Category Archives: Travel Guides
The Heart of the Matter
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JAMES WOOD. Scobie, a police officer serving in a wartime West African state, is distrusted, being scrupulously honest and immune to bribery. But then he falls in love, and in doing so he is forced to betray everything he believes in, with drastic and tragic consequences.
The End of the Affair
The love affair between Maurice Bendrix and Sarah, flourishing in the turbulent times of the London Blitz, ends when she suddenly and without explanation breaks it off. After a chance meeting rekindles his love and jealousy two years later, Bendrix hires a private detective to follow Sarah, and slowly his love for her turns into
Spanish Steps: Travels with my Donkey
Being larger than a cat, the donkey is the kind of animal Tim Moore is slightly scared of. Yet intrigued by epic accounts of a pilgrimage undertaken by one in three medieval Europeans, and committed to historical authenticity, he finds himself leading a Pyrenean ass named Shinto into Spain, headed for Santiago de Compostela.Over 500
Trespass
In a silent valley stands an isolated stone farmhouse, the Mas Lunel. Its owner is Aramon Lunel, an alcoholic so haunted by his violent past that he`s become incapable of all meaningful action, letting his hunting dogs starve and his land go to ruin. Meanwhile, his sister, Audrun, alone in her modern bungalow within sight
Catch-22
With an introduction by Howard Jacobson. Explosive, subversive, wild and funny, 50 years on the novel`s strength is undiminished. Reading Joseph Heller`s classic satire is nothing less than a rite of passage. Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron off the coast of Italy, Catch-22 is the story
Learning to Breathe
At the age of sixteen, Andy Cave followed in his father`s and grandfather`s footsteps and became a miner – one of the last recruits into a dying world. Every day he would descend 3,000 feet into Grimethorpe pit. But at weekends Andy escaped from the pithead to a very different world – testing his nerve
Dictator
“Confirms Harris` undisputed place as our leading master of both the historical and contemporary thriller”. (Daily Mail). There was a time when Cicero held Caesar`s life in the palm of his hand. But now Caesar is the dominant figure and Cicero`s life is in ruins. Cicero`s comeback requires wit, skill and courage. And for a
The Untold History of The Potato
From the gold potatoes at the Sun Temple in Cuzco, Peru, the muddy ones in Ireland and those grown in China for McDonald`s chips, via Mrs Beeton, Charles Darwin, Lenin and Chairman Mao, to the mapping of the potato genome, the story of the spud is both satisfying and fascinating. John Reader follows the thread
The Prague Orgy
In quest of the unpublished manuscript of a martyred Yiddish writer, the American novelist Nathan Zuckerman travels to Soviet-occupied Prague in the mid-1970s. There, in a nation straightjacketed by totalitarian Communism, he discovers a literary predicament, marked by institutionalised oppression, that is rather different from his own. He also discovers, among the oppressed writers with
Ireland Awakening
Ireland Awakening by Edward Rutherfurd retells the story of the Emerald Isle from the seventeenth century onwards, beginning with the Reformation and the devastating arrival of Oliver Cromwell, whose arrival inaugurates two hundred years of Protestant dominance throughout which many of the Irish people were impoverished and dispossessed, Dublin was made a protestant capital and
Just As Well I`m Leaving
Having been dragged against his will to live in Denmark, Michael Booth discovered one of the great secrets of travel literature – Andersen`s A Poet`s Bazaar – a fascinating travelogue through a Europe on the cusp of revolution, by an author who invented children`s literature. He discovered, too, his chance to escape Denmark. In 1840
The Big Oyster: New York in the World: A Molluscular History
When Peter Minuit bought Manhattan for $24 in 1626, he showed his shrewdness by also buying the oyster beds off tiny, nearby Oyster Island, renamed Ellis Island in 1770. From the Minuit purchase until pollution finally destroyed the beds in the 1920s, New York was a city known for its oysters, especially in the late
Orlando
As his tale begins, Orlando is a passionate young nobleman whose days are spent in rowdy revelry, filled with the colourful delights of Queen Elizabeth`s court. By the close, he will have transformed into a modern, thirty-six-year-old woman and three centuries will have passed. Orlando will not only witness the making of history from its
Saturday
Saturday, February 15, 2003. Henry Perowne is a contented man – a successful neurosurgeon, the devoted husband of Rosalind and proud father of two grown-up children. Unusually, he wakes before dawn, drawn to the window of his bedroom and filled with a growing unease. What troubles him as he looks out at the night sky
The Master of Petersburg
In The Master of Petersburg, J M Coetzee dares to imagine the life of Dostoevsky. Set in 1869, when Dostoevsky was summoned from Germany to St Petersburg by the sudden death of his stepson, this novel is at once a compelling mystery steeped in the atmosphere of pre-revolutionary Russia and a brilliant and courageous meditation
Catch 22
Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron off the coast of Italy, Catch-22 is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never even met keep trying to kill him. Joseph Heller`s bestselling novel is a hilarious and
In Tasmania
In Tasmania by Nicholas Shakespeare effortlessly weaves the turbulent yet fascinating history of this unique island with a kaleidoscope of stories featuring a cast of unlikely characters – from Errol Flynn to the King of Iceland, a village full of Chatwins and, inevitably, a family of Shakespeare’s. But what makes this more than a personal
The Collector
Withdrawn, uneducated and unloved, Frederick collects butterflies and takes photographs. He is obsessed with a beautiful stranger, the art student Miranda. When he wins the pools he buys a remote Sussex house and calmly abducts Miranda, believing she will grow to love him in time. Alone and desperate, Miranda must struggle to overcome her own
Snowleg
A young Englishman visits Cold War Leipzig with a group of students and falls for an East German girl who is only just beginning to wake up to the way her society is governed. Her situation touches him, but he is too frightened to help. He spends decades convincing himself that he is not in
The Daydreamer
Peter Fortune is a daydreamer. He`s a quiet ten year old who can`t help himself from dropping out of reality and into the amazing world of his vivid imagination. His daydreams are fantastic and fascinating – only in the bizarre and disturbing world of dreams can he swap bodies with the family cat and his
