Set in the fictional South American country of Costaguana, Nostromo explores the volatile politics and crippling greed surrounding the San Tomé silver mine. The story of power, love, revolutions, loyalty and reward is told with richly evocative description and brilliantly realised characters. But Nostromo is more than an adventure story; it is also a profoundly dark moral fable. Its language is as compellingly resonant as the sea itself; the characters absorbing and complex. It was Conrad’...

Samuel Beckett, one of the great avant-garde Irish dramatists and writers of the second half of the twentieth century, was born on 13 April 1906. He died in 1989. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. His centenary will be celebrated throughout 2006 with performances of his major plays, but the most popular of them all will be, without doubt, the play with which he first made his name, Waiting for Godot. It opened the gates to the theatre of the absurd as four men appear on the st...

In this audiobook, Nigel Anthony narrates the gripping history of the polar continent, from the great discoveries of the nineteenth century to modern scientific breakthroughsAntarctica, the ice kingdom hosting the South Pole, looms large in the human imagination. The secrets of this vast frozen desert have long tempted explorers, but its brutal climate and glacial shores notoriously resist human intrusion. Land of Wondrous Cold tells a gripping story of the...

Life has taken a funny turn for Siri Paiboun. After years in obscurity, his country needs him. He is to be their only coroner. Because he's the only doctor left.It's not as flattering as it could be, and when one of the leaders' wives turns up in his hot, shabby, smelly morgue, and he's expected to solve her murder, things take a turn for the worse. He has no experience, training or equipment to speak of, and his only hope are his two trusty assistants - neither of whom know anythi...

When a blind, retired dentist is run down by a logging truck as he crosses the road to post a letter, Dr Siri Paiboun, official and only coroner of Laos, finds himself faced with his most explosive case yet. The dentist's mortal remains aren't nearly as intriguing as the letter in his pocket. Written in invisible ink and encrypted, the letter presents Dr Siri with an irresistible challenge. Enlisting the help of his old friend, Civilai, now a senior member of the Laos politburo; Nurse Dtui...

Crimes against History takes a global approach to the extreme forms of censorship to which history and historians have been subjected through the ages.The book opens by considering the varieties of censorship, from suppression, dismissal, and defamation to persecution and murder. Part I, "Kill switch," tells the tragic story of how the censorship of history has sometimes turned into deadly crimes against history, with chapters looking at topics such as historians and archivists bei...

Dr Siri Paiboun may be in his seventy-third year, but he's still as sturdy as a jungle boar - and as crafty as one. Reluctant coroner to the Lao People's Democratic Republic, he's been despatched to the country's mountainous north where the sudden appearance of a mummified arm protruding from a concrete path laid infront of the President's new mansion has caused an understandable degree of embarrassment. Dr Siri's disinterment and autopsy of the body attached to the arm provide some...

Margaret Thatcher is one of the most iconic politicians of the twentieth century. With the possible exception of Winston Churchill, no other Prime Minister has had such an impact on modern British history. Like it or not, her radical social and economic policies have made Britain the country it is today. Without Margaret Thatcher there could have been no New Labour, no Tony Blair and no David Cameron.Now Robin Harris, for many years Thatcher's speechwriter, trusted adviser and the ...

Against all his expectations, Dr Siri Paiboun has rather enjoyed his first five months in office. Now, as hot-season nights close in, Siri is spirited away from Laos' steamy capital on a Matter of National Security. Arriving in Luang Prabang, he's a busy man, examining carbonized corpses, dining with the deposed king, attending a shamans' conference and being rescued by the ghost of an elephant. Not that Siri's complaining... Luang Prabang is in mountains and a good fifteen degrees cooler....

What exactly is a credit crunch? Why do footballers earn so much more than the rest of us? Which country is likely to be the world's leading economy in 10 years' time?Daily Telegraph economics editor Edmund Conway introduces and explains the central ideas of economics in a series of fifty essays. Beginning with an exploration of the basic theories, such as Adam Smith's 'invisible hand', and concluding with the latest research into the links between wealth and happiness, he sheds li...

Wounded traces the journey made by a casualty from the battlefield to a hospital in Britain. It is a story told through the testimony of those who cared for him – stretcher bearers and medical officers, surgeons and chaplains, orderlies and nurses – from the aid post in the trenches to the casualty clearing station and the ambulance train back to Blighty.We feel the calloused hands of the stretcher-bearers; we see the bloody dressings and bandages; we smell the nauseating ...

Taiwan’s position looks increasingly precarious, and tensions threaten to grow into a major strategic crisis. Chinese President Xi Jinping has made reunification with Taiwan a central pillar of his vision for China, and has ramped up diplomatic and economic pressure on Taiwan. Its inhabitants are increasingly estranged from the mainland, and Tsai Ing-wen’s administration refuses to conduct relations with China on Beijing’s terms. Taiwan could take on renewed strategic significance amid the...