From our own correspondent

‘Interviewing Afghan warlords is always something of a delicate dance,’ writes roving BBC reporter Nick Bryant in Confessions from Correspondentland (Oneworld, £10.99), and, given that he has also observed the methods of warlords from Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, his word counts for something. Though he acknowledges the journalistic allure of ‘shouting into microphones over the din of exploding ordnance’, Bryant’s memoir of his time as Auntie’s man in South Asia (and Washington, and Sydney) is refreshingly free of the macho stuff.