These are travel stories, ranging in time and place. Some are memories of a re-imagined past, others more personal. Simon Loftus’s explorations begin with a performance of Hamlet off the coast of Africa, in 1607, and each of the stories that follow echoes and reflects the opening words of that play, Who’s there?. They encompass the strange foundations of probability theory, the forthright epitaphs of Suffolk gravestones, the pursuit of wine, dusk on the beach of Essaouira, the simit vendors of Istanbul, an elegy for Palmyra. And much more. Vividly evocative, this collection is a coda to Simon’s acclaimed Pike in the Basement.
