Book of the Month – Page 4

Book of the Month: High: A Journey Across the Himalayas Through Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal and China

Our Book of the Month for September 2022 is High: A Journey Across the Himalayas Through Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal and China by Erika Fatland, translated by Kari Dickson.

An ambitious and magnificent new travelogue by internationally bestselling, prizewinning writer Erika Fatland, on a journey along the Himalayas.

The Himalayas meander for more than two thousand kilometres through many different countries, from Pakistan to Myanmar via Nepal, India, Tibet and Bhutan, where the world religions of Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism are interspersed with ancient shamanic beliefs. Countless languages and vastly different cultures exist in these isolated mountain valleys. Modernity and tradition collide, while the great powers fight for influence.

Small Island by Philip Parker

To celebrate the launch of Small Island: 12 Maps that Explain the History of Britain , here, the author Philip Parker briefly explains some of the changes Britain has gone through since 500,000 BCE.

Book of the Month: Small Island: A History of Britain in 12 Maps

Our Book of the Month for August is Small Island: A History of Britain in 12 Maps by Philip Parker.

A fascinating analysis of a dozen maps from critical points in British history over the last 2,000 years, from the Celtic period when ‘Britain’ was just a patchwork of tribal kingdoms, to a century ago when the whole of Ireland, India, Australia, much of Africa, Asia and the Americas were also marked as British.

Book of the Month: Atlas of Vanishing Places

Our Book of the Month for July 2022 is Atlas of Vanishing Places: The Lost Worlds as They Were and as They Are Today by Travis Elborough.

Atlas of Vanishing Places won the 2020 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award for Illustrated Travel Book of the Year. Now it is out in paperback so is lightweight and perfect to pack for holidays.

Have you ever wondered about cities that lie forgotten under the dust of newly settled land? Rivers and seas whose changing shape has shifted the landscape around them? Or, even, places that have seemingly vanished, without a trace?

Book of the Month: Where the Wildflowers Grow

Our Book of the Month for June 2022 is Where the Wildflowers Grow: My Journey Through Botanical Britain by Leif Bersweden.

‘When was the last time you stopped and noticed a wild plant?’

An intriguing and timely exploration of the importance of Britain and Ireland’s plant life.

Leif Bersweden has always been fascinated by plants. From a young age, his afternoons were spent hunting for and cataloguing the plants in his local area. But it is a landscape that is fast disappearing.

Since the end of the Second World War, 97% of Britain’s wildflower meadows have disappeared. Climate change, habitat destruction and a declining pollinator population mean that the future for plant life looks bleaker than ever before. Many of us are also unable to identify, or even notice, the plants that grow around us.

Book of the Month: Exiles

Our Book of the Month for May 2022 is Exiles: Three Island Journeys by William Atkins.

A luminous exploration of exile – the people who have experienced it, and the places they inhabit – from the Stanford Dolman award-winning travel writer and author of The Immeasurable World and The Moor.

This is the story of three unheralded nineteenth-century dissidents, whose lives were profoundly shaped by the winds of empire, nationalism and autocracy that continue to blow strongly today: Louise Michel, a leader of the radical socialist government known as the Paris Commune; Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, an enemy of British colonialism in Zululand; and Lev Shternberg, a militant campaigner against Russian tsarism.

Book of the Month: Explorer

Our Book of the Month for March 2022 is Explorer: The Quest for Adventure by Benedict Allen.

This enquiry into the explorer mindset is part meditation, part memoir, from one of ‘Britain’s greatest explorers’ (Telegraph)

What does it mean to be an explorer in the twenty-first century?

Five Otherlands to Visit Across Deep Time

Our Book of the Month for February 2022 is Otherlands: A World in the Making by Thomas Halliday. It is an epic, exhilarating journey into deep time, showing us the Earth as it used to exist, and the worlds that were here before ours. Travelling back in time to the dawn of complex life, and across all seven continents, award-winning young palaeobiologist Thomas Halliday gives us a mesmerising up close encounter with eras that are normally unimaginably distant.

In this guest blog post, Halliday explores five otherlands to visit across deep time.

Book of the Month: Otherlands

Our Book of the Month for February 2022 is ‘Otherlands: A World in the Making’ by Thomas Halliday.

‘Otherlands’ is an epic, exhilarating journey into deep time, showing us the Earth as it used to exist, and the worlds that were here before ours. Travelling back in time to the dawn of complex life, and across all seven continents, award-winning young palaeobiologist Thomas Halliday gives us a mesmerising up close encounter with eras that are normally unimaginably distant.

Book of the Month: Time on Rock

Stanfords Book of the Month for January 2022 is Time on Rock: A Climber’s Route into the Mountains by Anna Fleming. Available for £16.99.

This is a rock-climber’s eye view of the natural world, tracing a geological and personal journey across the British Isles over ten years. In Time on Rock Anna Fleming charts two parallel journeys: learning the craft of traditional rock climbing, and the new developing appreciation of the natural world it brings her.