Category Archives: Travel Guides
Railways and The Raj: How the Age of Steam Transformed India
India was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, an Empire that needed a rail network to facilitate its exploitation and reflect its ambition. But, by building India`s railways, Britain radically changed the nation and unwittingly planted the seed of independence. As Indians were made to travel in poor conditions and were barred
How to Read London
Over 2,000 years of settlement give London its unique architectural heritage. Unlike Haussmann’s Paris, neither monarch nor politician imposed their will; private ownership and enterprise shaped the city and defined its parts. Elegant West End squares and crescents hallmark the Classical townscape that emerged between 1600 and 1830, but medieval, Tudor and Victorian enclaves identified
The Midnight Watch: A Gripping Novel of the SS Californian, the Ship That Failed to Aid the Sinking Titanic
A fascinating, revelatory novel based on the true story of the ship, and its crew, that failed to come to the sinking Titanic`s aid. Set on board the Californian during those terrible hours, and in Boston in the aftermath of the disaster, Antonia Senior has called `historical fiction at its best`. A perfect read for
Mindful Thoughts for Walkers: Footnotes on the Zen Path
Mindfulness is so much more than a set of routine timed exercises; it`s the transformative practice of conscious living we can nurture by being mindful of the moment. Mindful Thoughts for Walkers explores through a series of succint meditations, how walking is an opportunity to deepen our levels of physical, and spiritual awareness. Adam Ford
A Tokyo Romance
`The whole thing sparks astonishingly to life` ObserverWhen Ian Buruma arrived in Tokyo as a young film student in 1975, he found a feverish and surreal metropolis in the midst of an economic boom, where everything seemed new and history only remained in fragments. Through his adventures in the world of avant-garde theatre, his encounters
Resolution: A Novel of Captain Cook`s Adventures of Discovery to Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii, Through the Eyes of George Forster, the Botanist on Board His Ship
A. N. Wilson`s powerful new novel explores the life and times of one of the greatest British explorers, Captain Cook, and the golden age of Britain`s period of expansion and exploration.Wilson`s protagonist, witness to Cook`s brilliance and wisdom, is George Forster, who travelled with Cook as botanist on board the HMS Resolution, on Cook`s second
The Lightless Sky: An Afghan Refugee Boy`s Journey of Escape to a New Life in Britain
`To risk my life had to mean something. Otherwise what was it all for?` Gulwali Passarlay was sent away from Afghanistan at the age of twelve, after his father was killed in a gun battle with the US army for hiding Taliban fighters. Smuggled into Iran, Gulwali began a twelve month odyssey across Europe, spending
Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan
At the start of the twentieth century, a young girl and her family emigrate from the continent in search of a better life in America, only to pitch up in Ireland by mistake. In 1958, a mute boy locked away in a mental institution outside of Dublin forms an unlikely friendship with a man consumed
Modus: Fear Not
The silent, snow-covered streets of Oslo are a perfect scene of Christmas tranquillity. But as the bells toll for the last Sunday of Advent, a boy`s -body washes up near the shoreline of the city`s Aker Bridge. His corpse is unrecognisable. Nobody has bothered to report him missing. One week later Eva Karin Lysgaard, the
The Wanderer
`Michael Ridpath is trouncing the Scandinavians on their home turf. This is international thriller writing at its best.` PETER JAMES Iceland, 2017: When a young Italian tourist is found brutally murdered at a sacred church in northern Iceland, Magnus Jonson, newly returned to the Reykjavik police force, is called in to investigate. At the scene,
Offline
It has been eleven years since Hanne Wilhelmsen`s life was forever changed by an assault that left her wheelchair bound. Now, Hanne`s self-imposed exile is nearing its end. When Oslo comes under attack from Islamic extremists in a series of explosions, the city is left reeling. A militant group claim responsibility, but the Norwegian police
In Dust and Ashes
In 2001, three year old Dina is killed in a tragic car accident. Not long thereafter Dina`s mother dies under mysterious circumstances, and Dina`s father Jonas is convicted of her murder.In 2016, the cold case ends up on the desk of Detective Henrik Holme, who tries to convince his mentor Hanne Wilhelmsen that the father
The Memory Code: Unlocking the Secrets of the Lives of the Ancients and the Power of the Human Mind
In ancient, pre-literate cultures across the globe, tribal elders had encyclopedic memories. They could name all the animals and plants across a landscape, identify the stars in the sky and recite the history of their people. Yet today, most of us struggle to memorize more than a short poem. Using traditional Aboriginal Australian song lines
Autumn in Venice: Ernest Hemingway and His Last Muse
National Geographic Traveller`s the best books on European cities, 2019In the autumn of 1948 Hemingway was approaching fifty and hadn`t published a novel in nearly a decade. He travelled for the first time to Venice and there, at a duck shoot in the lagoon he met and fell in love with Adriana Ivancich, a striking
Don`t Tell Mum: Hair-Raising Messages Home from Gap-Year Travellers
“The email home is an essential part of every gap-year backpackers journey. Where once the news of narrowly surviving a bus crash on the dirt-roads of India, waking up to gunfire in Honduras or fending off marriage proposals from complete strangers would have would have made it home only on the back of a slow-moving
Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found
At twenty-six, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother`s rapid death from cancer, her family disbanded and her marriage crumbled. With nothing to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to walk eleven-hundred miles of the west coast of America – from the Mojave Desert, through
The Listening Walls
A rediscovered classic of American noir — a suspenseful masterpiece about corrupted loveAmy Kellogg is not having a pleasant vacation in Mexico. She`s been arguing nonstop with her friend and traveling companion, Wilma, and she wants nothing more than to go home to California. But their holiday takes a nightmarish turn when Wilma is found
In a Strange Room
A young man takes three journeys, through Greece, India and Africa. He travels with little purpose, letting the chance encounters of the road dictate his path. But although he knows that he is drifting, he is unable to settle. It is as if, without these encounters, the person he is cannot exist. And yet each
The Mystery of Henri Pick
In the small town of Crozon in Brittany, a library houses manuscripts that were rejected for publication: the faded dreams of aspiring writers. Visiting while on holiday, young editor Delphine Despero is thrilled to discover a novel so powerful that she feels compelled to bring it back to Paris to publish it.The book is a
The Mindful Diet: How to Transform Your Relationship to Food for Lasting Weight Loss and Vibrant Health
`The Mindful Diet` is the first book to combine health psychology with cutting-edge nutrition research to deliver an up-to-the-minute method for eating mindfully and breaking the yo-yo diet cycle.Loaded with meditation exercises, behavioural techniques, nutrition advice and meal-planning charts, this book provides the tools to avoid cravings, stop emotional overeating and figure out when you
