When a writer of Colin Thubron's stripe turns his attention to the Silk Road, following a route from Xian to the shores of Antakya in Turkey, it's worth paying attention. Crossing the Uighur regions in a local bus, Thubron muses on the mixed feelings produced by overland travel: "Your map is opened, then torn while somebody locates his village. Somebody else tries on your glasses. Drowned in this Uighur boisterousness, you find yourself longing for the Chinese reticence." Stopping at a restaurant full of barking Chinese, he finds himself "romanticizing the Uighur warmth and generosity." In the world of travel writing, this is as good as it gets.
Robert Harvey's biography examines the life of two iconic figures: an American hero endowed with nerves of steel, a divine emperor wracked by them; a general who crafted his own destiny, a Japanese born into his. MacArthur, a ham actor who liked to wear Japanese kimonos at his desk and pose at dramatic moments of history with a corncob pipe, could hardly have been more different from Hirohito, a man of diminutive physical stature, known to favor frock coats and top hats. An engrossing read for the long winter nights.