Well developed, larger-than-life characters interacting in somewhat ludicrous situations. The style – many very short chapters – makes it a racing read.
Rather different from most of McCall Smith’s well-known books.
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson It takes some courage to pick up this tome. It’s BIG. If you take the plunge, you’ll discover it’s very well researched, very readable, and very informative. The cosmology and physics are presented simply and clearly. The historical developments in such areas as geology, paleontology, archaeology,…
The Atlas Legacy by Colin Newton A small group of archaeologists of questionable qualification investigate Plato’s account of the advanced island state of Atlantis and its disappearance under the waves. Their research trips take them to Bolzano in Italy, Cornwall, Crete and Malta. In each location they find mysteriously linked artefacts, but soon discover that a…
This book contains a wealth of otherwise hard-to-find facts about the often poverty-stricken and mostly unnoticed country folk in the diverse provinces and regions we now know as France. Everything warrants a chapter: food, clothing and housing; birth, marriage and death; farming and poaching practices; relationships between peasants, seigneurs, unwelcome soldiers, haughty priests and the revenue-hungry…
An almost incredible but true story, told in a rather unemotional, matter-of-fact manner. Hardly old enough to know who he is and with no idea where he comes from, 5 year old Saroo finds himself trapped in a railway carriage, which ends up taking him to the sprawling, stinking, merciless city of Calcutta. What will…
This book is appropriately subtitled “The Road Where Childhoods are Stolen”. Movingly written, we are brought to love and agonise with little lilac-dressed Leilah, desperate-to-start-a-new-life Mariana and all the other broken girls we meet along that tragic highway BR116.
Lustige und z.T. faszinierende Hintergrund- Informationen und Anekdoten rund um die englische Sprache. Ein paar Kostproben: Englisch ist eine Mischsprache. Aber mehr als die Hälfte der Alltagswörter sind angelsächsischen Ursprungs, trotz späterem Einfluss der Dänen und Normannen. “We feel more at ease getting a hearty welcome (ex-angelsächsisch) than after being granted a cordial reception (ex-französisch)”…