The Immeasurable World with William Atkins

William Atkins is the author of the 'Immeasurable World: Journeys in Desert Places'. Reviving the illustrious British tradition of travel writing, his desert voyages encompassing five continents in three years illuminates the people, history, topography and symbolism of these remarkable but often troubled places.

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A treat for desert lovers ... Atkins is a gifted and interesting writer, with a deft turn of phrase and an original mind. He uncovers the many guises of the desert with much imagination, insight and wit., Spectator

Atkins is not in thrall to deserts - in his words "dead", "forsaken" places - but loves them for their austerity, and the clarity of thought they grant ... They offer him allegories of humanity's mistreatment of the planet, and of one another ... Gorgeous ... The tensions the book sets up between life and death, aridity and fertility, wet and dry, loved and lovelorn, begin to resolve., Guardian

This exploration of great deserts is anything but dry. Atkins is not a wannabe Thesiger and isn't out to impress with stiff-upper-lipped trans-Saharan epics. Rather, his journeys in empty places on five continents are full of encounters with people - illegal immigrants on Arizona's border, Christian monks in Egypt's Eastern Desert and, out among the sands of the Middle East's Empty Quarter, a British postman called Nigel., Financial Times - Summer book of 2018