Category Archives: Travel Guides
Three Brothers
Three Brothers follows the fortunes of Harry, Daniel and Sam Hanway, born on a post-war council estate in Camden Town. Marked out from the start by curious coincidence, each boy is forced to make his own way in the world – a world of dodgy deals and big business, of criminal gangs and crooked landlords,
The War is Dead, Long Live the War
Wars come and go across the headlines and television screens, but for those who survive them, scarred and scattered, they never end. This is a book about post-conflict irresolution, about the lives of those who survived the gulag of concentration camps in north-western Bosnia and about seeking justice for Bosnia today. But justice is not
The Devil All the Time
Willard is a tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific who can`t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from a slow death by cancer no matter how much sacrificial blood he pours on his `prayer log`. Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial killers, trawl America`s highways searching for suitable models to
Silver & Salt
From the author of Every Contact Leaves a Trace comes a story of family and the lies we tell in order to surviveFollowing the death of her famous father, Ruthie returns to the family villa in remote, wild Greece. After fifteen years in exile she is welcomed by her older sister, Vinny. They build a
The Detour
This is the winner of the Independent foreign fiction prize. “A wonderful novel. Wise and generous to a fault of all our human failings and frailties”. (Lloyd Jones, author of Mister Pip). A Dutch woman rents a remote farm in rural Wales. She says her name is Emilie. She has left her husband, having confessed
Ghost Stories
This title is selected and introduced by Ruth Rendell. M.R. James wrote his ghost stories to entertain friends on Christmas Eve, and they went on to both transform and modernise a genre. James harnesses the power of suggestion to move from a recognisable world to one that is indefinably strange, and then unforgettably terrifying. Sheets,
The Immortal Dinner
Between Christmas and new year of 1817 the eccentric painter, B.R. Haydon, gave a famous dinner party. His guests included three of the greatest literary stars of the age: the poets John Keats and William Wordsworth and the essayist and wit Charles Lamb. They recited poetry, took part in ridiculous antics, indulged in high-minded discussions
So Long, See You Tomorrow
In rural Illinois two tenant farmers share much, finally too much, until jealously leads to murder and suicide. A tenuous friendship between lonely teenagers – the narrator, whose mother has died young, and Cletus Smith, the troubled witness to his parent`s misery – is shattered. After the murder and upheavals that follow, the boys never
A Man of Good Hope: One Man`s Extraordinary Journey from Mogadishu to Tin Can Town
When Asad was eight years old, his mother was shot in front of him. With his father in hiding, he was swept alone into the great wartime migration that has scattered the Somali people throughout the world. This extraordinary book tells Asad`s story. Serially betrayed by the people who promised to care for him, Asad
Three Elegies for Kosovo
It`s 28 June 1389, the Field of the Blackbirds. A Christian army made up of Serbs, Bosnians, Albanians and Romanians confront an Ottoman army. In ten hours the battle is over, and the Muslims possess the field; an outcome that has haunted the vanquished ever since. 28 June 1989, the Serb Leader Slobodan Milosevic launches
Christopher and His Kind
In November 1929, Christopher Isherwood – determined to become a `permanent foreigner` – packed a rucksack and two suitcases and left England on a one-way ticket for Berlin. With incredible candour and wit, Isherwood recalls the decadence of Berlin`s night scene and his route to sexual liberation. As the Nazis rise to power, Isherwood describes
Prater Violet
“A deliberate historical parable. Prater Violet resembles episodes in Goodbye to Berlin and keeps up the same high level of excellence”. (Edmund Wilson). An impatient phone call from the temperamental Austrian director, Friedrich Bergmann, introduces a young Christopher Isherwood to the film industry. Isherwood`s job is to rescue the script of an idiotic love story
The Phantom of the Opera
Christine is a beautiful young singer at the Paris Opera. She is watched by the Opera`s `phantom` – a mysterious masked figure who terrorises the Opera`s management and players. With the Phantom`s help, Christine rises to become the Opera`s star performer, but when the Phantom demands her heart in return, Christine is torn between gratitude
Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda
This is the perfect gift for Valentine`s Day. Selected Poems contains Neruda`s resonant, exploratory, intensely individualistic verse, rooted in the physical landscape and people of Chile. Here we find sensuous songs of love, tender odes to the sea, melancholy lyrics of heartache, fiery political statements and a frank celebration of sex. This is an enticing,
The Last Expedition
This title is presented with an introduction by Sir Ranulph Fiennes. “The Last Expedition” is Captain Scott`s gripping account of his expedition to the South Pole in 1910-12. It was meant to be a voyage of scientific discovery and a heroic exploration of the last unconquered wilderness. Scott`s expedition, carried in the Terra Nova, pitted
Stoner
William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father`s farm. Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death his colleagues remember him rarely. Yet with truthfulness,
The Daylight Gate
Good Friday 1612. Pendle Hill. A mysterious gathering of thirteen people is interrupted by a local magistrate. Is it a witches` Sabbat? In Lancaster Castle two notorious witches await trial and certain death, while the beautiful and wealthy Alice Nutter rides to their defence. Elsewhere a starved child lurks. And a Jesuit priest and former
The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken
Vish Puri is as fond of butter chicken as the next Punjabi. And when there`s plenty on offer at the Delhi Durbar hotel where he`s attending an India Premier League cricket match dinner, he`s the first to tuck in. Irfan Khan, father of Pakistani star cricketer Kamran Khan, can`t resist either. But the creamy dish
Suddenly, a Knock on the Door
Etgar Keret is an ingenious and original master of the short story. Radical, witty and always unusual, declared a `genius` by the “New York Times”, Keret brings all of his prodigious talent to bear in this bestselling collection. A man barges into a writer`s house and, holding a gun to his head, demands that he
Strange Shores
A missing woman. A missing boy. Detective Erlendur returns – for the last time. A young woman walks into the frozen fjords of Iceland, never to be seen again. But Matthildur leaves in her wake rumours of lies, betrayal and revenge. Decades later, somewhere in the same wilderness, Detective Erlendur is on the hunt. He
