Graham Robb, who has cycled through the histories of France and of The Debatable Land between Scotland and England, offers a new view from the saddle this week in The Discovery of Britain (Picador, £22, October 2). The book was reviewed briefly in The Observer yesterday by Hephzibah Anderson, who says that “Careful research is mixed with an aptly freewheeling approach, allowing the reader to experience the past as an adventure powered as much by accident as incident. Rarely does history feel so beguiling.”