Empires of the Indus: From Tibet to Pakistan – The Story of a River
By Alice Albinia
John Murray £20, 364 pages
A compelling account of the Indian continent’s longest river. Lauded for her almost foolhardy courage, Albinia’s adventures include a highly illegal burqa-clad journey through the tribal badlands of Waziristan.

Fishing in Utopia: Sweden and the Future that Disappeared
By Andrew Brown
Granta £16.99, 261 pages
Journalist Brown returns to Sweden after living there as a boy and young man. Fishing in the lakes and reflecting on his blue-collar job in a sawmill in the 1970s, he discovers a society that is both more dysfunctional and more conformist than its usual utopian image.