As a writer who's often trying to keep herself on track for stories, poetry, and whatever novel might be in the cooker, inspiring yourself to write while you're traveling is sometimes hard. But if you're always traveling, then you're never writing...and then you can't really call yourself a writer anymore, can you? It's easy enough...

Rory MacLean's ' The Oatmeal Ark ' is part travel memoir, part historical fiction. Or maybe it's part history book, and part travel fiction. It's hard to pin this book down: it blurs the line between fact and fiction, past and present. The book follows the fictional Beagan Gillean as he travels the world in...