Books by Deborah Manley

In the absence of horses, saddle the dogs. This Arab proverb, suggesting the uncompromising determination of nomads to keep moving, whatever the obstacles, epitomizes also the travelling ethos of many early visitors to the 'exotic East'.

No railway journey on Earth can equal the Trans-Siberian between Moscow and Vladivostok. It is not just its vast length and the great variety of the lands and climes through which it passes. It is not just its history as the line that linked the huge territories which are Russia together.

No land on earth has been so long observed as Egypt, which was attracting travelers back in the days of Herodotus and Julius Caesar. This book includes descriptions about a myth from a papyrus next to Naguib Mahfouz's account of Alexandria, and Florence Nightingale describing Abu Simbel side by side with Ahdaf Soueif's description of Sinai.