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. ...

In the 1600s Sara de Vos, a mother & painter, loses her young daughter suddenly to illness. In her grief, she secretly begins paintingh a dark landscape of a girl watching a group of ice skaters from the edge of a wood In 1950s New York, Martijn de Groot has At the Edge of a Wood hanging above his bed. Though it is a dark, peculiar painting, by a scarcely known female painter of the Golden Age, he holds the painting dear & when it is stolen, he is beeft. In Brooklyn, struggling art student Ellie Shipley accepts a commission to paint an intricate forgery of de Vos` sole surviving work, not realising that her decision will come to haunt her. ...

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.


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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.

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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. ...

A new edition of a modern classic of photography. Martin Parr is Europe`s premier contemporary photographer, & ” The Last Resort” is the book that is considered to have launched his career. Taken at the height of the Thatcher years, it depicts the ”great British seaside” in all its garish glory. Described by some as cruel & voyeuristic & by others as a stunning satire on the state of Britain, early editions are now much sought after by collectors worldwide.

Includes:: a new essay by Gerry Badger, photographer, architect, curator, & critic.

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For many years, Lyn & Ros Rogers were the owners of Drifters, a famous game farm & backpacker lodge in the eastern mountains. But when President Robert Mugabe launched his violent land reclamation programme, everything changed. The Rogers found their home under siege, their friends & neighbours expelled, & their lives in danger. But instead of leaving, as their son pleaded with them to do, they hauled out a shotgun & stayed. Soon afterwards, Douglas returns to find the country of his birth in chaos, & his home transformed into something between a Marx Brothers romp & the Heart of Darkness: marijuana has supplanted maize in the fields; hookers have replaced gap-year kids as guests; soldiers, spies & teenage diamond dealers down beers at the bar. Beyond the farm gates, armed war veterans loyal to Mugabe circle like hungry lions. & yet, in spite of it all, the Rogers
- with the help of friends & locals, black political dissidents among them
- hold on. & Douglas begins to see his parents in a new light: unbowed, even heroic. In the process he learns that the ”big story” he had pursued throughout his adult life was actually happening in his own backyard. The Last Resort is an inspiring, edgy roller-coaster adventure, but also a deeply moving testament to the love & loyalty inspired by Zimbabwe & her people.

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Lawrence Anthony`s South African game reserve is home to many animals he has saved, from a remarkable herd of elephants to a badly behaved bushbaby called George. Described as `the Indiana Jones of conservation`, when one of his rhinos was brutally slaughtered for her horn, he didn`t hesitate to lead an armed response against the poachers. Then he learned that there were only a handful of northern white rhinos left in the wild, living in an area of the Congo controlled by the infamous Lord`s Resistance Army & soon to be hunted into extinction. Lawrence knew he had to take action. What followed was an extraordinary adventure, as he headed into the jungle to negotiate with the rebels, while battling to save his own animals from terrible drought & to save the eyesight of his beloved elephant matriarch Nana. The Last Rhinos is peopled with unforgettable characters, both human & animal, & is a sometimes funny, sometimes moving, always exciting read. ...