LOST TO TWO WORLDS is a sad reflection of our times when evil men do evil things yet flourish without misgivings, while good men can anguish a lifetime from childhood trauma that permanently defines them. The story unfolds over two centuries on three continents. It focuses on the lives of two men whose characters are diametrically opposed: Benjamin Boyd, a Scotsman and a real-life, historic pioneer who arrives in Australia in 1842, and a fictional character named Daniel Hannaford, a mining...

A rich, immersive, funny and heartbreaking memoir of the charming bookseller who runs three tiny bookshops in the remote village of Manapouri in Fiordland, in the deep south of New Zealand.'An extraordinary story.' Shaun Bythell, The Diary of a BooksellerRuth Shaw weaves together stories of the characters who visit her bookshops, musings about favourite books, and bittersweet stories from her full and varied life.She's sailed through the Pa...

Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana are among the least-known places in South America: nine hundred miles of muddy coastline giving way to a forest so dense that even today there are virtually no roads through it; a string of rickety coastal towns situated between the mouths of the Orinoco and Amazon Rivers, where living is so difficult that as many Guianese live abroad as in their homelands; an interior of watery, green anarchy where border disputes are often based on ancient Elizabethan ...

"As I sat cradling the man's head, with his blood and brains sticking to my hands, I heard a voice - my own voice. It was asking me something. Asking how I had ended up like this, desperate and lost among people who thought nothing of caving in a man's head and then standing back to watch him die." Nick Bullock was a prison officer working in a maximum-security jail with some of Britain's most notorious criminals. Trapped in a world of aggression and fear, he felt frustrated and alone. The...

Journalist Dominic Dunne's travels have rarely been ordinary, despite his best intentions. He has been travelling all his life, from the time his parents started their annual pilgrimage to the opal fields of Lightning Ridge. Since then he has trekked all over Australia and to some 60 countries, spending his life trying to satisfy his insatiable appetite for travelling, an addiction that has taken him to wonderful and sometimes dangerous places where he has met all manner of people. In this...

After living abroad for years, novelist Peter Carey returns home to Sydney and attempts to capture its character with the help of his old friends, drawing the reader into a wild and wonderful journey of discovery and rediscovery as bracing as the southerly buster that sometimes batters Sydney's shores. Famous sights such as Bondi Beach, the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and the Blue Mountains all take on a strange new intensity when exposed to the penetrating gaze of the author and his f...

In 1976, 10-year-old Niall Griffiths and his family immigrated to Australia from Liverpool as part of the Ten Pound Pom, an assisted-passage plan designed to increase the population of Australia and supply workers for its booming industries. Following three years of residence, the family moved coast-to-coast, from Brisbane to Perth, traveling more than 2,000 miles in a souped-up station wagon. Thirty years later, Griffiths returned to retrace his steps, chronicling the journey in this part...

Two journalists – passionate about travel and the ‘vast, dry cathedral called Namibia’ – set out to meander through this land and to relish the pure space and the joy of road travel. The journey shaped up as something special. Along the way, thirty years of memories returned. Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit encountered a landscape like no other, a seemingly barren place of unexpected and unrivalled beauty: from the enchantment of the Kalahari to the misty shipwreck world of the Skeleton ...

Recently, Granta has explored Chicago, Pakistan and the world of Spanish- language letters. In this bold, eclectic issue, the magazine turns back to focus on Britain. In 2012, Britain is a nation in flux, managing difficult socioeconomic realities, contending with new political alliances and negotiating shifting demographics. Yet it is a country that is still perceived as being bound by tradition and class structures. Is Britain still Great? Where does it stand in the New Europe? What will...

The Penwith Peninsula in Cornwall is where the land ends. In The Swordfish and the Star Gavin Knight takes us into this huddle of grey roofs at the edge of the sea at the beginning of the twenty-first century.He catches the stories of a whole community, but especially those still working this last frontier: the Cornish fishermen. These are the dreamers and fighters who every day prepare for battle with the vast grey Atlantic. Cornwall and its seas are brought to life, mixi...

Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, is tired of being told that she doesn't exist. In this crackling, lolloping story in verse, Ted Hughes describes how she sets out on the road to London for an audience with the Queen...

On February 22, 2011, journalist Jane Bowron had been living in her hometown of Christchurch, New Zealand, when the city was struck by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake, only five months after a 7.1 earthquake. While the first quake had caused damage but no fatalities, the second became the ultimate horror story: entire suburbs were decimated, houses collapsed, hillsides fell away, and people were killed or trapped in rubble and raging fires. As the historic city lay in ruins, Bowron managed to f...