Glowing Still

Sara Wheeler is Britain's foremost woman travel writer and Glowing Still is the story of her travelling life in a notoriously testosterone-laden field. Growing up among blue-collar Conservatives in Bristol where 'we didn't know anyone who wasn't like us', Wheeler knew she needed to get away. In her twenties she began a dramatic escape: Pole to Pole, via Poland. Glowing Still recalls happy days on India's Puri Express; an Antarctic lavatory through which a seal popped up (hot fishy breath!); and the louche life of a Parisian shopgirl. As she writes in the introduction, when she set sail 'Role models were scarce in the travel-writing game.' But advancing years usher in unheralded freedoms, and journey's end finds Wheeler at peace among Zanzibar dhows, contemplating our connection with other lives - the irreplaceable value that travel brings - and paying homage to her heroines. 'Funny, furious writing from the queen of intrepid travel' Daily Telegraph 'Smoulders with anger about the historically contested place of women travel writers' TLS'Full of canny quips and lightly poetic observations' Mail on Sunday