dual nationality for the USA and Ireland. Her travel books have included The Singular Pilgrim – Travels on Sacred Ground and Down the Nile – Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff . She has contributed to a wide range of magazines and newspapers on both…
Marie Colvin was born in New York City in 1956. She was a high profile foreign correspondent and war journalist, who worked for the Sunday Times for over a quarter of a century. She was particularly noted for her courage and fearlessness. Marie Colvin was killed in 2012, alongside the French photojournalist Remi Ochlik, whilst…
Adrian Hartley was born in 1965 in Nairobi. In the 1990s he was a war correspondent for Reuters, covering African conflicts. His memoir, The Zanzibar Chest, takes him from the Indian Ocean’s African coast to the Middle East, and Yemen in particular, in search of answers to questions about family history. His journey reads as…
Patrick Leigh Fermor was born in London in 1915. At the ago of eighteen, he travelled to the Hook of Holland, from where he eventually made his way on foot all the way to Istanbul. A Time of Gifts covers the journey as far as Hungary. It is a hugely revered piece of work in…
Stuart Maconie was born in Whiston in the county of Lancashire , England, in 1961. He is a BBC radio DJ and television presenter, and is the author of a number of books that explore the characteristics of the different regions of England. I particularly enjoyed reading Pies and Prejudice – In Search of the…
Beryl Markham was born in Rutland, England in 1902. She grew up in Kenya. Her memoir West with the Night is a vivid account of her African experiences as a race course trainer and bush pilot. In 1936 she became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic, from England to North America. Beryl…
Trevor Fishlock was born in Hereford, England in 1941. As foreign correspondent, he has reported worldwide for The Times and The Daily Telegraph. His travel and reportage books have majored on Wales, where he lives. His India travelogue, Cobra Road, is an exception to this. Ironically, I discovered and bought Cobra Road in a second…
Sven Lindqvist was born in Stockholm in 1932. His publications have included a number of travel reportage books focussing on aspects of colonialism and racism. In 2007 he produced Terra Nullius, covering his 7,000 mile Australian journey, with its emphasis on the historic subjugation and exploitation of aboriginal peoples. Sven Lindqvist died in 2019 aged…
