` In a Free State was conceived in 1969 as a sequence about displacement. There was to be a central novel, set in Africa, with shorter surrounding matter from other places. The shorter pieces from these varied places were intended to throw a universal light on the African material. But then, as the years passed & the world changed, & I felt myself less of an oddity as a writer, I grew to feel that the central novel was muffled & diminished by the surrounding material & I began to think that the novel should be published on its own. This is what, many years after its first publication, my publisher is doing in this edition.` V. S. Naipaul. In a Free State is set in Africa, in a place like Uganda or Rwanda, & its two main characters are English. They had once found liberation in Africa. But now Africa is going sour on them. The land is no longer safe, & at a time of tribal conflict they have to make a long drive to the safety of their compound. At the end of this drive -- the narrative tight, wonderfully constructed, the formal & precise language always instilled with violence & rage -- we know everything about the English characters, the African country, & the Idi Amin-like future awaiting it. This is one of V. S. Naipaul`s greatest novels, hard but full of pity. It won the Booker Prize, in its original edition, in 1971. ...

A delightful celebration of French life & the cooks who turn even the simplest meals into an occasion Even before Susan Herrmann Loomis wrote her now-classic memoir, ” On Rue Tatin, ” American readers have been compelled by books about the French s ease with cooking. With ” In a French Kitchen, ” Loomis an expat who long ago traded her American grocery store for a bustling French farmer s market demystifies in lively prose the seemingly effortless je ne sais quoi behind a simple French meal. One by one, readers are invited to meet the busy people of Louviers & surrounding villages & towns of Loomis s adopted home, from runway-chic Edith, who has zero passion for cooking but a love of food that inspires her to whip up an array of mouthwatering dishes to Nathalie, who becomes misty-eyed as she talks about her mother s Breton cooking, then goes on to reproduce it. Through friends & neighbors like these, Loomis learns that delicious, even decadent meals don t have to be complicated. Are French cooks better organized when planning & shopping? Do they have a greater ability to improvise with whatever they have on hand when unexpected guests arrive? The answer to both is: Yes. But they also have an innate understanding of food & cooking, are instinctively knowledgeable about seasonal produce, & understand what combination of simple ingredients will bring out the best of their gardens or local markets. Thankfully for American readers, ” In a French Kitchen ”shares the everyday French tips, secrets, & eighty-five recipes that allow them to turn every meal into a sumptuous occasion.” ...

The iconic Ian Rankin returns with a new Detective John Rebus novel
- this year`s essential must-read bestseller.* * * * *IN A
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Jiangxi Province, China, 1941 Atop the fabled mountain of Lushan, celebrated for its temples, capricious mists & plunging ravines, perches a boarding school for the children of British missionaries. As her parents pursue their calling to bring the gospel to China`s most remote provinces, ten-year-old Henrietta S. Robertson discovers that she has been singled out for a divine calling of her own. Etta is quick to share the news with her dorm mates, & soon even Big Bum Eileen is enlisted in the Prophetess Club, which busies itself looking for signs of the Lord`s intent. (Hark.) As rumours of war grow more insistent, so the girls` quest takes on a new urgency
- & in such a mystical landscape, the prophetesses find that lines between make believe & reality, good & bad, become dangerously blurred. So Etta`s pilgrimage begins. A story of a child far from home & caught between two cultures, In A Land of Paper Gods marries exuberant imagination with sharp pathos, & introduces Rebecca Mackenzie as a striking & original new voice.
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A brilliantly distinctive debut, told from the perspective of one of the most unforgettable child narrators in recent fiction, IN A LAND OF PAPER GODS by Rebecca Mackenzie will appeal to readers who loved Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit or The Light Between Oceans. Jiangxi Province, China, 1941. Atop the fabled mountain of Lushan perches a boarding school for the children of British missionaries. While her parents pursue their calling, ten-year-old Henrietta S. Robertson discovers that she, too, has been singled out by the Lord. As Japanese invaders draw closer, Etta & her dorm mates retreat into a world where boundaries between make believe & reality become dangerously blurred. So begins a remarkable journey, through a mystical landscape & to the heart of a war. ...

A young man takes three journeys, through Greece, India & Africa. He travels lightly, simply. To those who travel with him & those whom he meets on the way
- including a handsome, enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers & a woman on the edge
- he is the Follower, the Lover & the Guardian. Yet, despite the man`s best intentions, each journey ends in disaster. Together, these three journeys will change his whole life. A novel of longing & thwarted desire, rage & compassion, ” In a Strange Room” is the hauntingly beautiful evocation of one man`s search for love, & a place to call home.

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A young man takes three journeys, through Greece, India & 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. & yet each journey ends in disaster. A novel of longing & thwarted desire, rage & compassion, In a Strange Room is an extraordinary evocation of one man`s search for love, & a place to call home. ...

The Amazon is not what it seems. As Hugh Raffles shows us in this captivating & innovative book, the world`s last great wilderness has been transformed again & again by human activity. In Amazonia brings to life an Amazon whose allure & reality lie as much, or more, in what people have made from it as in what nature has wrought. It casts new light on centuries of encounter while describing the dramatic remaking of a sweeping landscape by residents of one small community in the Brazilian Amazon. Combining richly textured ethnographic research & lively historical analysis, Raffles weaves a fascinating story that changes our understanding of this region & challenges us to rethink what we mean by ”nature.” Raffles draws from a wide range of material to demonstrate--in contrast to the tendency to downplay human agency in the Amazon--that the region is an outcome of the intimately intertwined histories of humans & nonhumans. He moves between a detailed narrative that analyzes the production of scientific knowledge about Amazonia over the centuries & an absorbing account of the extraordinary transformations to the fluvial landscape carried out over the past forty years by the inhabitants of Igarap Guariba, four hours downstream from the nearest city. Engagingly written, theoretically inventive, & vividly illustrated, the book introduces a diverse range of characters--from sixteenth-century explorers & their native rivals to nineteenth-century naturalists & contemporary ecologists, logging company executives, & river-traders. A natural history of a different kind, In Amazonia shows how humans, animals, rivers, & forests all participate in the making of a region that remains today at the center of debates in environmental politics. ...

A true modern classic, Susan Sontag`s ” In America” is inspired by the emigration to America in 1876 of Helena Modrzejewska, Poland`s most celebrated actress, accompanied by her husb&, Count Karol Chlapowski, her fifteen-year-old son, Rudolf, the young journalist & future author of Quo Vadis, Henryk Sienkiewicz, & a few friends; their brief sojourn in Anaheim, California; & Modrzejewska`s subsequent triumphant career on the American stage under the name Helena Modjeska. ...

In 1960 John Steinbeck & his dog Charley set out in their green pickup truck to rediscover the soul of America, visiting small towns & cities from New York to New Orleans. As Steinbeck said to a friend: `I must see how the country looks & smells & sounds.` The trip became Travels With Charley, one of his best-loved books. Half a century on, Geert Mak sets off from Steinbeck`s home with his wife & his sat-nav Sandy. Mile after mile, as he retraces Steinbeck`s footsteps through the potato fields of Maine to the endless prairies of the Midwest, sits down to eat with farmers, workers, fishermen & teachers, stumbles across glistening suburbs & boarded-up stores, he searches for the roots of America & what remains of the world Steinbeck describes. Part biography, part cultural history, In America asks how America has changed in the last fifty years; what`s happened to Main Street, USA, & the American dream; & what do we, Europe & America, have in common in the twenty-first century? ...