I've just finished reading Tim Butcher's book, 'Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart', about his 600 mile journey overland (bar one helicopter journey) across the Congo from Lake Tanganyika to Boma. I couldn't put it down.

Butcher tells the story of his "suicidal" expedition through the Congo, as he follows in the footsteps of Henry Morton ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume?") Stanley, the Victorian journalist / explorer who charted the Congo in 999 days. He ties the narrative of his journey to accounts of the country's compelling and turbulent history.

He is helped across the Congo by UN peacekeepers, aid workers, a pygmy rights advocate, monks, rebel leaders, relics of the Colonial era, a drunk motorbike owner and many more colourful characters. Almost everyone Butcher meets he interviews, resulting in a fascinating patchwork of histories, stories and experiences.

In his own words, his Congo journey was not "adventure travel" but more "ordeal travel". Along the way Butcher encounters stumbling block after stumbling block, finally beating the obstacles corrupt officials, hunger, illness, and political and socio instabilities throw his way.

The journey that took Stanley three years, and cost the lives of hundreds of tribesmen, took Butcher 44 days. Along the way he witnesses the scars of the Congo Wars - burnt out villages, exposed human remains, marauding Mai Mai gunmen - and the regression of a country whose grandparents remember modernity, but whose children have only ever seen its relics. As Butcher puts it, the modern world "had tried, but failed, to establish itself in the Congo".

The Congo may have been a glamorous host to Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn once upon a time, but today it is "the most daunting, backward country on earth"; as Butcher laments, he "touched the heart of Africa and found it broken".

'Blood River' is a gripping and gruesome, passionate and poignant, historical and harrowing account of a country that was once a functioning place, but is now "undeveloping", spiralling backwards to a state very similar to that which Stanley witnessed in the 1870s. The Congo is "a place where the hands of the clock spin not forward, but backwards."

Find out more about 'Blood River' here.

Photo Credit: 'Pirogues on the Congo' by Julien Harneis.

I love a good list, and National Geographic Traveler has come up trumps with the "50 Books for Summer"; whether you're going to Australia or Venezuela, there will be something for you here.

Here's a preview of the top 10.

1. Nepal: The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen (1978).

NatGeo says: Matthiessen is a multi-task traveler. In this book—one of many fine ones he's written—he and zoologist friend George Schaller trek through Nepal in physical search of Himalayan blue sheep and the rare snow leopard, and in spiritual search (Matthiessen is a Zen Buddhist) of the Lama of Shey at the ancient Buddhist shrine on Crystal Mountain. Enlightenment, anyone? Buy 'The Snow Leopard' now.

2. Patagonia: In Patagonia, by Bruce Chatwin (1977).

NatGeo says: Let's face it: Chatwin was weird, but brilliantly so. This book, launched around a childhood fancy for his grandma's scrap of giant sloth skin, takes him to the "uttermost part of the Earth," from Rio Negro to the Chilean town of Punta Arenas. Buy 'In Patagonia' now.

3. The Arctic: Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape by Barry Lopez (1986).

NatGeo says: Lopez is dreamy, and his meditation on the "last frontiers" of the Arctic is as much about natural history as it is about human landscapes of imagination, desire, and progress. This National Book Award-winner is based on his travels throughout the North, including Baffin Island, Canada's Northwest Territories, and Greenland. Buy 'Arctic Dreams' now.

4. Hong Kong: Hong Kong, by Jan Morris (1989).

NatGeo says: The ever-piquant Morris masterfully unravels the enigma that is Hong Kong, from its Sino-British bipolarity to its megalithic economic structure, its hypercrowded urban landscape to its surprisingly under-explored nature reserves. Buy 'Hong Kong' now.

5. Australia: In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson (2000).

NatGeo says: Bryson would probably be the perfect desert-island companion—an acerbic naturalist and historian who just can't keep an absurd moment or thought to himself. His Australia story teems with toxic caterpillars and ridiculous place-names ("Tittybong," for one). Buy 'In a Sunburned Country' now.

6. Venezuela: In Trouble Again: A Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon, by Redmond O'Hanlon (1988).

NatGeo says: Here's where travel becomes, perhaps, too adventurous: Thrill-seeking, hilarious O'Hanlon takes a four-month river trip and trek in the jungles of Venezuela, a buggy, shadowy, prehistoric-seeming netherworld. The result? An illuminating diary of the jungle's wildlife and people. Buy 'In Trouble Again: A Journey Between Orinoco and the Amazon' now.

7. Paris: A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway (1964).

NatGeo says: "This is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy," recollects Hemingway in this vivid memoir of 1920s Paris, a metropolis brimming with creative types and revolutionary ideas. Buy 'A Moveable Feast' now.

8. China: The River at the Center of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time, by Simon Winchester (1996).

NatGeo says: Historian Winchester seems to know everything, but he's such an engaging raconteur you can hardly begrudge him his smarts. Here he travels the 3,434-mile (5,526-kilometer)Yangtze River, reflecting on the historic importance of the river and the social straits in which the Chinese now find themselves. Buy 'The River at the Center of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time' now.

9. U.S.: Travels with Charley: In Search of America, by John Steinbeck (1961).

NatGeo says: "When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch," Steinbeck begins. The itch in question went unscratched until, at 58, he launched a road trip from Maine to California—accompanied by his poodle, Charley. The America he discovers surprises both himself and his readers. Buy 'Travels with Charley in Search of America' now.

10. Hungary: Valeria's Last Stand, by Marc Fitten (2009).

NatGeo says: This stripped-down modern day fairy tale depicts Zivatar, a fictional village in Hungary, as a place where not much new happens — until one fateful day when the town grump, 68-year-old Valeria, sees the elderly village potter as if for the first time, and is thunderstruck with love. Much of the charm of this tale lies in Fitten's portrayal of Zivatar, a place so far off the beaten track that German tanks (during WWII), Russian tanks (during the 1956 revolution), and even the modern highway all ignore it. Buy 'Valeria's Last Stand' now.

See the full list at traveler.nationalgeographic.com.

Photo Credit: Rest in Peace by Randy Son Of Robert via Flickr (Creative Commons).

If you're the type of traveller who packs more books than clothes into your suitcase, or if you like the thrill of vicarious travel then we've got some good news for you...

Amazon is launching a new service called Amazon Prime, which offers Amazon members FREE two-day shipping for one month on thousands of items.

If you cancel your subscription before your trial month is up then you can enjoy fast delivery without any annoying catches. You'll just have to remember to set a reminder for yourself so you don't get stung! Click here for details.

We'll be signing up and have been looking for literary inspiration to get us going. So far we've got the following travel books on our list:

92 Acharnon Street by John Lucas: Written by a former poetry editor of New Statesman, 92 Acharnon Street won the The Dolman Best Travel Book Award 2008.

James Owen, reviewing 92 Acharnon Street on its publication for Telegraph Travel, said: "This is a portrait of Greece as it certainly was in the mid-1980s, and often still is now - noisy, dirty and on strike, in thrall to bureaucracy and political favouritism, a dark pall cast by the military dictatorship of the 1970s.

"Yet through it shines the redeeming generosity of the Greek temperament, one that approves with a wry smile the necessity of students cheating in exams because the teaching is so inadequate."

The book is "the finest account of a love affair with Greece since Peter Levi’s The Hill of Kronos".

Time Out Guide to Florence and Tuscany: As recommended by Harriet, one of iloho's users, in her post about Tuscany, we want to check out the Time Out guide to Florence and Tuscany

Harriet says: "Take the Time Out guide if eating and drinking is one of your holiday priorities. I've used a lot of guidebooks in my time, and found that Time Out consistently has the best, most up-to-date restaurant listings. The places it recommends have always been excellent value for money and packed with locals. For sightseeing and history, I think the Footprint Travel Guides are really well written, but Footprint doesn't cover as many destinations as the Rough Guide or Lonely Planet."

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert: Having gone through a contentious divorce, a dodgy rebound romance and suffered with depression, Elizabeth Gilbert decided at the age of 34 to spend a year travelling through Italy, India and Indonesia. She says: "I wanted to explore one aspect of myself set against the backdrop of each country, in a place that has traditionally done that one thing very well," she writes. "I wanted to explore the art of pleasure in Italy, the art of devotion in India and, in Indonesia, the art of balancing the two."

The New York Times says: "If a more likable writer than Gilbert is currently in print, I haven't found him or her."

Celebrity fans of Eat, Pray, Love include Julia Roberts, Elle Macpherson, Sophie Dahl and Meg Ryan. We're keen to try it for ourselves.