All roads seem to be leading quite a few travel writers to Jerusalem. In June this year there was Guy Stagg’s debut The Crossway, in which a non-believer made a pilgrimage from Canterbury to Jerusalem in an attempt to mend himself after mental illness. At the end of November came Walking to Jerusalem (Hodder & Stoughton) by Justin Butcher, playwright, actor and musician, an account of the event he organised, with the human-rights charity Amos Trust, to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration and to call for “full equal rights for everyone who calls the Holy Land home”. I’m assuming that Julian Sayarer’s latest project will take him to the city too. Sayarer, who made his name as a long-distance cyclist before winning the 2016 Stanford Dolman prize for Interstate, about hitch-hiking across America, has returned to his bike and is currently researching a book about cycling through Israel and Palestine. (Incidentally, he is the most recent interviewee in the “Meet the Writers” podcast made by Monocle magazine, though the conversation deals with his earlier books and doesn’t touch on work in progress.)