Category Archives: Travel Guides
A Home From Home
When George Alagiah was dropped off at a Hampshire boarding school as a child back in 1967 he was confronted with an extreme version of the private struggle faced by all immigrants – the battle to leave the past behind and fit into a new culture. His arrival in Britain coincided with the unhappy intrusion
A Corkscrew is Most Useful – The Travellers of Empire
A Corkscrew is Most Useful is a fascinating and richly detailed journey around the world as seen through Victorian eyes.At the height Queen Victoria’s British Empire, countless men and women set off to explore the known and unknown face of the globe, at the very same moment that the phenomenon of mass tourism was being
Another Long Day On The Piste
Another Long Day On The Piste” is one of those travel-writing books that is funny, refreshing, and full of wit that will have you shaking with laughter. Will Randall has gone to live in a village in the French Alps in order to write and ski (although probably not in that order). His adventures both
Dreaming of Jupiter
Ted Simon is the author of the classic travel book JUPITER`S TRAVELS. It documents his four-year journey round the world by motorbike, travelling through Europe, Africa, South and North America, and Asia. A number one bestseller in the late 1970s, it is still regarded as one of the greatest motorcycle books – indeed, one of
Cuba – The Land of Miracles
Stephen Smith ponders the paradox that is Cuba. His aim is an interview with Fidel Castro, but the path to this is a long and meandering one. After settling into a small flat in Havana he sets out to explore and understand Castro`s Cuba – its people, religions, cults, nightlife, sex life and aspirations for
Love Over Scotland
With his characteristic warmth, inventiveness and brilliant wit, Alexander McCall Smith gives us more of the gloriously entertaining comings and goings at 44 Scotland Street, the Edinburgh townhouse. Six-year-old prodigy Bertie perseveres in his heroic struggle for truth and balanced good sense against his insufferable mother and her crony, the psychotherapist Dr Fairbairn, going as
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
Attention all Shipping
In Attention All Shipping, Charlie Connelly looks at the Shipping Forecast, which, regularly broadcast on BBC radio, is for many a familiar and reassuring element of the British cultural landscape. Its content could spell the difference between life and death for seafarers, but arguably less so for audiences in the garden shed or suburban living
The Fall
Rob and Jamie are great friends from childhood. They have grown up together and become top climbers, but have since become estranged. Rob is nevertheless amazed and grief-stricken when he hears of Jamie`s death after a fall on a relatively easy Welsh rockface. The past, though, hides the secret clues behind the tragedy. Layer by
Tears of the Giraffe
Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith sees the return of the charmingly entertaining adventures of Botswana’s premier female detective, it’s going to take all Precious Ramotswe’s intuition and eminent sensibility to crack her toughest case yet: the decade-old disappearance of an American on the edge of the Kalahari. What’s more, she must attend
The No.1 Ladies` Detective Agency
The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith features wayward daughters, missing husbands, philandering partners and curious conmen. If you`ve got an apparently insoluble problem, then pay a visit to Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s finest – and only – female private detective. Her methods may be unconventional but she`s got warmth, wit and canny intuition
Indian Summer
While attempting to teach at an inner London comprehensive Will Randall is taken up by an elderly German woman who asks him to accompany her to India. Nothing ventured, he agrees and so begins a wonderful life-changing adventure. Set down in Puna (3 hours from Bombay) he begins work teaching English at a slum school.
Ireland In A Glass of Its Own
Peter Biddlecombe has dragged his beleaguered expense account around no fewer than 170 countries of variable merit, which puts him literally miles ahead of every other travel writer. Wittily and informatively he brings a unique businessman`s perspective to his destinations – Biddlecombe has to land running in order to survive. IRELAND: IN A GLASS OF
Morality for Beautiful Girls
Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith sees the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in financial difficulty and Mma Ramotswe forced to make the tricky decision to share offices with her fiancรฉ, Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. Although Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors could do with a little help, it is Mr Matekoni himself who really
