3 September 2011
Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay’s Dance Bars Sonia Faleiro
In 1971, at the height of the Indo-Pakistan war, my parents took me with them to Bombay. I was ten and it was my first trip abroad. My father worked…Read more
27 August 2011
The Last Ambassador: August Torma, Soldier, Diplomat, Spy Tina Tamman
During the Twenties and Thirties, the Estonian capital of Tallinn was known to be a centre for espionage, infiltrated by White Russian intriguers bent on blocking Bolshevik access to north-west… Read more
23 July 2011
Ghost Milk Iain Sinclair
Iain Sinclair, the London novelist and poet, is always on the move. From the industrial sumplands of Woolwich to the jagged riversides of Gravesend, he rakes unfrequented zones for literary… Read more
25 June 2011
Rome Robert Hughes
When in Rome: 2000 Years of Roman Sightseeing Matthew Sturgis
Frances Lincoln, pp.280, 20
Whispering City: Rome and its Histories R.J.B. Bosworth
Yale, pp.358, 25
In the autumn of 1984, after an unexplained fall, I found myself in a hospital in Rome acutely head-injured and disorientated. I had been found sprawled on the floor of… Read more
4 June 2011
London Under Peter Ackroyd
The Stones of London: A History of Twelve Buildings Leo Hollis
For Peter Ackroyd, the subterranean world holds a potent allure. London Under, his brief account of the capital’s catacombs and other murky zones, manages to radiate a dark mystery and… Read more
2 April 2011
Imajine Claudel Casseus, translated by Jean Rodrigue Ulcena, with a foreword by Bill Drummond
Twenty years ago, in 1991, I was shown round the National Palace in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. A government official led me through long rococo halls crammed with oriental… Read more
19 March 2011
Edgelands: Journeys into England’s Wilderness Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts
In the late 1960s I grew up in the London borough of Greenwich, which in those days had a shabby, post-industrial edge. Behind our house on Crooms Hill stood a… Read more
5 February 2011
The Taste of War Lizzie Collingham
The long summer that led up to the last days of peace in Europe in 1939 — the vigil of the Nazi assault on Poland on 1 September and the… Read more
20 November 2010
Amexica: War Along the Borderline Ed Vulliamy
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s second largest border city, is clogged with rubbish, fouled with car exhaust and, increasingly, flooded with narcotics. Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s second largest border city, is clogged with…Read more
2 October 2010
Chasing The Devil Tim Butcher
Some travel writers, in an attempt to simulate the hardship of Victorian journeys, like to impose artificial difficulties on themselves. A glut of memorably foolish yarns with titles like Hang-Gliding… Read more
28 August 2010
Travels: Collected Writings, 1950-93 Paul Bowles, introduced by Paul Theroux
Before tourism came travel; and before travel, exploration. A sense of wonder had accompanied journeys along the lip of the unknown, as the Victorian pathfinder was often an amateur scientist,… Read more
30 June 2010
Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane Andrew Graham-Dixon
On the night of 18 October 1969, thieves broke into the Oratory of San Lorenzo, Palermo, and removed Caravaggio’s Nativity. On the night of 18 October 1969, thieves broke into… Read more
17 March 2010
Our GG in Havana Pedro Juan Gutierrez, translated by John King
Before the revolucion of 1959, Havana was, effectively, a mafia fleshpot and colony of Las Vegas. Before the revolucion of 1959, Havana was, effectively, a mafia fleshpot and colony of… Read more
