The Inside Passage to Alaska, with its outer fringes and entailments, is a very complicated sea-route. Parts of it are open ocean, parts of it no wider than a modest river, and it has been in continuous use for several thousand years. Its aboriginal past - still tantalizingly close to hand - puts the inside passaged on terms of close kinship with the ancient sea of the Phoenicians and the Greeks. This book is much more than a book about a sea voyage; it is about Jonathan Raban's journey home to his father who is dying; about his crumbling relationship with his wife and also about the...

One of the classics of travel writing, this is a prescient exploration of the individual's relationship with urban living

First published in 1987, Raban writes about reading and travelling, fleshing out London literary life in the `70s and `80s.

First published in 1979, Arabia is an exploration of the modern Middle East, from Earls Court and back again.

First published in 1990, Hunting Mister Heartbreak is a discovery of the many faces of America, from New York to Florida, from rural Alabama to Seattle.