One of Latin America's greatest novelists, Mario Vargas Llosa is also a most acute and wide-ranging cultural critic and an acerbic political commentator. Touchstones includes his readings of major twentieth-century novels, from Heart of Darkness...
“Who am I? An alcoholic and a tramp. But I am no white raven. Our alcoholics outnumber the populations of France and Spain combined. And that’s only the men. If you count women you have to add on all Scandinavia and throw in Monaco for good...
‘A gem of a book, informative, companionable, sometimes funny, and wholly original. MacLean must surely be the outstanding, and most indefatigable, traveller-writer of our time’ John le Carré
In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell. In that euphoric...
Joan Didion's unblinking eye and razor-sharp perceptions of the American scene are exhibited in the essays Girl of the Golden West, In the Realm of the Fisher King, and Sentimental Journeys' from After Henry; excerpts from Salvador and Miami; and...
In which the hacker tourist ventures forth across the wide and wondrous meatspace of three continents, acquainting himself with the customs and dialects of the exotic Manhole Villagers of Thailand, the U-Turn Tunnelers of the Nile Delta, the...
For those interested in the connection between people and place, the best of the decade long collaboration between literary brat packer Will Self and gonzo illustrator Ralph Steadman.
Opening with a dazzling new 20,000-word essay on...
From “one of his generation’s most inventive and gifted writers” (The New York Times) , intimate and sharply observed commentary on life, art, politics, and “the war on terror.”
Mohsin Hamid’s brilliant, moving, and extraordinarily...