A bestseller in 1946, Railroad of Death is the first and best account of forced labour on the Burma Railway. John Coast was a young officer in the Norfolk Regiment who was taken prisoner at the Fall of Singapore in February 1942. He took notes and concealed them from the Japanese for nearly three years, but he lost the lot when he was forced to bury them in Chungkai Camp to avoid repeated searches. Coast had to write the book all over again while on the voyage home. His book is moving, dramat...

"If you know where to look, you can still discover and recognize what it was that intoxicating John Coast fifty years ago." -Sir David AttenboroughThis book is one of the great classics about Bali, now with dozens of illustrations and photographs.Dancing out of Bali is a fascinating personal account of a young Englishman who settled in a small house in Bali in the midst of the political turmoil that griped postwar Indones...

A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this “extraordinary” and beloved novel that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review), named a New York Times Best Book of the 21st Century.Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a weal...

The truly classic Australian story of Tom Kruse - legendary mailman of the Birdsville Track.For the people who lived in the desert between Marree and Birdsville, contact with the outside world was hard and sporadic - but one man was their lifeline: Tom Kruse. For more than twenty years he was the connection with the outside world for the families, station workers and others who lived along the Birdsville Track.Tom delivered everything from the mail and news...

In the colorful tradition of Orwell and Hemingway, Jerry Hopkins recalls his first decade as a Bangkok expatriate by profiling twenty-five of the city's most unforgettable characters.In 25 vivid profiles, Hopkins explores what motivates people to leave home and the unforeseen adventures that can befall them once abroad. Hopkin's knack for the biography is evident in his coverage of individuals ranging from famous performers to ordinary businesspeople.The 25...

A veteran dog musher, Dave Olesen finished the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race eight times. After a fifteen-year career as a sled dog racer, Olesen set out to fulfill a lifelong dream. In four successive winters he steered his dogs and sled on long trips away from his remote Northwest Territories homestead, setting out in turn to the south, east, north, and west, and home again to Hoarfrost River.His narrative ranges from the personal and poignant musings of a dogsled...

This book tells the story of a French cabin boy, Narcisse Pelletier, and his life with the Uutaalnganu people of north-east Cape York from 1858 to 1875. Even though it is all but forgotten in Australia, and in France is known only in its broad outlines, Pelletier's story rivals that of the famous William Buckley, both as a tale of human survival and as an enthralling and accessible ethnographic record.Narcisse Pelletier, from the village of Saint-Gilles-sur-Vie, was fourteen years ...

Discover the many lives of free-spirited and much-loved Irish Times cookery writer Theodora FitzGibbon 'I have starved in some of the most beautiful places in the world …' The Irish Times food writer Theodora FitzGibbon lived a life filled to the brim. Born in London in 1916, her appetite for love, pleasure, good food and adventure took her all over the globe until she died, in Dublin, in 1991. A Taste of Love, her two-volume autobiography, reveals a life fully lived: the names she used be...

"Torah's tale is one of immense trials followed by towering triumphs. I don't reread often, but this is a book that I will read again just to remind myself that if Torah can get through what she has, then I can, too."–– BRIAN YOUNG, Healer of the Water MonsterHow far would you go for freedom, love, and safety?About Torah. Torah Bontrager is 11 when she decides to leave the Amish.After four years of planning her esca...

If you loved King of Algonquin Park by Paton Lodge Lindsay, get ready for more laughter and tears in The King’s Ransom: More from the King of Algonquin Park.The King’s Ransom is a companion book to King of Algonquin Park featuring more stories and adventures of the exceptional and well-known wilderness man, Joseph Emmett Chartrand, who became a legend in his own time.He struggled from childhood to survive in the remote, rugged wilderness ...

This memoir from a Japanese civilian placed with the army in World War II offers a rare glimpse of the Japanese experience and psychology during this desperate time.Near the end of World War II , when the Japanese military machine was crushed but still hanging on, thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians were caught in the backlash of the war in Northern Luzon, the Philippines, where half a million Japanese perished.This is an honest and straightforward...

"Four Wheels - Good!Two Wheels - Better!"Roaring out of the Desert and across the Seas comes the true story of a Broken Hill boy who found thrills, adventure and romance in a life of speed, power and Pride!