In 1930 a sixteen-year-old boy left England to become one of the last of the 'gentlemen adventurers' -- the fur traders of the Hudson's Bay Company. In the Arctic he found adventure, love & sadness as he came to grips with Eskimo life. Beautifully written, inspiring & funny, this is a boy's own story that captures a world now lost forever. Every boy dreams of adventures, but few have the courage or opportunity to make them a reality. When the Great Depression began to bite, finances forced the Maurice family to leave Britain. Edward was faced with a stark choice: to follow his mother & elder siblings to farm in New Zeal&, or pursue an uncertain future as an apprentice fur trader among the Eskimos. Preferring to make his own destiny, he signed up for five years at the princely sum of fifty pence a week, packing up the two spoons that remained of his inheritance to become one of the last ever 'gentleman adventurers'. Life in Baffin Land was harsh: there was no telephone, no radio communication, only one annual visit from the supply ship to keep in contact with the outside world. But it was also one of tremendous excitement. Under the expert tutelage of his drunken boss, Geordie, Edward learnt to build igloos, hunt polar bears & survive the myriad difficulties of Northern existence. Despite Geordie's warnings against becoming too involved with 'the natives' (and Geordie had taken one for a wife) the young boy became fascinated with the mythic Eskimo culture, learning the language & forming close friendships. After three years, he was sent to his own outpost, where, alone, he had to save the community from illness & starvation, as well as teach them English & contend with the amorous attentions of the local ladies. In charming, timeless prose, The Last of the Gentlemen Adventurers transports the reader to worlds that are now forever inaccessible. It is at once a vivid portrait of a unique society & the moving, often hilarious story of an unforgettable young man determined to triumph over every circumstance. ...

This ambitious account of the arts of the evening, now available in paperback, deftly combines prose-poetry, memoir, philosophy & art history. Intertwining personal, cultural & artistic histories, it is a richly rewarding book written in a unique voice. ...

It is 1757. Across north-eastern America the armies of Britain & France struggle for ascendancy. Their conflict, however, overlays older struggles between nations of native Americans for possession of the same lands & between the native peoples & white colonisers. Through these layers of conflict Cooper threads a thrilling narrative, in which Cora & Alice Munro, daughters of a British commander on the front line of the colonial war, attempt to join their father. Thwarted by Magua, the sinister ` Indian runner`, they find help in the person of Hawkeye, the white woodsman, & his companions, the Mohican Chingachgook & Uncas, his son, the last of his tribe. Cooper`s novel is full of vivid incident- pursuits through wild terrain, skirmishes, treachery & brutality- but reflects also on the interaction between the colonists & the native peoples. Through its characters, Cooper raises lasting questions about the practises of the American frontier & the eclipse of the indigenous cultures. This is a fast-paced portrait of fierce individualism & courage, set against massacres, raids, battles & a doomed love affair. It is also the unforgettable story of the friendship between two men. ...

In 1996, Marcelo dos Santos & Altair Algayer, part of a team of men who worked for FUNAI, the Brazilian government agency charged with protecting indigenous interests & cultures, heard an intriguing rumour: One man, believed to be the last of his tribe, was living completely alone in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. Marcelo, Altair & their team embark on numerous expeditions to find the Indian, who is constantly on the move, & as they piece together the clues he leaves behind they come to believe that his tribe was murdered. Until the land on which he has taken refuge is declared an official preserve, he is in constant danger from the ranchers, loggers & l&-grabbers who want the land for themselves. In order to protect him, first they must find him & prove that he exists. But here they are thwarted by the ranchers, by the machinations of the Brazilian courts & their own government agency, & by the Indian himself, a man determined to preserve his solitude & keep the outside world at bay...at any cost. With special access to documentary footage & the cooperation of the FUNAI team, Washington Post correspondent Monte Reel takes readers on a thrilling journey into the heart of the Amazon jungle, to the wild frontier of the state of Rondonia, which was only declared a Brazilian state in the 1980s, & into the fascinating world of spirited modern-day ethnologist/explorers & the Indian tribes whom they try to protect from the dangers of progress. The Last of the Tribe is a heart-pounding adventure & a story of survival against enormous odds, set in one of the world's last truly wild places. ...

In March 1917, Nicholas II, the last Tsar of All the Russias, abdicated & the dynasty that had ruled an empire for three hundred years was forced from power by revolution. Now, on the hundredth anniversary of that revolution, Robert Service, the eminent historian of Russia, examines Nicholas`s reign in the year before his abdication & the months between that momentous date & his death, with his family, in Ekaterinburg in July 1918. The story has been told many times, but Service`s profound understanding of the period & his forensic examination of hitherto untapped sources, including the Tsar`s diaries & recorded conversations, shed remarkable new light on his reign, also revealing the kind of ruler Nicholas believed himself to have been, contrary to the disastrous reality. The Last of the Tsars is a masterful study of a man who was almost entirely out of his depth, perhaps even willfully so. It is also a compelling account of the social, economic & political foment in Russia in the aftermath of Alexander Kerensky`s February Revolution, the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 & the beginnings of Lenin`s Soviet republic. ...

This is a riveting debut novel of fathers & daughters, & the conflict between duty & desire, set in rural Morocco & urban Catalunya. The Last Patriarch is narrated by the daughter of Mimoun Driouch
- the patriarch of the title
- from his birth to her entrance into university. Mimoun believes that life on his parents' land 'is not his destiny' & so we follow his journey from rural Morocco to urban Cataluna. Mimoun's own violent nature & paranoia leads to frustration & rage, which he duly takes out on his wife & children. ' This was not his destiny'
- this phrase is repeated almost like a mantra for Mimoun, who truly believes he is meant for great things. However, as the years pass, it begins to sound hollow; he does not escape the limitations of the role assigned to him by the patriarchal system, but his daughter will. El Hachmi looks at the role of women within a patriarchal culture & tradition while tackling more contemporary issues such as immigration & integration, as well as the fractured identity that results from having roots in two very distinct cultures. It is at once a powerful saga of a Moroccan family & a story of a girl's struggle to find her own identity & break free of a domineering father.


...

He walks into the living room & June is dead. He centres her, checking the light. Focusing, he clicks the shutter. He`ll ask himself later, if he knew. It`s easy to say that he had acted without thinking, out of instinct. Rook Henderson is an award-winning photographer, still carrying the hidden scars of war. Now, suddenly, he is also a widower. Leaving his son Ralph to pick up the pieces, Rook flies to Vietnam for the first time in fifty years, escaping to the landscape of a place he once knew so well. But when Ralph follows him out there, seeking answers from the father he barely knows, Rook is forced to unwind his past: his childhood in Yorkshire, his life in London in the 1960s & his marriage to the unforgettable June
- & to ask himself what price he has paid for a life behind the lens.. . Gripping, evocative & unforgettable, The Last Photograph is a story of a life shaped by trauma & love
- & the secrets that make us who we are.

...

He walks into the living room & June is dead. He centres her, checking the light. Focusing, he clicks the shutter. He`ll ask himself later, if he knew. It`s easy to say that he had acted without thinking, out of instinct. Rook Henderson is an award-winning photographer, still carrying the hidden scars of war. Now, suddenly, he is also a widower. Leaving his son Ralph to pick up the pieces, Rook flies to Vietnam for the first time in fifty years, escaping to the landscape of a place he once knew so well. But when Ralph follows him out there, seeking answers from the father he barely knows, Rook is forced to unwind his past: his childhood in Yorkshire, his life in London in the 1960s & his marriage to the unforgettable June
- & to ask himself what price he has paid for a life behind the lens... Gripping, evocative & unforgettable, The Last Photograph is a story of a life shaped by trauma & love
- & the secrets that make us who we are.

...

Sam the Lion runs the pool-hall, the picture house & the all-night cafe. Coach Popper whips his boys with towels & once took a shot at one when he disturbed his hunting. Billy wouldn`t know better than to sweep his broom all the way to the town limits if no one stopped him. & teenage friends Sonny & Duane have nothing better to do than drift towards the adult world, with its temptations of sex & confusions of love. The basis for a classic film, The Last Picture Show is both extremely funny & deeply profound. &, with the eccentrically peopled Thalia, Texas, Larry Mc Murtry made a small town that feels as real as any you`ve ever walked around. ...

'A long-time confidante of the rain & snow, I am ninety years old. The rain & snow have weathered me, & I too have weathered them'. At the end of the twentieth-century an old woman sits among the birch trees & thinks back over her life, her loves, & the joys & tragedies that have befallen her family & her people. She is a member of the Evenki tribe who wander the remote forests of north-eastern China with their herds of reindeer, living in close sympathy with nature at its most beautiful & cruel. An idyllic childhood playing by the river ends with her father's death & the growing realisation that her mother's & uncle's relationship is not as simple as she thought. Then, in the 1930s, the intimate, secluded world of the tribe is shattered when the Japanese army invades China. The Evenki cannot avoid being pulled into the brutal conflict which marks the first step towards the end of their isolation. In The Last Quarter of the Moon, prize-winning novelist Chi Zijian, creates a dazzling epic about an extraordinary woman bearing witness not just to the stories of her tribe but also to the transformation of China. ...