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Find inspiration for your adventures, as the experts at Stanfords pick the latest travel reads to whet your appetite for the road

Readers get 10% off by using the code ‘Wandering’ on the Stanfords website (www.stanfords.co.uk). Wanderlust members can get 25% off.

Local by Alastair Humphreys

Eye Books; £13 Stanfords Book of the Month for January 2024

After years of expeditions all over the planet, British explorer Alastair Humphreys turns his gaze on the area in which he lives. In doing so, he ends up learning more about the natural world than in all his years of travelling. The resulting story prompts a revelation we can all relate to: that the wildlife around us needs protecting.

Saudi Arabia by Grace Edwards

Bradt; £20

This book is perhaps most notable for being the first English-language guide from a major travel publisher written exclusively on Saudi. It will surely be one of many to come and offers great advice on a remarkable region that travellers are still just learning about.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Bettany Hughes Orion; £25

While all but Egypt’s Great Pyramid have been lost to history, the Seven Wonders of the old world still enthral us today. Historian Bettany Hughes brings her trademark intelligence and enthusiasm to bear as she traces their stories and realises that they all share one thing: humanity’s capacity to dream big.

Terrible Maps by Michael Howe Harper Collins; £15

Stanfords Book of the Month for December 2023 Drawing on the popular social media feed of the same name, this book sits firmly on the side of the editorial fence labelled geographical dad jokes. But we love cartography in any form, especially if it points out how similar the shape of Oklahoma is to a thumbs-up.

Love from Venice: A Golden Summer on the Grand Canal by Gill Johnson Hodder & Stoughton; £25

Charting a summer of rebellion in 1950s Venice, this memoir recalls a time when the author swapped a comfy gig at London’s National Gallery for teaching English to an aristocratic Italian family, drawing on the letters she sent to her admirer. In embedding herself in the city’s high society, she also bears witness to the dying days of the Grand Tour, when Europe’s young socialites ran wild across its old cities.

Black Ghosts: A Journey Into the Lives of Africans in China by Noo Saro-wiwa Canongate; £15

Author Noo Sarowiwa looks beyond the usual historical or political subjects that take the focus of most books on China and instead looks at what she calls ‘Black ghosts’: the large numbers of African economic migrants living there. In doing so, she explores a little-documented world, meeting everyone from drug dealers to cardiac surgeons, and looks at how these often cloistered communities intersect with the wider Chinese society.

Walking Scotland’s Best Small Mountains by Kirstie Shirra Cicerone; £17

The popularity of munro-bagging – climbing all the mountains in Scotland over 914m – has meant that many of the country’s smaller peaks are often overlooked. This book proves that what they lack in stature, they more than make up for in character, offering a series of routes that are aimed at providing day walks with ascents accessible to non-climbers.

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