I never would have guessed I was creating a smash hit when I wrote Words That Piss Me Off in March 2010. Most of the phrases that sparked my rant were irritating proliferations of business English into daily use. Those trendy terms faded into obscurity like the 1970s pant-and-shirt combos that seemed cutting-edge on school photo day but were used against you by your mother when your first...
Gate of Hohenschönhausen prison. The East German Stasi’s (Ministry for State Security) secret prison in the Berlin district of Hohenschönhausen locked up and interrogated some 11,000 enemies of the state for crimes as terrible as criticizing government policy, listening to Western music, and simply wanting to emigrate. Originally a makeshift basement prison run by the DDR’s Soviet overlords, the...
It’s the time of year when I tempt you to blow what remains of your savings on the printed page. If you want to be cash-poor but book-rich, then you should take financial advice from me. I’ve got some great books to recommend this year. As usual, I read and re-read a lot of travel literature to prepare for Personal Landscapes podcast conversations. I also have a few essential history reads...
Icebreaker briefs may not be the world’s worst underwear, but they’re the worst waste of forty bucks I’ve ever spent on gotch. They should really change the name to Crack Chafer, because that’s what these things excel at. This chameleon-like garment transforms itself into a sumo mawashi the moment you start hiking. Once it has lodged itself in your crack, it saws up and down like a...
At Hendaye on the Atlantic. Did I know what I was getting into…? I’m back at my desk after hiking the length of the Pyrenees, from Atlantic to Mediterranean: just under 800 km, with 51,000 metres of elevation gain and descent, in 35 days. I wanted to do this high traverse as a sort of farewell-to-Europe after 15 years living on the continent, six of them in Malta and the rest in...
Waiting for the Nightjet to Paris My attempt to reach the Pyrenees by train failed before it began. I had planned to go to the Atlantic end of the Pyrenees this week, where I would begin a long mountain hike. Here’s how it looked on paper. I would hop an expensive ÖBB Nightjet from Berlin at 7:04pm on Tuesday, arriving at Paris Est at 9:38 the next morning, alongside other...
Summer podcast update A short note to let you know what’s happening with the Personal Landscapes podcast this summer. Most of the podcasts I listen to tend to take a short break in summer. I don’t. My ‘short breaks’ happen when I’m traveling. There will only be one episode in July, rather than the usual two, and probably no episodes in August. I prepared for several more but unfortunately I...
Not following Personal Landscapes on Substack? You’re missing out on a pile of exciting book-related content, like my recent long form piece What I Learned From Paul Theroux. I’ve also published a growing archive of book reviews, including: The Longest Way Home by Andrew McCarthy, The Riverbones by Andrew Westoll, Mongolia: Travels in an Untamed Land by Jasper Becker, and The Saddest Pleasure by...
The St. Lawrence River near my hometown I have given up on Canada. We’re leaving Berlin next year for Japan, and I’ve accepted that it’s probably permanent. I never gave my future much conscious thought. I went abroad for curiosity — to see the world beyond the 4,500 person town I grew up in — and to find my subject as a writer. If I thought about it at all, I...
I hate ads. I hate listening to them when I listen to podcasts, and I don’t want to inflict them on you, either. I want to keep my conversations with the world’s most interesting writers both free — no paywalls — and ad-free, so I’ve moved Personal Landscapes to Substack. New episodes will be emailed to subscribers automatically, so please sign up to the free tier on my new Substack to stay...