The Faber Book of Exploration, a huge anthology of explorers edited by me, is now available "at all good bookshops, " as they say.

I was concerned about the reception it might receive - any book trying to cover the literature of exploration right from early days is an easy target for academics and armchair travellers - but it's gone done very well. One critic (Guardian), while giving a favourable review, would have liked more Chinese and Arabs in the collection. I rather agree. The problem was, who to leave out?

The book was started 12 years ago, and the final thing perhaps only a third of my eventual draft manuscript. I was determined not to sacrifice those normally marginalized - that is, women, the indigenous groups, and miscellaneous forgotten sailors and settlers. I'm proud of the book's message - which stresses that exploration is part of the human condition - we are all explorers by nature - and that exploration should not be seen as happening back in some "Golden Age," perhaps by pith-helmeted Victorians, but something that is happening now as much as ever. We have named only 1.5 million species of our planet's species, and there are perhaps 10 million more - maybe a hundred if you include bacteria.

The book also attempted to find room for those traditionally overlooked in the history of exploration - the often unnamed settlers of far shores, and the indigenous peoples whose lands were trampled by waves of these strangers. There are contributions by a shaman, and also a "Native American" Sioux Indian. I've dedicated this book - the closest I managed to get to "a life's work" - to Yasha and Tolia, (my guides in Siberia) "and to all the other indigenous guides who, often at great cost, helped so many in this book explore their lands."