30 Reflections from Exploring on Foot

Writers on Walks: A BBC Radio 3 Collection

22 writers talk about their memorable excursions and the act of walking, and share their creative observations 
 
In these six series, taken from BBC Radio 3's The Essay, an array of novelists, poets, journalists and biographers chart the varied and inspiring walks they have taken around Britain and elsewhere. Here are treks taken at daybreak and after dark; in winter and in spring; in the footsteps of the past; and - in the case of Robert Macfarlane - along the ridges of the South Downs. 
 
Dawnwalks and Night Walks find Nicholas Shakespeare, Nicola Barker, Kamila Shamsie, Ian Sansom, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Owen Sheers, Janice Galloway and John Walsh taking early morning and late-night strolls around locations ranging from their back garden and local cemetery to Manhattan, Paris, Tasmania and the Antarctic. 
 
Springwalks and Winterwalks feature Michele Roberts, Ross Raisin, John Walsh, Kirsty Gunn, Philip Hoare, Deborah Levy, Christopher Hope, Scarlett Thomas, Erica Wagner and Owen Sheers, as they sample the transforming qualities of spring and the wonders of winter. From Poland and the Languedoc to Hampstead Heath and the Yorkshire Wolds, they delight in the details of the landscape and reflect on what it means to them. 
 
Strange Strolls sees Jenn Ashworth, Michael Donkor, Stephanie Victoire, Nat Segnit and Sophie Coulombeau embarking on walks of entertaining eccentricity, revisiting favourite places including Wandsworth Bridge, the Blue Ridge mountains of Appalachia and Ibiza. 
 
And in A Five-Day Journey, Robert Macfarlane walks the length of the South Downs in monsoon rain and in sunshine, discovering its chalk trails and its ghosts. He ponders the relationship between paths and stories; explores the poet Edward Thomas' love affair with tracks; considers the concept of the Aboriginal Australian songline; re-imagines the life of artist Eric Ravilious; and contemplates the sometimes eerie relationship between walking, collecting and creation. 
 
Intimate, evocative and immersive, these 30 uplifting programmes transport us to a wealth of wonderful places, and offer fascinating personal insight into the inner worlds of our walker-writers. 
 
Production credits 
Produced by Duncan Minshull, Ciaran Bermingham and Tim Dee 
 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on the following dates: 
 
Dawnwalks 
Nicholas Shakespeare 28 March 2016 
Nicola Barker 29 March 2016 
Kamila Shamsie 30 March 2016 
Ian Sansom 31 March 2016 
Lucy Hughes-Hallett 1 April 2016 
 
Night Walks 
Nicholas Shakespeare 27 October 2008 
Owen Sheers 28 October 2008 
Janice Galloway 29 October 2008 
Kamila Shamsie 30 October 2008 
John Walsh 31 October 2008 
 
Springwalks 
Michele Roberts in Poznan 31 March 2014 
Ross Raisin in the Yorkshire Wolds 1 April 2014 
John Walsh 2 April 2014 
Kirsty Gunn in Sutherland 3 April 2014 
Philip Hoare in Sholing 4 April 2014 
 
Winterwalks 
Deborah Levy on Hampstead Heath 18 February 2013 
Christopher Hope in Languedoc 19 February 2013 
Scarlett Thomas 20 February 2013 
Erica Wagner 21 February 2013 
Owen Sheers in Poland 22 February 2013 
 
Strange Strolls 
Jenn Ashworth - The Abiding Mental Riches of Preston 10 February 2020 
Michael Donkor - On Westminster Bridge 11 February 2020 
Stephanie Victoire - Dark Hollow Falls 12 February 2020 
Nat Segnit - The Other Ibiza 13 February 2020 
Sophie Coulombeau - Walking Matilda 14 February 2020 
 
A Five-Day Journey 
Marking 2 November 2009 
Haunting 3 November 2009 
Singing 4 November 2009 
Flying 5 November 2009 
Collecting 6 November 2009 
 
© 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd.

A sophisticated literary thriller for fans William Boyd and John Le Carré

The Sandpit

A sophisticated thriller about a missing nuclear scientist - perfect for fans of Robert Harris, William Boyd and Charles Cumming

A joy to read, the novel reflects John le Carré's genre-stretching influence on every page: the boys' school setting, the mixture of social comedy and Hitchcockian shenanigans, the astute, sophisticated prose, the central philosophical dilemma, and the exploration of what it means to be English in a globalised world.

Wonderfully well written...old school in the best possible way, with an insidious escalation of menace, and paranoia that fairly shimmers off the pages

A remarkable contemporary thriller – with shades of Graham Greene and Le Carré about it – but also a profound and compelling investigation of a hugely complex human predicament. Brilliantly observed, captivatingly written, grippingly narrated – a triumph

The best evocation of Oxford since Brideshead

A grimly absorbing literary thriller with shades of John le Carre... opens a window onto the murky world of international nuclear policy and espionage amorality

Quite simply excellent. If you're looking for something exciting and sinewy to read, this is it. There's no mistaking quality when it appears in book form

A beautifully considered, subtle exploration of Englishness, of betrayal, of social change and character - elegantly and engagingly wrapped in a classic spy novel

Echoes of Greene, Conrad and Le Carre. Yet these influences have been absorbed as good writers always absorb the influence of their predecessors and go beyond it to make something that is wholly their own...One good test of novel is: does it re-read? Well, I've now read The Sandpit twice, and I'm pretty sure I shall read it again in a few months' time

Shakespeare sets up the myriad pressures on his protagonist with consummate skill, keeping the reader guessing about the motives of everybody Dyer encounters. There are more than a few hints of Graham Greene and John Le Carre here... In its exploration of how individual actions can have huge and unexpected ramifications, The Sandpit is an enthralling read....the theme of how ordinary individuals negotiate the pressures brought down on them by extraordinary events generates superb drama.'

Gripping stuff, deftly told. Yet within this nail-biting novel of suspense is another, more contemplative novel... that invites comparison to Graham Greene. Here is a fine writer, spinning suspense with the ease, patience and control of a fly-fisherman

Nicholas Shakespeare honours the best tradition of the novel

One of the best English novelists of our time

Nicholas Shakespeare gathers comparisons to the great and the good. He needs none. He is what he is — a very fine English novelist

Exciting...Shakespeare is an ebullient writer... a paranoia-filled page-turner

Nicholas Shakespeare was born in 1957. The son of a diplomat, much of his youth was spent in the Far East and South America. His books have been translated into twenty-two languages. They include The Vision of Elena Silves (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award), Snowleg, The Dancer Upstairs, Inheritance, Priscilla and Six Minutes in May. He has been longlisted for the Booker Prize twice, was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

'A remarkable contemporary thriller... A triumph' WILLIAM BOYD 
 
A journalist becomes embroiled in a world of secrets and paranoia when a nuclear scientist goes missing. 
 
When John Dyer returns to Oxford from Brazil with his young son, Leandro, he expects a quiet life. His time living on the edge as a foreign correspondent is over. 
 
But these rainy streets turn out to be just as treacherous as those he used to walk in Rio. Leandro's schoolmates are the children of powerful people, and a chance conversation with another father, Iranian scientist Rustum Marvar, sets Dyer onto a truly dangerous path. 
 
Then Marvar disappears. Soon, sinister factions are circling, and become acutely interested in what Dyer knows about Marvar's world-changing discovery... 
 
'An absorbing thriller with shades of John le Carré' Evening Standard 
 
'Exciting... A page-turner' Daily Telegraph

The Dancer Upstairs

Astoundingly good... This dramatic, moving story demands you put your life on hold until it is finished

Shakespeare is interested in grand themes: love, vocation, politics and the corrupting power of moral and ideological absolutes... The Dancer Upstairs will be enjoyed by any kind of reader... It is enviably good, a genuinely fine novel from a writer who possesses real heart and flair

In addition to being a satisfyingly rich tale or romance this is a highly intelligent examination of Peruvian - and South American - reality... Funny and devastating... I was riveted by this superb novel

As cracking a story as any yarn, as informed as any journalism, and delivered with firmness and urgency

A crackling good yarn...Graham Greene meets Gabriel García Márquez

Almost steams with the author's understanding of South America and yet is somehow poetic and tender

Will count among the best work being produced by the present generation of British writers

Truth is certainly stranger than fiction, but the fictionalised facts of The Dancer Upstairs make the story of the Shining Path illuminating reading

Shakespeare is a good writer and a clever and ingenious storyteller...this is as good a book as we are likely to get about the atmosphere of the Sendero years

Nicholas Shakespeare, using only black marks on white papers, has set in 1990s South America a story quite as evilly enchanting as the one about the Third Man Graham Green set in Vienna... Shakespeare's unadorned prose is as clean and precise as the coroner's scalpel. The Dancer Upstairs is an extraordinary story; no grown-up reader should neglect it

A completely overwhelming novel, and I suspect that it will become a classic...one of those perfect novels

Nicholas Shakespeare was born in 1957. The son of a diplomat, much of his youth was spent in the Far East and South America. His books have been translated into twenty-two languages. They include The Vision of Elena Silves (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award), Snowleg, The Dancer Upstairs, Inheritance, Priscilla and Six Minutes in May. He has been longlisted for the Booker Prize twice and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

From the acclaimed author of The Sandpit, an exhilarating literary thriller about the hunt for a missing terrorist in South America. 
 
Out of a job but in search of one last scoop from South America, journalist John Dyer strikes gold when he chances upon Agustín Rejas, a former police colonel whose dogged pursuit - and eventual capture - of murderous guerrilla leader Ezequiel made him a national hero. 
 
Over many nights, Rejas recounts his story of the years-long manhunt. So too emerges the tale of his own poor upbringing, his turbulent marriage and the passion he once felt for Yolanda, his daughter's ballet teacher - an all-consuming obsession that would ultimately lead him straight to the elusive Ezequiel... 
 
'Astoundingly good... Demands you put your life on hold until it is finished' Guardian 
 
'A genuinely fine novel from a writer who possesses real heart and flair' Louis de Bernières, Sunday Times

How Churchill Unexpectedly Became Prime Minister

Six Minutes in May

A fascinating and dramatic investigation into the events that led to Winston Churchill becoming Prime Minister against the odds

History books should give us insight and information, surprise and entertainment, and allow us to see the world, an incident or a character differently. Nicholas Shakespeare’s Six Minutes in May delivers in abundance.

Unputdownable… Us[es] new evidence with a novelist’s feeling for personality and atmosphere

Of the abundant new books on the Second World War, Nicholas Shakespeare’s Six Minutes in May…takes the prize. The familiar story of how Churchill unexpectedly became prime minister in 1940 has never been told so amusingly, nor in such detail

Daily Telegraph, Best History Books of 2017

Nicholas Shakespeare’s Six Minutes in May: How Churchill Unexpectedly Became Prime Minister…is as gripping as a novel. Apart from being meticulously researched, thoroughly original and beautifully written, the book is an important reminder of the fact that the direction of history can change in a heartbeat

History Today, Best History Books of 2017

An eloquent study in how quickly the political landscape can change -- and history with it

A superbly written drama... Shakespeare's research is thorough and he has a novelist's flair for depicting the characters and motives of great and lesser men...Fascinating.

Shakespeare brings both meticulous research and fictional artistry to illuminate the machinery of government under extreme stress and the abrasive conflict of large, self-confident personalities. It's a superb achievement.

Riveting…never less than gripping. But the real delight of its book is the convincing, and often revelatory, portraits of the main protagonists.

Brilliant, meticulous…This scintillating joy of a book — with a military narrative of British shame as well handled as William Dalrymple’s Return of a King, and a treatment of 20th-century British politics, romance, humiliation and desire as grandly realised as Anthony Powell’s great novel sequence….Shakespeare’s narrative is not just more reliable than Churchill’s, but more fun.

Superb:  far and away the best account of the moment which changed our national life and the world, and filled with extraordinary new details.  Shakespeare brings a novelist's eye to the characters he writes about, but it is the extraordinary way he marshals his material, far more extensive than I've come across before, which makes this book quite simply magnificent.

Everyone delving into this riveting and rollicking account of the Chamberlain-Lord Halifax-Churchill succession will find special pleasure today in inhaling the rich mix of ambition and weakness, bravery and fecklessness, jealousy and sheer hatred, because the contemporary echoes are loud and irresistible... Nicholas Shakespeare achieves the remarkable feat of bringing tension to an old story by understanding the human drama...He has a novelist’s feel for self-pity, jealousy and ambition. The story of Churchill’s accession to power on the day that Hitler’s armies entered the Low Countries and set course for France has never been infused with so much humanity.

The most thrilling book I have read for years.

Superb: he has pieced together the various sources (sometimes quite different in their accounts) and written what can almost be read as a detective story.

Nicholas Shakespeare's impeccably researched, coherent and revelatory  explanation about how Churchill became Prime Minister at the exact time of Hitler's onslaught in the West is totally captivating. It will stand as the best account of those extraordinary few days for very many years.

Magnificent… The book, though totally anchored in the facts, has a novelist’s eye for feeling and atmosphere

Utterly wonderful… It reads like a thriller

A superb work of history. Shakespeare has assumed nothing and allowed himself to be guided only by what a patient re-examination of the evidence-some of it new, much of it still surprisingly ill-digested until now- actually reveals. That is being an historian. The fact that he is also a novelist just means that it is very well written too, a thriller, in fact.

Simon Green, Professor of Modern History, Leeds University

Shakespeare is better known as a novelist than as a historian. This may change after his superb account of the under-examined Norwegian campaign, for which alone his book deserves to be read… Shakespeare is excellent in tracing the intricate manoeuvres ahead of the debate between groups of parliamentarians… Enthralling

One of the very best history books I have ever read.

An eloquent study in how quickly the political landscape can change—and history with it.

An absorbing account of how events 1,300 miles away across the North Sea let to the most drastic cabinet reshuffle in modern British history... Shakespeare's book grips the attention from beginning to end. He conjures the characters and personalities of the senior commanders in the Norwegian campaign with a novelist's flair and eye for detail.

A fascinating and dramatic investigation into the events that led to Winston Churchill becoming Prime Minister against the odds. 
 
 
‘A gripping story of Churchill’s unlikely rise to power’ Observer 
 
 London, May 1940. Britain is under threat of invasion and Neville Chamberlain’s government is about to fall. It is hard for us to imagine the Second World War without Winston Churchill taking the helm, but in Six Minutes in May Nicholas Shakespeare shows how easily events could have gone in a different direction. 
 
 It took just six minutes for MPs to cast the votes that brought down Chamberlain. Shakespeare moves from Britain’s disastrous battle in Norway, for which many blamed Churchill, on to the dramatic developments in Westminster that led to Churchill becoming Prime Minister. Uncovering fascinating new research and delving into the key players’ backgrounds, Shakespeare gives us a new perspective on this critical moment in our history. 
 
 
‘Totally captivating. It will stand as the best account of those extraordinary few days for very many years’ 
 Andrew Roberts 
 
 
‘Superbly written… Shakespeare has a novelist’s flair for depicting the characters and motives of men’ 
 The Times 
 
 
‘Utterly wonderful… It reads like a thriller’ 
 Peter Frankopan 
 
 SHORTLISTED FOR THE HWA NON-FICTION CROWN 2018 
 
*** Selected as a 2017 Book of the Year in the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Observer and The Economist ***

Stories from Other Places

A wonderful collection of short stories taking the reader around the world: from a dramatic First World War encounter in Australia to the faded glamour of ex-pat 1960s Bombay and an epic quest beginning in 1908 Bolivia.

In each story Shakespeare brilliantly transports us to other places, times, cultures and communities, but for all their differentness and exotic heat and dust, in essence they are places we know only too well

Shakespeare captures this historical moment beautifully and in elegant prose...It's a fascinating story... skilfully told. It is also timely. Because the story Shakespeare tells resonates so deeply with current tensions it is weightier than its length might suggest.

Praise for the story 'Oddfellows', The Saturday Paper

Nicholas Shakespeare is one of those writers who can do anything

[A] fantastic story...one of the most superb literary gems I have read in recent times. Facts and fiction merge in this riveting and relevant work. In a word - brilliant!

Praise for the story 'Oddfellows', Hobart Mercury

Riveting...one of Britain's finest writers...I do not expect to read a more formidable piece of short fiction this year.

Praise for the story 'Oddfellows', Sydney Morning Herald

transports the reader to different places around the globe, and frequently back in time as well

'Oddfellows' [the novella that begins the collection] is a sublimely sparse and economically elegant powder keg of a story… Shakespeare’s shape of the story is sheer craftsmanship and the precision of his prose is a shimmering peak of imagination and imagery.

Nicholas Shakespeare was born in 1957. The son of a diplomat, much of his youth was spent in the Far East and South America. His books have been translated into 20 languages. They include The Vision of Elena Silves (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award), Snowleg, The Dancer Upstairs, Secrets of the Sea, Inheritance and Priscilla. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He currently lives in Oxford.

Nicholas Shakespeare’s collected stories take us around the globe and into the intimate lives of his characters and the dilemmas and temptations they face. 
 
The opening novella, ‘Oddfellows’, tells the little-known history of the only enemy attack on Australian soil during the Great War, when, in January 1915, the outback town of Broken Hill was rocked by horrifying events. 
 
 From this dramatic First World War encounter, we are taken to the faded glamour of 1960s Bombay, to a Bolivian mining town in 1908 where civic folly is running amok, and to an Argentinian farm presided over by a former air stewardess and her husband. 
 
Across ocean and continents, these are stories of connection and disconnection, misunderstanding and missed opportunities, identity and displacement.

The Hidden Life of an Englishwoman in Wartime France

Priscilla

The astonishing true story of a young woman's adventures, and misadventures, in the dangerous world of Nazi-occupied France

A pin-sharp biography which unfurls like gripping fiction… wonderful, haunting, thought-provoking

I have not read a better portrait of the moral impossibility of that time and place for people, like Priscilla, who found themselves trapped in it... A wonderful book

As Shakespeare acknowledges, his aunt’s is one of millions of wartime stories. But thanks to the extensive paperwork, and his energetic digging, he creates a detailed and vivid narrative. This is a moving, and constantly surprising story

This mysterious story of the Occupation in France has all the qualities of a fascinating novel, with exquisite social, sexual and moral nuance

Shakespeare offers a nuanced and detailed psychological study of the effect of the Second World war on an ordinary woman. The result is just as absorbing as any biography of a war hero

Nicholas Shakespeare has employed all his superb gifts as a writer to tell the picaresque tale of his aunt in wartime occupied France. Priscilla is a femme fatale worthy of fiction, and the author traces her tangled, troubled, romantic and often tragically unromantic experiences through one of the most dreadful periods of 20th-century history

Priscilla brilliantly exposes the tangled complexities behind that question so easily asked from the comfort of a peacetime armchair: “What would I have done?"

Priscilla's descent into hell runs eerily parallel to that of France itself; Faustian, fascinating and in the end extremely sad

An account of the author’s aunt’s life in France under the Nazis. Her descent parallels that of France: Grim but fascinating

A gripping excavation of a woman’s secret past, Priscilla is also a fascinating portrait of France during the Second World War, and of the many shadowy and corrupt deals made by the French with their Nazi occupiers

In Priscilla, Nicholas Shakespeare captures the soul of a young Englishwoman who, to survive in Nazi-occupied France, is forced to make choices which few in England ever had to face. She remained her own unflinching judge and jury to the end

Wonderfully readable… Shakespeare, a novelist and biographer of some note, is too good a writer to succumb to sensationalism. Instead, and after some impressive research, he builds a nuanced, sensitive portrait of this sad and glamorous member of his family…. As the life of Priscilla shows, surviving the occupation was too complicated an affair for any black-and-white verdict

Like the author's biography of Bruce Chatwin, this is, beneath the obvious drama, a subtle, masterfully written work

This absorbing book has many of the excitements of a thriller

Priscilla's is a remarkable story, teased out with great skill by her nephew, himself one of the best English novelists of our time

Nicholas Shakespeare has employed all his superb gifts as a writer to tell the picaresque tale of his aunt in wartime occupied France. Priscilla is a femme fatale worthy of fiction, and the author traces her tangled, troubled, romantic and often tragically unromantic experiences through one of the most dreadful periods of 20th century history

A thrilling story… an intimate family memoir, a story of survival and a quest for biographical truth

[An] extraordinary true story of the author's aunt. A life of dark secrets, glamour, adventure and adversity during wartime.

A tantalisingly original perspective of the Second World War…Shakespeare shines a moving, intriguing light on the moral quandaries faced by ordinary civilians

Priscilla is an unusual book, part biography, part family memoir, part detective story, but it reads like a novel and I found it impossible to put down. As an evocation of the period and the moral hypocrisy of the times, it could hardly be bettered (4 stars, Book of the Week)

The novelist and biographer relates the extraordinary wartime derring-doings of his glamorous aunt, whose hidden past he discovered when he stumbled across a box of her papers. Glamorous and morally ambiguous, she married a French aristocrat, escaped from a PoW camp and at the liberation of Paris, was having a relationship with a mysterious man called “Otto”. Woven into her life story is a wealth of detail about life in Occupied France. Obvious appeal for fans of Agent Zigzag, Antony Beevor and Sebastian Faulks but also Suite Française. I was enthralled by it

Assiduous archival research is blended with the flair and craft of an acclaimed novelist

A tender account of one woman's unpredictable, secretive and self-scarring wartime experiences... [Shakespeare is] a gifted novelist and biographer

An excellently researched, beautifully written and unflinching memoir

The incredible story of the author's aunt, a young English woman in France during the Nazi occupation

Nicholas's research provides Priscilla with a full identity as a young, vulnerable woman whose heroism lay in being true to herself in terrifying times

As both a biographer and novelist, [Shakespeare] is admirably placed to tell such a curious but utterly compelling story

A story as haunting and improbable as any of the fictions of Modiano... Gripping

This is both a family memoir and meticulously researched historical account of the dangerous world of Nazi-occupied France... Shakespeare perfectly captures the perilous and precarious atmosphere, and provides insight into the complexity of women's lives at that time

Nicholas Shakespeare was born in Worcester in 1957 and grew up in the Far East and Latin America. He is a prize-winning novelist and biographer and Priscilla draws on his talents in both genres.

The astonishing true story of a young woman's adventures, and misadventures, in the dangerous world of Nazi-occupied France. 
 
For Priscilla, pre-war Paris was an exciting carousel of suitors, soirées and heartbreak, and eventually a lavish wedding to a French aristocrat. 
 
But the arrival of the Nazi tanks signalled the end of life as a Vicomtesse, and the beginning of a precarious existence under German Occupation. 
 
Over half a century later, her nephew, Nicholas Shakespeare, found a box of Priscilla's notebooks and journals. He began investigating the rumours that she had escaped a prisoner-of-war camp and fought for the Resistance - and he finally unearthed the truth behind suspicions of disreputable love affairs and far darker secrets.

Nicholas Shakespeare

The Complete Man

A fresh portrait of the man behind James Bond, and his enduring impact, by an award-winning biographer with unprecedented access to the Fleming family papers. 
 
*WINNER OF THE CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION* 
 
Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous and ongoing impact on our culture, but Fleming’s life was more mysterious than anything he wrote. 
 
Ian’s childhood with his gifted brother and extraordinary mother established his ambition to be ‘the complete man’. Only a writer for his last twelve years, his dramatic personal experiences and career in Naval Intelligence put him at the heart of critical moments in world history, while also providing rich inspiration for his fiction. 
 
Nicholas Shakespeare is one of the most gifted biographers working today. His talent for uncovering new material that casts fresh light on his subjects is fully evident in this masterful, definitive biography. 
 
‘Elegant and painstakingly researched’ Observer 
 
‘Marvellous…one of the most engaging portraits of a particular period of British history that I have read in a long time’ Antonia Fraser 
 
‘A book so buoyant and delicious that you feel it will be a friend for life' Telegraph 
 
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE SALTIRE SOCIETY LITERARY AWARD* 
 
*A The Times, Financial Times, Economist, Spectator and BBC History Magazine Book of the Year*

Nicholas Shakespeare

Ian Fleming

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