THE STORY BEHIND ALL 4'S POWERFUL DOCUMENTARY SERIES In 1955, a young TV producer named David Attenborough was approached by six graduates determined to drive the entire length of Eurasia from London to Singapore. It was the 'unclimbed Everest of motoring' - many had tried, none had succeeded. Sensing this time might be different, Attenborough gave them enough film reel to cover their attempt. The 19,000-mile journey, captured in the BBC's series...

FROM THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AND MAN BOOKER-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR 'Sparkles with brilliant observations on art and architecture, friendship and loss' Guardian When Hisham Matar was nineteen years old he came across the Sienese School of painting for the first time. In the year in which Matar's life was shattered by the disappearance of his father the work of the great artists of Siena seemed to offer him a sense of hope. Over the years since then,...

It's 3 a.m. and Elizabeth Gilbert is sobbing on the bathroom floor. She's in her thirties, she has a husband, a house, they're trying for a baby - and she doesn't want any of it. A bitter divorce and a turbulent love affair later, she emerges battered and bewildered and realises it is time to pursue her own journey in search of three things she has been missing: pleasure, devotion and balance. So she travels to Rome, where she learns Italian from...

It?s a dark, rainy afternoon on Dublin?s jammed M50. The rain is hammering on the windscreen of Daniella Moyles? car. She is 29, a highly successful radio presenter, model and influencer, but she can?t stop the panic building in her head and chest. The internal state that she has been trying to ignore is finally spilling over into something undeniably physical. She is petrified. She looks to her boyfriend and says, ?I don?t know who or where I am.?...

Take a deep breath Steve Backshall was nine years old the first time he saw a shark, while on holiday with his family in Malaysia. It was the beginning of a life-long fascination with these 'lords of the sea', and the oceanic life around them. His career as one of the world's most popular naturalists and explorers has taken him to countless underwater places, many never before seen by others. And he's also been witness to the startling decline in...

Brought to you by Penguin. The heartwarming, first-hand account of one of the most celebrated partnerships in the history of British entertainment, the 60-year marriage of TImothy West and Prunella Scales. This moving and memorable audiobook is read by Timothy West and also features Prunella Scales reading the letters she has written to Tim over the course of their marriage. Timothy West and Prunella Scales are - first and foremost - actors. Over...

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK 'Marks the birth of a new star of non-fiction' William Dalrymple There is the Cornwall Lamorna Ash knew as a child - the idyllic, folklore-rich place where she spent her summer holidays. Then there is the Cornwall she discovers when, feeling increasingly dislocated in London, she moves to Newlyn, a fishing town near Land's End. This Cornwall is messier and harder; it doesn't seem like a place that would welcome strangers....

Britain's foremost woman travel writer Sara Wheeler records her life of adventure, from the Antarctic to Zanzibar. Sara Wheeler is Britain's foremost woman travel writer. 'Glowing Still' is the story of her travelling life - what is 'important, revealing or funny' - in a notoriously testosterone-laden field.

The notion of 'the French' as one nation is relatively recent and - historically speaking - quite misleading. In order to discover the 'real' past of France, it's not only necessary to go back in time, but also to go at a slower pace than modern life generally allows. This book is the result of Graham Robb's 14,000 mile journey across the country on a bicycle.

An anthology of BBC Radio documentaries featuring the bestselling author Bill Bryson is the world's funniest travel writer, and a master of comic observation. His hugely popular books, spanning topics from linguistics to Shakespeare to the human body, have sold over 16 million copies and been translated into 30 languages, and his 2003 science book A Short History of Nearly Everything won the prestigious Aventis and Descartes prizes. This sparkling...