James McConnachie
James McConnachie was born and brought up in south London, and studied English literature at Jesus College, Oxford. Touring the Loire in the back seat of a Citroën DS inspired an early love of travel, but his first trip for Rough Guides was to Spain, in 1998. James then began researching for the historian Theodore Zeldin, along with work on Rough Guides to Venice, Florence and Italy. This led to presenting a five-part BBC TV series on Italian language and culture, Italy Inside Out – which is still occasionally screened at 5am.
In early 2002, James had the chance to update David Reed’s Rough Guide to Nepal. As a student, he had spent nine months teaching in a Himalayan village four days’ walk from a road, but three months travelling all over the country, in the middle of a Maoist insurrection, really put his knowledge of Nepali culture and language to the test – and never more urgently than when persuading a local Maoist that he was not in fact a CIA spy.
After Nepal, James returned to his Francophile roots. He was commissioned to rewrite the Rough Guide to Paris, alongside Ruth Blackmore, and then headed back to the Loire valley to write his own, new guidebook. Many château visits later, the Rough Guide to the Loire appeared. Meanwhile, travel-related TV and radio appearances for the BBC and other channels led to more presenting work, including frequent stints on the sofa with Richard and Judy.
Most recently, James has tried to restore some dignity to two very different esoteric subjects. His Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories (2005, 2008), co-authored with Robin Tudge, exposes the truth behind over a hundred conspiracy canards, and explores whether there is a conspiracist version of history. The Book of Love: In Search of the Kamasutra (Atlantic Books, 2007) puts India’s most extraordinary ancient book in its true context, and reveals how it was eagerly smuggled into the West in the nineteenth century. William Dalrymple, writing in The Times, called it “elegant and stylish”, and it won him a nomination for Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2008.
James currently lives in Winchester with his wife and daughter. He is passionate about music, literature, walking and wildlife, and is learning to sing opera. For more about his books, see www.mcconnachie.net.
Titles
The Rough Guide to Sex (Rouch Guides, 2010)
The Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories (Rough Guides, 2005, 2008)
The Book of Love: In Search of the Kamasutra (Atlantic Books, 2007)