On buses donkey carts trains jeeps & camels Colin Thubron traces the drifts of the first great trade route out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia across northern Afghanistan & the plains of Iran into Kurdish Turkey. Covering over 7000 miles in eight months Thurbron recounts extraordinary adventures
- a near-miss with a drunk-driver incarceration in a Chinese cell during the SARS epidemic undergoing root canal treatment without anaesthetic in Iran
- in inimitable prose. Shadow of the Silk Road" is about Asia today; a magnificent account of an ancient world in modern ferment."

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Evil Pharaoh Oba has imprisoned the gods who protect Egypt & now bloodthirsty monsters roam the l&. Only one boy can stop them: Akori an orphaned farm-boy with a huge destiny. The battle to end all battles has begun. Akori must fight Set the dark Lord of Storms himself & beat Oba the evil Pharaoh to claim his rightful throne. But can Egypts young hero finally win the crown? Dont miss a single battle in this huge new adventure series! ...

Only with the greatest of simplifications for the sake of convenience can we say Africa. In reality except as a geographical term Africa doesnt exist". Ryszard Kapuscinski has been writing about the people of Africa throughout his career. In a study that avoids the official routes palaces & big politics he sets out to create an account of post-colonial Africa seen at once as a whole & as a location that wholly defies generalised explanations. It is both a sustained meditation on themosaic of peoples & practices we call Africa & an impassioned attempt to come to terms with humanity itself as it struggles to escape from foreign domination from the intoxications of freedom from war & from politics as theft." ...

First published in 1964 The Shadow of the Sun is the story of Anna Severell's struggle at the age of seventeen to evolve her own personality in the shadow of her father Henry Severell a famous English novelist. In the introduction to this edition the 1990 Booker Prize winning author looks back at the novel's genesis & the problems she faced as a woman writing her first novel. ...

Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'cemetery of lost books' a labyrinthine library of obscure & forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library a man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves & pulls out ' La Sombra del Viento' by Julian Carax. But as he grows up several people seem inordinately interested in his find. Then one night as he is wandering the old streets once more Daniel is approached by a figure who reminds him of a character from La Sombra del Viento a character who turns out to be the devil. This man is tracking down every last copy of Carax's work in order to burn them. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life & death of Julian Carax & to save those he left behind. A page-turning exploration of obsession in literature & love & the places that obsession can lead. ...

Set in England when Vikings are on the brink of invasion this is an epic tale of seduction war & unrequited love from an outstanding new voice in historical fiction The year is 1001 & England is under threat. The air off the southern coast hangs heavy thick with the fear of Viking sea raids. For England's King Aethelred the night sky is heavy with a dark portent. England's future hangs in the balance its path determined by a struggle for the King's own heart. Two women
- Emma his Norman bride & Elgiva his Anglo Saxon mistress
- will stop at nothing in their battle for the King's favour & the Queen's Coronet. But the sky speaks of a royal death & ahead of all three is a journey fraught with danger & deception. Patricia Bracewell an outstanding new voice in historical fiction weaves together a tale of war & betrayal to extraordinary dramatic effect.

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Once there were three worlds each with their own people. Then fleeing out of the void on the edge of extinction came the Charon. & the balance changed for ever. With A SHADOW ON THE GLASS Book One of A View from the Mirror a major new fantasy epic begins. Karan a sensitive with a troubled past is forced to steal an ancient relic in payment for a debt. But she is not told that the relic is in fact the Mirror of Aachan a twisted deceitful thing that remembers everything it has seen. Llian meanwhile a brilliant chronicler is expelled from his college for uncovering a perilous mystery. Thrown together by fate Karan & Llian are hunted across a world at war for the Mirror contains a secret of incredible power. More information on this book & others can be found on the Orbit website at www.orbitbooks.co.uk ...

Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee is a professor of political economy at Miskatonic University. Following a fainting spell in 1908 he returns to his senses in 1913 with no recollection of the last five years of his life. As he endeavors to discover the truth about his lost years he becomes increasingly tormented by vivid & disturbing dreams; dreams that will lead him on a journey through time & space to unlock the secrets of the universe. ...

A killer is on the loose.. . In 2009 the CIA officers in Afghanistans Kabul Station received information from a reliable source regarding the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. But when they followed the informant to bin Ladens apparent location they discovered it was a deadly trap. The man blew himself up taking the chief of station & several senior officers with him. Two years later the station still hasnt recovered & the situation has deteriorated. Every initiative meets with failure. No one knows who to trust. In desperation John Wells old CIA bosses ask him to go over & investigate. Reluctantly Wells agrees but what he finds when he gets there is more than a station in disarray. There is a full-blown military drug-smuggling operation underway & worse a traitor is leaking information to the Taliban. Americans are dying & an American is responsible
- & this is just the beginning. Only Wells stands in the traitors way.. .for now.
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FROM THE 1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR Only one man can foil a plot set to change the course of history... Ex-SAS soldier Ben Hope is enjoying life at Le Val the facility in Northern France where he trains others in the dangerous art of hostage rescue until a chance incident forces him to take on the role of bodyguard to the Swiss billionaire Maximilian Steiner. The victim of a recent abduction attempt Steiner believes that a neo-Nazi terror group are bent on seizing a prized document from his personal collection
- one that could support claims that the Holocaust never happened. But what initially seemed like a straightforward VIP protection job is turned upside-down by the appearance of a mystery woman from Bens past. Could he be right about her or is he losing his edge? On a quest across Europe Ben finds himself embroiled in a deadly kidnap intrigue & a sinister project that has lain dormant since 1944. The stakes are global
- & this time Ben is also fighting to protect the people closest to him...

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