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Birds and Us by Tim Birkhead
For me, a new title by Tim Birkhead has been a must-read ever since I came across his The Wisdom of Birds: An Illustrated History of Birds a few years…
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Magic at the Minack
All eyes turned to the sea where, just to the left of the actor’s head, a basking shark was swimming, quite leisurely, past. Welcome to the Minack Theatre in the…
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The Hill of Devi by E. M. Forster
To my shame I hadn't read anything by E.M. Forster, but there was something about The Hill of Devi that I found encapsulating, enigmatic in its description that encouraged me…
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FAMILIAR SHORES: How South Africa taught me to love the coast
I had always known my mum wanted to move away. Whenever we would take childhood trips through the Lego-model villages and sweeping valleys of the Dales or the Lake District…
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An Open Door: New Travel Writing for a Precarious Century Edited by Steven Lovatt
I hardly know Wales at all. There was that one of our irregular summer childhood holidays when we exchanged the constant drizzle of Frinton for the interminable downpours of Aberdaron…
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Where Light in Darkness Lies by Veronica della Dora
I love lighthouses, although I'm not sure why is something I could place my finger on but I find something 'otherworldly' about them, representing the edge of our world, standing…
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Antarctic Pioneer The Trailblazing Life of Jackie Ronne by Joanna Kafarowski
Jackie Ronne reclaims her rightful place in polar history as the first American woman in Antarctica. The aim of this book is clearly to set the record straight and to…
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A Moroccan Trilogy: Rabat, Marrakesh and Fez by Jerome and Jean Tharaud
I'd been wanting to read A Moroccan Trilogy: Rabat, Marrakesh and Fez by Jerome and Jean Tharaud for quite a while, Morocco is not a country I know very much…
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Crossed Off the Map: Travels in Bolivia by Shafik Meghji
An almost certainly apocryphal story about Queen Victoria’s defacement of a map of South America which gives the superb Crossed Off the Map: Travels in Bolivia its title. According to the legend…
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Woman, Watching – Louise de Kirilene Lawrence and the Songbirds of Pimisi Bay by Merilyn Simonds
Woman, Watching - Louise de Kirilene Lawrence and the Songbirds of Pimisi Bay is a remarkable title, but I now understand that Mrs Lawrence was quite a remarkable woman. Biographies…