Seeking a temporary escape from the city and a world gone mad, Alan Brown plots out a personal challenge: an epic coast-to-coast trip through the lonely interior of the Highlands. He traverses paths historic and new, eschewing creature comforts and high-tech gear, trusting his (mostly) serviceable bike and his own skills. Armed with the essentials and a sense of curiosity, he discovers more about nature, people, our country, risk and himself than he ever thought possible. Alan traces a route from Argyllshire's Loch Etive across remote Rannoch moors, dramatic Grampian terrain and the beautiful glens of Strathspey to reach the Moray Firth at Findhorn. Ready for all weathers and obstacles, he succumbs to the hypnotic daily routine of ride, eat, sleep, repeat. He's savouring the landscapes, the wildlife and the solitude, and relishing the self-reliance. He is also picking up clues to past lives and discovering how the land has been altered by industry and game sports or, sometimes, conserved for wildlife and trees.

In this thoughtful, informative account of a journey from Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta to Hanoi and Halong Bay, Zoe Schramm-Evans delves behind the cliche-ridden images of Vietnam to discover a country poised on the brink of remarkable social and economic change.

Kassabova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria and grew up under the drab, muddy, grey mantle of one of communism s most mindlessly authoritarian regimes. Escaping with her family as soon as possible after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, she lived in Britain, New Zealand, and Argentina, and several other places. But when Bulgaria was formally inducted to the European Union she decided it was time to return to the home she had spent most of her life trying to escape. What she found was a country languishing under the strain of transition. This two-part memoir of Kapka s childhood and return explains life on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

'Sixty Degrees North is a story that we tell, both to ourselves and to others. It is a story about where - and perhaps also who - we are.'The sixtieth parallel marks a kind of borderland. It wraps itself around the lower reaches of Finland, Sweden and Norway; it crosses the tip of Greenland and of South-central Alaska; it cuts the great spaces of Russia and Canada in half. The parallel also passes through Shetland, at the very top of the British Isles. In Sixty Degrees North, Malachy Tallack explores the places that share this latitude, beginning and ending in Shetland, where he has spent most of his life. The book focuses on the landscapes and natural environments of the parallel, and the way that people have interacted with those landscapes. It explores themes of wildness and community, of isolation and engagement, of exile and memory.In addition, Sixty Degrees North is also a deeply personal book, which begins with the author's loss of his father and his troubled relationship with Shetland. Informed by the journeys described, it moves towards a kind of resolution: an acceptance of loss, and ultimately a love of the place Tallack calls 'home'.

Celebrating Fifty Years of Picador Books In this acclaimed travel memoir Jamaica Kincaid chronicles a spectacular and exotic three-week trek through the Himalayan land of Nepal, where she and her companions are gathering seeds for planting at home. The natural world and, in particular, plants and gardening are central to Kincaid's work. Among Flowers intertwines meditations on nature and stunning descriptions of the Himalayan landscape with observations on the ironies, difficulties and dangers of this magnificent journey. For Kincaid and three botanist friends, Nepal is a paradise, a place where a single day's hike can traverse climate zones, from subtropical to alpine, encompassing flora suitable for growing at their homes, from Wales to Vermont. Yet as she makes clear, there is far more to this foreign world than rhododendrons that grow thirty feet high. Danger, too, is a constant companion - and the leeches are the least of their worries. Unpredictable Maoist guerrillas live in these perilous mountains, and when they do appear - as they do more than once - their enigmatic presence lingers long after they have melted back into the landscape. And Kincaid, who writes of the looming, lasting effects of colonialism in her works, necessarily explores the irony of her status as memsahib with Sherpas and bearers. A wonderful blend of introspective insight and beautifully rendered description, Among Flowers is a vivid, engrossing, and characteristically frank memoir from one of the most striking voices in contemporary literature. Part of the Picador Collection, a new series showcasing the best in modern literature.

THE TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE Drowned. Buried by sand. Decimated by plague. Plunged off a cliff. This is the forgotten history of Britain's lost cities, ghost towns and vanished villages: our shadowlands. 'A beautiful book, truly original . . . It is a marvellous achievement.' IAN MORTIMER, author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England 'Well researched, beautifully written and packed with interesting detail.' CLAIRE TOMALIN 'An exquisitely written, moving and elegiac exploration.' SUZANNAH LIPSCOMB 'Consistently interesting . . . Green's passion and historical vision bursts from the page, summoning up the past in surround sound and sensual prose.' CAL FLYN, THE TIMES (author of Islands of Abandonment) Historian Matthew Green travels across Britain to tell the forgotten history of our lost cities, ghost towns and vanished villages. Revealing the extraordinary stories of how these places met their fate - and exploring how they have left their mark on our landscape and our imagination - Shadowlands is a deeply evocative and dazzlingly original account of Britain's past. 'An eloquent tour of lost communities.' PD SMITH, GUARDIAN 'A haunting, lyrical tour around the lost places of Britain.' CHARLOTTE HIGGINS, author of Under Another Sky 'A miraculous work of resurrection, stinging in a perpetual present'. IAIN SINCLAIR, author of The Gold Machine 'Beautifully written.' SUNDAY TIMES 'Startling.' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Splendid.' THE HERALD 'Compelling.' HISTORY TODAY 'Excellent.' THE SPECTATOR 'Fascinating.' DAILY MAIL 'Accomplished.' CAUGHT BY THE RIVER 'Outstanding.' MIRROR

The Sea of Zanj has been a place of myth and mystery since time immemorial, and its islands have captured countless imaginations. Mauritius, Réunion and Rodrigues, the Seychelles and Madagascar – Thomas Victor Bulpin recounts their stories and histories; stories of strange animals and exotic places, of pirates and runaway slaves, of forgotten kingdoms and deadly welcomes.

Much has changed in the islands since Islands in a forgotten sea first appeared in the 1950s, and the author has left an invaluable account of an enchanting and often brutal world far removed from the air-conditioned resorts and package tours so familiar to tourists today.

Join John Rogers as he ventures out into an uncharted London like a redbrick Indiana Jones in search of the lost meaning of our metropolitan existence. Nursing two reluctant knees and a can of Stella, he perambulates through the seasons seeking adventure in our city's remote and forgotten reaches. When John Rogers packed away his rucksack to start a family in London he didn't stop travelling. But instead of canoeing up the Rejang River to find retired headhunters in Sarawak, he caught the ferry to Woolwich in search of the edge of the city at Crayford Marshes. This Other London recounts that journey and many others - all on foot and epic in their own cartilage-crunching way. Clutching a samosa and a handful of out-of-date A-Zs, he heads out into the wilderness of isolated luxury apartment blocks in Brentford, the ruins of Lesnes Abbey near Thamesmead, and the ancient Lammas Lands in Leyton. Denounced by his young sons as a 'hippy wizard', Rogers delves into some of the overlooked stories rumbling beneath the tarmac of the city suburbs. Holy wells in Lewisham; wassailing in Clapton; a heretical fresco in West Ham. He encounters the Highwaymen of Hounslow Heath, Viet Cong vets still fighting Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket in Beckton, Dutch sailors marooned at Erith pier; and cyclists - without Bradley Wiggins' sideburns - at Herne Hill Velodrome. He heads out to Uxendon Hill to witness the end of the world, Horsenden Hill to learn its legend, and Tulse Hill to the observatory of the Victorian Brian Cox. This Other London will take you into the hinterland of the city. The London that is lived in; the London where workaday dormitory suburbs sit atop a rich history that could rival Westminster and Tower Bridge. In an age when no corner of the globe has been left untrampled-upon by hordes of tourists, it is time to discover the wonders on our doorstep. This Other London is your gateway through the underexplored nooks of London. As Pathfinder wrote in 1911, 'Adventure begins at home'.

Henrietta is a true original. Clever, vivacious and interested in everything, she managed to balance the demands of high profile public life with that of a caring mother. She was the home-schooled daughter of a bankrupt Earl and more than just a little bit in love with her handsome wayward brother, but had been married off to a plump pudding of a man, the nabob Edward Clive, governor of Madras. And her partial escape was to ride across southern India (in a vast tented caravan propelled by dozens of elephants, camels and a hundred bullock carts) and write home. For centuries this account, the first joyful description of India by a British woman, remained unread in a Welsh castle. Fortunately it was transcribed by a Texan traveller, who went on to splice this already evocative memoir with complementary sections from the diary of Henrietta's precocious daughter, the 12-year old Charly and images of their artist companion, Anna Tonelli. The resulting labour of love and scholarship is Birds of Passage, a unique trifocular account of three very different women travelling across southern India in the late 18th century, in the immediate aftermath of the last of the Mysore Wars between Tipoo Sahib and the Raj. Half a generation later, the well travelled Charly would be chosen as tutor for the young princess Victoria, the First Empress of India.

Cook the simple and flavoursome food of the South of France with acclaimed chef Alex Jackson's Provencal. Provencal is the stunning reissue of Alex Jackson's widely acclaimed first book Sardine. This unique collection of recipes encapsulates the beauty and simplicity of Provencal French cooking and shows you how to recreate the flavours of the South of France at home. Provence and Languedoc are France's window onto the Mediterranean Sea and all that lies beyond, and the culinary influences that converge there make for a cuisine that is varied, rich and deep. The recipes are unpretentious and seasonal, highlighting Alex's belief that cooking the food of Provence is about simplicity, good ingredients and generosity of spirit. Lovingly described, the recipes evoke the South of France with their warmth and flavour; from Bouillabaisse and Autumnal Grand Aioli to a Tomato and Tapenade Tart and Nougat Ice Cream with Fennel Biscuits. The book is divided into seasons and each season contains a 'Grande Bouffe' - a set menu for a feast - so you can really impress your guests and celebrate many wonderful ingredients in one evening's cooking. Provencal promises to reignite a love affair with French provincial cooking, celebrating its multitude of influences, its focus on seasonal eating and, ultimately, an attitude to food which centres around sharing and enjoyment.

'Bags of fish for cats - 50 pence'. So it was written, on a chalkboard sign outside a fresh fishmonger's, under the arches of the raised promenade along the beachfront of England's newly super trendy and booming seaside City of Brighton and Hove. In Brighton Babylon, PK Heights is a Grade II listed maisonette flat in one of the City's up and coming Regency Squares that provides the elegant base for a series of interlocking true stories about the city's people and their lives. Newly relocated from London, Brighton resident Peter Jarrette combines and intertwines his stories, using a colourful palette that is one part Brokeback Beach and three parts seawater. He vividly portrays a selection of suspect characters and shocking episodes; much like the curious bits and pieces that might be on offer in one of those bags of fish for cats. To the author's consternation, the residents and visitors are a thoroughly peculiar and motley crew. This former string of south coast fishing villages with a royal and decadent past may now be a thoroughly cosmopolitan City and even aspire to being an international hub, but it has not yet lost its renowned and celebrated dark side, far from it. Brighton Babylon is populated by a cast of unsavoury hobos and bother boys; Yardie obsessed golden shower webmasters from nearby Crawley; mistakenly racist London hairdressers; strangely scripted market researchers; extemporised short-haul cabin crew; pushy airline First Officers; politically incorrect new food emporia; a vengeful, crumbling resort Pier and a locally obsessed, cat-mad press pack.

Winner of the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild Award for Excellence: Outdoor Book 2019 Chris Townsend embarks on a 700-mile walk along the spine of Scotland, the line of high ground where fallen rain runs either west to the Atlantic or east to the North Sea. Walking before the Independence Referendum of 2014, and writing after the EU Referendum of 2016, he reflects on: nature and history, conservation and rewilding, land use and literature, and change in a time of limitless potential for both better and worse.

Read the powerful account of one woman's fight to reshape her identity through connection with nature when all normality has fallen away. When lifelong bird-lover Hannah Bourne-Taylor moved with her husband to Ghana seven years ago she couldn't have anticipated how her life would be forever changed by her unexpected encounters with nature and the subsequent bonds she formed. Plucked from the comfort and predictability of her life before, Hannah struggled to establish herself in her new environment, striving to belong in the rural grasslands far away from home. In this challenging situation, she was forced to turn inwards and interrogate her own sense of identity, however in the animal life around her, and in two wild birds in particular, Hannah found a source of solace and a way to reconnect with the world in which she was living. Fledgling is a portrayal of adaptability, resilience and self-discovery in the face of isolation and change, fuelled by the quiet power of nature and the unexpected bonds with animals she encounters. Hannah encourages us to reconsider the conventional boundaries of the relationships people have with animals through her inspiring and very beautiful glimpse ofwhat is possible when we allow ourselves to connect to the natural world. Full of determination and compassion, Fledgling is apowerful meditation on our instinctive connection to nature. It shows that even the tiniest of birds can teach us what is important in life and how to embrace every day.

Whether he's fighting fires, passing a kidney stone, hammering down I-80 in an 18-wheeler, or meditating on the relationship between cowboys and God, Michael Perry draws on his rural roots and footloose past to write from a perspective that merges the local with the global.

Ranging across subjects as diverse as lot lizards, Klan wizards, and small-town funerals, Perry's writing in this wise and witty collection of essays balances earthiness with poetry, kinetics with contemplation, and is regularly salted with his unique brand of humor.

In sy nuutste boek het Dana van sy ware ontmoetings geboekstaaf – ontmoetings met mense, maar soms ook met dinge – die vleispastei, of tuisgemaakte braai-apparate. Die stories het hy aanvanklik op Facebook gepos. Die wat die grootste reaksie gekry het is hierin verwerk. 'n Ware interaktiewe Suid-Afrikaanse boek.