Travel writing
The intoxicating languor of the Caribbean
Ian Fleming’s voodoo extravaganza Live and Let Die finds James Bond in rapt consultation of The Traveller’s Tree by Patrick…
Henry Miller — pornographer or prophet?
Few writers seem less deserving of resuscitation than Henry Miller. When the Scottish poet and novelist John Burnside was asked…
Journey to Timbuktu and beyond
Every so often a monster comes along. Here’s one — but a monster of fact not fiction, over 700 pages…
Colin Thubron’s Night of Fire both disturbs and consoles
Night of Fire is Colin Thubron’s first novel for 14 years. For most of us he is better known as…
Paris: a beautiful, damned city
The much-lamented journalist and bon viveur Sam White, late of the rue du Bac, The Spectator and the Evening Standard,…
Lesley Blanch: a true original on the wilder shores of exoticism
Lesley Blanch (1904–2007) will be remembered chiefly for her gloriously extravagant The Wilder Shores of Love, the story of four…
'O My America!', by Sara Wheeler - review
You might not expect Sara Wheeler, the intrepid literary traveller, to be anxious about passing the half-century point. Surely a…