Personal Landscapes
Ryan Murdock interviews original writers, publishers, and travelers to uncover the stories behind great books about place. The podcast explores the intersection of travel, literature, and personal landscapes.
Episodes
Ask Me Anything (AMA) #2
Thank you to all those who submitted questions. There were more than I expected. I hope you find this interesting.Watch the video for:* an update on the future of Personal Landscapes — and a change in direction* behind the scenes glimpses into what it takes to produce each episode* questions about my own writing and travels* travel advice* …and moreI’m happy to do another one of these anytime. I d
Paul Theroux on the road in Canada
We’re talking about Canada today, a place I know a little something about. My homeland is the subject of Paul Theroux’s newest travel book.Like Canada, True North is vast and it covers too much ground to summarize in a podcast. This is a glimpse into the creation of the book, with many digressions along the way.Paul Theroux is the author of some 20 travel books including True North: On The Road in
Jan Morris with biographer Sara Wheeler
Jan Morris seemed to live multiple lives.She was a soldier at the end of the Second World War, and a globetrotting journalist with a knack for turning up in the middle of what would become historic events.She was a man — James Morris — and then a woman, undergoing gender-reassignment surgery in Casablanca at the age of forty-six.She hated being called a travel writer but she wrote remarkable books
George Forster with biographer Andrea Wulf
George Forster is the most interesting 18th century explorer that I had never heard of.He traveled the South Pacific on Captain James Cook’s second voyage at age seventeen, sailing through icy waters tantalizingly close to undiscovered Antarctica.The common roots of those languages and cultures led him to develop a theory of Polynesian migration two centuries before it became the scientific consen
Rory Maclean on the cross-cultural geography of heaven
When Rory Maclean’s wife died of cancer at age 55, he set out on a series of journeys that changed his life.His newest book is an examination of grief, a celebration of love, and a cross-cultural exploration of the afterlife.He approached each religion like an an anthropologist, participating in the rituals of living traditions in the hope of reconnecting with the wife he had lost.From the heights
Colin Thubron on Russia and Asia's borderlands
Colin Thubron’s keenly observed travel writing has made him one of our greatest writers on place.The scale of his journeys is immense, but his lyrical books focus on the small and immediate. He writes about ordinary people whose lives were shaped by forces beyond their control.He also shares stories of individuals on the fringes: radical Christian sects and animist shaman, Siberian poachers, gulag
Tom Feiling on Japan’s warning for the future
When Tom Feiling lived in Tokyo in the early 1990s, Japan was a vision of the future. A place where science fiction existed next to centuries old Shinto shrines.He returned to the country nearly twenty-five years later to find some of the shine had worn off.Its population is aging and shrinking. Inflation is finally setting in after decades of economic stagnation. People are choosing solitude over
Katja Hoyer on life at the edge of catastrophe
The little town of Weimar was the crucible of German high culture, democracy, and dictatorship.It was home to Goethe and Schiller, Nietzsche and Liszt. It gave its name to the Weimar Republic. And it was an early stronghold of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party.It’s easy to look back this period and diagnose how it all went wrong. Why did so many people sleepwalk into disaster?Hindsight is always deceptive
Nicholas Crane on the hidden history of Britain's paths
Landscapes contain hidden histories that shaped the development of the world we live in. How we moved through those landscapes also tells us something about ourselves.The Paths More Traveled explores the web that has stretched across Britain for over 11,000 years, as prehistoric routeways evolved to Roman roads and pilgrim paths.Nicholas Crane is the author of ten books, including The Path More Tr
Robert Kaplan on a world in permanent crisis
The foreign affairs and travel writer Robert Kaplan sees today’s world as a larger version of Germany’s Weimar Republic, “connected enough for one part to mortally influence the other parts, yet not connected enough to be politically coherent.”In his latest book, Waste Land, he uses history, literature, politics and philosophy to draw parallels between today’s challenges and those of Germany’s int
Isabella Tree on Nepal’s living goddess
In a small medieval palace on Kathmandu’s Durbar Square, a young girl chosen from a caste of Buddhist goldsmiths watches over this broad valley and protects the country and its people.She’s the embodiment of Devi, the universal goddess, and Hindu kings have sought her blessings for centuries to legitimate their rule.Isabella Tree uncovered the secrets of this strange tradition over many years and
Easter Island with archaeologist Mike Pitts
Every book I read about Easter Island said roughly the same thing: a small, isolated group of people living on the world’s most remote inhabited island couldn’t have sculpted, moved and erected the enormous statues that are Easter Island’s most famous feature.Or if they had, they must have been consumed by a monument building obsession that led them to cut down all the trees, causing mass starvati
Moonlighting: reliving the 80’s with Scott Ryan
Moonlighting posed as a detective show, but it was actually an old-fashioned 1940s screwball-comedy. Mysteries were just a framework for the romantic tension between the two main characters, played by Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd.In an era when television was serious and even the comedies were overly-earnest, Moonlighting threw out all the rules.Chase scenes ended in food fights and soap suds.
Constantine Cavafy with biographer Gregory Jusdanis
I first encountered Constantine Cavafy in Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, where ‘the old poet’ represented the ghostly voice of the city.I was immediately attracted to the dreamlike quality of his poems, and the way he captured a sense of melancholy that I’ve always felt.Cavafy wrote about human desire, inglorious epochs of Greek history, and civilizations in decline, using plain factual de
Peter Matthiessen with biographer Lance Richardson
Peter Matthiessen is a towering figure of twentieth-century American letters, and the only writer to win the National Book Award in both fiction and nonfiction.He’s also a difficult man to pin down because he accomplished so much in so many different areas.He co-founded The Paris Review and spied for the CIA. He was best known for 'nature' books like The Snow Leopard, but thought of himself as a n
Alex Hutchinson on what drives us to explore
This drive to discover is deeply human, and as today’s guest will tell you, it might even be encoded in our genes.Alex Hutchinson is the author of The Explorer's Gene. He draws on the latest insights from neuroscience and behavioural psychology to show how the urge to explore shaped our species, and how it continues to direct our actions, even when we’re sitting on the sofa.We spoke about the expl
Foster Hirsch on film noir and 1950s Hollywood
Film noir is is my favourite silver screen genre. I’ve seen every A-list film noir multiple times, and most of the B-movies, too. I’ve wanted to do a podcast conversation about it since I started Personal Landscapes.These downbeat stories of ordinary lives gone hopelessly astray crackle with hard-boiled dialogue. They're set in modern urban wastelands, usually at night, in claustrophobic rooms whe
Peter Carpenter: Walking in the Footsteps of David Bowie
When his doctor told him to walk or die, Peter Carpenter transformed a health crisis into a feat of urban archaeology.In wandering the streets where David Bowie honed his craft, Carpenter uncovered hidden dimensions and new connections to pivotal Bowie narratives, shining a light on the legendary artist’s conscious and subconscious influences.Peter Carpenter is the author of Bowieland: Walking in
Justin Marozzi: Slavery in the Islamic World
The Atlantic slave trade began in the 15th century and was abolished in the United States in 1865, but slavery was practiced in the Muslim world for much longer. It dates back to the 7th century, and endured openly until late in the 20th century.Why do we know so little about this? And what forms did it take?Today’s guest set out to answer these questions — and more — in a compelling new book that
Europe By Rail with Nicky Gardner
Europe By Rail is a beautifully-published guidebook that covers 50 key rail routes across Europe, blending practical advice with narrative storytelling, and a focus on slow travel by local trains.This wonderful resource has been inspiring travel dreams for over 30 years. The 18th edition was published in October 2024. It’s one of my favourite guidebooks, and I’m happy to be able to share it with y
Louis D. Hall on riding to the end of the land
In his mid-twenties, city-bound and restless, Louis D. Hall decided to make an uncharted journey on horseback.He found his horse, Sasha, in Italy’s Apennine Mountains and headed west for ‘the end of the land’.In Green is a classic adventure story and a wonderful travel writing debut. I think you’ll enjoy it.We spoke about crossing the Ligurian Alps, the mysteries of the horse, and the kindness of
Andrew McCarthy on walking the Camino and the Brat Pack
If you grew up in the 80s like I did, you know Andrew McCarthy from Pretty in Pink and St. Elmo’s Fire.But Andrew is more than an actor and director. He’s also an award-winning travel writer.His writing is introspective, vulnerable and self-deprecating. He weaves memoir with vivid descriptions of people and place, and grapples with questions like how to balance a solitary nature with the desire fo
Germany’s Broken Republic
Germany’s post-war recovery was an economic miracle.The country was on the rise in a good way. And then it all started going wrong.The signs of trouble were visible long before the covid pandemic pushed us over the brink.Journalists Will Wilkes and Chris Reiter have spent decades reporting on Germany’s problems, and they lay it all out in their new book Broken Republik.We spoke about Germany’s wor
Kyle Chayka on how the internet flattened culture
Digital platforms promised us personalization but their algorithms homogenized culture to a bland lowest common denominator instead.They don’t just influence what we consume, they also determine what is produced as artists shape their output to fit what gets seen and what gets shared.My guest today traced this creeping, machine-guided curation as it infiltrated the furthest reaches of our digital,
Sophy Roberts on A Training School for Elephants
In 1879 a forgotten Irish adventurer called Frederick Carter marched four tamed Asian elephants from the coast of East Africa to the edge of the Congo. He was sent to establish a training school for African elephants so they could be used to transport cargo in place of vast armies of porters.It’s a tale of ineptitude, hypocrisy and greed filled with powerful chiefs, ivory dealers, Catholic nuns an
Joseph Koudelka with biographer Melissa Harris
Josef Koudelka was born in Czechoslovakia the year Germany annexed the Sudetenland. His childhood was overshadowed by Nazi occupation. He lived under the postwar communist regime, and watched Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in 1968.His work is permeated by feelings of tragedy but the man himself is surprisingly optimistic, seizing on the present moment while appreciating the beauty of life.Biograp
Clair Wills on Ireland’s missing persons
Clair Wills was in her twenties when she learned she had a cousin she'd never met.It wasn’t as though their families drifted apart. She’d never been told of this person’s existence. It was shrouded in shame and secrecy, and she wanted to understand why. Her memoir Missing Persons may change how you think about your own family, and your family secrets.We spoke about Ireland’s mother and baby homes,
Deborah Lawrenson on her mother the spy
What would you do if someone you knew your entire life — your mother — suddenly revealed that she’d been a spy? Deborah Lawrenson turned her story into a novel. The tangled web of espionage she weaves in The Secretary is fiction, but the background to the story is authentic, drawn in part from a seemingly innocent diary her mother wrote in 1958 while working at the British Embassy in Moscow. It’s
Michael Asher on crossing the Sahara by camel
In 1986, Michael Asher and his wife Mariantonietta Peru set out to cross the Sahara from west to east, by camel and on foot. Their 4,500 mile (7,200 km) journey is the longest trek ever made by Westerners in the Sahara, and the first recorded crossing from west to east by non-mechanical means. I read Asher’s book about this trip — Impossible Journey — more than twenty years ago, and it’s been in m
Charles Nicholl on Rimbaud’s lost Africa years
Arthur Rimbaud turned French poetry on its head in his late teens. His work influenced everyone from the modernists and the Beats to Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison, but he wasn’t recognized or well-liked in his lifetime. He guzzled absinthe, sponged money off friends, and wrecked the life of fellow poet Paul Verlaine. And then he renounced poetry at age 20 and simply walked away. The last we hear of h
Paul Theroux on life’s vanishing points
The stories in The Vanishing Point, Paul Theroux's new collection, span the globe from Hawaii and the South Seas to Africa and New England. They have all the qualities I love in his fiction: a sharp bite of satire that skewers pretension, crisp dialogue, and an eye for the small, clear detail — an action, a pattern of speech, an element of dress — that reveals someone’s deepest character. He descr
Julian Evans on Odesa and Ukraine
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Julian Evans first visited the city of Odesa, Ukraine on a boat journey down the Dnipro River in 1994. He fell in love with its distinct personality as a self-contained world. He also fell in love with a local woman, and for nearly thirty years, her city became his city, too. His new book, Undefeatable: Odesa in Love and War, weaves memoir with history and literature
Jeffrey Meyers on charting parallel lives
Donate to Personal Landscapes.A great biography reveals the raw humanity behind lives of rare genius. In his latest book, Parallel Lives: From Freud and Mann to Arbus and Plath, Jeffrey Meyers draws on Plutarch’s principle of dual composition to shed fresh light on some of the figures who did so much to shape our world.It’s full of literary feuds, illicit romance, chronic alcoholism and sympatheti
Cam Honan on the hiking life
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Cam Honan has hiked across 56 countries on six continents, logging over 96,500 km in three decades. Backpacker Magazine called him “the most traveled hiker on earth”.I’ve wanted to speak with him for ages about his excellent website The Hiking Life. He's also the author of Wanderlust Nordics, Wanderlust Himalaya, Wanderlust Mediterranean, Wanderlust USA, The Hidden Tr
Richard Grant: A race to the bottom of crazy
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Richard Grant has lived in Arizona for more than twenty years, and his latest book — A Race to the Bottom of Crazy — is a fascinating blend of memoir, history, local issues and encounters with strange characters.It’s a place where social guardrails are weak, and outlandish behaviour is the order of the day. Arizona doesn’t just reflect national trends, it exaggerates
Lesley Downer on poetry in Japan’s deep north
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Lesley Downer's fascination with Japan's most famous poet took her from Tokyo's drab industrial concrete into what was then a seldom-visited part of Honshu.It was a place of sake-drenched poetry sessions in thatched-roof highland villages, and holy mountains where modern ascetics continued to roam between their past and future lives in search of atonement. Her book ab
Thomas Swick: Life in Cold War Poland
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Thomas Swick moved to Warsaw at the height of the Cold War. His newest book Falling Into Place is a memoir of his life behind the Iron Curtain, but it’s also a writer’s coming of age in the heyday of post-Watergate journalism.We spoke about life in the Eastern Bloc, Polish films, and the ten sins of travel writing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss th
Eric Cline: Why civilization ended in 1177 B.C.
Donate to Personal Landscapes.The Late Bronze Age Mediterranean was a surprisingly interconnected place. Trade flourished, interrupted by the odd embargo, and military conflicts used disinformation for strategic gain. And then something terrible happened that brought it all to an end. Large empires and small kingdoms that had been flourishing for centuries all collapsed at around the same time. It
Paul Theroux on Orwell and Burma Sahib
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Long before he wrote 1984 — and long before he was even George Orwell — Eric Blair was a nineteen year old policeman in Burma. Biographies skirt over this five year period, but it was the making of the writer he would become.Today’s guest set out to imagine those years in a wonderful new novel called Burma Sahib.I've read all of Paul Theroux's books over the last 30 y
Jonathan Raban: one of our greatest writers on place
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Jonathan Raban wrote about human landscapes rather than uninhabited ones, and the borderlands between what a place professes to be and what they are.An Englishman who emigrated to Seattle at the age of 47, his status as an outsider gave him a unique perspective on America as the land of perpetual self-reinvention. Many of his books involved water — from the coastal UK
James Salter: with biographer Jeffrey Meyers
Donate to Personal Landscapes.James Salter is the best American writer you’ve probably never read. He was a fighter pilot in the Korean War, and a successful screenwriter. His sentences are fractured jewels. The details are closely observed, the imagery poetic. Every page contains an observation I want to write down.Biographer Jeffrey Meyers joined me to talk about Salter’s remarkable prose style,
Andrew Finkel: Sherlock Holmes and the Ottoman Empire
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Sherlock Holmes fans span the range from casual to obsessive. They included Abdulhamid II, the last ruler of the Ottoman Empire to hold absolute power. A description of the sultan having Holmes stories read to him at bedtime set journalist Andrew Finkel off on the flight of fancy that became his first novel. We spoke about The Adventure of the Second Wife, the Sherloc
The Wakhan Corridor with Bill Colegrave
Donate to Personal Landscapes.I first got interested in the Wakhan Corridor when I read The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk. This weird bit of political geography once formed a buffer between Tsarist Russia and Imperial Britain. It’s been closed to traffic for more than a century, and it remains one of the world’s least-visited corners.Bill Colegrave joined me to talk about the Wakhan region, his sear
Justin Marozzi: Tamerlane and Samarkand
Donate to Personal Landscapes.I’d always thought of Tamerlane as a sort of cut-rate Genghis Khan. It was only when researching a trip to Uzbekistan that I discovered he was one of the world’s greatest conquerors.Justin Marozzi joined me to talk about Temur’s military genius, his architectural and cultural legacy, and how he’s remembered in Uzbekistan today. This is a public episode. If you'd like
Alex Kerr: Finding hidden Japan
Donate to Personal Landscapes.I’ve often thought of it as one of the world’s most misunderstood countries. Not because it’s uniquely inscrutable but because it’s so beset by stereotypes. The truth is more complicated and far more interesting.Alex Kerr is the author of Lost Japan, Dogs and Demons: The Fall of Modern Japan, and Hidden Japan.He joined me to talk about embodied philosophy, “instantane
Barnaby Rogerson: The making of the Middle East
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Barnaby Rogerson joins me to talk about the origins of the Sunni-Shia schism, the differences between them, and the current ethnic and linguistic rivalries plaguing the Middle East. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe
Sarah Anderson: Founding The Travel Bookshop
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Sarah Anderson founded the iconic Travel Bookshop in 1979.You might be familiar with it even if you’ve never been to London. It was the inspiration for the bookshop in the 1998 Hugh Grant / Julia Roberts film Notting Hill.What are the biggest challenges of running a bookshop? Was there a ‘golden age’ of literary travel writing? Who are Sarah’s favourite forgotten writ
Louisa Waugh: Life on the edge of Mongolia
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Louisa Waugh lived in a village in the far west of Mongolia in the late 1990s, and wrote a remarkable book about her experience.Hearing Birds Fly describes a world of drought-stricken spring, lush summer pasture and brutal winters when fetching water meant hacking holes through river ice.In this harsh and stunningly beautiful landscape, villagers lived on mutton, dair
Bruce Chatwin: with editor and friend Susannah Clapp
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Bruce Chatwin’s first book — In Patagonia — changed our idea of what travel writing could be.He was a traveler, an art expert whose keen eye for fakes made him a star at Sotheby’s, and to those who knew him, a perpetual house guest and mesmerizing conversationalist.His friend and editor Susannah Clapp joined me to talk about Chatwin’s unforgettable writing style, and
Laura Trethewey: Mapping our unknown oceans
Donate to Personal Landscapes.This might just be the strangest landscape I’ve featured on the podcast. It’s also the one we know least about.Laura Trethewey joins me to discuss bizarre underwater landscapes, the difficulties of sonar mapping, and the amazing race to map the world's oceans. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episode
Tim Cocks: Life in Africa’s biggest megacity
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Lagos is a massive city with massive problems. I've always thought of it as a place to avoid. But I came away with a very different impression of Africa’s largest megacity after reading the book we’re discussing today.Tim Cocks joins me to speak about ancestral spirits, the importance of community networks, and the desperate need to hustle without getting hustled your
Jeremy Bassetti: Pilgrims on Bolivia’s Hill of Skulls
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Sacred mountains are revered across a wide array of cultures. They're sites of sacrifice and of ritual, perhaps because they feel closer to the gods: physical border zones between the sacred and profane.Jeremy Bassetti joins me to talk about a strange religious pilgrimage in an off-the-track corner of Bolivia, the concept of liminal spaces, and suffering as the root c
The Pyrenees: Matthew Carr on Europe’s savage frontier
Donate to Personal Landscapes.The Pyrenees form one of the great European landscapes, but they're all too often overshadowed by the romance of the Alps. As you'll hear in today's podcast, they have their own very different set of stories to tell.Matthew Carr joins me to talk about medieval troubadours, Cathar castles, and Second World War escape routes from Nazi occupied Europe. This is a public
Simon Winchester: Outposts at the edge of the world
Donate to Personal Landscapes.If you think colonialism ended after the Second World War, then my latest conversation may surprise you. Simon Winchester joins me to talk about Tristan da Cunha, hiding under a bed in the Falklands, and how he bluffed his way into the world’s most notorious military base.Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire was first published in 1985, and
Tom Parfitt: Walking the High Caucasus
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Tom Parfitt walked across the northern flank of the Russian Caucasus, from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, through republics whose names are synonymous with violence, extremism and warfare. He joins me to discuss the Circassians, mass relocations under Stalin, and high mountain villages where resourceful people have survived for centuries on the stoniest ground. Thi
Richard Grant: Travels With American Nomads
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Nothing symbolizes freedom in America like the open road. Richard Grant joins me to discuss frontiersmen and plains Indians, riding the rails, and the role of the Scotch-Irish in forging the utterly unique American view of freedom. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscap
Anthony Sattin: How nomads shaped settled civilization
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Why have nomads gotten such a bad rap? And why is their knowledge essential for us today? Anthony Sattin joins me to discuss nomadic empires, cycles of history, pastoral peoples, and how steppe nomads contributed to the European Renaissance. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.person
The Sahara with Eamonn Gearon
Donate to Personal Landscapes.If you think the world's largest desert is an empty wasteland, then you’re in for a surprise.The Sahara has been home to cattle pastoralists, mighty empires, and trade routes that connected the Mediterranean world with sub-Saharan Africa.I’m joined by Eamonn Gearon, author of a wonderful cultural history of the Sahara.We talk about desert whales, fossil water, astonis
Eastern Europe with Jacob Mikanowski
Donate to Personal Landscapes.The more I’ve travelled in Europe, the more my interest has shifted east, to a region that looks increasingly complex the deeper you delve into it. I reached out to Jacob Mikanowski to help me understand its empires, faiths, stories and nations.He's the author of a fascinating new book called Goodbye Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land. We spoke abou
Berlin with Barney White-Spunner
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Berlin has been a crucible of culture, an industrial powerhouse, a nest of spies, and now, it’s Europe’s capital of cool. Lieutenant General Sir Barney White-Spunner joins me to talk about the Hohenzollern dynasty, waves of immigration and destruction, and the distinctly irreverent Berlin character that we both know and love. This is a public episode. If you'd like t
Joseph Roth: The collapse of the civilized world
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Joseph Roth's short form journalism captured fleeting moments with universal implications, and the social conflict, cultural upheaval, and acceleration of the inter-war years. He also wrote one of the 20th century's finest novels. Biographer Keiron Pim joins me to talk about perpetual movement, straddling borders, and the loss of a world. This is a public episode. If
Norman Lewis: The 20th century’s greatest travel writer
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Norman Lewis had an instinct for being in exactly the right place to capture traditional ways of life on the brink of modernity, but his books are far from dry — he also had an unerring eye for the absurd. Biographer Julian Evans joins me to talk about Lewis’s escape reflex, the subjectivity of witness statements, and the past as a place. This is a public episode. If
Steve Kilbey: writing, lyrics & songs about place
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Steve Kilbey is the singer and lyricist of legendary Australian rock band The Church. He's made dozens of albums, and written several volumes of poetry and a memoir called Something Quite Peculiar. He was also the single biggest influence on my own development as a writer. We discuss lyric writing, songs about place, the disillusionment of success, and how music can r
Gordon Peake: Insider stories from the world of foreign aid
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Gordon Peake’s work as an international development consultant has led him to the world’s forgotten corners, places once besieged by anthropologists and now overrun by Western aid workers. He's written books on Timor-Leste and Bougainville, and the inside stories he shares about the big money world of development projects will surprise you and make you laugh. This is
Edith Durham: The traveler who became Albania’s mountain queen
Donate to Personal Landscapes.When I hiked through the Accursed Mountains last June, I met older Albanians who still referred to Edith Durham as their “mountain queen”. Her books provide a rare first-hand look at a turbulent and seldom traveled corner of Europe during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Durham's biographer, Marcus Tanner, joined me to discuss her travels, her relief work in the
David Thompson and the mapping of Canada
Donate to Personal Landscapes.David Thompson travelled some 90,000 kilometres across North America as a fur trader and surveyor, mapping one-fifth of the continent. His work was so accurate it remained the basis of all maps of the west for almost a century. And yet, he died in obscurity, his remarkable achievements largely forgotten. His biographer D'Arcy Jenish joins me to talk about this remarka
Rebecca Lowe: Cycling through the Middle East’s fractured mosaic
Donate to Personal Landscapes.In 2015, Rebecca Lowe set out on a year long cycling trip from London to Tehran, a journey that revealed a splintered mosaic of cultures, countries and languages, each with their own unique traditions. We talked about the Arab Spring, the promise of Sudan, and the stark cultural divides within cosmopolitan Iran. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this
Martha Gellhorn: with biographer Caroline Moorehead
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Martha Gellhorn wanted to be known as a novelist. Instead, she’s remembered as one of the 20th century’s greatest war correspondents. She wrote about what war does to ordinary people, and the despair of those who have lost everything. Biographer Caroline Moorehead joins me to talk about this remarkable woman. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this wit
Guy Kennaway: Life in a Jamaican village
Donate to Personal Landscapes.One People is a comic novel but Cousins Cove is a real village, and the stories Guy Kennaway tells were gathered during his first ten years as an idle British expat. We spoke about Jamaican culture, the legacy of slavery, and why he’s a passionate advocate for Patwa, the national language. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers
Sophie Haydock: Egon Schiele and fin de siècle Vienna
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Turn-of-the-century Vienna was a cultural crucible where the air seethed with repressed desire. No artist captured this more vividly than Egon Schiele. Sophie Haydock imagines herself into his world in her debut novel The Flames. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapes
Carole Angier: The strange world of W.G. Sebald
Donate to Personal Landscapes.W.G. Sebald has been described as “a writer of almost unclassifiable originality”. He wrote about the plight of emigrants, and in particular, emigrants from the Holocaust. His obsessions included survivor’s guilt, the nature of decline and fall, loss and decay, and the downward plunge of nature and history. I discussed Sebald's life and work with his biographer Carole
David Eimer: Cultural survival in China’s borderlands
Donate to Personal Landscapes.David Eimer is the author of the critically acclaimed The Emperor Far Away: Travels at the Edge of China. We spoke about that country's tumultuous border regions, and how different ethnic minorities have tried to keep their culture alive beneath the Han yoke. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes
Dervla Murphy: Reflections on a lifetime of travel
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Dervla Murphy has been described as a ‘travel legend’ and ‘the first lady of Irish cycling’. For five decades she’s travelled the world in a series of truly remarkable journeys, mostly alone and mostly on foot. I had the great fortune to speak with her a week after her 90th birthday. We talked about the loss of traditional cultures, travel in the pre-internet age, and
Nigel Barley: The Innocent Anthropologist
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Nigel Barley wrote one of the funniest travel books I've ever read, and it nearly got him kicked out of his academic discipline. We spoke about the grim reality of fieldwork, his odd attraction for monkeys, and why fiction tells us more than anthropology about what it means to be human. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or
Jeremy Seal: Modern Turkey and the 1960 coup
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Jeremy Seal is the author of six books, including A Fez of the Heart. We spoke about the infinite courtesies of Turkish hospitality, cultural divides, and the legacy of the 1960 military coup. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe
John Gimlette: Madagascar, and ‘walking the dead’
Donate to Personal Landscapes.John Gimlette is the author of five books, including The Gardens of Mars. We spoke about Madagascar, ‘walking the dead’, and writing about places on the margin of the map. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe
Sara Wheeler: Russia, Antarctica and how we shape stories
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Sara Wheeler is the author of 10 books, including Mud and Stars. We spoke about her travels in Russia, living as writer-in-residence on an Antarctic research base, and the reciprocal relationship between story and memory. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.
Jerry Kobalenko: Searching for ghosts on Ellesmere Island
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Jerry Kobalenko is one of Canada’s most experienced High Arctic travelers, and the author of The Horizontal Everest and Arctic Eden. We spoke about the lure of Ellesmere, and searching for the traces of historic travelers. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast
Lawrence Millman: the Arctic, technology and saving stories
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Lawrence Millman is the author of 18 books, and a master of northern writing. We talked about his book Last Places, eating bird s**t in Iceland, and his efforts to preserve stories before they fade away. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe
Rory Maclean: Berlin, Bowie and the new Cold War
Donate to Personal Landscapes.Rory Maclean is the author of 15 books, including Berlin: Portrait of a City Through the Centuries. We talk about Berlin, making a film with David Bowie, the state of Europe, and how a glimpse of the Berlin Wall formed a lasting influence on his books. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
