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Eric Blair stood out amongst his fellow police trainees in 1920s Burma.
Nineteen years old, unusually tall, a diffident loner fresh from Eton,
after five years spent in the narrow colonial world of the Raj – a
decaying system steeped in overt racism and petty class-conflict – he
would emerge as the George Orwell we know.
Drawing on all his powers of observation and imagination, Paul Theroux
brings Orwell's Burma years to radiant life, tracing the development of
the young man's consciousness as he confronts the social, racial and
class politics and the reality of Burma beyond. Through one writer, we
come to understand another - and see how what Orwell called 'five
boring years within the sound of bugles' were in fact the years that
made him.
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The Bad Angel Brothers
Paul Theroux
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R511
R424
Discovery Miles 4 240
Save R87 (17%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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From the legendary American master Paul Theroux comes a brilliant
new novel of chilling psychological depth, the tale of a younger
brother whose lifelong rivalry with his older brother--a powerful
lawyer with a pattern of gleefully vicious betrayals--culminates in
the ultimate plan: murder. Cal has always lived in the shadow of
his manipulative and domineering brother, Frank, who was doted upon
by their mother and beloved by the girls in their small New England
hometown--including Cal's own girlfriends. In an attempt to escape
Frank's intrusive presence, Cal pursues a different kind of freedom
in the world's wild spaces, prospecting for gold and precious
minerals everywhere from the heat of the desert at the Mexican
border to the Alaskan chill, to central Africa, and Colombian mines
where he will meet the love of his life, Vida. Soon he is dripping
in wealth, his pockets full of gold nuggets and emeralds, but the
money means far less to him than his independence. To Frank,
however, "Cash is king." As Cal's success grows, so too does
Frank's power and his influence in Cal's affairs, the devastating
threat he creates at the center of his little brother's life. And,
ultimately, when Frank decides to commit the ultimate
betrayal...Cal is left with only one, final solution. Few writers
have as keen an eye for human nature as the inimitable Paul
Theroux, and this riveting tale of adventure, betrayal, and the
true cost of family bonds is an unmissable new work from one of
America's most distinguished and beloved novelists.
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Burma Sahib
Paul Theroux
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R753
R575
Discovery Miles 5 750
Save R178 (24%)
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In Stock
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From the acclaimed author of The Mosquito Coast and The Bad Angel
Brothers comes a riveting new novel exploring one of English
literature's most beloved and controversial figures--George
Orwell--and his often-unexplored early years as an officer in
colonial Burma that would do so much to shape his most famous
novels.
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Burma Sahib
Paul Theroux
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R649
R536
Discovery Miles 5 360
Save R113 (17%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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From renowned author Paul Theroux comes the fascinating,
atmospheric tale of George Orwell's years in Burma There is a short
period in everyone's life when his character is fixed forever . . .
' George Orwell Before George Orwell was Orwell - the pen name he
took on becoming a writer - he was Eric Blair, an unlikely
policeman in Burma. 19 years old, unusually tall, highly
intelligent, a diffident loner fresh from Eton, Blair stood out
amongst his fellow trainees in 1920s Mandalay. It was here, over
five years in the narrow colonial world of the Raj - a decaying
system steeped in overt racism and petty class-conflict - that Eric
Blair became the George Orwell we know: an anti-imperialist, a
socialist and a writer of rare commitment. The inner journey he
made in these years is remarkable, but in the absence of letters or
diaries from the period, this richly complex transformation can
only be told in fiction, as it is here by Paul Theroux, in one of
his most striking and accomplished novels. Drawing on all his
powers of observation and imagination, Theroux brings Orwell's
Burma years to radiant life, tracing the development of the young
man's consciousness as he confronts both the social, racial and
class politics of his colonial colleagues, and the reality of the
Burma beyond, which he yearns to grasp. Through one writer, we come
to understand another - and to see how what Orwell called 'five
boring years within the sound of bugles' were in fact the years
that made him. 'Always a terrific teller of tales and conjurer of
exotic locales' Sunday Times 'The most gifted, most prodigal writer
of his generation' Jonathan Raban
A deliciously dark, atmospheric novel about family and brotherhood
from one of America's most distinctive writers There's sibling
rivalry and then there's the relationship of brothers Cal and Frank
Belanger. Enemies since childhood, the small town of Littleford
just isn't big enough to hold them both. So, Cal strikes out for
the world's wild places - a gifted geologist in search of gold and
other precious minerals - leaving Frank to develop a successful
career as the town's lawyer, fixer and local hero. But when Cal,
newly rich and newlywed, returns to the town of his birth, Frank
gives him the opposite of a brotherly welcome, leading to a series
of betrayals and reprisals culminating in the ultimate plan:
murder. A riveting tale of adventure, betrayal and the true cost of
family bonds, The Bad Angel Brothers is a remarkable novel from one
of American's most distinctive writers. 'Laden with jealousy,
betrayal and a mythic lust for vengeance' The New York Times 'One
of the most accomplished and worldly-wise writers of his
generation' The Times
A deliciously dark, atmospheric novel about family and brotherhood
from one of America's most distinctive writers There's sibling
rivalry and then there's the relationship of brothers Cal and Frank
Belanger, which takes fraternal antipathy to a whole new level.
Enemies seemingly since childhood, the small town of Littleford,
where they are nicknamed 'The Bad Angle Brothers', just isn't big
enough to hold them both. So Cal strikes out for the world's wild
places -- a gifted geologist in search of gold and other precious
minerals, leaving Cal to develop a successful career as the town's
lawyer, fixer and local hero. Apart, their differences are muted by
distance, but when Cal, newly rich and newly wed, returns to the
town of his birth, to buy a house and raise a family, Frank gives
him the opposite of a brotherly welcome. From undermining Cal's
marriage, while Cal is away on business, to torpedoing his
finances, nothing is off the table, setting the scene for a tale of
gleefully vicious betrayals and reprisals, culminating in the
ultimate plan: murder. Few authors have as keen an eye for human
nature as the inimitable Paul Theroux, and this riveting tale of
adventure, betrayal, and the true cost of family bonds is a
remarkable new work from one of America's most distinctive writers.
In a breathtaking adventure story, the paranoid and brilliant
inventor Allie Fox takes his family to live in the Honduran jungle,
determined to build a civilization better than the one they've
left. Fleeing from an America he sees as mired in materialism and
conformity, he hopes to rediscover a purer life. But his utopian
experiment takes a dark turn when his obsessions lead the family
toward unimaginable danger.
Paul Theroux, the author of the train travel classics The Great
Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express, takes to the rails
once again in this account of his epic journey through China. He
hops aboard as part of a tour group in London and sets out for
China's border. He then spends a year traversing the country, where
he pieces together a fascinating snapshot of a unique moment in
history. From the barren deserts of Xinjiang to the ice forests of
Manchuria, from the dense metropolises of Shanghai, Beijing, and
Canton to the dry hills of Tibet, Theroux offers an unforgettable
portrait of a magnificent land and an extraordinary people.
From renowned writer Paul Theroux comes a dazzling novel following
a big-wave surfer in Hawaii as he confronts ageing, privilege and
mortality 'It was as if in surfing he was carving his name in
water, invisibly, joyously.' Joe Sharkey knows he is passed his
prime. Now in his sixties, the younger surfers around the breaks on
the north shore of Oahu still revere him as the once-legendary
'Shark', but his sponsors have moved on, and Joe wonders what new
future awaits him on the horizon. Uninterrupted quality time with
the ocean, he hopes. Life has other plans. When he accidentally
hits and kills a man near Waimea while drunk-driving, he fears he
will never rebound. Under the direction of his stubbornly loyal
girlfriend Olive, he throws himself into uncovering his victim's
story. But what they find in Max Mulgrave is entirely unexpected: a
shared history - and refuge in the sea. Set on the stunning
Hawaiian coast, Theroux captures the glory and nostalgia of looking
back at a rich and adventurous past, whilst learning to ride out
life's next unexpected wave. '[Paul Theroux's] writing skills are
disciplined and muscular, his ear as finely tuned as a musician's,
his eye sharper than any razor' Daily Mail
First published more than thirty years ago, Paul Theroux's strange,
unique, and hugely entertaining railway odyssey has become a modern
classic of travel literature. Here Theroux recounts his early
adventures on an unusual grand continental tour. Asia's fabled
trains -- the Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Frontier
Mail, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Mandalay Express, the
Trans-Siberian Express -- are the stars of a journey that takes him
on a loop eastbound from London's Victoria Station to Tokyo
Central, then back from Japan on the Trans-Siberian. Brimming with
Theroux's signature humor and wry observations, this engrossing
chronicle is essential reading for both the ardent adventurer and
the armchair traveler.
In one of his most exotic and breathtaking journeys, the intrepid
traveler Paul Theroux ventures to the South Pacific, exploring
fifty-one islands by collapsible kayak. Beginning in New Zealand's
rain forests and ultimately coming to shore thousands of miles away
in Hawaii, Theroux paddles alone over isolated atolls, through
dirty harbors and shark-filled waters, and along treacherous
coastlines. This exhilarating tropical epic is full of disarming
observations and high adventure.
Allie Fox is going to re-create the world. Abominating the cops, crooks, junkies and scavengers of modern America, he abandons civilization and takes the family to live in the Honduran jungle. There his tortured, messianic genius keeps them alive, his hoarse tirades harrying them through a diseased and dirty Eden towards unimaginable darkness.
Theroux is at his best when he tells people's] stories, happy and
sad . . . Theroux's great mission had always been to transport us
beyond that reading chair, to challenge himself--and thus, to
challenge us. -- Boston Globe
A decade ago, Paul Theroux's best-selling Dark Star Safari
chronicled his epic overland voyage from Cairo to Cape Town,
providing an insider's look at modern Africa. Now, with The Last
Train to Zona Verde, he returns to discover how both he and Africa
have changed in the ensuing years.
Traveling alone, Theroux sets out from Cape Town, going north
through South Africa, Namibia, then into Angola, encountering a
world increasingly removed from tourists' itineraries and the hopes
of postcolonial independence movements. After covering nearly 2,500
arduous miles, he cuts short his journey, a decision he chronicles
with unsparing honesty in a chapter titled What Am I Doing Here?
Vivid, witty, and beautifully evocative, The Last Train to Zona
Verde is a fitting final African adventure from the writer whose
gimlet eye and effortless prose have brought the world to
generations of readers.
Everything is under scrutiny in Paul Theroux's latest travel
book--not just the people, landscapes and sociopolitical realities
of the countries he visits, but his own motivations for going where
he goes . . . His readers can only be grateful. -- Seattle Times
If this book is proof, age has not slowed Theroux or encouraged
him to rest on his achievements . . . Gutsy, alert to Africa's
struggles, its injustices and history. -- San Francisco Chronicle
"A book to be plundered and raided." -- "New York Times Book
Review"
"A portal into a world of timeless travel literature curated by
one of the greatest travel writers of our day." -- "USA Today"
Paul Theroux celebrates fifty years of wandering the globe in this
collection of the best writing from the books that have shaped him
as a reader and a traveler. Part philosophical guide, part
miscellany, part reminiscence, "The Tao of Travel "contains
excerpts from the best of Theroux's own work interspersed with
selections from travelers both familiar and unexpected:
"Vladimir Nabokov Eudora Welty
Evelyn Waugh James Baldwin
Charles Dickens Pico Iyer
Henry David Thoreau Anton Chekhov
Mark Twain John McPhee
Freya Stark Ernest Hemingway
Graham Greene and many others"
"Dazzling . . . Like someone panning for gold, Theroux reread
hundreds of travel classics and modern works, shaking out the
nuggets." -- "San Francisco Chronicle"
In Dark Star Safari the wittily observant and endearingly irascible
Paul Theroux takes readers the length of Africa by rattletrap bus,
dugout canoe, cattle truck, armed convoy, ferry, and train. In the
course of his epic and enlightening journey, he endures danger,
delay, and dismaying circumstances.
Gauging the state of affairs, he talks to Africans, aid workers,
missionaries, and tourists. What results is an insightful
meditation on the history, politics, and beauty of Africa and its
people, and "a vivid portrayal of the secret sweetness, the hidden
vitality, and the long-patient hope that lies just beneath the
surface" (Rocky Mountain News). In a new postscript, Theroux
recounts the dramatic events of a return to Africa to visit
Zimbabwe.
Unflinchingly honest about his family, his failures, his already
broken health at the age of sixty?three and the loss of the hopes
he once had for himself, Thomsen is also sickened by the corruption
and rapacity of our societies, the inequality and the economic
destitution. What starts as an almost reluctant concatenation of
memory and poignant, limpid descriptions of Brazil, grows into a
shattering romantic symphony on human misery and life s small but
exquisite transcendent pleasures. He spares the reader nothing.
From legendary writer Paul Theroux comes an atmospheric novel
following a big-wave surfer as he confronts aging, privilege,
mortality, and whose lives we choose to remember. 'It was as if in
surfing he was carving his name in water, invisibly, joyously.' Now
in his sixties, big-wave surfer Joe Sharkey has passed his prime.
The younger surfers around the breaks on the north shore of Oahu
still call him the Shark, but his sponsors are looking elsewhere.
When Joe accidentally hits and kills a man near Waimea while
driving home from a bar after a night of drinking, it seems he'll
never rebound. Under the direction of his devoted girlfriend Olive,
he throws himself into uncovering his victim's story. But what they
find in Max Mulgrave is anything but expected: a shared history -
and refuge in the waves. With vivid, richly imagined detail,
Theroux's latest novel explores the underside of an island paradise
we rarely see. 'There is very little that Paul Theroux cannot fit
onto a page. His writing skills are disciplined and muscular, his
ear as finely tuned as a musician's, his eye sharper than any
razor, and, in pinpointing the bizarre and the unexpected, he both
entertains and underlines the absurdity of humans' Daily Mail
Paul Theroux sets off for Cape Town from Cairo - the hard way. Travelling across bush and desert, down rivers and across lakes, and through country after country - Egypt, the Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa - he visits some of the most beautiful landscapes on earth, and some of the most dangerous. It is a journey of discovery and rediscovery - of the unknown and the unexpected, but also of people and places he knew as a young and optimistic teacher forty years before.
A deliciously dark, atmospheric novel about family and brotherhood
from one of America's most distinctive writers There's sibling
rivalry and then there's the relationship of brothers Cal and Frank
Belanger, which takes fraternal antipathy to a whole new level.
Enemies seemingly since childhood, the small town of Littleford,
where they are nicknamed 'The Bad Angle Brothers', just isn't big
enough to hold them both. So Cal strikes out for the world's wild
places -- a gifted geologist in search of gold and other precious
minerals, leaving Frank to develop a successful career as the
town's lawyer, fixer and local hero. Apart, their differences are
muted by distance, but when Cal, newly rich and newly wed, returns
to the town of his birth, to buy a house and raise a family, Frank
gives him the opposite of a brotherly welcome. From undermining
Cal's marriage, while Cal is away on business, to torpedoing his
finances, nothing is off the table, setting the scene for a tale of
gleefully vicious betrayals and reprisals, culminating in the
ultimate plan: murder. Few authors have as keen an eye for human
nature as the inimitable Paul Theroux, and this riveting tale of
adventure, betrayal, and the true cost of family bonds is a
remarkable new work from one of America's most distinctive writers.
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