Travel books

This month’s bookshelf is pondering its life choices

Strap in for Simon Reeve: the early years, plus the latest travel releases

Step by Step: The Life in My Journeys Simon Reeve Hodder & Stoughton, £20

While averaging a show a year over the last 15 years has landed Simon Reeve on the travel A-list – and propelled him into

Wanderlust readers’ affections – it’s had the unfortunate drawback of cutting short his literary career. Step by Step is a reminder that what makes Reeve’s best travelogues so entertaining is his knack for picking out a compelling, relevant narrative combined with a fun dose of boy’s own adventuring, a trait he crafted as an investigative journalist first on The Sunday Times and then on his acclaimed books on Al-qaeda and the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre.

There certainly are more intrepid exploits from his early career here. The first half of the book explains how he carved out a niche from his very ordinary beginnings in Acton, via a spell of delinquency and a spiral into depression as a young man. He gradually finds his feet, working his way up from the newspaper’s post room to chasing stories of his own, almost falling into travel journalism by chance.

As you’d expect, it’s interesting, inspiring and highly readable. But Reeve never forgets that at the heart of his adventures are real humans in often unthinkable situations. The adrenalin-pumping sections don’t disappoint, but you’ll find that it’s the personal encounters that illuminate the destinations every bit as much as the action does, and it’s these that linger long after you’ve raced through to the last page. Tom Hawker

I want to inspire others to travel and take more chances with their adventures – and in life Simon Reeve