Category Archives: Travel Guides
The Origin of Species and The Voyage of the Beagle
`The Origin of Species` changed the world. When the eminent naturalist Charles Darwin returned from South America on board HMS Beagle in 1836, he brought with him the notes and evidence which would form the basis of his landmark theory of evolution of species by a process of natural selection. Darwin`s theory, published as `On
Desolation Island
As the twentieth century draws to a close, a ship heads for Punta Arenas at Chile`s southern tip. On board is Oliver Griffin, who is fascinated by the island and spends his life drawing intricate maps of it. He is on an unusual quest, inspired by a photograph of his grandparents embracing a strange automaton
Psycho Vertical
Psycho Vertical is Andy Kirkpatrick’s award-winning biography that won him the *Boardman Tasker Prize* of 2008. Having already earned a reputation as an accomplished mountaineer and big-wall climber, he took on a thirteen-day ascent of Reticent Wall on California’s El Capitan (the hardest big-wall climb ever soloed by a Briton), a climb around which he
Unsafe Attachments
??i??Unsafe Attachments??i?? explores the relationships of a loosely interlinked group of Londoners. Caught off guard at key points, they face moments of sudden temptation in their busy, established lives, as well as increasingly difficult choices. Dinah, harried and pregnant, is haunted by images of death on her way to Heathrow. Abi, a senior civil servant,
London Lore – The Legends & Traditions of the World`s Most Vibrant City
London Lore sees leading folklorist Steve Roud bring together an astonishingly rich selection of the capital`s stories: fabled events, heroes and villains, tales of ghosts and witches, and accounts of local superstitions and beliefs. Few places are so steeped in folklore as London, a city with almost as many ancient legends and deep-rooted customs as
A Fiery & Furious People: A History of Violence in England
*Chosen as a Book of the Year by The Times, History Today and the Sunday Telegraph*’Wonderfully entertaining, comprehensive and astute.’ The Times’Genuinely hard to put down.’ BBC History MagazineFrom murder to duelling, highway robbery to mugging: the darker side of English life explored.Spanning some seven centuries, A Fiery & Furious People traces the subtle shifts
Our lady of Alice Bhatti
The patients of the Sacred Heart Hospital for All Ailments in Karachi are looking for a miracle. Junior nurse, ex-prisoner and part-time healer Alice Bhatti is looking for a job. With guidance from the working nurse`s manual, and some tricks she picked up in prison, Alice starts work at the crowded hospital bringing help to
Green Men and White Swans
Why do British pubs have such curious names? What tales lie behind the Moonrakers, the Hooden Horse, the Derby Tup? And why does the Green Man come in different shapes and sizes? In “Green Men & White Swans”, leading folklorist Jacqueline Simpson explores the fascinating stories behind pub names, uncovering the myths and legends, euphemisms
The Magnetic North – Travels in the Arctic
In `The Magnetic North`, Sara Wheeler documents her journeys around the Arctic regions of the globe. The book is the product of two years of smaller trips that add up to a circular, anti-clockwise voyage around the top of the inhabited world: from Siberia to Alaska, to Canada, to Greenland, to Spitsbergen, to Lapland and
A Partisan`s Daughter
Chris is in his forties: bored, lonely, trapped in a loveless, sexless marriage. He`s a stranger to the 1970s youth culture of London, a stranger to himself on the night he invites a prostitute into his car. Roza is Yugoslavian, recently moved to London. She`s in her twenties, but has already lived a life filled
The Happiest Man in the World
Poppa Neutrino is a philosopher of movement, a vernacular Buddhist, a San Francisco bohemian, a polymath, a pauper, a football strategist for the Red Mesa Redskins of the Navajo Nation, and a mariner who built a raft from materials he found on the streets of New York and sailed across the North Atlantic. And he
The Bat: The First Harry Hole Case
Harry is out of his depth. Detective Harry Hole is meant to keep out of trouble. A young Norwegian girl taking a gap year in Sydney has been murdered, and Harry has been sent to Australia to assist in any way he can. He`s not supposed to get too involved. When the team unearths a
The Lost Dog
Tom Loxley is holed up in a cottage in the bush, trying to finish his book on Henry James, when his dog goes missing, trailing a length of orange twine. As Tom searches it becomes clear that he needs to unravel other puzzles in his life and the story shifts between past and present, taking
The Girl Of His Dreams
One rainy morning Commissario Brunetti and Ispettore Vianello respond to an emergency call reporting a body floating near some steps on the Grand Canal. Reaching down to pull it out, Brunetti`s wrist is caught by the silkiness of golden hair, and he sees a small foot – together he and Vianello lift a dead girl
Fatal Englishman
Christopher Wood, a beautiful young Englishman, decided to be the greatest painter the world had seen. He went to Paris in 1921. By day he studied, by night he attended the parties of the beau monde. He knew Picasso, worked for Diaghilev and was a friend of Cocteau. In the last months of his 29-year
The General of the Dead army
Twenty years after the end of the Second World War, an Italian general is despatched to Albania to recover his country`s dead. Once there he meets a German general who is engaged upon an identical mission, and their conversations brings out into the open the extent of their horror and guilt, newly exacerbated by their
The Palace of Dreams
At the heart of the Sultan`s vast but fragile empire stands the mysterious Palace of Dreams: the most secret and powerful Ministry ever invented. Its task is to scour every town, village and hamlet to collect the citizens` dreams, then to sift, sort and classify them, and ultimately to interpret them, in order to identify
Finding Poland
Following the partitioning of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939, Matthew Kelly`s great grandmother and her two daughters were deported to the East. Thus began an extraordinary ordeal that took them, and many thousands like them, on a journey stretching from Siberia to Pakistan, and beyond. Their male relatives endured a parallel
Exit Ghost
Like Rip Van Winkle returning to his hometown to find that all has changed, Nathan Zuckerman comes back to New York, the city he left eleven years before. Walking the streets like a revenant, he quickly makes three connections that explode his carefully protected solitude. One is with a young couple with whom, in a
Diary of a Bad Year
An eminent, ageing Australian writer is invited to contribute to a book entitled Strong Opinions. For him, troubled by Australia`s complicity in the wars in the Middle East,it is a chance to air some urgent concerns: how should a citizen of a modern democracy react to their state`s involvement in an immoral war on terror,
