In 1999, Tobias Jones emigrated to Italy, expecting to discover the pastoral bliss described by centuries of foreign visitors. Instead, he discovered a very different country, besieged by unfathomable terrorism & deep-seated paranoia, where crime is scarcely ever met with punishment. The Dark Heart of Italy is Jones' account of his three-year voyage across the Italian peninsula. ...

This is an essential guide to the strange, sometimes sinister culture of contemporary Italy. When Tobias Jones first travelled to Italy, he expected to discover the pastoral bliss described by centuries of foreign visitors & famous writers. Instead, he discovered a very different country, besieged by unfathomable terrorism & deep-seated paranoia, where crime is scarcely ever met with punishment. Now, in this fascinating travelogue, Jones explores not just Italy`s familiar delights (art, climate, cuisine), but the livelier & stranger sides of the bel paese: language, football, Catholicism, cinema, television & terrorism. Why, he wonders, do bombs still explode every time politics start getting serious? Why does everyone urge him to go home as soon as possible, saying that Italy is a `brothel`? & why do people warn him that ` Clean Hands` only disguise ` Dirty Feet`? ...

Here it is
- your last chance to exchange new stock for old with our third & final Faber stock amnesty. The titles listed in this
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Beyond the familiar online world that most of us inhabit
- a world of Google, Hotmail, Facebook & Amazon
- lies a vast & often

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` The bend in the road rushed towards them, just a few more seconds. Then, with a succession of jarring crashes that shook the whole body of the car, a burst of fire hit them from behind. The windscreen starred into a sheet of opaque diamond lacework, the dashboard clock exploded powdering Shermaine`s hair with particles of glass, two bullets tore through the seat ripping out the stuffing like the entrails of a wounded animal.` Bruce Curry is the leader of a mercenary band with the dubious support of three white officers. His mission is to relieve a mining town cut off by the fighting & to retrieve a priceless consignment of diamonds. Ranged against his ill-disciplined unit are bandits, guerrillas & hostile tribes that infest the l&. But there is another, even deadlier enemy -- one of his own men.. . ...

The second title in Rick Riordan`s Trials of Apollo series
- set in the action-packed world of Percy Jackson. The god Apollo,
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Meili, a young peasant woman born in the remote heart of China, is married to Kongzi, a village school teacher, & a distant descendant of Confucius. They have a daughter, but desperate for a son to carry on his illustrious family line, Kongzi gets Meili pregnant again without waiting for official permission. When family planning officers storm the village to arrest violators of the population control policy, mother, father & daughter escape to the Yangtze River & begin a fugitive life. For years they drift south through the poisoned waterways & ruined landscapes of China, picking up work as they go along, scavenging for necessities & flying from police detection. As Meili`s body continues to be invaded by her husband & assaulted by the state, she fights to regain control of her fate & that of her unborn child. ...

Rafik Schami’s “ The Dark Side of Love” is a story of forbidden love set against the background of Arabic culture & endless feuds between clans. On publication it became international bestseller & here has been translated by the award-winning Anthea Bell.A dead man hangs from the portal of St Paul`s Chapel in Damascus. He was a Muslim officer
- & he was murdered. But when Detective Barudi sets out to interrogate the man`s mysterious widow, the Secret Service takes the case away from him. Barudi continues to investigate clandestinely & discovers the murderer`s motive: it is a blood feud between the Mustak & Shahin clans, reaching back to the beginnings of the 20th century. &, linked to it, a love story that can have no happy ending, for reconciliation has no place within the old tribal structures.“ The Dark Side of Love” is a novel which spans a century of Syrian history in which politics & religion continue to torment an entire people, while at the same time the stories from three generations tell of the courage of lovers who risk death sooner than deny their passions.A heartfelt tribute to the author`s hometown Damascus & a great & moving hymn to the power of love.
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Ever since he can remember, Dom Joly has been fascinated by travel to odd places. In part this stems from a childhood spent in war-torn Lebanon, where instead of swapping marbles in the schoolyard, he had a shrapnel collection -- the schoolboy currency of Beirut. Dom`s upbringing was interspersed with terrifying days & nights spent hunkered in the family basement under Syrian rocket attack or coming across a pile of severed heads from a sectarian execution in the pine forests near his home. These early experiences left Dom with a profound loathing for the sanitized experiences of the modern day travel industry & a taste for the darkest of places. & in this brilliantly odd & hilariously told travel memoir, Dom Joly sets out on a quest to visit those destinations from which the average tourist would, & should, run a mile. The more insalubrious the place, the more interesting is the journey & so we follow Dom as he skis in Iran on segregated slopes, spends a weekend in Chernobyl, tours the assassination sites of America & becomes one of the few Westerners to be granted entry into North Korea. Eventually Dom journeys back to his roots in Beirut only to discover he was at school with Osama Bin Laden. Funny & frightening in equal measure, this is a uniquely bizarre & compelling travelogue from one of the most fearless & innovative comedians around. ...

Commissario Soneri returns home for a hard-earned autumn holiday, hoping to spend a few days mushroom picking on the slopes of Montelupo. This isolated village relies on the salame factory founded in the post-war years by Palmiro Rodolfi, & now run by his son, Paride. On arrival, Soneri is greeted by anxious rumours about the factory`s solvency & the younger Rodolfi`s whereabouts. Not long afterwards, a decomposing body is found in the woods. In the shadow of Montelupo, carabinieri prepare to apprehend their chief suspect
- an ageing woodsman who defended the same mountains from S.S. commandos during the war.
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