Category Archives: Travel Guides
If This is A Woman: Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler`s Concentration Camp for Women
On a sunny morning in May 1939 a phalanx of 800 women – housewives, doctors, opera singers, politicians, prostitutes – were marched through the woods fifty miles north of Berlin, driven on past a shining lake, then herded through giant gates. Whipping and kicking them were scores of German women guards. Their destination was Ravensbruck,
The Wedding Wallah
Mr Ali`s flourishing marriage bureau seems to have chalked up another success when his ward, Pari, receives a surprise proposal from a rich, handsome aristocrat. But why is the boy`s family so keen to get him married to Pari – an orphan, a widow, and now a single mother? Meanwhile Communist insurgents on the warpath
Limey Gumshoe
House-sitting in Boston one winter, Will Randall picks up with one of his more disreputable travel buddies, Jack J. Makepeace, and life gets a great deal more exciting. Makepeace introduces Randall to his current employers, Chestnut Investigations, and soon Will finds himself appointed apprentice Private Investigator. He tails mongrels and errant husbands, attends a seminar
The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party
As the countdown to Mma Makutsi`s wedding begins, all is not as it should be at the No.1 Ladies` Detective Agency. While investigating unpleasant occurrences on a southern cattle-post, Mma Ramotswe, always on the side of the weak against the strong, has reason to reflect on Rule No.3 of The Principles of Private Detection: never
The World According to Bertie
Poor put-upon Bertie is still struggling to escape his overbearing mother`s influence, his yoga lessons and his pink bedroom while wondering why new baby brother Ulysses looks uncomfortably like his psychotherapist. The insufferably handsome Bruce has returned from London to land, on his feet and rent-free, in the arms of heiress Julia Donald. But all
The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection
Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi have always relied on the advice of the classic guide to their trade, The Principles of Private Detection. But who is the eminent author, Mr Clovis Andersen, and what if he were to come to Botswana? That seems a very unlikely possibility, and yet …When Mr Andersen visits Botswana on
The Comfort of Saturdays
Isabel Dalhousie is a new mother and a connoisseur of philosophy; she`d rather not be a sleuth. But when a chance conversation at a dinner party draws Isabel into the case of a doctor whose career has been ruined, she cannot ignore what may be a miscarriage of justice. Because for Isabel ethics are not
The Importance of Being Seven
Despite inhabiting a great city renowned for its impeccable restraint, the extended family of 44 Scotland Street is trembling on the brink of reckless self-indulgence. Matthew and Elspeth receive startling – and expensive – news on a visit to the Infirmary, Angus and Domenica are contemplating an Italian menage a trois, and even Big Lou
Say You`re One of Them
`Nothing interests Maman today, not even Jean, her favorite child …She acts dumb, bewitched, like a goat that the neighborhood children have fed sorghum beer.` These extraordinary stories centre on African conflicts as seen through the eyes of children and describes their resilience and endurance in heartbreaking detail. From child trafficking to inter-religious conflicts, Uwem
A Passage to Africa
A passage to Africa is George Alagiah`s shattering catalogue of atrocities crafted into a portrait of Africa that is infused with hope, insight and outrage. In vivid and evocative prose, and with a fine eye for detail, Alagiah`s viewpoint is spiked with the freshness of the young George on his arrival in Ghana, the wonder
Urban Worrier
Hunched exhausted at his computer one ordinary Monday morning, world-class workaholic Nick Thorpe has reached the end of his tether. Fearing for his health and family life, he knows something has to change. But where to start when trying too hard is part of the problem? Nick makes a bold resolution: he will spend a
And Did Those Feet
The landscape of the British Isles is filled with history, much of which we miss as it flashes past the car window. Do we even realise that we`re following the same path as the Tolpuddle Martyrs, or that we`re driving past the exact spot where King Harold was killed, shot through the eye with an
The Unbearable Lightness of Scones
To the casual observer, the great enlightened city of Edinburgh, home of no-nonsense philosophers and cream teas, might appear immune to the rollercoaster of strong emotions. But at 44 Scotland Street, as Matthew and Elspeth embark on the risky enterprise of married love, the raffish portrait painter Angus Lordie has a premonition of disaster. And
Playing Cards in Cairo
PLAYING CARDS IN CAIRO is a fly-on-the-wall account – like THE BOOKSELLER OF KABUL – of life (for western readers) in a strange and exotic environment. Hugh Miles lives in Cairo and is engaged to an Egyptian woman. Twice a week he plays cards with a small group of Arab, Muslim women and through this
The Undercover Economist
Who makes most money from the demand for cappuccinos early in the morning at Waterloo Station? Why is it impossible to get a foot on the property ladder? How does the Mafia make money from laundries when street gangs pushing drugs don`t? Who really benefits from immigration? How can China, in just fifty years, go
The Lost City
The Lost City is Henry Shukman’s (Aldeburgh Poetry Prize winner) visceral novel that evokes deadly dangers and ancient mystery with an all too real sense of its rainforest setting.Invalided out of the army at barely twenty, Jackson Small returns to England traumatised by the violent death of his fellow soldier and blood-brother Connolly. Unable to
Shantaram
Shantaram is a book of high adventure, great storytelling and moral purpose, based on an extraordinary true story of Gregory David Roberts’ ten years in the Bombay underworld.In 1978, gifted student and writer Greg Roberts turned to heroin when his marriage collapsed, feeding his addiction with a string of robberies. Caught and convicted, he was
Miracle at Speedy Motors
The Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith sees Precious Ramotswe labouring under the disadvantages of being the best-known lady in Botswana. When she receives a threatening anonymous letter she is compelled to reconsider her unconquerable faith in a kind world and good neighbours. While she ponders the identity of the letter-writer Mma Ramotswe
The Heirs of the Prophet Muhammad
The Prophet Muhammad taught the word of God to the Arabs. Within a generation of his death, his followers – as vivid a cast of heroic individuals as history has known – had exploded out of Arabia to confront the two great superpowers of the seventh-century and establish Islam and a new civilization. That the
Tea Time for the Traditionally Built
Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith centres around the troublesome fact that there are things which men know and ladies do not, and vice versa. It is unfortunate, for example, when Mma Ramotswe’s newest client is Luengo Malefololo, owner of the failing Kalahari Swoopers, that one of the things even lady
