Around the Mediterranean in 3 Books
29 December 2025 | Media
The last couple of years – travelling up the coast of Albania, around Greece close to Athens and by sea from Athens to Corfu, a Mediterranean stretch of Algeria – has made me think how much of a circuit of the Mediterranean I have managed to cover over the years. Li...
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Peel Me a Lotus – Charmian Clift’s Love Letter to Hydra
22 December 2025 | Media
No question, a highlight of my 2025 travels was my visit to the Greek island of Hydra. I definitely should have read Charmian Clift’s Peel Me a Lotus, her love letter to Hydra, before my visit, but no problem, it worked equally well reading it back home in Australia, ...
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The Meaning of Life – and my contribution
18 December 2025 | Media
In 1930, philosopher Will Durant met a man who said he was about to commit suicide unless someone gave him a good reason not to do so. This inspired Durant to contact 100 people involved in the arts, politics, religion and sciences to write what they felt life was all...
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Robert Powell & the Passage through Tsuk
14 December 2025 | Media
Australian artist and architect Robert Powell died on Ko Samui in Thailand in 2020. Although he is probably little recognised in Australia many visitors to Nepal – not just Australians – will have a Robert Powell print of one of the country’s iconic buildings on a wal...
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Shattered Lands – what a book!
11 December 2025 | Media
Sam Dalrymple, still in his ‘20s, is the son of well-known writer William Dalrymple, and Shattered Lands: Five Partitions & the Making of Modern Asia is easily the most interesting historic – through to current events – title I’ve read this year. I’m also surprise...
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