Category Archives: Travel Guides
Eleven Minutes Late
Britain gave railways to the world, yet its own network is the dearest (definitely) and the worst (probably) in Western Europe. Trains are deeply embedded in the national psyche and folklore – yet it is considered uncool to care about them. For Matthew Engel, the railway system is the ultimate expression of Britishness. It represents
The Inspector and Silence
An island shrouded in mist and a community with secrets buried in the past. When a young archaeologist studying on a site at Whalsay discovers a set of human remains, the island settlers are intrigued. Is it an ancient find – or a more contemporary mystery? Then an elderly woman is shot in a tragic
The Villa Triste
Florence, 1943. Two sisters, Isabella and Caterina Cammaccio, find themselves surrounded by terror and death; and with Italy trapped under the heel of a brutal Nazi occupation, bands of Partisans rise up. Soon Isabella and Caterina will test their wits and deepest beliefs as never before. As the winter grinds on, they will be forced
Spies and Commissars
In the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, the Western powers were anxious to prevent the spread of Bolshevism across Europe. Lenin and Trotsky were equally anxious that the Communist vision they were busy introducing in Russia should do just that. But neither side knew anything about the other. The revolution and Russia`s withdrawal from the
The Savage Detectives
New Year`s Eve, 1975: Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, poets and leaders of a movement they call visceral realism, leave Mexico City in a borrowed white Impala. Their mission: to track down the poet Cesarea Tinajero, who disappeared into the Sonora desert – and obscurity – decades before. But the detectives are themselves hunted men,
The End of the Cold War: 1985 – 1991
The Cold War had seemed like a permanent fixture in global politics, and until its denouement, no Western or Soviet politician foresaw that the stand-off between the two superpowers – after decades of struggle over every aspect of security, politics, economics and ideas – would end in their lifetimes. Even after March 1985 when Mikhail
Illustrado
It begins with a body. One anonymous winter day, the corpse of Crispin Salvador is pulled from the Hudson River. Gone is the controversial giant of Asian literature. And missing is the only manuscript of his final book, an expose of the corrupt roots of the ruling Filipino families, meant to restore his once dazzling
Mr Foote`s Other Leg
In 1776 Foote`s was the most talked-of name in the English-speaking world. By 1777 it was almost unmentionable. Samuel Foote, friend of David Garrick and Dr Johnson, is the greatest lost figure of the eighteenth century; his story defies belief and has only been forgotten for reasons both laughable and shocking. Foote wrote the first
The Skating Rink
When Nuria Marti, the beautiful Spanish figure skater, is suddenly dropped from the Olympic team, a besotted admirer builds a secret ice rink for her in the ruins of an old mansion on the outskirts of their seaside town. What he doesn`t tell her is that he paid for it using embezzled public funds. Such
Antwerp
`A fascinating, even compulsory addition to the Bolano fan`s bookshelf …the sentences whizz over your head like bullets` Daily Telegraph Antwerp was Roberto Bolano`s first novel, though he chose not to publish it until 2002, more than twenty years after he`d written it. Set amidst the seedy hotels and deserted campsites on the Costa Brava,
The Secret of Evil
Roberto Bolano confirmed his place as a giant of Latin American literature with his novels The Savage Detectives and 2666. Included in this one-of-a-kind collection is everything he was working on just before his death in 2003. A North American journalist in Paris is woken at 4 a.m. by a mysterious caller with urgent information.
Ancient Gonzo Wisdom
Bristling with inspired observations and wild anecdotes, this collection offers unique insight into the voice and mind of the inimitable Hunter S. Thompson, as recorded over the decades in the pages of Playboy, the Paris Review, Esquire, in various lectures, and in television appearances, many in print for the first time. Fearless and unsparing, the
All The Pretty Horses
John Grady Cole is the last bewildered survivor of long generations of Texas ranchers. Finding himself cut off from the only life he has ever wanted, he sets out for Mexico with his friend Lacey Rawlins. Befriending a third boy on the way, they find a country beyond their imagining: barren and beautiful, rugged yet
Blood Meridian
Blood Meridian is an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America`s westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennessean
The Making of Modern Britain
In “The Making of Modern Britain”, Andrew Marr paints a fascinating portrait of life in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century as the country recovered from the grand wreckage of the British Empire. Between the death of Queen Victoria and the end of the Second World War, the nation was shaken by
Dominion
1952. Twelve years have passed since Churchill lost to the appeasers and Britain surrendered to Nazi Germany after Dunkirk. As the long German war against Russia rages on in the east, the British people find themselves under dark authoritarian rule: the press, radio and television are controlled; the streets patrolled by violent auxiliary police and
Lamentation
Matthew Shardlake is back in Lamentation, from the number one bestselling author C. J. Sansom. Summer, 1546. King Henry VIII is slowly, painfully dying. His Protestant and Catholic councillors are engaged in a final and decisive power struggle; whoever wins will control the government of Henry`s successor, eight-year-old Prince Edward. As heretics are hunted across
Hops and Glory
The original India Pale Ale was pure gold in a glass; a semi-mythical beer specially invented, in the 19th century, to travel halfway around the world, through storms and tropical sunshine, and arrive in perfect condition for a long, cold drink on an Indian verandah. But although you can still buy beers with `IPA` on
Triumph of the City
Understanding the modern city and the powerful forces within it is the life`s work of Harvard urban economist Edward Glaeser, who at forty is hailed as one of the world`s most exciting urban thinkers. Travelling from city to city, speaking to planners and politicians across the world, he uncovers questions large and small whose answers
Twelve Cities
Roy Jenkins follows up Churchill with a book of a very different shape; short and semi-autobiographical, but also full of the wit and erudition which make that book such a success. Each of the twelve cities are described with a mixture of architectural interest, topographical insight, and personal anecdote. Jenkins has three British cities: Cardiff,
