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Personal Landscapes

by Ryan Murdock

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Latest episodes

Christopher Harding on the history of Japan

October 20, 2026 · 1 hr 42 min

How do you capture two and a half thousand years in a couple hundred pages? Today’s guest managed to hit the highs and lows of Japan’s long history while peppering his account with literature, culture, religion and those subtle ways of…
Ask Me Anything (AMA) #2

October 2, 2026 · 1 hr 57 min

Thank you to all those who submitted questions. There were more than I expected. I hope you find this interesting. Watch the video for: * an update on the future of Personal Landscapes — and a change in direction * behind the scenes…
Paul Theroux on the road in Canada

September 22, 2026 · 2 hr 1 min

We’re talking about Canada today, a place I know a little something about. My homeland is the subject of Paul Theroux’s newest travel book. Like Canada, True North is vast and it covers too much ground to summarize in a podcast. This is a…
Jan Morris with biographer Sara Wheeler

September 8, 2026 · 1 hr 26 min

Jan Morris seemed to live multiple lives. She was a soldier at the end of the Second World War, and a globetrotting journalist with a knack for turning up in the middle of what would become historic events. She was a man — James Morris…
George Forster with biographer Andrea Wulf

August 18, 2026 · 1 hr 26 min

George Forster is the most interesting 18th century explorer that I had never heard of. He traveled the South Pacific on Captain James Cook’s second voyage at age seventeen, sailing through icy waters tantalizingly close to undiscovered…

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Rory Maclean on the cross-cultural geography of heaven

August 4, 2026 · 1 hr 17 min

When Rory Maclean’s wife died of cancer at age 55, he set out on a series of journeys that changed his life. His newest book is an examination of grief, a celebration of love, and a cross-cultural exploration of the afterlife. He…
Colin Thubron on Russia and Asia's borderlands

June 16, 2026 · 1 hr 16 min

Colin Thubron’s keenly observed travel writing has made him one of our greatest writers on place. The scale of his journeys is immense, but his lyrical books focus on the small and immediate. He writes about ordinary people whose lives…
Tom Feiling on Japan’s warning for the future

May 19, 2026 · 1 hr 11 min

When Tom Feiling lived in Tokyo in the early 1990s, Japan was a vision of the future. A place where science fiction existed next to centuries old Shinto shrines. He returned to the country nearly twenty-five years later to find some of the…
Katja Hoyer on life at the edge of catastrophe

May 5, 2026 · 1 hr 22 min

The little town of Weimar was the crucible of German high culture, democracy, and dictatorship. It was home to Goethe and Schiller, Nietzsche and Liszt. It gave its name to the Weimar Republic. And it was an early stronghold of Adolf…
Nicholas Crane on the hidden history of Britain's paths

April 20, 2026 · 1 hr 28 min

Landscapes contain hidden histories that shaped the development of the world we live in. How we moved through those landscapes also tells us something about ourselves. The Paths More Traveled explores the web that has stretched across…
Robert Kaplan on a world in permanent crisis

February 20, 2026 · 44 min

The foreign affairs and travel writer Robert Kaplan sees today’s world as a larger version of Germany’s Weimar Republic, “connected enough for one part to mortally influence the other parts, yet not connected enough to be politically…
Isabella Tree on Nepal’s living goddess

January 6, 2026 · 1 hr 10 min

In a small medieval palace on Kathmandu’s Durbar Square, a young girl chosen from a caste of Buddhist goldsmiths watches over this broad valley and protects the country and its people. She’s the embodiment of Devi, the universal goddess…

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About the show

Ryan Murdock talks with the world’s most original writers, publishers and travelers to get the story behind great books about place. www.personallandscapespodcast.com