AS TRAVELLERS SEEK ESCAPE AND CONNECTION, A NEW WAVE OF TRIPS IS OFFERING BOOK-THEMED ITINERARIES WITH A SENSE OF PLACE

I have the problem with bookcases that everyone has, namely their failure to expand indefinitely to accommodate the permanent leakage of books from the outside world into my house. When I downsized to

Best books… Roy Foster The emeritus professor of ...

Enrique Vila-Matas Montevideo Translated by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott 240pp. Yale University Press. £14.99 (US $27). “Words are poor mountaineers and poor miners”, lamented the young Franz Kaf

Catherine Clarke A History of England in 25 Poems400pp. Allen Lane. £25. Mark Forsyth Rhyme and ReasonA short history of poetry and people (forpeople who don’t usually read poetry)368pp. Allen & Unwin

Jennifer Buckley Periodicals, Fiction and the Novel, 1700–1760 Ecologies of print 232pp. Edinburgh University Press. £95. Matthew P. Brown The Novel and the Blank A literary history of the book trades