Jan Morris’s Venice: ‘less of a city than an experience’
In this book, and throughout literature, the place seems to exist in a half-real world of the imagination
April’s Reading group: Venice by Jan Morris
As spring revives our appetite for adventures abroad, we’ll be looking at a classic of travel writing
New books party: books that arrived recently
GrrlScientist: This week, I share my thoughts about a travel-adventure story about a quest to see one of the world’s last surviving “unicorns” (the saola); a paperback about the natural history of Ebola and a second by the same author about the origins of HIV/AIDS, and a book that examines the strange behaviour of numbers
The Living Goddess review – a fascinating study of child deities
Travel writer Isabella Tree spent over a decade researching Nepal’s Kumari – young girls believed to be vessels for the female divine spirit
Wanda Newby obituary
Other lives: Author and muse to her husband the renowned travel writer Eric Newby
Landmarks review – Robert Macfarlane finds poetry in the peatlands
This joyous meditation on land and language is a love letter to the British Isles
The Road to Little Dribbling: Bill Bryson is releasing a new book and I can’t wait
This autumn sees the publication of Bryson’s first travel book in 15 years, and it’s about the British. Twenty years after Notes from a Small Island, what will he make of us?
The Fish Ladder by Katharine Norbury review – wild and wonderful walks
A grief-stricken woman follows some of Britain’s most beautiful rivers in a journey into her own past but sometimes loses the flow
Boundless review – Kathleen Winter’s original take on the travel memoir
The Canadian novelist explores an epic inner and outer voyage through the Northwest Passage
Reading the World: Confessions of a Literary Explorer review – what literature reveals about a nation’s identity
Ann Morgan reads her way across the globe in this entertaining blog-turned-book, writes Sara Wheeler
In the Wake of Neil Gunn review – Vass has a great ear for atmosphere
Mike Vass’s musical rebooting of Neil Gunn’s 1937 Western Isles travelogue was most striking when he kept it uncluttered, writes Kate Molleson
Slow Road to Brownsville review – lessons from a highway less travelled
David Reynolds is no Kerouac, but his roadtrip south down US Route 83 yields a wealth of stories, writes Anthony Sattin
The most eagerly awaited non-fiction of 2015
Two biographies of Alexander McQueen, a new Robert Macfarlane, AA Gill’s memoir of alcoholism… Rachel Cooke finds plenty to excite
Rising stars of 2015: author Katharine Norbury
Corinne Jones: A series of river walks and turbulent events in her personal life inspired Katharine Norbury to write a travelogue-cum-memoir that is garnering high praise
Walk on the mild side: why Wild and Tracks turn the wilderness into a walk in the park
In the film Deliverance, four men are hounded through woods by inbred maniacs. In Wild, Reese Witherspoon hikes 1,000 miles and hurts a toenail. Are movies about the great outdoors going soft, asks Nicholas Barber