Colin Thubron / Features / Untitled Books

"Maalouf’s lucid and civilised inquiry into the nature of identity – whether religious, ethnic or national – reflects on how deeply it may change with time and social context, and launches a timely plea for the value of diversity."

Colin Thubron

Colin Thubron, travel writer, novelist and President of the Royal Society of Literature, picks his selection of non-fiction titles, exploring mountains - the subject of his own recent new book - identity and belonging.

Robert Macfarlane: Mountains of the Mind

This is a masterful record of mankind's obsession with mountains, from early fear and misgiving to romantic fascination and the passion to climb them. The author's own experiences add their exhilaration to an account that is both thoughtful and richly entertaining. The book is particularly fascinating on George Mallory, the hero-climber who died on Everest, and the cultural tradition of which he was both exemplar and victim.

Amin Maalouf: On Identity

'I dream not of a world where religion no longer has any place but of one where the need for spirituality will no longer be associated with the need to belong.' Maalouf's lucid and civilised inquiry into the nature of identity - whether religious, ethnic or national - reflects on how deeply it may change with time and social context, and launches a timely plea for the value of diversity.

William Dalrymple: Nine Lives

These are splendidly robust and colourful essays on the varied and syncretic world of the Indian subcontinent. From a culture threatened by the extremes of Hindu nationalism and Islamism, Dalrymple selects those whose voices are more rarely heard: ascetics and mystics, travelling singers and dancers and yogi initiates, and thus illumines the lesser-known traditions of India's religious life.

Susan Richards: Lost and Found in Russia

The author's travels in Russia over 16 years - loyally visiting the same few friends - witnessed the stark trajectory of their lives in the confused times after perestroika. This book casts an intimate light on what is happening to the ordinary people of the collapsed Soviet empire, as their careers and personal relationships solidify or unravel. A work of unusual enterprise and insight, undertaken with a patience that few travel books attempt.

Jim Al-Khalili: Pathfinders: the Golden Age of Arabic Science

The roster of Arabic (and Turkic) scientific achievement, little known in the West, began in earnest more than a thousand years ago, when the caliph al-Mamoun created a centre of learning in Baghdad. Thereafter this vital tradition - in algebra, astronomy and optics especially - continued for some 400 years. Pathfinders is an expert but accessible account of a phenomenon little known in the West, where the Arabs are widely credited only with the transmission of Greek thought.

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To a Mountain in Tibet, by Colin Thubron is published by Random House.

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Thursday, 24 February, 2011