Category Archives: Travel Guides
The Chosen Ones
The Am Spiegelgrund clinic, in glittering Vienna, masqueraded as a well-intentioned reform school for wayward boys and girls and a home for chronically ill children. The reality, however, was very different: in the wake of Germany`s annexation of Austria on the eve of World War Two, its doctors, nurses, and teachers created a monstrous parody
Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453
In the spring of 1453, the Ottoman Turks advanced on Constantinople in pursuit of an ancient Islamic dream: capturing the thousand-year-old capital of Christian Byzantium. During the siege that followed, a small band of badly organised defenders, outnumbered ten to one, confronted the might of the Ottoman army in a bitter contest fought on land,
In Times of Fading Light
“Already hailed as a Cold War classic” (Boyd Tonkin, Independent Books of the Year). “Utterly absorbing, funny and humane. A romp through a twisted century in the heart of Europe” (Anna Funder, author of Stasiland). It is an international bestseller and Winner of the German Book Prize. It is a sweeping story of one family
Aunt Julia & The Scriptwriter
Regularly hailed as one of the defining novels of the late twentieth century, Mario Vargas Llosa’s ‘Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter” is the kind of novel that once you actually pick up and read it does it become blindingly obvious why.Mario is an eighteen-year-old law student and radio news editor who falls in love with
The Feast of the Goat
Urania Cabral, a New York lawyer, returns to the Dominican Republic after a lifelong self-imposed exile. Once she is back in her homeland, the elusive feeling of terror that has overshadowed her whole life suddenly takes shape. Urania`s own story alternates with the powerful climax of dictator Rafael Trujillo`s reign.In 1961, Trujillo`s decadent inner circle
The War of the End of the World
Mario Vargas Llosa`s The War of the End of the World is one of the great modern historical novels- tragic, compelling and incredible to read. Inspired by a real episode in Brazilian history, the author tells the story of an apocalyptic movement, led by a mysterious prophet, in which prostitutes, beggars and bandits establish Canudos,
The Moor: A Journey into the English Wilderness
In this deeply personal journey across our nation`s most forbidding and most mysterious terrain, William Atkins takes the reader from south to north, in search of the heart of this elusive landscape. His account is both travelogue and natural history, and an exploration of moorland`s uniquely captivating position in our literature, history and psyche. Atkins
Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy 1905-1953
War-torn, unstable and virtually bankrupt, revolutionary Russia tried to light its way to the future with the fitful glow of science. It succeeded through terror, folly and crime – but also through courage, imagination and even genius. Stalin believed that science should serve the state and with many disciplines having virtually unlimited funds, by the
The World for a Shilling: How the Great Exhibition of 1851 Shaped a Nation
Conceived as a showcase for Britain`s burgeoning manufacturing industries and the exotic products of its Empire, the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace was Britain`s first truly national spectacle. Michael Leapman explores how the exhibition came into being; the key characters who made it happen (from Prince Albert, who was credited with the idea, to
The Secret Books
A world on the brink of catastrophe. A two-thousand-year-old mystery. A lost gospel.A young man flees the drudgery of shopkeeping in Tsarist Russia to make a new life among the bohemians and revolutionaries of nineteenth-century Paris. Beginning a treacherous journey through a world of spies and double-cross, propaganda, lost love, and anti-Semitism, he enters a
The Ruins of Us
A sweeping debut novel of love and betrayal, The Ruins of Us is about a Saudi billionaire and the turmoil that rocks his family after his American wife discovers that he has taken a second bride.Over two decades after having moved to Saudi Arabia and married Abdullah Baylani, Rosalie learns that her husband has married
Storming the Eagle`s Nest: Hitler`s War in The Alps
From the Fall of France in June 1940 to Hitler`s suicide in April 1945, the swastika flew from the peaks of the High Savoy in the western Alps to the passes above Ljubljana in the east. The Alps as much as Berlin were the heart of the Third Reich. `Yes,` Hitler declared of his headquarters
The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea
Lawrence Durrell was one of the best-selling, most celebrated English novelists of the late 20th century. “The Alexandria Quartet” is unquestionably his most admired work, at heart a sensuous and brilliant evocation of wartime Alexandria. In this world of corrupt glamour, L.G. Darley attempts to reconcile himself to the end of his affair with the
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
Sampath Chawla was born in a time of drought that ended with a vengeance the night of his birth. All signs being auspicious, the villagers triumphantly assured Sampath`s proud parents that their son was destined for greatness. Twenty years of failure later, that unfortunately does not appear to be the case. A sullen government worker,
The Map and the Clock: A Laureate`s Choice of the Poetry of Britain and Ireland
The Map and the Clock is a celebration of the most scintillating poems ever composed on our islands.Curated by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, and by Gillian Clarke, National Poet of Wales, this anthology gathers fourteen centuries of extraordinary verse – beginning with the first writings from the old languages of England and Ireland, Scotland
The Cry
He`s gone. And telling the truth won`t bring him back…When a baby goes missing on a lonely roadside in Australia, it sets off a police investigation that will become a media sensation and dinner-table talk across the world. Lies, rumours and guilt snowball, causing the parents, Joanna and Alistair, to slowly turn against each other.
My Father`s Ghost is Climbing in the Rain
This is a daring, deeply affecting novel about the secrets buried in the past of an Argentine family; a story of fathers and sons, corruption and responsibility, memory and history, with a mystery at its heart. A young writer, living abroad, returns home to his native Argentina to say goodbye to his dying father. In
History of the Arab Peoples
In a work of profound and lasting importance, Albert Hourani tells the definitive history of the Arab peoples from the seventh century, when the new religion of Islam began to spread from the Arabian Peninsula westwards, to the present day. A History of the Arab Peoples is a masterly distillation of a lifetime of scholarship
A Curious Life For A Lady: The Story Of Isabella Bird
Isabella Bird was a woman of remarkable gifts. In 1872, at the age of forty, this rather earnest daughter of a country parson abandoned the rectory nest and began her pioneering journeys to some of the most inhospitable corners of the world. Undismayed by discomfort or danger she was to spend almost thirty years travelling
The Expats
This book is the winner of the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller winner of the Edgar and Anthony Awards for Best First Novel. “Bristling with suspense and elegantly crafted.” (Patricia Cornwell). “Smart, clever suspense, skilfully plotted, and a lot of fun to read.” (John Grisham). Kate Moore is an expat mum, newly transplanted
