Granite Kingdom

Tim Hannigan was born and brought up in the far west of Cornwall. After leaving school he worked as a chef for several years in busy Cornish restaurant kitchens. He escaped the catering industry via a degree in journalism and a move to Indonesia, where he taught English and worked as a journalist and guidebook writer. He is the author of several narrative history books, including A Brief History of Indonesia and the award-winning Raffles and the British Invasion of Java, as well as the critically acclaimed The Travel Writing Tribe. He's also an academic, with a research specialism in contemporary travel literature. He divides his time between Cornwall and the west of Ireland. He tweets @Tim_Hannigan.

This deep dive into Cornwall's history, landscape and identity should be stacked on service-station counters all along the A303 this summer.