More from Our Own Correspondent - Tony Grant

Since 1955, From Our Own Correspondent has been one of BBC Radio 4's flagship programs. Every week correspondents from around the world report on stories behind the headlines. After the huge success of From Our Own Correspondent, this new companion volume brings more exhilarating dispatches to armchair travellers everywhere.

These dispatches take the reader to the four corners of the earth, from a Maoist wedding to the most dangerous road in the world. Follow the last hitch-hiker in northern France, discover the buffalo mounted police in Brazil, celebrate a home birth in Hungary and get absorbed by saffron in Kashmir. From the boy who lived in a tire to the British troops in Iraq, meet the real people behind the news on this breathtaking journey through the world we live in.

Some of Britain's most celebrated reporters get the opportunity to describe much more than would normally come into a news story: their stories offer a context and a unique insight into history as it unfolds. They have a unique perspective - sometimes transmitted live to the sound of gunfire - and offer an important background to world events.