Paul Theroux
1) Kowloon Tong
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The humiliation of a colonial Englishman on the eve of China's takeover of Hong Kong. Neville Mallard, a member of the white elite is forced to sell his family's textile factory to a Chinese businessman. It is a blow to his wallet, but even more to his confidence, the end of a century of white arrogance.
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A collection of stories featuring a wide variety of characters and locations-- London, Paris, Africa, provincial Holland, Puerto Rico, and beyond. Most of the people are transplanted or have tried to graft themselves onto a new culture, and they struggle against the odds to maintain their humor, to write, to fall in love or keep their marriages intact.
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During the time of Lyndon Johnson's presidency, Herbie Gneiss is forced to leave college to get a job. His income from the Kant-Brake toy factory, which manufactures military toys for children, keeps his chocolate-loving mother from starvation. Mr. Gibbon, a patriotic veteran of three wars, also works at Kant-Brake. When Herbie is drafted, Mr. Gibbon falls in love with Herbie's mother and they move in together at Miss Ball's rooming house. Since Herbie...
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"A rich and insightful travel book in the tradition that made Paul Theroux's reputation, Dark Star Safari takes us the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, forgotten train, and rusting steamer. Theroux confronts delay, discomfort, bullets, and bad food while encountering a remarkable mix of places and people. Beginning in Cairo and ending in Cape Town, he goes on the ultimate safari to the true heart of Africa, not the lavish game parks with overfed...
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"One of the most acclaimed travel writers of our time turns his unflinching eye on an American South too often overlooked. Paul Theroux has spent fifty years crossing the globe, adventuring in the exotic, seeking the rich history and folklore of the far away. Now, for the first time, in his tenth travel book, Theroux explores a piece of America--the Deep South. He finds there a paradoxical place, full of incomparable music, unparalleled cuisine, and...
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Counter Paul Theroux invites us to join him on the journey of a lifetime, in the grand romantic tradition, by train across Europe, through the vast underbelly of Asia into the heart of Russia, and then up to China. Here is China by rail (the Iron Rooster is the name of a train), as seen and heard through the eyes and ears of one of the most intrepid and insightful travel writers of our time.
10) The lower river
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Ellis Hock never believed that he would return to Africa. He runs an old-fashioned menswear store in a small town in Massachusetts but still dreams of his Eden, the four years he spent in Malawi with the Peace Corps, cut short when he had to return to take over the family business. When his wife leaves him, and he is on his own, he realizes that there is one place for him to go: back to his village in Malawi, on the remote Lower River, where he can...
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A collection of writings from Paul Theroux's fifty years of travel. Included are writings from other travelers such as Charles Dickens, Eudora Welty, Anton Chekhov, Ernest Hemingway and many others.
Part philosophical guide, part miscellany, part reminiscence, the Tao of Travel contains excerpts from the best of Theroux own work interspersed with selections from travelers both familiar and unexpected.
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"This startling, far-reaching book captures the tumult, ambition, hardship, and serenity that mark today's India. Theroux's Westerners risk venturing far beyond the subcontinent's well-worn paths to discover woe or truth or peace. A middle-aged couple on vacation veers heedlessly from idyll to chaos. A buttoned-up Boston lawyer finds succor in Mumbai's reeking slums. And a young woman befriends an elephant in Bangalore. We also meet Indian characters...
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Author and travel writer Paul Theroux does what no one else can: he travels to the isolated, unusual, and fascinating spots of the world, and creates an elegy to them that makes readers feel they are traveling with him. Evocative, breathtaking, intriguing, here is the armchair traveler's guide to the sites of the world he makes us feel we know.
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"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"--
From legendary writer Paul Theroux comes an atmospheric novel following a big-wave surfer as he confronts privilege, mortality, and the lives we choose to remember. Now in his sixties, big-wave surfer Joe Sharkey has passed his prime and is losing his "stoke." The younger...
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In this modern Grand Tour, Theroux sets off from Gibraltar on a journey around the Mediterranean Sea. It is a long, lively, and occasionally dangerous trip, up the coast of Spain, along the Riviera, by ferry to the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and beyond. By foot, train, bus, and cruise ship, Theroux travels around Italy and the Greek islands, to Albania in a state of near anarchy and to war-torn Croatia. He sails into Istanbul, its minarets...