Andreas Herzau’s *Calcutta-Bombay* records an eight-day journey he undertook by taxi from Calcutta to Mumbai (formerly Bombay), from 20 to 27 February 2004. Published by Dewi Lewis in 2005, the hardback volume contains 108 pages and 120 colour plates, measuring 210 by 300 millimetres. The publisher describes it as a fascinating document of reportage and narration, offering insights into the culture and lifestyles of central India and a close-up view of the country’s complex and stratified society.

The journey, not the destination, organizes the material. Herzau turns his attention to central India and the layered social realities encountered en route, and the result reads as both reportage and narration: portraits, roadside scenes, interiors, and passing landscapes accumulate into a portrait of a stratified society rather than a set of isolated striking pictures. The “road movie” structure gives the collection its momentum, and the eight-day timeframe imposes a natural arc, so the book can be read as a continuous account rather than browsed as an anthology.

Herzau has won the European Press Award on more than one occasion, has exhibited throughout Europe, and his work regularly features in leading European magazines. This is his third book. For readers interested in documentary photography, *Calcutta-Bombay* represents a considered example of the travel narrative pursued with journalistic discipline. Its combination of colour, sequence, and sustained attention to ordinary life makes it a substantive addition to a shelf concerned with India, with reportage, or with the photobook as a form of extended storytelling.