Subterraneans is another frenetically typed (in three days) ride into the world of Jack Kerouac, for although classed as fiction The Subterraneans is, like all of his work, closely related to his own life while encapsulating his great vision of America. Leo Percepied, aspiring writer & self-styled free-wheeling bum, gravitates to the subterraneans, impoverished intellectuals who haunt the bars of San Francisco. One of them is Mardou Fox, part Negro, part Cherokee, beautiful & a little crazy, whose dark eyes full of suffering & sweetness find recognition in Leo. But, afraid of his growing involvement, Leo sets out to destroy their love through betrayal & drunkenness. ...

A selection of the finest stories by this female Chekhov Teffi`s genius with the short form made her a literary star in pre-revolutionary Russia, beloved by Tsar Nicholas II & Vladimir Lenin alike. These stories, taken from the whole of her career, show the full range of her gifts. Extremely funny
- a wry, scathing observer of society
- she is also capable, as capable even as Chekhov, of miraculous subtlety & depth of character. There are stories here from her own life (as a child, going to meet Tolstoy to plead for the life of War & Peace`s Prince Bolkonsky, or, much later, her strange, charged meetings with the already-legendary Rasputin). There are stories of emigre society, its members held together by mutual repulsion. There are stories of people misunderstanding each other or misrepresenting themselves. & throughout there is a sly, sardonic wit & a deep, compelling intelligence. Teffi was a phenomenally popular writer in pre-revolutionary Russia
- a favourite of Tsar Nicholas II & Vladimir Lenin alike. She was born in 1872 into a prominent St Petersburg family & emigrated from Bolshevik Russia in 1919. She eventually settled in Paris, where she became an important figure in the emigre literary scene, & where she lived until her death in 1952. A master of the short form, in her lifetime Teffi published countless stories, plays & feuilletons. After her death, she was gradually forgotten, but the collapse of the Soviet Union brought about her rediscovery by Russian readers. Now, nearly a century after her emigration, she once again enjoys critical acclaim & a wide readership in her motherl&. ` Made me fall in love...[ Teffi] can write in more registers than you might think, & is capable of being heartbreaking as well as very funny. I wish she were still alive, & I could have met her. But then I realised she would have seen right through me. I can`t recommend her strongly enough` Nicholas Lezard, Guardian, Book of the Week


...

Such a Long Journey was Rohinton Mistry’s first novel, shortlisted for the *1991 Booker Prize*, & eventually winning the *1992 Commonwealth Writers Prize*. Set in Bombay against the backdrop of war in the Indian subcontinent & the birth of Bangladesh, “ Such a Long Journey” tells the story of the peculiar way in which the conflict impinges on the lives of Gustad Noble, an ordinary man, & his very ordinary family. So effective is the book’s narrative in depicting one of the darker moments in Indian history, that at the time of its publication the Vice Chancellor of the University of Mumbai banned the book from it’s curriculum burned copies of the book publicly on the streets of Mumbai. Decide for yourself just how powerful this fantastic book really is, & go on a literary journey into the heart of the Indian subcontinent. ...

Such a Long Journey is set in Bombay against the backdrop of war in the Indian subcontinent & the birth of Bangladesh, telling the story of the peculiar way in which the conflict impinges on the lives of Gustad Noble, an ordinary man, & his family. Such a Long Journey is a brilliant first novel by one of the most remarkable writers to have emerged from the Indian literary tradition in many years. It was shortlisted for the 1991 Booker Prize, & won the 1992 Commonwealth Writers Prize. ...

Her father died instantly, her mother in the hospital. She has learned to say this flatly & without emotion, the way she says her name (Marina), her doll`s name (also Marina) & her age (seven). Her parents were killed in a car crash & now she lives in the orphanage with the other little girls. But Marina is not like the other little girls. In the curious, hyperreal, feverishly serious world of childhood, Marina & the girls play games of desire & warfare. The daily rituals of playtime, lunchtime & bedtime are charged with a horror; horror is licked by the dark flames of love. When Marina introduces the girls to Marina the Doll, she sets in motion a chain of events from which there can be no release. With shades of Daphne du Maurier, Shirley Jackson, Guillermo Del Toro & Mariana Enriquez, Such Small Hands is a beautifully controlled tour-de-force, a bedtime story to keep readers awake. ...

Recycling, buying locally-sourced food & vintage clothing, checking air miles & carbon footprints
- our ever-growing obsessions
...

Languedoc-Roussillion (not forgetting the Midi-Pyrenees & Aquitaine) are the regions of France most settled by English expatriate colonists. Caroline Conran has spent much time there since the early 1970s & her collection of recipes reflect years of travel, conversation, cooking, eating & drinking. She has shared her knowledge with English readers in a previous book, Under the Sun: Caroline Conran`s French Country Cooking, but here she concentrates upon this single region of Languedoc which curls up from the Spanish border along the Mediterranean coast as far as the Rhone valley. This is not polite France, this is `in your face` France; it`s history buried amidst the Crusades & Cathars, its towns & cities
- Nimes, Toulouse, Carcassonne, Narbonne, Perpignan, Montpellier, Beziers
- making up a fiecely independent region. Its people are passionate about rugby, about hunting & foraging, with a cuisine of their own, more Southern, simpler, more earthy, & less influence by the Michelin style of cooking than the rest of France. There will be information on the particular specialities such as chestnuts, sweet onions, Bouzigues mussels & oysters, salt cod, poufres (baby octopus), charcuterie, salades sauvages (salads of wild plants), the rose-coloured garlic of Lautrec, wild asparagus & local mushrooms. There are descriptions of places where oysters, truffles chestnuts or calcots
- a giant spring onion, eaten roasted on a fire of vine-prunings
- are the obsession of everyone in the community.



...

Indexed, waterproof & tear-resistant road map of Sudan with topographic & tourist information, published by Reise Know-How as part of their highly acclaimed World Mapping Project. The map is double-sided to provide the best balance between a good scale & a convenient size sheet. The map presents Sudan as it was before the cessation of South Sudan into a separate country. Clear topographic base has altitude colouring with contours, spot heights, mountain passes & names of mountain ranges. Salt pans, swamps, seasonal rivers & lakes, oases, wells & hot springs are indicated. Road network

Includes:: seasonal local tracks, gives driving distances on main roads, & shows locations of fuel supplies & border crossings. Railway lines, local airfields & oil pipelines are also marked. Internal administrative boundaries are shown with names of the provinces. Within the three Darfur provinces the map indicates areas where destruction of local villages has been independently verified. National parks & protected areas are marked & symbols highlight various places of interest, including UNESCO world heritage sites, archaeological remains, mosques, medical facilities, etc. Campsites & locations with hotel accommodations are indicated. The map has a grid with latitude & longitude at intervals of 1

...

Over the past two decades, the situation in Africa's largest country, Sudan, has progressively deteriorated: the country is in second position on the Failed States Index, a war in Darfur has claimed hundreds of thousands of deaths, President Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal Court, a forthcoming referendum on independence for Southern Sudan threatens to split the country violently apart. In this fascinating & immensely readable book, the Africa editor of the Economist gives an absorbing account of Sudan's descent into failure & what some have called genocide. Drawing on interviews with many of the main players, Richard Cockett explains how & why Sudan has disintegrated, looking in particular at the country's complex relationship with the wider world. He shows how the United States & Britain were initially complicit in Darfur
- but also how a broad coalition of human-rights activists, right-wing Christians, & opponents of slavery succeeded in bringing the issues to prominence in the United States & creating an impetus for change at the highest level.
...

Sudan & South Sudan as separate countries on an excellent indexed map at 1:2, 500, 000 from Gizi Maps with detailed presentation of the topography, administrative divisions, street plans of Khartoum & Juba, etc. Excellent presentation of the terrain in the publisher’s characteristic style provides a vivid picture of the region’s geography: bold altitude colouring with plenty of spot heights & names of peaks, mountain ranges, etc, plus additional graphics for flood plains, swamps, salt flats, deserts, lava fields, wadis & water wells. National parks or other protected areas & interesting natural sites are highlighted. The map indicates the boundary of the disputed Abyei area & shows the internal administrative boundaries & names of the provinces. Within North Sudan names of larger towns & of the provinces are also given in Arabic. Where appropriate, alternative versions of town names are provided (Khartoum/ Al Khartum, Omdurman/ Umm Durman, etc). The map shows the road network with desert tracks, indicating distances on main routes & locations of border crossings. Railway lines are included, local airports are marked, & also shown is the ferry connection on the Nile between Aswan & Wadi Halfa. Various places of interest are highlighted, including UNESCO World Heritage sites, pyramids, archaeological remains, etc. Also shown are areas of oil extraction & oil pipelines. The map has latitude & longitude lines at intervals of 1°. The index is on the reverse. Multilingual map legend

Includes:: English. Also provided are large, clear street plans of Khartoum & Juba, annotated with places of interest & various facilities.

...