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. ...

A souvenir guide to London & its outskirts, packed with colour photographs & fascinating information. London & its outskirts has much to offer visitors & this lovely souvenir guidebook is a veritable treasure trove bursting with delightful colour photographs & fascinating information that capture the very essence of the best sights on offer in this fabulous capital city. It is available in a variety of languages. ...

London & its outskirts has much to offer visitors & this lovely souvenir guidebook is a veritable treasure trove bursting with delightful colour photographs & fascinating information that capture the very essence of the best sights on offer in this fabulous capital city. It is available in a variety of languages. ...

In one of the great defining moments in human history, more people now live in cities than in rural areas, & the effects of this depopulation & the plummeting birthrate are being felt keenly throughout Europe, which has the fastest-declining population in the world. Tom Pow sets out to explore what this means in some of the most rapidly vanishing areas of Europe. From Spain to Russia, he uses the tools of his trade
- travelogue, essay, story & poem
- to make connections, not only with what he encounters in numerous dying villages, but to reflect on his own experiences of memory, identity & loss. In Another World is an open book: not an argument, but an invitation to remember, to reflect & to engage with one of the most significant social issues affecting Europe today.

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Shortly after the 2005 London bombings, Tahir Shah was thrown into a Pakistani prison on suspicion of spying for Al-Qaeda. What sustained him during his terrifying, weeks-long ordeal were the stories his father told him as a child in Morocco. Inspired by this, on his return to his adopted homeland he embarked on an adventure worthy of the mythical Arabian Nights, going in search of the stories & storytellers that have nourished this most alluring of countries for centuries. Wandering through the medinas of Fez & Marrakech, criss-crossing the Saharan sands & tasting the hospitality of ordinary Moroccans, he collected a treasury of traditional stories recounted by a vivid & eccentric cast of characters: from master masons who work only at night to Sufi wise men who write for soap operas & Tuareg guides addicted to reality TV. Himself a link in the chain of scholars & teachers who have passed such tales down from father to son, mother to daughter, Shah reveals a world & a way of thinking that most visitors to Morocco barely know exist. ...

From Booker Prize-winner Ben Okri: a voyage into the enduring myth of Arcadia & the mysterious painting it inspired. A lyrical novel about art & enlightenment that takes the reader from Waterloo Station in London to Paris & a four hundred year old enigma, the painting by Nicolas Poussin known as ` Et in Arcadia Ego`. ` We never write the book we think we are writing. We never read the book we think we are reading` BEN OKRI. ...