In the early 1980s Sarah Anderson started the Travel Bookshop in London’s Notting Hill. Her timing was impeccable. Coinciding with a surge in travel writing, tumbling air fares and a new generation of guidebooks, the shop became a rite of passage. Its shelves were where you checked out the competition before heading off to Heathrow. Anderson’s endorsement was as good as a visa. Her discerning eye and Sloaney glamour lent respectability to the whole genre. The premises in Blenheim Crescent had grown into an institution long before they provided Richard Curtis with the setting for the film Notting Hill.

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Literary Review

Jun 2008

Categories

John Keay

In Cold Blood

From Kensington to Kathmandu

Poppy Power

Due South

Riding the Gravy Train

Reading the Leaves

Bristling with Raj

Bose & Arrows

Hermit of the Himalayas

Regilding the Pagoda

Last Tango in Gangtok

Reluctant Allies

Badlands

Soft Power

Ruling Passions

The White Leviathan

The Road to Mandalay

The Bengali Pimpernel

Peking In

Lore of the Jungle

A People Apart

The East Rises

Leaves Of Fortune

Beyond The Myth

Down By The River