More From Our Own Correspondent: With dispatches from Misha Glenny, John Simpson, Caroline Wyatt, and many more

by Tony Grant (Editor)

1955, From Our Own Correspondent has been one of BBC Radio 4's flagship programs. Every week correspondents from around the world report on stories behind the headlines. After the huge success of From Our Own Correspondent, this new companion volume brings more exhilarating dispatches to armchair travellers everywhere.

These dispatches take the reader to the four corners of the earth, from a Maoist wedding to the most dangerous road in the world. Follow the last hitch-hiker in northern France, discover the buffalo mounted police in Brazil, celebrate a home birth in Hungary and get absorbed by saffron in Kashmir. From the boy who lived in a tire to the British troops in Iraq, meet the real people behind the news on this breathtaking journey through the world we live in.

Some of Britain's most celebrated reporters get the opportunity to describe much more than would normally come into a news their stories offer a context and a unique insight into history as it unfolds. They have a unique perspective - sometimes transmitted live to the sound of gunfire - and offer an important background to world events.

Genres: Nonfiction, Journalism

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Aravind P · Rating 4 out of 5]

BBC journalists shares their funny, sad, fearful, adventurous moments from across the globe. This is the book form of the Despatches series that comes/used to come in BBC radio and TV.

[Stefani · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fact that most of the stories in this collection are at least 15-20 years old didn't dampen my enthusiasm for these essay-length dispatches from enterprising BBC reporters one bit. They are presumably edited for radio, so the essays are short, engaging, and entertaining, with a dash of good old British wit and humor thrown in. Plus, this is a lot less tedious then reading an entire book focused on war, as I just recently did, and instantly regretted for its depressing implications. Who would have thought? To my great relief, many of these stories are more "human interest" and less hard news, making them perfect fodder for the cocktail party circuit - there's no quicker way to quiet a room then when you mention penis restaurants in China or Bedouin exorcisms!

[Alexa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the premise of this book but wish I read it earlier when it was more timely.

[Alex]

I wish I had read this when I first bought it about ten years ago, because it was clearly more relevant then, but it was still brilliant, poetic, moving, insightful, all the things the programme regularly is, and the sort of book that makes me feel like I wasn't a REAL journalist, but also makes me wish I could be.