A few months ago, my friend Gavin’s mum Pat very kindly sent me a book through the post that she thought I’d enjoy. It was Will Randall’s Botswana Time. I liked it immensely, and told her so – and then, a few weeks later, another book dropped through the letterbox and onto the mat: Indian Summer by the same author. So given the many happy hours I've been spending on the sofa with Will Randall, so to speak, those are the two books that I’m reviewing this month.

I asked for three books for Christmas. The first two, Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine, and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, I read over the Christmas break in front of the blazing fire in my parents’ house. The third, A Complete Guide to Arctic Wildlife by Richard Sale, is more suited to years of browsing than a read through, though I have already found out the difference between a mountain hare and an Arctic hare...

Those who are wondering, gosh, these book reviews are getting a little sporadic, and thinking, has she not read a book since July? are perilously close to guessing the truth. While I was on the road in the summer, falling into bed and collapsing into a comatose sleep was all I could manage at the end of most days. However, as I sat in various airport departure lounges, I did manage to read a book called Two in the Far North by Margaret Murie.

Eage-eyed visitors to this site may well ask, 'What on earth happened to June's book review.' It's a good question, and the answer is, and please whisper this quietly, there wasn't one. I didn't get to it. I'm deeply sorry, and promise it won't happen again. Moving swiftly on to July...

I've only written one book review this month (there's only so much you can read and write from the back of a snowmobile bouncing across the tundra) but it's in keeping with this month's theme of Russia and reindeer.

A few weeks ago I went to the Royal Geographical Society to hear Giles Tremlett talking about his book Ghosts of Spain. Spain’s a country that I’ve always loved – I studied Spanish at university and spent a year living in a town called Plasencia, in the west of the country – and Tremlett was engaging and interesting, so at the end of the lecture I bought a copy. Because that’s been my reading for the past week or two, I’m focussing this month’s book reviews on books about Spain. Ghosts of Spain is first up, and that’s followed by a couple of books that I have greatly enjoyed, A L Kennedy’s On Bullfighting and Gerald Brenan’s South from Granada.

My books for March are all about China. First up is my very favourite book based in the country, Peter Hessler’s River Town, which tells the story of the author’s two years living in a town on the Yangtze and working as a college English teacher. My second choice is completely different: The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Zhisui Li. Li was Mao’s personal physician and this is a warts-and-all portrait that is really quite gripping – and sometimes luridly fascinating. Thirdly, I’ve selected a classic: Forgotten Kingdom by Peter Goullart, which is about life in Lijiang, in Yunnan Province, in the 1940s.

My reviews this month are all of books written by women travellers, and I’ve chosen a wide historical span. From furthest back in the annals comes Mary Hitchcock’s Two Women in the Klondike. I read a lot of accounts of the Klondike gold rush while I was researching Mad Dogs and an Englishwoman and this is one of my real favourites: Mary and her friend Edith Van Buren were American society ladies who, in 1898, decided to ‘do’ the Klondike as a pleasure trip. Next up – and taking us back to the 20^th century – is Martha Gellhorn’s Travels with Myself and Another: Five Journeys from Hell. Lastly there’s Bad Times in Buenos Aires by Miranda France, which a friend gave to me before I travelled to Argentina to research On a Hoof and a Prayer; I found it both funny and touching.

This month’s books are all about journeys. The first, Terry Darlington’s Narrow Dog to Carcassonne, made me laugh and laugh, and I’ve been giving it as a birthday present to random friends in need of a good laugh ever since I read it a couple of years ago. Eric Newby’s A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush is also very funny – famously so – and has, since it was first published in 1958, become one of the timeless classics of travel writing. Lastly, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe by Laurence Bergreen tells the gripping tale of one of the most incredible journeys of history: Magellan’s attempt to travel to the east by sailing west. Unfortunately for both Magellan and his men, their captain had no idea of the existence of the Pacific Ocean.

This month, I'm recommending three of my favourite books about Canada: Voyageur by Robert Twigger, The Snow Geese by William Fiennes (which is set in both Canada and the US), and The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney.