Baransky volcano on the Kuril Islands, Russia. Photograph: Yuri Smityuk/TASS
Paolo Cognettiâs book Without Ever Reaching The Summit is a powerful evocation of the travellerâs enduring need to be surprised, and it has made me think of a place I want to return to when this is all over: the Kuril Islands in Russiaâs far east, strung like a necklace between Kamchatka and Hokkaido. Soviet historians called them the end of the world but they feel more like the beginning: the haunting mist, the steel-grey ocean scored with pathways of foam, conical volcanoes wrapped in skirts of shimmering jade.