Category Archives: Travel Guides
The Medici
Having founded the bank that became the most powerful in Europe in the fifteenth century, the Medici gained political power in Florence, raising the city to a peak of cultural achievement and becoming its hereditary dukes. Among their number were no fewer than three popes and a powerful and influential queen of France. Their patronage
Motherfocloir: Dispatches from @Theirishfor
`Motherfocloir` [focloir means `dictionary` and is pronounced like a rather more vulgar English epithet] is a book based on the popular Twitter account @theirishfor. As the title suggests, `Motherfocloir` takes an irreverent, pun-friendly and contemporary approach to the Irish language. The translations are expanded on and arranged into broad categories that allow interesting connections to
The Fens: Discovering England`s Ancient Depths
A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. “Francis Pryor brings the magic of the Fens to life in a deeply personal and utterly enthralling way” Tony Robinson”Pryor feels the land rather than simply knowing it” GuardianInland from the Wash, on England`s eastern cost, crisscrossed by substantial rivers and punctuated by soaring church spires, are
District VIII
Balthazar Kovacs, a detective on Budapest`s murder squad, is on the trail of a dead man. Minutes ago, Kovacs received an anonymous SMS showing a body and an address: 26 Republic Square – the former Communist Party headquarters and once the most feared building in the country. But now, amid the ruins of the demolished
Company K
Walt stood up, slapped his thighs, and began to crow like a cock. `Bring on the whole German army!` he shouted. `Bring them on all together, or one at a time. I can whip them all!` The greatest First World War novel to come out of America, Company K is the unforgettable account of one
Court of Lions
Sometimes surrender is more courageous than resistance.Kate Fordham arrived in the sunlit city of Granada a year ago. In the shadow of the Alhambra, one of the most beautiful places on Earth, she works as a waitress serving tourists in a busy bar. She pretends she`s happy with her new life ‘“ but how could
Secret Cities: The Haunted Beauty
The US military built a secret city under the ice sheet of Iceland, during the Cold War; in the Scotland of the 1800s Burke and Hare lurked in the Edinburgh Vaults; in Turkey the subterranean tunnels of Cappadocia housed up to 20,000 people; the salt mine town of Wieliczka in Poland was built in the
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton was an illegitimate, largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean who overcame all the odds to become George Washington`s aide-de-camp and the first Treasury Secretary of the United States. Few figures in American history are more controversial than Alexander Hamilton. In this masterful work, Chernow shows how the political and economic power of America
The Golovlevs
Anna Petrovna rules the ancestral estate of the Golovlev family with an iron hand. Around her swarm her family; her alcoholic sons, dissipated grandchildren and degenerate husband. But, in his darkened study, her son Porfiry – `Judas the Bloodsucker` – schemes for an overthrow of power. In this powerful novel, the great Russian satirist presents
In the Dark
A blind police detective. A psychopath with a grudge. A hunt that will expose her darkest fear… Jenny Aaron was once part of an elite police unit in Berlin, tracking the country`s most dangerous criminals. She was the best. Until a mission went wrong and she lost her sight forever. Five years later, Aaron has
The Travelling Companion: For as Long as it Takes to Get There
For recent college graduate Ronald Hastie, a job at the legendary Shakespeare and Company bookshop offers the perfect occupation during a summer abroad in Paris. Working part-time in exchange for room and board leaves plenty of freedom to explore the city once visited by his literary hero, Robert Louis Stevenson, and things only get better
South Wind
The bishop was feeling rather sea-sick. Confoundedly sea-sick, in fact. An Anglican bishop, on recuperative leave from his African diocese, alights at the island of Nepthene for a short stay on his passage to England. Soon he is caught up in the wild and exuberant antics of visitors and residents. Norman Douglas`s famed, and infamous,
Ernesto
Ernesto is sixteen years old and ready for life to begin. His curiosity leads him into an affair with an older man – the first step on his journey to adulthood. Full of tenderness, humour and warmth, Ernesto is a beautifully and empathetically rendered coming-of-age story set in fin de siecle Trieste. Written in 1953,
When Ideas Matter: Speeches for an Ethical Republic
The President of Ireland since 2011, when he was elected by a final tally of almost 57% of the votes, Michael D. Higgins has used his time in office to setout a vision of what he calls `an ethical Republic`. In a series of remarkable and urgent speeches, which are anything but the bland commentaries
Pachinko
Shortlisted for a 2018 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award.Yeongdo, Korea 1911. In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then Isak,
Letty Fox: Her Luck
One hot night last spring, after waiting fruitlessly for a call from my then lover, with whom I had quarrelled the same afternoon, and finding one of my black moods on me, I flung out of my lonely room on the ninth floor (unlucky number) in a hotel in lower Fifth Avenue and rushed into
The Story: Love, Loss & The Lives of Women: 100 Great Short Stories
Witty, heartbreaking, shocking, satirical: the short story can excite or sadden, entice or repulse. The one thing it can never be is dull. Now Victoria Hislop has collected 100 stories from her favourite women writers into one volume. Here are Man Booker Prize-winners and Nobel Laureates, feminists and famous wits, national treasures and rising stars,
The Age of Jihad: Islamic State and the Great War for the Middle East
The Age of Jihad is the most in-depth analysis of the regional crisis in the Middle East to date. 2001 heralded a new age of disintegration in the Middle East. This has had a murderous impact on the people who live there but also the world beyond. Beginning with the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, Cockburn
The Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics in an Age of Crisis
Mainstream politics is stuck, torn between the redundant doctrines of Keynesianism and neoliberalism. Neither have much to offer a world facing environmental collapse, civic breakdown and a gathering crisis of permanent unemployment. This dismal, managerial politics fails to articulate a vision of a better world, driving people towards the anti-politics offered by Donald Trump and
