Category Archives: Travel Guides
The Narrow Road to the Deep North: Winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize
Winner of the 2014 Man Booker PrizeForever after, there were for them only two sorts of men: the men who were on the Line, and the rest of humanity, who were not. In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Burma Death Railway, surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with
The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
The New York Times Bestseller. Sara has never left Sweden but at the age of 28 she decides it`s time. She cashes in her savings, packs a suitcase full of books and sets off for Broken Wheel, Iowa, a town where she knows nobody. Sara quickly realises that Broken Wheel is in desperate need of
All That Man Is
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 MAN BOOKER PRIZE. Nine men. Each of them at a different stage of life, each of them away from home, and each of them striving – in the suburbs of Prague, beside a Belgian motorway, in a cheap Cypriot hotel – to understand just what it means to be alive, here
A Walk in the Park: The Life and Times of a People`s Institution
“A fascinating, informative, revelatory book”. (William Boyd, Guardian). Parks are such a familiar part of everyday life, you might be forgiven for thinking they have always been there. In fact, public parks are an invention. From their medieval inception as private hunting grounds through to their modern incarnation as public spaces of rest and relaxation,
Idaho
Description: One hot August day a family drives to a mountain clearing to collect birch wood. Jenny, the mother, is in charge of lopping any small limbs off the logs with a hatchet. Wade, the father, does the stacking. The two daughters, June and May, aged nine and six, drink lemonade, swat away horseflies, bicker,
My Life in Houses
`I was born on 25th May, 1938, in the front bedroom of a house in Orton Road, a house on the outer edges of Raffles, a council estate. I was a lucky girl.` So begins Margaret Forster`s journey through the houses she`s lived in, from that sparkling new council house, to her beloved London home
Hag-Seed: The Tempest Retold
Felix is at the top of his game as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he’s staging a Tempest like no other: not only will it boost his reputation, it will heal emotional wounds. Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix
Blood Brothers
Blood Brothers is the only known novel by German social worker and journalist Ernst Haffner, of whom nearly all traces were lost during the course of the Second World War. Told in stark, unsparing detail, Haffner`s story delves into the illicit underworld of Berlin on the eve of Hitler`s rise to power, describing how these
Churchill`s Iceman: The True Story of Geoffrey Pyke: Genius, Fugitive, Spy
There is no reason why you should have heard of Geoffrey Pyke. After his suicide in 1948 he was described as one of the great geniuses of his time, to rank alongside Einstein, yet he remains today, as The Times put it, `one of the most original if unrecognised figures` of the twentieth century. Inventor,
The Last Englishmen: Love, War and the End of Empire
An engrossing story of passion and exploration that traces the end of empire and the stirring of a new world order.John Auden was a pioneering geologist of the Himalayas. Michael Spender was the first to draw a detailed map of the North Face of Mount Everest. While their younger brothers ‘“ W. H. Auden and
Curtain Call
On a sultry afternoon in the summer of 1936 a woman accidentally interrupts an attempted murder in a London hotel room. Nina Land, a West End actress, faces a dilemma: she`s not supposed to be at the hotel in the first place, and certainly not with a married man. But once it becomes apparent that
One Man`s Everest – Kenton Cool
Kenton Cool is the finest alpine climber of this generation. His accomplishments are staggering. He has summited Everest eleven times. He is the first person in history to climb the three Everest peaks, the so-called Triple Crown, in one climb, a feat previously thought impossible. He was nominated for the prestigious piolet d`Or in 2004
Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London
`Flร: neuse [flanne-euhze], noun, from the French. Feminine form of flร: neur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer, usually found in cities. That is an imaginary definition.`If the word flร: neur conjures up visions of Baudelaire, boulevards and bohemia ‘“ then what exactly is a flร: neuse? In this gloriously provocative and celebratory book, Lauren
The Time Traveller`s Guide to Restoration Britain: Life in the Age of Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton and The Great Fire of London
The past is a foreign country: this is your guidebook.If you could travel back in time, the period from 1660 to 1700 would make one of the most exciting destinations in history. It is the age of Samuel Pepys and the Great Fire of London; bawdy comedy and the libertine court of Charles II ?
Claxton: Field Notes from a Small Planet
“After Mark Cocker`s glorious book, you will never look at a blackberry bush the same way again.” (Philip Hoare, New Statesman). In 2001 Mark Cocker moved to Claxton, a small village in Norfolk. In a series of daily writings spanning the course of a year he explores his relationship to the landscape he lives in,
The Crime at Black Dudley
This is the First Campion Mystery. “Margery Allingham stands out like a shining light.” (Agatha Christie). A suspicious death and a haunted family heirloom were not advertised when Dr George Abbershaw and a group of London`s brightest young things accepted an invitation to the mansion of Black Dudley. Skulduggery is most certainly afoot, and the
Look to the Lady
This is a Vintage Murder Mystery. Finding himself the victim of a botched kidnapping attempt, Val Gyrth suspects that he might be in a spot of trouble. Unexpected news to him – but not to the mysterious Mr Campion, who reveals that the ancient Chalice entrusted to Val`s family is being targeted by a ruthless
One Man and a Mule: Across England with a Pack Mule
In the Middle Ages, mules were used to transport goods across Britain. Strong, sturdy and able to carry a good 160lbs of weight, they made ideal walking companions ‘“ as long as you didn’t ask them to do anything they didn’t want to do!So when Hugh Thomson decides he wants to revive this ancient tradition,
The House at the Edge of Night
On a tiny island off the coast of Italy, Amedeo Esposito, a foundling from Florence, thinks he has found a place where, finally, he can belong. Intrigued by a building the locals believe to be cursed, Amedeo restores the crumbling walls, replaces sagging doors and sweeps floors before proudly opening the bar he names the
A Line Made By Walking
When I finished Sara Baume’s new novel I immediately felt sad that I could not send it in the post to the late John Berger. He, too, would have loved it and found great joy in its honesty, its agility, its beauty, its invention. Baume is a writer of outstanding grace and style. She writes
