Discover more about Tim Hannigan’s favourite literary picks in our latest instalment of Writer’s Reads…
Tim Hannigan is a travel writer and academic, originally from Cornwall. His latest book, The Pathless Land, is an account of a walk across Ireland and an exploration of the complexities of access to the Irish countryside.
Below are some of his favourite books…
Clear Waters Rising (1996), by Nicholas Crane
Crane’s account of a journey along the mountain spine of Europe was one of the first travel books I ever read. It was a revelation — the idea that you could make a compelling narrative out of a long walk!
A Time of Gifts (1977) by Patrick Leigh Fermor
Leigh Fermor was looking back at a youthful journey across Europe from a distance of 40 years and he mixed memory with imagination, exuberant scholarship and flamboyant prose.
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City of Djinns (1993) by William Dalrymple
As funny as it is scholarly, Dalrymple’s account of Delhi was the book that taught me how to combine the experience of travel with the exploration of history.
The Vulnerable Observer (1996) by Ruth Behar
This essay collection by a Cuban-American scholar helped me understand how to embrace the subjectivity of the first-person narrator. The subtitle is ‘Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart’, and it does just that.
Border (2017) by Kapka Kassabova
A sensitive exploration of the border region between Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece. Kassabova is the perfect antidote to the posh white men who dominated travel writing for decades — a self-proclaimed ‘global soul’ writing in her fourth language.
A Ghost in the Throat (2020) by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
A brilliantly unclassifiable book, part memoir of motherhood, part history, part essay on translation. Ní Ghríofa shows that research can — and should — be an intensely personal and emotionally fraught experience.
Kim (1901) by Rudyard Kipling
Kipling is a hugely problematic writer from a postcolonial perspective, but nonetheless, Kim is a novel brimming with the joy of travel and friendship. I can read it over and over without getting bored.
