Category Archives: Travel Guides
The Sportswriter
Frank Bascombe has a younger girlfriend and a job as a sportswriter. To many men of his age, thirty-eight, this would be a cause for optimism, yet Frank feels the pull of his inner despair and especially of his recent losses – his preferred career has ended, his wife has divorced him, and a tragic
City Of God
Cidade de Deus, the City of God ‘ฆ welcome to one of Rio’s most notorious slums. Made into a searing cinematic masterpiece in 2002, the book from which it was drawn remains just as engrossing, heartbreaking and shockingly upfront. Based on a true story, this is a sprawling, magnificently told epic about the history of
Independence Day
Frank Bascombe, in the aftermath of his divorce and the ruin of his career, has entered an `Existence Period` – selling real estate in New Jersey and mastering the high-wire act of normalcy. But, over one Fourth of July weekend, Frank is called into sudden, bewildering engagement with life. Independence Day is a moving, peerlessly
Frozen in Time
The Franklin expedition was not alone in suffering early and unexplained deaths. Indeed, both Back (1837) and Ross (1849) suffered early onset of unaccountable “debility” aboard ship and Ross suffered greater fatalities during his single winter in the Arctic than did Franklin during his first. Both expeditions were forced to retreat because of the rapacious
The High Road To China
In 1774, British traders longed to open relations with China so they sent a young Scotsman, George Bogle, as an envoy to Tibet. Bogle became smitten by what he saw there, and struck up a remarkable friendship with the Panchen Lama. This gripping book tells the story of their two extraordinary journeys across some of
The Conservationist
Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist is a piece of fiction that feels very real, taking place in a South Africa where unexpected upheavals are becoming an expected evil. Mehring is rich: he has all the privileges and possessions that South Africa has to offer, but his possessions refuse to remain objects. His wife, son and mistress
July`s People
Nadine Gordimer’s ‘July’s People” is once again another searing insight into the heart of South Africa, and proving why she is on of the most respected authors not just in her native South Africa, but the world over too.The book was written in 1981, more than ten years before the end of apartheid. For years,
The Country Under My Skin
“To die is not as terrible as to not know why one lives”Even the most hard-bitten of cynics cannot remain untouched by Belli`s passionate account of a time when people laid down their lives for outmoded ideals like freedom and social equality.In her poetic voice, rendered into beautiful English from the original Spanish, Belli intertwines
The Dig Tree
This is the story of the ill-fated expedition led by Robert Burke, that left Melbourne on August 20th 1860 to explore the still unknown Outback. The story is well-researched and vividly narrated by Sarah Murgatroyd. A compelling piece of history of Nineteenth Century exploration.
The Botany of Desire: A Plant`s-eye View of the World
A farmer cultivates genetically modified potatoes so that a customer at McDonald`s half a world away can enjoy a long, golden french fry. A gardener plants tulip bulbs in the autumn and in the spring has a riotous patch of colour to admire. Two simple examples of how humans act on nature to get what
Of Cats and Kings
Last seen taking her beloved brown Burmese cat Claudius on a final tour of the United States in “I & Claudius”, Clare de Vries now searches for the perfect replacement in Burma and Thailand. In Burma, whilst learning the basic Buddhist tenets and being liberally doused during the annual Thingyan celebrations, Clare encounters brave and
Parallel Lines
For 175 years the British have lived with the railway, and for a long while it was a love affair – the grandeur of the Victorian heyday, the glorious age of steam, the romance of Brief Encounter. Then the love affair turned sour – strikes, bad food, delays, disasters…Parallel Lines tells the story of these
High Adventure
All courageous attempts by man to reach the summit of Everest by heading up the northern side from Tibet had failed. The southern approach through Nepal had never before been climbed, due to its impossibly steep ice-covered slopes and the countryยฟs policies. In 1951 Edmund Hillary joined an expedition to find a new route up
Cathedrals Of The Flesh
People journey to Greece for the ruins, Turkey for the Hagia Sophia, and Russia for St. Peter`s, but Alexia Brue travels with a different itinerary: to visit the baths. What starts off as an innocent vacation quickly becomes an obsession, as the author ventures to Turkey, Greece, Russia, Finland, and Japan to sample the range
So Far From God
A portrayal of the troubled countries of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, as the author travels through them by train and bus. The author shows daily lives lived against a backdrop of continued and seemingly endless political friction and conflicts, in places that exhibit the contradictions inherent in an area of which Porfirio Diaz
Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking
Fergus Henderson caused something of a sensation when he opened his restaurant St John in London in 1995. Set in a former smokehouse near Smithfield meat market, its striking, high-ceilinged white interior provides a dramatic setting for food of dazzling boldness and simplicity. As signalled by the restaurant`s logo of a pig (reproduced on the
For Tibet, with Love: A Beginner`s Guide to Changing the World
`Sometimes you just have to do something, don`t you? Sometimes an injustice comes along and you think `No, this cannot be`, and rather than just turn off the TV, you know it`s time to act` So begins Isabel Losada`s extraordinary FOR TIBET WITH LOVE in which she explores whether it`s possible for an ordinary person
Cave in the Snow
The story of Tenzin Palmo, an Englishwoman, the daughter of a fishmonger from London`s East End, who spent 12 years alone in a cave 13,000 feet up in the Himalayas and became a world-renowned spiritual leader and champion of the right of women to achieve spiritual enlightenment. Diane Perry grew up in London`s East End.
A Death In Brazil
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2005 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONDelving into Brazil’s baroque past, Peter Robb’s ‘A Death in Brazil” looks at its history of slavery and the richly multicultural but disturbed society that was left in its wake when the practice was abolished in the late nineteenth century. Even today, Brazil is a nation of
