I’ve mentioned here a few times DH Lawrence’s summary, in Mornings in Mexico, of the power of words; of how we can be transported (and sometimes hoodwinked) by “one little individual, looking at a bit of sky and trees, then… making little marks on paper”. The Englishman Nigel Macfarlane made marks on paper in more ways than one. For more than 40 years he worked with artisan papermakers in India, Nepal and Bhutan, first selling their wares to students in Britain from the back of an old Peugeot 405, then going on to establish a business that supplies art-material shops all over the world. In Paper Road (Eland, £18.99, September 17), he tells the story of his engagement both with places and an age-old craft.

Macfarlane signed off the proofs in December 2025, but died in April 2026, before seeing final copies. Paper Road is therefore the first and last published book of a businessman who, Eland says, “turns out to be a natural writer”. An early reader, the Delhi-based British historian William Dalrymple, says it is “beautifully written and chock-full of wit and charm, sharp observation and an ever-present sense of discovery”.

Macfarlane, who was born in West Sussex in 1957, made his first trip to India in 1976, via Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He returned in 1980 with his wife, the artist Barbara Macfarlane. Together they made contact with papermakers in Sanganer, outside Jaipur, and began shipping some of their paper back to the UK. Their company is Khadi Papers, the name referring to the handspun cotton that Mahatma Gandhi made a symbol of India’s independence movement.

In Travels with Charley (1962), John Steinbeck declared that a writer in search of an authentic experience of a country must see it alone, for “two or more people disturb the ecologic [sic] complex of an area”. That “rule” will be challenged in an account of an extraordinary journey made in 1981. With Donkeys Across Anatolia (Cornucopia, £25, November 12) tells the story of eight British friends and their four mounts, who set out to cross the Asian region of Turkey from north to south and — as one of the group puts it in the foreword — “to encounter the lives of traditional people and the landscapes in the fullest way”.

There are almost as many participants on the pages as there were on the paths. The story, drawing on his journal from the time, is told by Christopher Trillo, a teacher who has had a lifelong interest in language and cultures, and who has travelled widely in Central Asia and lived for several years in Istanbul. The foreword and poems are written by Roger Crowley, a best-selling narrative historian (whose books include Constantinople: The Last Great Siege); there are photographs by Stephen Scoffham and Trillo, drawings and paintings by Simon Nicholas, and drawings by Janie Ramsay. An early reader, Barnaby Rogerson of Eland Books, says Donkeys Across Anatolia is “An extraordinary Quixotic trek in the best tradition of the wilful British amateur — haphazard yet courageous, full of easy charm, reckless confidence, and a beguiling fascination with village life.”