Category Archives: Travel Guides
You`re Coming With Me lad
Policing rural Yorkshire is a far cry from Mike`s old job hunting down drug gangs and knife crime in Central London. Settled back in his native Yorkshire, the former Metropolitan Policeman finds that life as a rural beat bobby is no picnic. After a crazed swordsman threatens to take his head off, he finds himself
The Boy Next Door
Winner of the 2010 Orange Award for New Writers Two days after I turned fourteen the son of our neighbour set his stepmother alight. Or so Lindiwe Bishop believes, though eighteen months later the charges against Ian McKenzie are dropped and he returns home, full of charm and swagger. Intrigued, Lindiwe strikes up a covert
Last Rituals
Last Rites by Yrsa Sigurdardottir is a dark and grisly chiller set in Iceland. A young man is found brutally murdered, his eyes gouged out. A student of Icelandic history in Reykjavik, he came from a wealthy German family who do not share the police`s belief that his drug dealer murdered him. Attorney Thora Gudmundsdottir
My Soul to Take
My Soul to Take sees the return of Thora, Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s heroine from her highly acclaimed ‘Last Rituals”. A grisly murder is committed at a health resort situated in a recently renovated farmhouse, which turns out to be notorious for being haunted. Attorney Thora Gudmundsdottir is called upon by the owner of the resort –
The Bone Clocks
The dazzling new novel from the bestselling author of CLOUD ATLAS. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014 Run away, one drowsy summer`s afternoon, with Holly Sykes: wayward teenager, broken-hearted rebel and unwitting pawn in a titanic, hidden conflict. Over six decades, the consequences of a moment`s impulse unfold, drawing an ordinary woman into a
The Devil`s Paintbrush
Witness the scene. In a Parisian restaurant Aleister Crowley, the notorious occultist, chances on Major-General Sir Hector McDonald: once one of the greatest heroes of the British Empire, now facing ruin in a shocking scandal — and vulnerable to Crowley`s curious offer of help. Follow this unlikely pair on an extraordinary night of revelation and
The Long Silence of Mario Salviati
When Ingi Friedlander travels to Yearsonend in the rugged interior of South Africa to purchase a statue, its eccentric sculptor, Jonty Jack, does not want to sell – he says it was not his creation, but simply appeared miraculously. Ingi decides to stay and try to win Jonty`s trust, but soon realises that the townspeople
Us
David Nicholls brings to bear all the wit and intelligence that graced ONE DAY in this brilliant, bittersweet novel about love and family, husbands and wives, parents and children. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2014. `I was looking forward to us growing old together. Me and you, growing old and dying together.`
Corsets to Camouflage: Women and War
Uniform is universally seen as both a stamp of authority and of official acceptance. But the sight of a woman in military uniform still provokes controversy. Although more women are now taking prominent roles in combat, the status implied by uniform is often regarded as contrary to the general perception of womanhood. In association with
The Sorrows of an American
After their father`s funeral, Erik and Inga Davidsen find a cryptic letter from an unknown woman among his papers, dating from his adolescence in rural Minnesota during the Depression. Returning to his psychiatric practice in New York, Erik sets about reading his father`s memoir, hoping to discover the man he never fully understood. At the
Black Swan Green
January, 1982. Thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor – covert stammerer and reluctant poet – anticipates a stultifying year in his backwater English village. But he hasn`t reckoned with bullies, simmering family discord, the Falklands War, a threatened gypsy invasion and those mysterious entities known as girls. Charting thirteen months in the black hole between childhood and adolescence,
Death of a Red Heroine
Shanghai in 1990. An ancient city in a country that despite the massacre of Tiananmen Square is still in the tight grip of communist control. Chief Inspector Chen, a poet with a sound instinct for self-preservation, knows the city like few others. When the body of a prominent Communist Party member is found, Chen is
The City Of Falling Angels
Taking the fire that destroyed the Fenice theatre in 1996 as his starting point, John Berendt creates a unique and unforgettable portrait of Venice and its extraordinary inhabitants.Beneath the exquisite facade of the world`s most beautiful historic city, scandal, corruption and venality are rampant, and John Berendt is a master at seeking them out. Ezra
One Morning Like a Bird
Tokyo, 1940. While Japan`s war against China escalates, young Yuji Takano clings to his cocooned life: his beloved evenings of French conversation at Monsieur Feneon`s, visits to the bathhouse with friends, his books, his poetry.But conscription looms and the mood turns against foreigners, just when Yuji gets entangled with Feneon`s daughter. As the nation heads
Captain Scott
Sir Ranulph Fiennes is uniquely qualified to write a new biography of Captain Scott. This is the first biography of Scott by someone who has experienced the deprivations, the stress and the sheer physical pain that Scott lived through; he has suffered all but the final tragedy endured by the much maligned Scott. He is
Wild Food – Ray Mears
Ray Mears has travelled the world discovering how native people manage to live on just what nature provides. Whats always frustrated him is not knowing how our own ancestors fed themselves and what we could learn about our own diet. We know they were hunter-gatherers, but no-one has been able to tell what they ate
The Clearing
Byron Aldridge, heir to a timber empire, returns from the First World War a changed man and finds refuge as a company policeman in a backwoods Louisiana sawmill. Soon his younger brother Randolph tracks him down, assuming charge of the mill in the hope of rescuing his former idol. But as the brothers try to
Trafalgar, The Men, The Battle, The Storm
Two hundred years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte dominated Europe and threatened Britain with invasion. Against him stood the Royal Navy and the already legendary Admiral Horatio Nelson. On 21 October 1805, a massive naval battle off the coast of Spain decided mastery of the seas. Then, over the following days and nights, the battleships and their
Paradise Lost. Smyrna 1922
Paradise Lost is a history of the great fire of Smyrna in 1922, by bestselling non-fiction author Giles Milton. A consequence of the latter days of Greco-Turkish War, the fire decimated much of the port city of Smyrna, modern day Izmir, causing death and destruction, and forcing hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee. Above
Nobody`s Child
What`s your name? Where were you born? What is your date of birth? Simple questions that we are asked throughout our life – but what if you didn`t know the answers? Kate Adie uncovers the extraordinary, moving and inspiring stories of just such children – without mother or father, any knowledge of who they might
