BOOKS Market Focus Travel A preview of new titles published between March 2020–February 2021


The UK’s new status on the continent is likely to affect the travel sector, as is the shift to low-carbon methods of vacationing. Luckily, travel publishers have such explorers covered...ered...


Caroline Sanderson @carosanderson


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Category highlights


or this feature last year, I wrote: “Just over a month to go before the UK is scheduled to exit the Euro- pean Union” (that went well, then). Now we’ve “got Brexit done”, one consequence of our departure has already been felt by my daughter, who at the time of writing is on an art-college trip to Paris and has been refused free EU student entry to at least one museum.


Concerns about climate change are set


to be an even bigger influence on where, how and whether we travel. Will we see a boom in UK holidays, and international travel by rail and sea? It’s a privilege to be able to choose, I know, but I’ve just shelled


out to travel by train to the south of France this summer, and I haven’t looked forward to the journey part of a holiday as much in years. There’s plent of inspiration here for those planning to go abroad on a more sustainable basis, including Low Carbon Europe from Lonely Planet. Of course, you don’t have to go anywhere, as the selection of giſt books demonstrates. And with wonderful travel writing from the likes of Colin Thubron, Gavin Francis and newcomer Lamorna Ash in store, plus Europa Editions’ marvellous new series The Passenger to hand, you won’t have to budge an inch to sustainably broaden your mind.


Market Focus Travel


Colin Thubron


The Amur River Chatto, February 2021, HB, £20, 9781784742874


Submissions Category Spotlights preview forthcoming titles within a certain genre. For submission guidelines and publication dates, visit thebookseller.com/ publishing-calendar. The next Category Spotlight will be Food & Drink in the 24th April issue.


40 21st February 2020


Thubron, now 79, has long been my favourite travel writer, and so I am itching to get my hands on this account of his latest Asian journey, in which he travels the Amur River. The world’s 10th longest river but almost unknown, it rises in the mountains of north-east Mongolia and flows into the Sea of Japan. The tensest part of the journey is at the river’s heart along the Russia-China border, lending a particular topicality to this ambitious trip. Thubron speaks both colloquial Russian and Chinese, and his encounters with local people are always the highlight of his luminously written books.


The Passenger: Volume 1:


Japan & Volume 2: Greece Europa Editions, PB, £18.99 each, 9781787702196/ 1787702189


This tremendously eclectic and classily produced new travel series collects outstanding writing, photography, art and reportage from different loca- tions around the world. Each volume features long-form essays, investigative journal- ism, literary reportage and visual narratives by creators of every ilk, along with fact files, book recommendations, playlists and much more. Each volume gets under the skin of each country or city in a multi- faceted way that feels utterly essential in these times of narrowing national horizons. Brazil and Turkey follow in the autumn, Norway and India in spring 2021, and Berlin and China in autumn 2021.


Low-Carbon Europe: 80 Inspiring and Sustainable


No-Fly Travel Itineraries Lonely Planet, May, HB, £17.99, 9781838691080


I highly recommend this collec- tion of 80 diverse low-carbon itineraries, some of a week’s duration, others of two weeks or more. The variety on offer here is hugely inspiring, from an art trail to Amsterdam and a Basque food adventure, to seeing Rome, Naples, and Sardinia by ferry, and biking the Danube cycle path. There are staycations too, including canoeing the Welsh Marches, trips to Oxford and Bath, and a voyage around the Outer Hebrides. I found myself want- ing to do almost all of it.


Lamorna Ash Dark, Salt, Clear: Life


in a Cornish Fishing Town Bloomsbury, April, HB, £16.99, 9781526600011


In this compelling début, Ash follows the call of her Cornish ancestry (and Cornish first name) and leaves London to immerse herself in life in Newlyn, Britain’s largest work- ing fishing port. There she encounters a much tougher life than most tourists choose to see. If you love Cornwall as I do, you should pay it the compliment of reading this captivating and beautifully written portrait of a proud and compassionate community, sustained and defined by the sea for centuries, but now under threat from the lengthening shadow cast by globalisation.


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