As a young reporter in 1953, Jan Morris was on the frozen mountainside as she chronicled Edmund Hillary’s historic ascent of Mount Everest. But, thanks to Conundrum, a 1974 landmark memoir ...

other sensibilities, and as any philosopher knows, the truth about anything is nobody's monopoly—not least, the truth about a place. Jan Morris has written some 40 books on history and travel.

2/5 Jan Morris in her diary of thoughts covers life by the sea, catchphrases and a cat.