Picador Books Series

'Coasting is half travel book, half autobiography, half novel (never mind the arithmetic), marvellously written and superbly constructed. The author's intention was surely to sail through time and place, to chart the coastline of his own past, to take soundings of his future, while bobbing around the edges of Britain...The result is a triumph, and should be read for its evocation of childhood and awkward adolescence, its portrayal of his father, its descriptions of places and sunsets, of incidents and accidents. In short a writer's view of England and the English, including himself. It's the sort of book you put among your favourite books you keep on your desk or table, the ones you pick up over and over again to re-read with undiminished pleasure, the sort you wish you'd written yourself' Beryl Bainbridge, Spectator

Arabia Through the Looking Glass

by Jonathan Raban

Published 19 July 1979

'Of all his generation's travellers, Jonathan Raban is the most sophisticated, writing with a subtle and imaginative brilliance.' Colin Thubron

'One of the most humane and visionary of all travel writers.' Jeremy Seal

Into Jonathan Raban's familiar Earls Court neighbourhood after the 1970s oil boom came new visitors from the Arab world, dressed in floor-length robes and yashmaks. A people apart, little known, Raban wanted to get behind the myth and the rumour to discover the reality of their lives and world. His journey took him through Bahrain, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Yemen, Egypt and Jordan. What he discovered was a far cry from the camel, tent and sand dune archetypes of early European explorers. Oil wealth had seeped into almost every corner, and Bedouin encampments had been replaced by cosmopolitan boomtowns, camels by Range Rovers. The sons of Bedouin nomads were now studying medicine in Europe and engineering in New York. Yet in this fast-moving world, old certainties remained - and cultural innovation lagged miles behind economic change.

Raban's gift for friendship introduces us to a series of memorable individuals - rich and poor - set against the feel, the smells, the sounds and the nuances of Arabia.