Educated in the UK, Steven Crook (crooksteven.blogspot.com) was backpacking through Asia in 1991 when he decided to go to Taiwan. Running out of money, he needed a job, but that wasn’t the only reason for visiting. His school history books mentioned Taiwan only in passing as the place to which Chiang Kai-shek and his Chinese Nationalist Party had retreated in 1949 after losing the Chinese Civil War to Mao Zedong's Communists. His geography teachers never talked about the place, and nobody he knew had ever been there. The prospect of visiting such an unfamiliar island was tantalising. He wasn't disappointed; he extended his stay and took up hiking. In 1996, he started writing about the country's mountains, temples and museums for newspapers and magazines – and he has no intention of stopping. His four books on Taiwan include Bradt’s Taiwan guidebook plus A Culinary History of Taipei: Beyond Pork and Ponlai.