If you are the kind of traveller who embraces the adventurous, this astonishingly detailed and authoritative route and planning guide to one of the most staggering possible destinations will be right up your street. When so much of the world is at our fingertips, with the undiscovered shrinking day by day, the Sahara Desert is still one of the most mysterious wildernesses on the planet. The popular image provided by movies like Lawrence Of Arabia or The English Patient is of shimmering oases and photogenic dunes. But Chris Scott, while taking on board the fond perceptions of the Sahara most of us have, ensures thatSahara Overlandis a clear-eyed guide to what could be the adventure of a lifetime. (Although it has to be said that this is a trip for travellers with backbone: those who like a laid-back holiday need not apply).Tackling both a week"s excursion to Morocco or a two-month trans-Saharan expedition, Scott dispenses such essential advice as the documentation required (what is needed, and how to obtain it--not always a straightforward matter), details of the trans-Mediterranean ferries and 35 off-road routes covering 16,000km in nine countries. A key aspect of this comprehensively illustrated guide is the attention paid to the choice of transport. Whether you are planning to get around by motorcycle, bicycle or even camel, Scott tells you how to obtain and prepare your vehicle in the most economic fashion.Of course it wouldn"t be an adventure holiday without the possibility of something going wrong, and on this subject Scott is in his element. He tells the traveller how to improvise repairs, how to deal with navigational and even survival problems in the kind of lucid and easily grasped prose that many will find highly comforting. Along with 45 maps, there is much fascinating detail on Saharan peoples, pre-historic art and the amazing land forms. Read Scott"s challenging guide to find out what you may really be capable of. --Barry Forshaw