BA's comment: 'My new book is about the value of reaching out beyond our familiar, safe world to discover something new. It tells the story of my often dangerous journeys through New Guinea and beyond - from my decision to undergo a male initiation ceremony in my early, idealistic years, to my return a generation later to seek out birds of paradise with BBC Defence Correspondent Frank Gardner. It was this last trip which led to my bid to find out the fate of Korsai, a gentle man who had once, thirty years before, shown great kindness to me, helping me navigate a way to safety over a mountain. Though he lived in one of the most isolated settlements on the planet, there was a possibility he was still alive.

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It was on this last, strenuous adventure - a trek into the forbidding Central Range of PNG - that I became cut off by communal fighting and then became ill with malaria and dengue fever. My disappearance made headline news around the world; in the end the Daily Mail kindly came to my aid.

​I hope you'll find Explorer absorbing - even uplifting. Beyond the drama-filled personal story, really the book is about the value of friendship - and also the importance of taking a risk at times, of disconnecting with ideas that are familiar and comforting. There's an incredibly exciting world out there.'