The story of the innocent, young wife of a British attache and her affair with a Japanese soldier. Deeply moving, at times unbearable, and completely gripping, this is a superb book about early 20th century British values, misogyny and Japanese society. Highly recommended.
Mesmerising and enormously powerful, this is Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's intricately researched, uniquely revealing biography of Chairman Mao and his tyrannical dictatorship.
Beautifully designed by local craftsmen in Bangalore, it is printed on hand made paper and placed in a silk bag. Inside, hand drawn illustrations sit beside the best recommendations from locals residents.
The most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to Indonesia, with extensive coverage of the whole country, including its smaller islands. Filled with essential practical advice.
Arundhati Roy brings her indignant, political voice to this beautifully written story of devoted twins, Rahel and Estha, living in rural Kerala. A tragic, poetic novel with exquisitely lyrical language which won the Booker Prize in 1997.
If you like lists, then you'll love this beautifully-illustrated Eyewitness guide with the Top Ten of everything in Bangkok, from Buddhist temples, to festivals, to what not to do. A pull-out map is included.
Michael Herr's brutal, surreal collection of both factual and fictional snapshots from the frontline of the Vietnam War, described by John Le Carre as "the best book I have ever read on men and war in our time."
This is one of those rare but wonderful things: a piece of non-fiction written as well, and as poetically, as a novel. Suketu Mehta's part history, part travelogue is a definitive and highly absorbing book for anyone wishing to learn about the city or heading there.
This is a wonderfully creative and beautifully produced guide in a hand-woven silk bag. Designed and made by local designers and printed on hand-made paper. The content is also lovingly researched and will take you off the beaten path.
The 8th installment of Colin Cotterill's ever popular detective series, featuring Dr Siri in Laos. The good doctor and renowned coroner is away on holiday, but will he ever return? Set in the northern mountains of Laos, he sets off in pursuit of a lost CIA agent.
Warned by a fortune-teller not to fly in 1993, journalist Tiziano Terzani keeps his appointments by travelling across Asia by land. He also determines to meet an oracle, soothsayer or fortune teller in every place. An eccentric, extraordinary journey full of mayhem and magic.
Beautifully designed by local craftsmen in Bangalore, printed on hand made paper and placed inside a silk bag, with hand drawn illustrations sit beside the best recommendations from locals of the city.
Refreshing, exquisitely-crafted novel which depicts a violent, brutal image of a contemporary India where businessmen are make their fortunes, while many of the rural population live in the "darkness", at the mercy of their greedy landlords, and in poverty and squalor. Thoroughly-deserved winner of the 2008 Booker prize from this exciting, new name on the literary scene.
Peter Hopkirk chronicles the 19th and 20th century determination of western travellers to enter the Buddhist medieval kingdom of Tibet, and ultimately the sacred capital Lhasa. Whether Victorian explorers, soldiers, missionaries or pilgrims, their gradual erosion of Tibet's isolation would lead to the Chinese invasion of 1950. Hopkirk captures both the thrill and the tragedy of these stories, like the discovery of a precious, buried artifact which on exhumation is immediately destroyed.
The first Westerner ever to walk across Borneo without any porters or provisions, Eric Hansen steps into 2,400 miles of untouched rainforest filled with flying snakes and carnivorous plants. A fascinating insight into the people, the jungle and the animals of this magnificent, perilous country.
When the man in the neighbouring room of his Bangkok youth hostel kills himself leaving a map to a secret paradise, Richard feels compelled to seek it out. Dark and hallucinatory, this is a gripping, Lord of the Flies-style thriller.
This is the life story of Saleem Sinai, a mixed-race boy born at the exact moment of Indian independence. As he weaves his magical tales for his fiance; Padma, we see that his story mirrors that of India herself: the fifty years since independence, the myriad of faces and cultures that comprise the nation and the dangers in trying to unite it. Awarded the Best of 40 years of the Booker Prize, this truly wonderful novel is both a literary masterpiece and a riotous, alternative history. Highly recommended.
It is 1940s Shanghai and Jiazhi, beneath the facade of a decadent, high-society girl, is a radical activist determined to undermine Japanese rule. A story of passion, compromise and deception, accompanied by four more of Chang's short stories.
Growing up in Trinidad, V. S. Naipaul believed that India was a unified country, here he travels anti-clockwise around this great nation and discovers a multitude of races, religions, castes and classes. Letting Indians speak for themselves, Naipaul has recorded conversations and interviews creating a fascinating and genuine representation of the many faces of contemporary India.
The Age of Kali, in Hindu cosmology, is said to be an age of violence, strife and corruption and this is William Dalrymple's disturbing evaluation of contemporary India, the result of ten years spent travelling around the country. From interviews with members of the Tamil Tigers and drug barons, to horrifying cases of caste violence this is an honest, informative and captivating set of essays, obligatory for anyone interested in modern India.
Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck tells the classic story of O-lan, an extraordinary heroine struggling to save her family in an era of turbulent change. Even when they are rewarded by sudden wealth, O-lan realises that the money they have always dreamed of brings only mistrust and unhappiness because they have betrayed the earth from where they came. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
When Inspector Chen, honourable, artistic and great at his job, is called in to investigate the death of a young woman he is faced with a dilemma between party loyalty and his own conscience. Evocative and gripping, this is the first in Qui Xiaolong's acclaimed Inspector Chen mysteries and was awarded the Anthony Award for Best First Crime Novel.