The great American road trip

Sample

Mike Bryan

The ultimate road book, and arguably the finest, Uneasy Rider forgoes the traditional blue highways and scenic nooks and crannies left behind in America's tidal wake, and travels instead on six-lane blacktop into the heart of our society today. With Mike Bryan you're in the company of an adept listener and a funny, learned, and profoundly sympathetic man. His chosen beat stretches west from Texas to New Mexico and Arizona toward the City of Angels in the Golden State - the chimerical destination of any decent American pilgrim. Along the way he uncovers much that is new and revelatory about our nation and fellow citizens, a hard-working, various lot including snake ranchers and state troopers, truckers and hitchhikers, motel-keepers and visionaries large and small. Fair hearing is given to one and all, whether wheeler-dealers, immigrants, border smugglers, or people who became near-aboriginals when the interstate turned Route 66 into outback. And between these encounters Bryan contemplates history, both public - pioneering, roadmaking, assassination theories at Dealey Plaza, the oil business, agriculture, waste-dumping, gambling, you name it - and personal. The Bryan family comes from rural Texas, after all, though an ambivalent rootlessness has marked Bryan's own life - and is also, some claim, a defining characteristic for much of the population.

Sample

Allen Abel

For his third book, Allen Abel, at the age of forty-three, decided to do a very daring thing - even for a journalist and foreign correspondent. He would move home to Brooklyn, live with his mother (in the same apartment in which he spent his childhood), and explore and write about the borough of his birth. Accompanied sporadically by his thirty-something sister, known affectionately as "Little Debbie," he spent several months wandering along Flatbush Avenue, the thoroughfare that runs like a spine through Brooklyn - from the Manhattan Bridge all the way to a national park on the salt-water shore. The result is a delightful family memoir and exploration of a unique borough by a wryly humorous observer with an eye for an unforgettable character and an ear for a good story. He hobnobs with Mohawk high-steel workers, tries to learn voodoo secrets from Haitian immigrants, commiserates with policemen detailed to the subway (also known as "The Beast") or with beleaguered shopkeepers, and chats with an ex-zookeeper in Prospect Park. He revisits the scenes of his childhood, samples social life in distant Flatlands, and hunts for horseshoe crabs on the shoreline. He is a constant source of entertainment. . Flatbush Odyssey is a revelation - as are all fine travel books - and in it Allen Abel has produced a marvellous piece of storytelling. It is sure to appeal even to those benighted few who have never set foot in Brooklyn.

Sample

Lawrence Durrell

With the publication of Justine Lawrence Durrell became, almost overnight, one of the most talked about, widely acclaimed novelists of the decade. Now, in Bitter Lemons, his focus has shifted from the world of his imagination to life itself. Writing in the exquisite poetic prose that critics have hailed as unequalled in contemporary literature, he tells the perceptive, often humorous story of his experiences on the island of Cyprus -- first as a visitor, then as a householder and teacher and finally as Press Advisor to a government on the verge of revolution. Partly because of his ability to speak fluent Greek, but mainly because of his rare understanding of the people of Cyprus, Durrell found a ready welcome in the little village where he chose to settle. His portrayal of the warm, friendly people among whom he made his home is but one of this book's many delights. There are vivid pictures of the villages on their ways of life, the ancient edifices, the flowers, mountains and sea, the sunlight that gave the island its unique, peaceful quality. There are, too, hilarious descriptions of the problems of buying a house and teaching English in the local high school, where all the girls fell in love with Durrell and showered him with presents of roses, poems and even a special kind of meatball. Gradually, however, life on the sunny island was darkened by political turmoil which exploded into a revolution when Cypriots, crying for union with Greece, rose up against the British. Durrell movingly recounts the slow deterioration of the political situation and the part he tried to play in helping both sides to understand each other. Finally forced to admit defeat, he resigned from the post he had held for two years as Press Officer and left the island.

Sample

Peter Robb

A travelogue through modern-day Brazil captures both the exuberant life force of the country and its people, as well as the violence and death that poses a continuing threat, offering reminiscences of the food, music, climate, history, art, character, and other key aspects of the nation.