Category Archives: Travel Guides
The Flight
First English translation of this novel by the author of The Spectre of Alexander Wolf While summering on the French Riviera, the young Seryozha secretly becomes the lover of the much older Liza – who is also his father`s mistress. As autumn approaches, they reluctantly part: Liza to return to Paris, Seryozha to take up
How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone
Aleksandar is Comrade-in-Chief of fishing, the best magician in the non-aligned States and painter of unfinished things. He knows the first chapter of Marx`s Das Kapital by heart but spends most of his time playing football in the Bosnian town of Visegrad on the banks of the river Drina. When his grandfather, a master storyteller,
Yevgeny Onegin
Bored and aloof, tired of St Petersburg high society, Yevgeny Onegin goes to live on the country estate he has just inherited from his uncle. There he encounters Tatyana, who becomes hopelessly infatuated with him. From this story Pushkin creates his sublime masterpiece of love, death, duelling, rivalry, identity and the search for happiness; the
The Completely Useless Guide to London
Did you know: – that, with more than 17,000 skeletons in its collection, the Museum of London has over three times the amount of dead bodies than a full-capacity audience at the Royal Albert Hall? – that `Farting Lane` (Carting Lane, off the Strand) was so christened because it was illuminated at night by a
Life Cycles: A London Bike Courier Decided to Cycle Around the World
Julian Sayarer grew up riding a bicycle and worked as a bike courier in London. When the world record for a circumnavigation by bike is broken – the biker riding in conjunction with banks and big business – Julian sets out to take it back. Life Cycles is his story of that record, riding 110
Under a Croatian Sun: From Grey Britain to a Sunny Isle: One Couple`s Dream Comes True
Many of us have dreamed about upping sticks, leaving the humdrum of urban living for a new life of blue skies, warm sunshine and sparkling seas. For Anthony and Ivana Stancomb, moving from Fulham to Vis was an easy decision. But fitting in with the locals was one of the hardest things they have ever
David Bellamy`s Arctic Light
`This book is an absolute delight, to browse through, to absorb the superb and evocative images, sketches and watercolours that took me straight back to my own Arctic wanderings, to adorn your coffee table or to read for inspiration or a good laugh.` – Sir Chris Bonington, renowned British mountaineerThis book is the culmination of
A Chess Story
An epic chess match on a transatlantic liner unearths a story of persecution and obsession. One of the most perfectly gripping novellas from a master of the form, Stefan Zweig. Chess world champion Mirko Czentovic is travelling on an ocean liner to Buenos Aires. Dull-witted in all but chess, he entertains himself on board by
Butterflies in November
After a day of being dumped-twice-and accidentally killing a goose, the narrator begins to dream of trop- ical holidays far away from the chaos of her current life. Instead, she finds her plans wrecked by her best friend`s deaf-mute son, thrust into her reluctant care. But when a shared lottery ticket nets the two of
Subtly Worded and Other Stories
A selection of the finest stories by this female Chekhov Teffi`s genius with the short form made her a literary star in pre-revolutionary Russia, beloved by Tsar Nicholas II and Vladimir Lenin alike. These stories, taken from the whole of her career, show the full range of her gifts. Extremely funny – a wry, scathing
The Librarian
Gromov is merely a forgotten writer of Soviet propagandist novels. But he has left behind his Books and the powers they impart – the Fury to tear enemies limb from limb, the Memory of a perfect childhood, the Strength to overcome all fear of death. These books transform believers from senile to lucid, cowardly to
How to Stop Time
MANY LIFETIMES DOES IT TAKE TO LEARN HOW TO LIVE?Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old history teacher, but he`s been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz-Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen it all. As long as he keeps changing his
Red Love: The Story of an East German Family
Winner of the European Book Prize “The East isn`t far away at all. It clings to me, it goes with me everywhere. It`s like a big family that you can`t shake off …” “Tender, acute and utterly absorbing” Anna Funder, author of Stasiland “A wry and unheroic witness…an unofficial history of a country that no
The Howling Miller
When Gunnar Huttunen turns up in a small village to restore its run-down mill, its inhabitants are wary. Gunnar is big. He`s a bit odd. And, strangest of all, he howls wildly at night. If Gunnar is different, then he must be mad, the villagers decide. Hounded from his home, he must find a way
The Third Tower: Journeys in Italy
In August 1936 a Hungarian writer in his mid-thirties arrives by train in Venice, on a journey overshadowed by the coming war and charged with intense personal nostalgia. Aware that he might never again visit this land whose sites and scenes had once exercised a strange and terrifying power over his imagination, he immerses himself
Highland River
Kenn returns to the Highlands of his youth, back to the river which has haunted his dreams since boyhood. Determined to walk all the way back to its source, Kenn embarks on a journey that will lead him deep into the wilderness of his own heart. Profound and moving, Highland River is a stirring tale
The Secret River
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2006 COMMONWEALTH WRITERS` PRIZELONGLISTED FOR THE IMPAC DUBLIN PRIZELondon, 1806. William Thornhill, happily wedded to his childhood sweetheart Sal, is a waterman on the River Thames. Life is tough but bearable until William makes a mistake, a bad mistake for which he and his family are
The Story of Looking
In The Story of Looking, Mark Cousins takes us on a lightning-bright tour – in words and images – through how our looking selves develop over the course of a lifetime, and the ways that looking has changed over the centuries. From great works of art to holiday photos, from cityscapes to cinema, through science
Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
An international bestseller which has sold over a million copies in the UK, Dreams From My Father is a refreshing, revealing portrait of a young man asking big questions about identity and belonging. The son of a black African father and a white American mother, President Obama recounts an emotional odyssey, retracing the migration of
Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience
Letters of Note is a collection of over one hundred of the world`s most entertaining, inspiring and unusual letters, based on the seismically popular website of the same name – an online museum of correspondence visited by over 70 million people. From Virginia Woolf`s heart-breaking suicide letter, to Queen Elizabeth II`s recipe for drop scones
