Category Archives: Travel Guides
The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories
The Snows of Kilimanjaro contains some of Ernest Hemingway`s most acclaimed and popular early works of fiction. In all these stories, which are partly autobiographical, men and women of passion live, fight, love and die in scenes of dramatic intensity.From haunting tragedy on the snow-capped peak of Kilimanjaro to brutal sensationalim in the bullring, from
Paperweight
A hilarious collection of the many articles written by Stephen Fry for magazines, newspapers and radio. It includes selected wireless essays of Donald Trefusis, the ageing professor of philology brought to life in Fry`s novel The Liar, and the best of Fry`s weekly column for the Daily Telegraph. Perfect to dip into but just as
The Hippopotamus
Ted Wallace is an old, sour, womanising, cantankerous, whisky-sodden beast of a failed poet and drama critic, but he has his faults too. Fired from his newspaper, months behind on his alimony payments and disgusted with a world that undervalues him, Ted seeks a few months repose and free drink at Swafford Hall, the country
Moab is My Washpot
Moab is My Washpot is in turns funny, shocking, tender, delicious, sad, lyrical, bruisingly frank and addictively readable. Stephen Fry`s bestselling memoir tells how, sent to a boarding school 200 miles from home at the age of seven, he survived beatings, misery, love, ecstasy, carnal violation, expulsion, imprisonment, criminal conviction, probation and catastrophe to emerge,
The Liar
Stephen Fry`s breathtakingly outrageous debut novel, by turns eccentric, shocking, brilliantly comic and achingly romantic. Adrian Healey is magnificently unprepared for the long littleness of life; unprepared too for the afternoon in Salzburg when he will witness the savage murder of a Hungarian violinist; unprepared to learn about the Mendax device; unprepared for more murders
Too Close to the Sun
Conservationist, scholar, soldier, white hunter and fabled lover – Denys Finch Hatton was an aristocrat of leonine nonchalance. He was 6 foot 3 inches tall, and once lifted a car out of a ditch unaided. After a dazzling career at Eton and Oxford he sailed in 1910 for British East Africa – still then the
Bonjour Blanc
An enthralling journey into the shadowy republic of Haiti. In the land of Voodoo, zombies and the Tontons Macoute. In this classic account, history jostles with adventure, high comedy is touched with danger; and Haiti glows like a magic charm.
Foreign Parts
Cassie and Rona. Rona and Cassie. Two women on a driving holiday in Northern France. A caustic, coruscating and deeply funny account of morality, dysfunctional relationships and women abroad, Foreign Parts is that rare hybrid: a strikingly original novel about real life, told with accuracy, compassion and a truly saturnine delight.
Theatre of Fish
Theatre of Fish documents John Gimlette’s travels along the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, in a journey that broadly mirrors that of his great-grandfather, Dr Eliot Curwen, who spent a summer there as a doctor in 1893.Gimlette’s ancestor was witness to both some of the most beautiful landscapes and some of the cruellest poverty in
Nomads Hotel
This absurdly enjoyable collection of travel pieces by one of the world`s most entertaining writers takes us from the exotic by way of Gambia, Mali and Isfahan, to the seemingly domesticated vistas of Australia and Zurich, and finds poetry and beauty in them all. What marks this collection out as something different from an ordinary
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
In Haruki Murakami`s increasingly surreal canon of work, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle is probably his most popular and widely read text. It resonates with contemporary Japan, exploring responsibility for both the past and the present, and also the effects of alienation and isolation; as usual though, Murakami goes about this by making some of the
Sounds Of The River
In this second volume of memoir, following his acclaimed “Colours of the Mountain”, Chen arrives in Beijing, armed with a dogged determination to learn English and familiarise himself with `all things Western`, he must compete with every other student to win a chance to study in the US – a chance that rests in the
Senor Nice
Howard Marks was released from Terre Haute Penitentiary, Indiana in April 1995 after serving seven years of a twenty-five year sentence for marijuana smuggling. It was time for a change of career. So he wrote two best-selling books, became a sports writer and travel writer, stood as a parliamentary candidate in Norwich North, Norwich South,
Seville Communion
Murderous goings-on in a tiny church draw the Vatican into the dark heart of Seville. A hacker gets into the Pope`s personal computer to leave a warning about mysterious deaths in a small church in Seville that is threatened with demolition. Father Quart, a suave Vatican troubleshooter is sent to investigate. Experience has taught him
The Gate
Between 1970 and 1975 Jon Swain, the English journalist portrayed in David Puttnam`s film, “The Killing Fields”, lived in the lands of the Mekong river. This is his account of those years, and the way in which the tumultuous events affected his perceptions of life and death as Europe never could. He also describes the
Life: A users manual
In this ingenious book Perec creates an entire microcosm in a Paris apartment block. Serge Valene wants to make an elaborate painting of the building he has made his home for the last sixty years. As he plans his picture, he contemplates the lives of all the people he has ever known there. Chapter by
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost
From behind the closed door, the man shouts, `Be on your way – you have no business here!` `Open up, I am the messenger of Death`. As spring arrives in the Albanian mountain town of B, some strange things are emerging in the thaw. Bank robbers strike the National Bank. Old terrors are dredged up
Broken April
Set in Albania, from the moment that Gjorg`s brother is killed by a neighbour, his own life is forfeit: for the code of Kanun requires Gjorg to kill his brother`s murderer and then in turn be hunted down. After shooting his brother`s killer, young Gjorg is entitled to thirty days` grace – not enough to
The Eye of The Leopard
Hans Olofson is the son of a Swedish lumberjack. His early life is isolated and difficult, overshadowed by the disappearance of his mother. When he loses both his best friend and girlfriend in tragic circumstances, his only remaining desire is to fulfil her dream of visiting the grave of a legendary missionary, deep in the
The Bayeux Tapestry
Carola Hicks’ ‘The Bayeux Tapestry – The Life Story of a Masterpiece” opens up the intrigue, mystery and drama of the tapestry’s history, in a fine piece of historical enquiry, and shows how – as with any piece of history – varied attitudes to the Tapestry through the years reveal a great deal about those
