Imperium Ryszard KapuscinskiGranta Books, £8.99 in UK This is one of the greatest books ever written on the Russian motherland. It begins with Kapuscinski's childhood recollections of the Soviet occupation of his home village in Poland in 1939 and follows 50 years of his travels through a still-mysterious nation.
Kapuscinski is a master of finding the universal in the particular. His anecdotes and stories, picked up like stones along the roads he travels, reveal more about the destinations than 100 pages of newsprint. Along the way he nearly meets his maker after becoming lost in a Siberian snowstorm; he risks the wrath of the Kremlin by writing an account of being at the belly of the bureaucratic beast in Red Square; he visits abandoned gulags and decrepit mines; and his account of the destruction of the Church of Christ the Saviour is a brilliant and incisive commentary on the blind excesses of totalitarianism. This swansong for an empire, published in 1994, is still relevant to the nouveau-riche Russia of today.
The Rough Guide to Travel with Babies & Young Children£9.99 in UK
So you've had children. Goodbye to adventure, exploration and challenging travelling, hello to camper vans in France, holidays at home and seaside packages, right?
No. It might take more preparation, but travelling with children doesn't need to be limiting. This book has useful tips on keeping your horizons wide when your family's taking off. Some of it might be old hat if you have been travelling with children for a while, but neat touches such as a guide to child etiquette around the world are worthy reading for anyone.