Category Archives: Travel Guides
Bloodlands – Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
In the middle of Europe, in the middle of the twentieth century, the Nazi and Soviet regimes murdered fourteen million people in the bloodlands between Berlin and Moscow. In a twelve-year-period, in these killing fields – today`s Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Western Russia and the eastern Baltic coast – an average of more than one million
Berlin at War
Berlin was the nerve-centre of Hitler`s Germany – the backdrop for the most lavish ceremonies, it was also the venue for Albert Speer`s plans to forge a new `world metropolis` and the scene of the final climactic bid to defeat Nazism. Yet while our understanding of the Holocaust is well developed, we know little about
Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain
This is shortlisted for the 2013 Samuel Johnson Prize. This is a book about the encounter with Roman Britain: about what the idea of `Roman Britain` has meant to those who came after Britain`s 400-year stint as province of Rome – from the medieval mythographer-historian Geoffrey of Monmouth to Edward Elgar and W.H. Auden. What
The London Train
“The London Train” is a novel in two parts, separate but wound together around a single moment, examining in vivid detail two lives stretched between two cities. Paul lives in the Welsh countryside with his wife Elise, and their two young children. The day after his mother dies he learns that his eldest daughter Pia,
Sleeping On A Wire: Conversations with Palestinians in Israel
Israel: Jewish state and national homeland to Jews the world over. But a fifth of its population is Arab, a people who feel themselves to be an inseparable part of the Arab nation, most of which is still technically at war with the State of Israel. In the summer of 1991 David Grossman set out
Missing The Boat
The hilarious true story of an amateur boating adventure. Yacht racing. A world of privilege and money. Beautiful women, bronzed men, and Simon le Bon explaining that he used to be in a band. It`s not like that for everyone. Somewhere much, much further down the ladder it all looks very different. As a teenager,
Echoland
Petterson`s debut novel, published in English for the first timeTwelve-year-old Arvid and his family are on holiday, staying with his grandparents on the coast of Denmark. Dimly aware of the tension building between his mother and grandmother, Arvid is on the cusp of becoming a teenager: feeling awkward in his own skin, but adamant that
Seven Ways To Kill A Cat
`There`s seven ways to kill a cat. But when it comes down to it, there`s only two ways. In a civilised fashion or like a fucking savage`. In Buenos Aires, the economy has collapsed and people are protesting on the streets. But in the barrio, life goes on – the slums of the city are
Wild Hares & Hummingbirds – The Natural History Of An English Village
The village of Mark on the Somerset Levels is a watery wonderland, rich in wildlife: rooks and roe deer; sparrows and snowdrops; buzzards, badgers and butterflies; the iconic brown hare and the spectacular hummingbird hawk-moth. As the year unfolds, Stephen Moss witnesses the landscape as it passes from deep snow to spring blossom, through the
Quartz and Feldspar: Dartmoor – a British Landscape in Modern Times
Granite, a tough composite of quartz, feldspar and mica, is the stuff of Dartmoor, the most formidable of the five granite bosses punctuating Britain`s southwest peninsula. A miserable place of rain and bog or a sunny upland of exquisite natural beauty, here the elements are raw, the sky huge and nature seems ascendant. But it
Silver: Return to Treasure Island
Think of the fortune waiting for you. July, 1802. Young Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver`s daughter, Natty, set off in the footsteps of their fathers. The lure of hidden treasure and the thrill of the ocean odyssey soon gives way to terror as the Nightingale reaches its destination. Treasure Island is not uninhabited as
Witches: James I and the English Witch Hunts
September 1613. In Belvoir Castle, the heir of one of England`s great noble families falls suddenly and dangerously ill. His body is `tormented` with violent convulsions. Within a few short weeks he will suffer an excruciating death. Soon the whole family will be stricken with the same terrifying symptoms. The second son, the last male
On The Slow Train Again
Michael Williams has spent the past year travelling along the fascinating rail byways of Britain for this new collection of journeys. Here is the `train to the end of the world` running for more than four splendid hours through lake, loch and moorland from Inverness to Wick, the most northerly town in Britain. He discovers
A Possible Life
From the author of Birdsong and A Week in December comes a dazzling new Sunday Times bestseller. Terrified, a young prisoner in the Second World War closes his eyes and pictures himself going out to bat on a sunlit cricket ground in Hampshire. Across the courtyard in a Victorian workhouse, a father too ashamed to
The Last Days of Detroit: Motor Cars, Motown and the Collapse of an Industrial Giant
Once America`s capitalist dream town, the Silicon Valley of the Jazz Age, Detroit became the country`s greatest urban failure, having fallen the longest and the furthest. The city of Henry Ford, modernity, and Motown found itself blighted by riots, arson, unemployment, crime and corruption. But what happens to a once-great place after it has been
Outrage
Reykjavik, Saturday night. He offered her another margarita, and, as he returned from the bar, he carefully slid the pill into her glass. They were getting along fine, and he was sure she would give him no trouble…48 hours later, a young man is found dead in a pool of blood. There is no sign
The Troubled Man
Every morning Hakan von Enke takes a walk in the forest near his apartment in Stockholm. Then, one day he fails to come home. Detective Kurt Wallander is not officially involved but Hakan`s son is engaged to his daughter Linda. A few months earlier Hakan was eager to talk to Kurt about a controversial incident
Merivel: A Man of His Time
The wonderful new historical novel set in seventeenth-century England from Rose Tremain, author of Restoration (shortlisted for the Booker Prize), The Road Home (winner of the Orange Prize) and Trespass (a Richard & Judy pick). Merivel has been called “wonderfully entertaining” (Guardian Books of the Year) and “an unadulterated delight”. (Independent) and has been shortlisted
The American Lover
This is a seductive new collection of stories from the Orange Prize-winning author of The Road Home and Restoration Trapped in a London flat, Beth remembers a transgressive love affair in 1960s` Paris. The most famous writer in Russia takes his last breath in a stationmaster`s cottage, miles from Moscow. A father, finally free of
The Cage: The fight for Sri Lanka & the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers
In just four months in 2009, Sri Lanka`s 26 year-old desperate civil war came to a brutal and bloody end on a desolate stretch of beach in the island`s north east. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed when the government decimated the guerilla organisation, the Tamil Tigers. Gordon Weiss witnessed the conflict at first
