The short list was announced today for the £2,500 Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year award, run by the bookseller Stanfords in association with the Authors’ Club. The five books on it are: Fifty Sounds by Polly  Barton (Fitzcarraldo Editions), Minarets in the Mountains by Tharik Hussain (Bradt), Small Bodies of Water by Nina Mingya Powles (Canongate), The Amur River by Colin Thubron (Chatto & Windus) and Wars of the Interior by Joseph Zárate (Granta).