Category Archives: Travel Guides
Hothouse Flower
Lila Nova never imagined her desires could prove so dangerous. And she never dreamed of the exotic turn her life is about to take. Stumbling across a steamy New York laundromat overgrown with ferns, Lila is captivated by the strange owner, Armand. More interested in plants than laundry, in Lila he recognises an untapped energy.
Tower
No building has been more intimately involved in the story of Britain than the Tower of London – a mighty, brooding stronghold in the very heart of the capital. Castle, prison, torture chamber, execution site, zoo, mint, treasure house, armoury, observatory: the Tower has been all these things and more, standing at the epicentre of
Last Chance To See
`Douglas Adams` genius was in using comedy to make serious points about the world` – “Independent”. After years of reflecting on the absurdities of life on other planets, Douglas Adams teamed up with zoologist Mark Carwardine to find out what was happening to life on this one. Together they lead us on an unforgettable journey
Land of Marvels
1914, and an English archaeologist called Somerville is fulfilling a lifelong dream: to direct an excavation in the desert of Mesopotamia. Yet forces beyond his control threaten his work. The Great War is looming, and various interest groups are vying for control over the land and its manyprizes. And Somerville, whose intention is purely to
The Children`s Book
Famous author Olive Wellwood writes a special private book, bound in different colours, for each of her children. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world – but their lives, and those of their rich cousins and their friends, the son and daughter of a curator at the new Victoria
I am a Chechen!
“I Am a Chechen!” offers a lyrical fusion of exotic legends, stories and memories of Chechnya: a land of wondrous beauty, site of genocides past and present, and the author`s ancestral home. Haunted by memories of the land he deserted, Sadulaev tells the stories of those who stayed behind. He brings dead friends back to
Iza`s Ballad
When Ettie`s husband dies, her daughter Iza insists that her mother give up the family house in the countryside and move to Budapest. Uprooted from her community and her home, baffled and isolated by modern city ways, Ettie must find a place in her daughter`s life – and build a new one for herself. “A
Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China
This is from the bestselling author of `Wild Swans` and `Mao: The Unknown Story`. In this groundbreaking biography, Jung Chang vividly describes how Empress Dowager Cixi – the most important woman in Chinese history – brought a medieval empire into the modern age. Under her, the ancient country attained virtually all the attributes of a
Strands
Strands describes a year`s worth of walking on the ultimate beach: inter-tidal and constantly turning up revelations: mermaid`s purses, lugworms, sea potatoes, messages in bottles, buried cars, beached whales and a perfect cup from a Cunard liner. This is a series of meditations prompted by walking on the wild estuarial beaches of Ainsdale Sands between
The Quickening Maze
After a lifetime`s struggle with alcohol, critical neglect and depression, in 1840 the nature poet John Clare is incarcerated. The asylum, in London`s Epping Forest, is run on the reformist principles of occupational therapy. At the same time, the young Alfred Tennyson, moves nearby and became entangled in the life of the asylum. This historically
Sweet Liberty
Joseph O`Connor`s love affair with all things American led to an extraordinary tour of the United States to visit the nine different towns called Dublin, as well as some of the great cities and tiny hamlets in between. Along the way he wittily deconstructs the legends of a whole pantheon of Irish American heroes, from
To a Mountain in Tibet
Winner of the 2019 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award`s Outstanding Contribution to Travel WritingMount Kailas is the most sacred of the world`s mountains – holy to one fifth of humanity. Isolated beyond the central Himalayas, its summit has never been scaled, but for centuries the mountain has been ritually circled by Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims.
Songs Of Blood And Sword
In September 1996, a fourteen-year-old Fatima Bhutto hid in a windowless dressing room, shielding her baby brother while shots rang out in the streets outside the family home in Karachi. This was the evening that her father Murtaza was murdered, along with six of his associates. In December 2007, Benazir Bhutto, Fatima`s aunt, and the
City of Strangers
Paul Metzger`s life is in a state of disrepair; a writer in his mid-thirties, he is divorced and underacheiving. One winter afternoon he travels into New York to visit three people; an elder half-brother who wants little to do with him; a disgraced, dying father, once infamous as a Nazi sympathiser; and an ex-wife whom
About Face
At a dinner party given by his parents-in-law, Commissario Brunetti meets Franca Marinello, the wife of a prosperous Venetian businessman. He`s charmed – perhaps too charmed, suggests his wife Paola – by her love of Virgil and Cicero, but shocked by her appearance. A few days later, Brunetti is visited by Carabinieri Maggior Filippo Guarino
The Man from Beijing
The Man from Beijing is a perceptive political thriller from Wallander author Henning Mankell. One cold January day the police are called to a sleepy little hamlet in the north of Sweden where they discover a savagely murdered man lying in the snow. As they begin their investigation they notice that the village seems eerily
Chasing The Devil
For many years war made Sierra Leone and Liberia too dangerous for outsiders to travel through. Facing down demons from his time in Africa as a journalist, Tim Butcher heads deep into this combat zone, encountering the devastation wrought by lawless militia, child soldiers, brutal violence, blood diamonds and masked figures who guard the spiritual
After Mandela
When Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress declared victory over the bitter injustice of apartheid, some thought South Africa`s future was assured. But despite Mandela`s mission of reconciliation, rampant inequality remains; race relations are uneasy, violence is endemic and many in the ANC appear to have lost sight of the liberation ideals. With the
Lion`s Head, Four Happiness
Lion`s Head, Four Happiness is the captivating story of Xiaomei Martell, who was born in one of China`s most remote regions just two years before Mao launched the Cultural Revolution. The youngest of four daughters – her name means `Little Sister` – her family had no money or connections, yet they raised her with a
The Bridge: A Journey Between Orient and Occident
The Bridge: A Journey Between Orient and Occident is Geert Mak’s tale of Istanbul’s past and present as represented by the Galata Bridge, which has spanned the Golden Horn since the sixth century and is a constant reminder of Turkey as a link between Europe and Asia. Mak interweaves personal tales about the people he
