Category Archives: Travel Guides
Brothers
From the acclaimed – and controversial – Chinese novelist, Brothers is a big-spirited comedy of society running amok in modern China. When Baldy Li`s mother marries Song Gang`s father their lives become entangled. Then when both their parents die, Song Gang swears never to forsake his younger brother. In the event, though, both are undone
Semi Invisible Man
Semi invisible man is a fascinating biography of the writer Norman Lewis by author Julian Evans. Norman Lewis was the best not-famous writer of his generation, and a better writer than almost all who were. From the 1950s to the 1990s, he wrote books that have survived better than all but a handful of novels.
Forgotten Land – Journeys Among the Ghosts of East Prussia
East Prussia is no longer on any map, though it was once a thriving land, famously military, deeply forested, artistically fertile, and the birthplace of Immanuel Kant. As the scene of Stalin`s `terrible revenge` it came to embody the turbulence of the twentieth century, was carved up between Poland and the USSR after World War
Beyond the Blue Horizon: On the Track of Imperial Airways
In Beyond The Blue Horizon Alexander Frater reveals and relives the romance and breathtaking excitement of the legendary Imperial Airways Eastbound Empire service — the world`s longest and most adventurous scheduled air route. Written with an infectious passion, this is an extraordinarily original and genre-defining piece of travel writing by one of our most highly
A Handful Of Honey
Aiming to track down a small oasis town deep in the Sahara, some of whose generous inhabitants came to her rescue on a black day in her adolescence, Annie Hawes leaves her home in the olive groves of Italy and sets off along the south coast of the Mediterranean. Travelling through Morocco and Algeria she
Chasing the Monsoon
`Chasing the Monsoon` is a modern travel-pilgrimage through India. Alexander Frater follows the progress of the annual monsoon season, from the funnelling of the weather front in countries to the south of India to the downpour before his eyes, watching the life-shaping impact of the extraordinary phenomenon of the monsoon. On 20th May the Indian
Days from a Different World
In this volume of memoirs, John Simpson turns his sights on his own childhood, through which he paints a vivid picture of Britain in the 1940s and `50s.`I have already touched on my childhood in Strange Places, Questionable People. But the further through life I get the more I want to revisit it. I want
The World Is What It Is
This is the first major biography of V.S. Naipaul, Nobel Prize winner and one of the most compelling literary figures of the last fifty years. With great feeling for his formidable body of work, and exclusive access to his private papers and personal recollections, Patrick French has produced a lucid and astonishing account of this
Occupational Hazards
Rory Stewart`s `Occupational Hazards` is a must-read account of the first few years of the occupation of Iraq from within its governing structures.Iraq, September 2003; it`s six months after the US-led invasion, and the country is in anarchy – the infrastructure has collapsed, terrorist attacks have begun and the coalition has decided to rule directly
Rounding the Mark
Increasingly disillusioned with his government and the world in general, Inspector Montalbano is considering retirement. He is starting to feel his age, and even his favourite restaurant has closed. But when he bumps into a dead body during a bracing swim, his detective instincts are aroused once more. Particularly when the most likely identity of
The Patience Of The Spider
Chief Inspector Montalbano is on enforced sick leave. But when a local girl goes mysteriously missing, the whole community takes an interest in the case. Why are the kidnappers so sure that the girl`s impoverished father and dying mother will be able to find a fortune? The ever-inquisitive Montalbano steps in, to get to the
Mushrooms: A Comprehensive Guide
The culmination of over thirty years` work, this authoritative and superbly illustrated reference work is packed with the most up-to-date information and original photographs. Set to become the essential illustrated mycological encyclopedia for the next 25 years, this book is also clear, user friendly and will appeal to a wide range of readers. Unsurpassed in
To End All Wars
In this brilliant new work of history, Adam Hochschild follows a group of characters connected by blood ties, close friendships or personal enmities and shows how the war exposed the divisions between them. They include the brother and sister whose views on the war could not have been more diametrically opposed — he a career
Self Help
Alone in her native St Petersburg, Maria Glover sends an urgent summons to London and New York. Her son and daughter arrive too late to see her, but the end of their mother`s life marks the beginning of their own story: one of secrets, strangers, and the ultimate retelling of everything they thought they knew.
When A Crocodile Eats The Sun
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is a saying by some remote tribespeople of Zimbabwe used to explain the actions of a solar eclipse – the celestial crocodile briefly consumes the life-giving star to show his displeasure with man below – it’s the very worst of omens.Peter Godwin lives in Manhattan. Ten years after he
Mukiwa – A White Boy In Africa
Growing up in Rhodesia in the 1960s, Peter Godwin inhabited a magical and frightening world of leopard-hunting, lepers, witch doctors, snakes and forest fires. As an adolescent, he became a conscript caught in the middle of a vicious civil war, and then as an adult who returned to Zimbabwe as a journalist to cover the
May Week Was in June
`Arriving in Cambridge on my first day as an undergraduate, I could see nothing except a cold white October mist. At the age of twenty-four I was a complete failure, with nothing to show for my life except a few poems nobody wanted to publish in book form.` Falling Towards England — the second volume
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
Brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty insist they were commanded to kill by God. Krakauer`s investigation is a meticulously researched, bone-chilling narrative of polygamy, savage violence and unyielding faith: an incisive, gripping work of non-fiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behaviour. `A provocative look at the twisted roots of American fundamentalism` Will Self,
The Story of the Night
Richard Garay lives alone with his mother, hiding his sexuality from her and from those around him. Stifled by a job he despises, he finds himself willing to take considerable risks. Set in Argentina in a time of great change, The Story of the Night is a powerful and moving novel about a man who,
The City of Abraham: History, Myth and Memory: A Journey Through Hebron
The City of Abraham is a journey through one of the world`s most divided cities — Hebron, the only place in the West Bank where Palestinians and Israelis live side by side. It begins with a hill called Tel Rumeida, the site of ancient Hebron, where the patriarch Abraham — father of the Jews and
