The overland route to India - the trek that loomed large in a generation's consciousness.John Webster, with his indomitable girlfriend, was one of those who made the trip in the early 1970s. He now brings it to life in an easy-going verse narrative that opens windows onto, and create understandings of a series of cultures, some now out of reach. The reader is immersed in the sights and sounds, the cultural discoveries, the difficulties and delights of the journey, and shares the tr...

'The Closest Thing in History' brings the eras of the Romantics and The Beatles together, arguing that The Beatles were a kind of exploded version of the quartet Keats, Byron, Leigh Hunt and Shelley. Opening by laying lout some broad similarities between them, John Webster first examines how the two groups' early mentors, William Wordsworth and Elvis Presley and William Wordsworth firstly galvanised them and then turned against them. Then, looking at their experiences of inspiration, he sh...