From Becky Barnicoat to Nick Trend: new books reviewed in short

In Holy Places: How Pilgrimage Changed the World, Kathryn Hurlock takes the reader on a journey around the world to sites of pilgrimage well known ( Mecca , Jerusalem , Rome ) and more obscure: Iona , an island off the west coast of Scotland , or Chichén Itzá in Mexico , where the Maya appeased the gods of the weather with human sacrifices.

The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History, by Selena Wisnom unearths all of the secrets held by the script.

Barnicoat ’s depiction is by turns bloody, sweet, bleak and joyful.

Throughout the body horror and anxiety and social upheaval, she makes it clear how grateful she is to be a mother.

Her account is intimate and granular, recounting sleep-deprived feelings so fleeting it's almost astonishing she remembered them at all.