Category Archives: Travel Guides
Annapurna – The First Conquest of an 8000 Metre Peak
Since first publication, when it sold 400,000 copies, ‘Annapurna” has acquired classic status. It is the enthralling account, by the leader of the French expedition, of the first conquest of Annapurna – at that time, and at more than 8,000 metres, the highest mountain ever climbed.It is a story of breathtaking courage and determination against
Tender is the Night
It is the French Riviera in the 1920s. Nicole and Dick Diver are a wealthy, elegant, magnetic couple. A coterie of admirers are drawn to them, none more so than the blooming young starlet Rosemary Hoyt. When Rosemary falls for Dick, the Diver`s calculated perfection begins to crack. As dark truths emerge, Fitzgerald shows both
Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-doctors in Victorian England
Gaslight tales of rooftop escapes, men and women snatched in broad daylight, patients shut in coffins, a fanatical cult known as the Abode of Love. The nineteenth century saw repeated panics about sane individuals being locked away in lunatic asylums. With the rise of the `mad-doctor` profession, English liberty seemed to be threatened by a
Notwithstanding
Welcome to the village of Notwithstanding, where a lady dresses in plus fours and shoots squirrels, a retired general gives up wearing clothes altogether, a spiritualist lives in a cottage with the ghost of her husband, and people think it quite natural to confide in a spider that lives in a potting shed. Based on
The Time Traveller`s Guide to Elizabethan England
The past is a foreign country – this is your guide. We think of Queen Elizabeth I`s reign (1558-1603) as a golden age. But what was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What
The Tin Drum
WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR On his third birthday Oskar decides to stop growing. Haunted by the deaths of his parents and wielding his tin drum Oskar recounts the events of his extraordinary life; from the long nightmare of the Nazi era to his anarchic adventures is post-war Germany.
Inside The Kingdom
Saudi Arabia is a country defined by paradox: it sits atop some of the richest oil deposits in the world, and yet the country`s roiling disaffection produced sixteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers. It is a modern state, driven by contemporary technology, and yet its powerful religious establishment would have its customs and practices rolled
Ransom
In this exquisite gem of a novel, David Malouf shines new light on Homer`s Iliad, adding twists and reflections, as well as flashes of earthy humour, to surprise and enchant. Lyrical, immediate and heartbreaking, Malouf`s fable engraves the epic themes of the Trojan war onto a perfect miniature – themes of war and heroics, hubris
The Patience Stone
A young woman prays at her husband`s bedside as he lies in a coma with a bullet in his neck. From outside come the sounds of tanks, gunshots, screaming and, most terrifying of all, silence. Inside, her two frightened daughters call to her from the hallway. As she tries to keep her husband alive, the
The Hare With The Amber Eyes
When potter Edmund de Waal first came across the 264 minute wood and ivory carvings in the Tokyo apartment of his great uncle Iggie, he was entranced. Later, when Edmund inherited the `netsuke` carvings, they unlocked a story far larger than he could ever have imagined…The Ephrussis came from Odessa, and at one time were
Edgelands
The wilderness is much closer than you think. Passed through, negotiated, unnamed, unacknowledged: the edgelands – those familiar yet ignored spaces which are neither city nor countryside – have become the great wild places on our doorsteps. In the same way the Romantic writers taught us to look at hills, lakes and rivers, poets Paul
Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini`s Italy
Christopher Duggan`s new history of fascist Italy explores how the movement became embodied in the person of Benito Mussolini who occupied for many an almost divine status and gave millions of men and women a sense of pride and hope, offering the prospect of national regeneration after decades of disappointment. A work of exceptional authority
Beneath the Lion`s Gaze
Beneath the Lion`s Gaze opens in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1974, on the eve of a revolution. Yonas kneels in his mother`s prayer room, pleading to his god for an end to the violence that has wracked his family and country. His father, Hailu, a prominent doctor, has been ordered to report to jail after helping
Metroland
Christopher and Toni found in each other the perfect companion for that universal adolescent pastime: smirking at the world as you find it. In between training as flaneurs and the grind of school they cast a cynical eye over their various dislikes: parents with their lives of spotless emptiness, Third Division (North) football teams, God,
A History of The World in 10 1/2 Chapters
Beginning with an unlikely stowaway`s account of life on board Noah`s Ark, A History of the World in 10รฏยฟยฝ Chapters presents a surprising, subversive, fictional history of earth told from several kaleidoscopic perspectives. Noah disembarks from his ark but he and his Voyage are not forgotten: they are revisited in on other centuries and other
L.A. Confidential
Christmas 1951, Los Angeles: a city where the police are as corrupt as the criminals. Six prisoners are beaten senseless in their cells by cops crazed on alcohol. For the three LAPD detectives involved, it will expose the guilty secrets on which they have built their corrupt and violent careers. The novel takes these cops
Cross Channel
No one has a better perspective on life on both sides of the channel than Julian Barnes. In these exquisitely crafted stories spanning several centuries, he takes as his universal theme the British in France; from the last days of a reclusive English composer, the beef consuming `navvies` labouring on the Paris-Rouen railway to a
Player One
This is a real-time five-hour story set in an airport cocktail lounge during a global disaster. Five disparate people are trapped inside: Karen, a single mother waiting for her online date; Rick, the down-on-his-luck airport lounge bartender; Luke, a pastor on the run; Rachel, a cool Hitchcock blonde incapable of true human contact; and finally
What The Day Owes The Night
Darling, this is Younes. Yesterday he was my nephew, today he is our son`. Younes` life is changed forever when his poverty-stricken parents surrender him to the care of his more affluent uncle. Re-named Jonas, he grows up in a colourful colonial Algerian town, and forges a unique friendship with a group of boys, an
The Age of Spectacle: Adventures in Architecture and the 21st-Century City
In Dubai, a luxury apartment block is built in the shape of a giant iPod. In China, President Xi Jinping denounces the trend of constructing `bizarre` new buildings in wacky shapes and colours. In Cincinnati, celebrity architect Zaha Hadid is paid millions to design a single `iconic` structure – with the hope of single-handedly transforming
