Category Archives: Travel Guides
Eight White Nights
“Eight White Nights” is an unforgettable journey through the experience of time and desire, where passion and fear and the sheer craving to ask for love and to show love can forever alter who we are. A man in his late twenties goes to a large Christmas party in Manhattan where a woman introduces herself
Britannia (small)
In Britannia Graham Stewart traces two thousand years of an island`s story – from Roman province to twenty-first century European nation-state – through one hundred historic documents.From the eighth-century Lindisfarne Gospels to the great testament of Norman bureaucracy, the Domesday Book, and from the designs for the Union Jack in 1606 to Neville Chamberlain`s 1938
Perlmann`s Silence
In a quiet seaside town near Genoa, experts are gathering for a linguistics conference. One speaker, Philipp Perlmann, recently widowed and, struggling to contend with his grief, is unable to complete his keynote address. As the hour approaches, an increasingly desperate Perlmann decides to plagiarize the work of Leskov, a Russian colleague who cannot attend,
The Beauty of Humanity Movement
“They say that the history of Vietnam can be found in a bowl of pho, and from his handcart- kitchen, Old Man Hu`ng makes the best in all Hanoi. But a striking young Vietnamese-American woman – Maggie Ly – wants more from him than a bowl of soup. Just a young girl when Saigon fell,
The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens` London
“Full of detail and colour about everyday life in Dickens`s London, and leaves you with a sense not only of how hard life was then, but how strange. Even if you`ve read Dickens and the contemporary historians of the poor, there is still more to marvel at here.” Sebastian FaulksThe nineteenth century was a time
The Quest for a Moral Compass: A Global History of Ethics
“In this remarkable and groundbreaking book, Kenan Malik explores the history of moral thought as it has developed over three millennia, from Homer`s Greece to Mao`s China, from ancient India to modern America. It tells the stories of the great philosophers, and breathes life into their ideas, while also challenging many of our most cherished
Spilt Milk
Centenarian Eulalio Assumpcao has reached the end of his long life. From his modest bed in a Rio public hospital, as his mind falters, he grandly recounts his past to passing nurses, his visiting daughter and the whitewashed ceiling. His eccentric stories are seemingly nothing more than the ramblings of a dying man, yet as
Matterhorn
Fire Support Base Matterhorn: a fortress carved out of the grey-green mountain jungle. Cold monsoon clouds wreath its mile-high summit, concealing a battery of 105-mm howitzers surrounded by deep bunkers, carefully constructed fields of fire and the 180 marines of Bravo Company. Just three kilometres from Laos and two from North Vietnam, there is no
Union Atlantic
Doug Fanning lives an apparently gilded existence. A Gulf war veteran turned banker at the vast investment bank Union Atlantic, he is wealthy, handsome and powerful – the epitome of Wall Street success. Charlotte Graves lives in self-imposed exile deep in the forests of rural Massachusetts, stubbornly refusing to engage with a country she feels
Purge
Deep in an Estonian forest, two women, one young, one old, are hiding. Zara is a prostitute and a murderer, on the run from brutal captors – men who know how to punish a woman. Aliide offers refuge but not safety: she has her own criminal secrets – traitorous crimes of passion and revenge committed
Last Man In Tower
21st Century Mumbai is a city of new money and soaring real estate, and property kingpin Dharmen Shah has grand plans for its future. His offer to buy and tear down a weathered tower block, making way for luxury apartments, will make each of its residents rich – if all agree to sell. But not
The Good Soldiers
In January 2007, the young and optimistic soldiers of the 2-16, the American infantry battalion known as the Rangers, were sent to Iraq as part of the surge. Their job would be to patrol one of the most dangerous areas of Baghdad. For fifteen months, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Finkel was with them, following them
The Incorrigible Optimists Club
“Paris, 1959. As dusk settles over the immigrant quarter, 12-year-old Michel Marini – amateur photographer and compulsive reader – is drawn to the hum of the local bistro. From his usual position at the football table, he has a vantage point on a grown-up world – of rock `n` roll and of the Algerian War.
Driving Like Crazy
Jump in and buckle-up. P.J. O`Rourke delivers his rapid-fire wit from the driver`s seat of Buicks, Land Rovers, Harley-Davidsons and at least one Soviet army surplus truck. “Driving Like Crazy” is a hilarious collection of fender-bending pieces that career along at O`Rourke`s full-throttle, breakneck Gonzo best…
The Slap
At a suburban barbecue one afternoon, a man slaps an unruly boy. The boy is not his son. It is a single act of violence, but this one slap reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it happen. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, THE SLAP is the most talked-about novel of 2010, and
Desert
Young Nour is a North African desert tribesman. It is 1909, and as the First World War looms Nour`s tribe – the Blue Men – are forced from their lands by French colonial invaders. Spurred on by thirst, hunger, suffering, they seek guidance from a great spiritual leader. The holy man sends them even further
Shooting Angels
Somehow, Joe Angel, the most famous businessman in the country had found Charlie in the backwater where had been hiding all these years, and arrived unannounced to give him an envelope full of money and a simple message: come back to the Capital to learn what really happened to Constanza — the woman he loved
Where the Shadows Lie
Amid Iceland`s wild, volcanic landscape, rumours swirl of an eight-hundred-year-old manuscript inscribed with a long-lost saga about a ring of terrible power. A rediscovered saga alone would be worth a fortune, but, if the rumours can be believed, there is something much more valuable about this one. Something worth killing for. Something that will cost
66 North
“Iceland 1934: Two boys playing in the lava fields that surround their isolated farmsteads see something they shouldn`t have. The consequences will haunt them and their families for generations. Iceland 2009: the credit crunch bites. The currency has been devalued, banks nationalized, savings annihilated, lives ruined. Grassroots revolution is in the air, as is the
The Lovers
Yvonne is newly widowed, her children grown up. And so, hoping to revisit memories of a happier time, she travels to Turkey. Despite the sand and sea, memories of Yvonne`s past are overwhelming and she clings to a newfound friendship with Ahmet, a local boy who makes his living as a shell collector. With Ahmet
