The rough guide to Sweden - James Proctor

James Proctor has been with Rough Guides since 1995, and is the company's original Nanook of the North. Coauthor of the Rough Guides to Sweden, Iceland, and Finland, he has also written the only English-language guides to the Faroe Islands and Lapland. One of his more obscure talents is speaking fluent Swedish-something that never fails to impress and bemuse Swedes (and most other people) he meets. Having lived and worked in Stockholm during the mid-1990s as the BBC's Scandinavia correspondent, James now returns to Sweden at frequent intervals to commune with nature at his log cabin deep in the forest.

Neil Roland is a freelance writer with credits at The Independent and the Sunday Times. He has been writing Rough Guides since 1996.