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 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. ...

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. ...

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? ...

In an Antique Land is a wonderfully subversive biography of Egypt from the Crusades to Operation Desert Storm. In the 1980s Amitav Ghosh moved into a converted chicken coop. It was on the roof of a house in Lataifa, a tiny village in Egypt. During the day he poured over medieval letters sent to India from Cairo by Arab merchants. In the evenings he shut out the bellowing of his fat landlord by turning up the volume of his transistor radio & wrote stories based on what he had seen in the village. The story of Khamees the Rat, the notorious impotent (already twice married); of Zaghloul the weaver determined to travel to India on a donkey; of one-eyed Mohammad, so obsessed with a girl that he spent nights kneeling outside her window to listen to the sound of her breathing; of Amm ' Taha, part-time witch, always ready to cast a spell for a little extra money; &, of course, the story of Amitav Ghosh himself, known in the village as the Indian doctor, the uncircumcised, cow-worshipping kaffir who would not convert to Islam. This book is the story of Amitav Ghosh's decade of intimacy with the village community. Mixing conversation & research, imagination & scholarship, it is also a charged, eccentric history of the special relationship between two countires, Egypt & India, through nearly ten centuries of parochialism & sympathy, bigotry & affection. ...

” In an Antique Land” is a wonderfully subversive biography of Egypt from the Crusades to Operation Desert Storm. In the 1980s Amitav Ghosh moved into a converted chicken coop. It was on the roof of a house in Lataifa, a tiny village in Egypt. During the day he poured over medieval letters sent to India from Cairo by Arab merchants. In the evenings he shut out the bellowing of his fat landlord by turning up the volume of his transistor radio & wrote stories based on what he had seen in the village. The story of Khamees the Rat, the notorious impotent (already twice married); of Zaghloul the weaver determined to travel to India on a donkey; of one-eyed Mohammad, so obsessed with a girl that he spent nights kneeling outside her window to listen to the sound of her breathing; of Amm ` Taha, part-time witch, always ready to cast a spell for a little extra money; &, of course, the story of Amitav Ghosh himself, known in the village as the Indian doctor, the uncircumcised, cow-worshipping kaffir who would not convert to Islam. This book is the story of Amitav Ghosh`s decade of intimacy with the village community. Mixing conversation & research, imagination & scholarship, it is also a charged, eccentric history of the special relationship between two countires, Egypt & India, through nearly ten centuries of parochialism & sympathy, bigotry & affection. ...

Built around Britain`s only natural hot mineral springs, Bath has been a spa town for 2, 000 years. The gushing thermal waters thought to have great healing powers, are said to have originated as rainwater which fell on the Medip Hills. The water rises from a depth of 3, 000 metres (10, 000 ft) at over one million litres (220, 000 gallons) a day & remains at a constant temperature of 46 degrees C, reaching the surface in three places in the city centre. Designated a World Heritage Site, Bath, steeped in Roman & Georgian history, is a favoured destination for visitors worldwide. ...

There is a great variety in Glasgow`s `dear green places`, from formal parks such as Kelvingrove & Glasgow Green to less well-known nature trails & walkways, many with stunning views of the Clyde. Outside the city, but easily accessible by car or public transport, there are more challenging moorland & mountain routes. This new edition of one of the most popular titles in the ”25 Walks” series brings the walker fully up-to-date with recently developed routes, as well as retaining the classic favourite walks which are a part of what makes Glasgow so special. The 25 Walks books are practical guides & attractive souvenirs. Written by experienced authors, they can be used with complete confidence. The carefully selected local walks are accompanied by easy-to-use maps & colour photographs. ...