Did the death of Shakespeare’s son really inspire Hamlet?
Just as each age refashions Hamlet in its own image, so I suspect we have got our own Hamnet. The…
Escape from investment banking to the open road – a biking odyssey
Miles Morland notches up 50,000 miles on his BMW 1000 with trips through Europe, Argentina, Japan, Australia and the United States – without a single accident
How the terrorists of the 1970s held the world to ransom
It is remarkable how few people it took – only around 100 – to cause carnage over four different continents, says Jason Burke
Why won’t young people pick up the phone?
‘So you mean rather than writing something out, you could just talk to somebody from a distance? But that would…
Tim Davie isn’t fit to lead the BBC
Those within the BBC might be afraid to say so, but an ex-producer like me has no such qualms: Tim…
We’ve missed an important clue about The Salt Path fiasco
When the truth of Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path was called into question, many commentators jumped in with both feet;…
Could the giant panda be real?
Even in the past century the animal was considered so exotic that many doubted its very existence
What a carve up! The British flair for disastrous partition
The ‘Great Partition’ of India in 1947 led to the wider division of Britain’s ‘empire within an empire’ – and to most of the problems plaguing southern Asia today
The recklessness of George Mallory
Having quarrelled with his adept former fellow climber, Mallory attempted Everest in 1924 seriously ill-equipped, and taking an inexperienced 22-year-old with him instead
Between woods and water
Patrick Barkham pays tribute to the much-missed nature writer, whose core response to the call of the wild animated everything he did
The lore of the jungle
The Brazilian journalist Eliane Brum moves from São Paulo to ‘reforest’ herself in the Amazon, and slowly gains the trust of a wary, isolated tribal people
Guns and roses
The novelist and travel writer reflects on the resilience of the human spirit in countries whose staggering beauty has largely been trashed
Blisters and squelch
Raynor Winn’s first book, The Salt Path, was a genuine phenomenon. Having been evicted from their farm after 20 years,…
The outlaw river
It may not be the grandest of the world’s waterways – the Nile and Amazon are ten times its length…
Movers and shakers
Anthony Sattin begins with a quotation from Bruce Chatwin, who famously tried all his life to produce a book about…
Merlin’s stones
When it comes to Stonehenge, we are like children continually asking why and never getting a conclusive answer. There are…
Sacred and dammed
It’s one of the most tantalising travel images in the world — a felucca floating along the Nile at sunset,…
Quite contrary
This timely book celebrates one of the most remarkable women of the 18th century. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was so…
Gene wilder
I’m Neanderthal and proud of it
Has Britain learned from its failures in Afghanistan?
As the Americans prepare to leave Afghanistan, and in the UK we hold our own Defence Review, should we not…
Deepest, darkest Peru
As the planet gets more and more ravaged, the mind can begin to glaze over at the cumulative general statistics…
In the land of the lemur
Madagascar. There are so many delightful incongruities about the island. Despite being off the coast of Africa, because of the…
A river runs through it
As Colombia comes out of 50 years of civil war and into a still precarious peace, with some 220,000 dead,…
Scholar and wandering poet
Bruce Wannell was by some way one of the most charismatic travellers I have ever met. Despite his almost complete…
From the lake of dreams…
Kapka Kassabova’s previous travel book, Border, was rightly acclaimed and won several prizes. The author travelled to the edge of…
