Imagine A City by Mark Vanhoenacker (published by Chatto & Windus, 16.99) Seven years after his debut, Skyfaring, Imagine a City sees pilot Mark Vanhoenacker stepping aside from his 787 to discover a world beyond the flight deck his own. Written onboard, downroute and just into the start of the pandemic, Imagine a City clearly comes from the same stable as Skyfaring nobody else could have written it but treads a different, more ambitious course. Flight-deck perspectives are mentioned as brief setup and then left in the air. The title alludes to the imaginary cities Mark used to draw growing up in his home city of Pittsfield, western Massachusetts far smaller than those he now visits, but personally significant, as we discover. Most immediately, its a travel book, focusing on a select group of cities to which he finds himself drawn physically by the job, but also personally. He looks forwards to the growing magnetism of cities that draws him and, therefore, everyone else to them in the first place but also backwards, through his upbringing. If travel journalism dwells on light, practical views of cities in passing, Mark observes how his progressive visiting and revisiting of cities permits something different. Cities are clustered by theme, unwinding through each chapter. Their culture and history are introduced through various, unexpected avenues downroute. To do this, he enlists the support of his own crew of contacts, who you sense have been of great personal support, to inform his view. Intertwined within the exploration of cities are regular elements of memoir building a backstory. As Mark turns the analysis onto Pittsfield, we get a strong insight into his compulsion to leave, returning years later to see it anew. There is an intense edge to these reflective sections that grabs, sometimes spilling into the travel experiences. I never expected a long-hauler to invest a layover in the poignant search for a missing schoolfriend lost among the cracks of San Francisco. Mark describes his time downroute enough to start, but not finish his quest as a painful paradox. Many major destinations dont interest him. Where you might think of Rio de Janeiro, this is purely the springboard to the lesser-known capital Brasilia. There are exceptions; two standouts both for Mark, open in his love affair of them, which becomes apparent, and therefore us are his treatments of Cape Town and Tokyo. The former begins on a theory Mark considers unequivocal that most, if not every, pilots favourite colour is blue, for very good reason. Every city on our navigation screens is marked by a circle of the colour described by our technical manuals as cyan, but some of them stand for bluer cities than others, Ive learned, and on the morning after our 747 climbed through the uppermost sheet of Londons layering greys, we lower the wheels, complete the landing checklist, and touch down in the bluest city I know. This theming arrangement he reveals as the most logical and flexible way of describing his pick of the various cities he knows, helping us come to know him. He describes cities as a little like a distant relative, maybe a great-aunt I see irregularly, and whenever I do, I can never tell whether the biggest changes are in her or me. As the bibliography and acknowledgements suggest, it was no small project. If hundreds of flight hours enabled it, many times spent on rest breaks, downtime and time confined to quarters in locked-down cities have created it. It would spoil your experience by telling any more about how, where and why his intertwining threads of travel and memoir intersect. Lets just say, as we all know, a hallmark of a good pilot is to land their passengers back into reality gracefully. If Skyfaring (appreciated equally by pilots and non-pilots, if for different reasons) tells us of the job, Imagine a City permits us to know much more of the pilot. An original treatment notable for its honesty, poignancy and joy. Review by Captain Robin Evans, Senior Log Contributor Would you like to review a book for The Log? If so, simply email TheLog@balpa.org BOOK REVIEWS Our pick of the best flight-related tomes