A rich & beautiful novel set during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980s, & based on the author`s personal experiences of the conflict. Ten-year-old Ruba lives in a village outside Beirut. From her family home, she can see the buildings shimmering on the horizon & the sea stretched out beside them. She can also hear the rumble of the shelling
- this is Lebanon in the 1980s & civil war is tearing the country apart. Ruba, however, has her own worries. Her father hardly ever speaks & spends most of his days sitting in his armchair, avoiding work & family. Her mother looks so sad that Ruba thinks her heart might have withered in the heat like a fig. Her elder brother, Naji, has started to spend his time with older boys
- & some of them have guns. When Ruba decides she has to save her father, & uncovers his secret, she begins a journey which takes her from childhood to the beginnings of adulthood. As Israeli troops invade & danger comes ever closer, she realises that she may not be able to keep her family safe. This is a first novel with tremendous heart, which captures both a country & a childhood in turmoil.

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”A must read book for any fan of Irish whiskey. At a time when the category is making the mightiest of comebacks Fionnan O` Connor has written a gem of a book, digging deep in to the heart of his country`s whiskey history & telling its story with style & authority. Excellent.” Dominic Roskrow, Founding Director, The Craft Distillers Alliance Irish single pot still whiskey has a romantic mystique for many whiskey critics because of its tragic history as the lost sister of single malt scotch. Ireland`s history & politics resulted in the near-annihilation of the national drink & there`s an almost eerie beauty to the silent distilleries that still dot the Irish countryside. These distilleries inform the aesthetic of the title &, indeed, there is visual poetry in the barrels, pot stills & photogenic amber spirits that convey the Irish whiskey world. Although Irish whiskey is currently the fastest-growing global spirits category & Irish pure pot still has long been a favorite drink among whiskey critics & connoisseurs, the existing literature is still surprisingly sparse. This book illustrates the production, history, & appreciation of Irish pot still whiskey & will introduce casual drinkers to the richness of these whiskeys as well as being a collector`s item for established whiskey connoisseurs. AUTHOR: Fionnan O Connor tasted his first glass of Green Spot in a pub in Galway 10 years ago & has spent an excessive number of subsequent evenings trying to uncover what exactly made that tipple so bewilderingly delicious. He has travelled extensively across the distilleries of Ireland & Scotland & has a particular affection for Islay scotch, American rye, &, of course, Irish single pot still. As an English major, he taught classes on The History & Appreciation of Whisky through UC Berkeley`s Celtic Studies department while working as a brand ambassador for the Bushmills single malts & running seminars on whiskey appreciation through the legendary San Francisco cocktail bar Bourbon & Branch. He has since served as an historical consultant & whiskey lecturer for distilleries across Irel&, worked as an independent bar staff educator, & currently volunteers on the committee of the Irish Whiskey Society. He has represented Irish whiskey before the European Union as an independent critic & written articles on Irish distilling for magazines across the industry. SELLING POINTS: * A full history of the production & appreciation of Irish pot still whiskey * Revised to include listings of a number of new & mentionable distillers ” Quickly being recognised as the most comprehensive guide to Irish whiskey.”
- Gary Quinn, The Irish Times 215 colour images
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Winner of the 2013 Beterriko Liburua Award & the 2013 Zazpi Kale Prize, the prize of Bilbao book fair.` But what if we are all fictioneers? What if we all continually make up the stories of our lives? (...) Our life-stories are ours to construct as we wish, within or even against the constraints imposed by the real world...` J.M. COETZEEA writer in her late thirties retreats to Landes in France for a while, fleeing from her own suffering after the break-up of a relationship. Little by little, she finds solace in writing about the losses in her life, about her person, & about indifference & freedom, & in sharing the doubts that arise in her creative process with a `you` whom she imagines to be on the other side of the paper. The glass eye, a self-referential element of the author-protagonist & metaphor for pain & transcendence, also represents the literary concept of the work, a private notebook where fiction imitates & replaces a fragmented reality. Translated into English by Amaia Gabantxo, arguably the most prestigious Basque-English translator working today. ...

In 2006, the Guardian's much-loved Country Diary column is a hundred years old, & to commemorate the anniversary Martin Wainwright has compiled a collection of the best of a century's writing. Where Harry Griffin's A Lifetime of Mountains, Aurum's first & extremely successful collaboration with Guardian Books, was essentially a collection of writing about the Lake District, this new book covers the landscape of the whole of the United Kingdom, from Wales to Northern Irel&, Scotland to Norfolk. Also the Country Diary column has consistently attracted some of Britain's best writers on natural history & the countryside: Jim Perrin the mountaineering writer, whose biography of Don Whillans won the Boardman-Tasker Award, writes the dispatches from Snowdonia; Mark Cocker, author of the bestselling Birds Britannica, writes the Country Diary from Norfolk. There are also diaries written by a leading Suffragette, one of Rupert Brooke's mistresses, & even one of the Guardian's printers! And Martin Wainwright (who also edited A Lifetime of Mountains) has found diaries to reflect the changing of the countryside over a hundred years: from the prevalence of owls in First World War trenches full of vermin to the plant surveys of Second World War bombsites. ...

A Glimpse of Eternal Snows- A journey of Love & Loss in the Himalayas by Jane Wilson-Howarth is the autobiographical story of an English doctor relocating with her family to Nepal. A decision taken in the hope that a different culture will allow her new born baby, diagnosed with a serious neurological disorder, to live in dignity & happiness. Wanting David to live life to the fullest & spare him a life dominated by hospitals, doctors & medical tests, the family settles in their new home in Rajapur Isl&. There the baby looks much calmer, happier & starts to respond to the people around him. The villagers accept him & see beyond his illness & praise his beauty & blessings. Meanwhile, Alexander, the older son enjoys a different life than the one in England learning to climb trees, catching lizards & flying kites. It is in this more tolerant culture, with its spirituality & fatalism that accepting the challenges & finding joy seems much easier. Wilson-Howarth also explores the inevitable emotions, issues & ethics surrounding disability & death. Through her remarkable experiences set against the dramatic backdrop of the Himalayas, the author brings together the sounds, sights, smells & the wildlife she encounters & reveals the warmth & complexity of the local people.A Glimpse of Eternal Snow is an inspiring, thought provoking & touching personal story that develops together with a detailed & elaborate portrait of a Nepal. ...

Winner of the 2015 Costa Novel Award. A God in Ruins relates the life of Teddy Todd
- would-be poet, heroic World War II bomber
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Norman Lewis avoids the easy pleasures of travelling through the hill-forts of Rajasthan, visiting palace hotels & the Taj Mahal. Instead his travels in India begin in the impoverished, overpopulated & corrupt state of Bihar
- the scene of a brutal caste war between the untouchables & higher-caste gangsters. From these violent happenings, he heads down the west coast of Bengal & into the highlands of Orissa to testify to the life of the `indigenous tribals who have survived in isolation. As William Dalrymple observed in The Spectator, `the great virtue of Norman Lewis as a writer is that he can make the most boring things interesting; whatever he is describing whether it is a rickshaw driver, an alcohol crazed elephant, or a man defecating beside the road Lewis senses are awake for sounds or smells, & he can make you think twice about scenes you have seen ten thousand times before the book is full of some of the strangest facts imaginable.. . It is a joy to read. Other Norman Lewis titles published by Eland: Jackdaw Cake, The Missionaries, Voices of the Old Sea, A View of The World, Naples 44, A Dragon Apparent, Golden Earth, The Honoured Society, An Empire of the East, In Sicily & The Tomb in Seville.
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Spring, 1971, East Pakistan. Rehana Haque is throwing a party for her beloved children, Sohail & Maya. Her young family is growing up fast, & Rehana wants to remember this day forever. But out on the hot city streets, something violent is brewing. As the civil war develops, a war which will eventually see the birth of Bangladesh, Rehana struggles to keep her children safe & finds herself facing a heartbreaking dilemma. ...

Since it was founded in 2003, Good African Coffee has helped thousands of farmers earn a decent living, send their children to school & escape a spiral of debt & dependence. Africa has received over $1 trillion in aid over the last fifty years & yet despite these huge inflows, the continent remains mired in poverty, disease & systemic corruption. In A Good African Story, Andrew Rugasira argues that trade has achieved what years of aid failed to deliver, & has provided a tantalising glimpse of what Africa could be. As he recounts the very personal story of his company & the challenges that he has faced
- & overcome
- as an African entrepreneur, Rugasira discusses the barriers that currently prevent fair & equal trade between Africa & the rest of the world. He sets out the arguments for building a sustainable trade framework & reducing dependency on handouts. & he builds up a manifesto for a revolution in the way that Africa is perceived. This is a book about Africa taking its destiny in its own hands, & dictating the terms of its future.

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Alex George`s A Good American is a positive & uplifting novel about the American Dream. This is the story of the Meisenheimer family, told by James, a third-generation American living in Beatrice, Missouri. It`s where his German grandparents
- Frederick & Jette
- found themselves after journeying across the turbulent Atlantic, fording the flood-swollen Mississippi, & being brought to a sudden halt by the broken waters of the pregnant Jette. A Good American tells of Jette`s dogged determination to feed a town sauerkraut & soul food; the loves & losses of her children, Joseph & Rosa; & the precocious voices of James & his brothers, sometimes raised in perfect harmony.. .sometimes in discord. But above all, A Good American is about the music in Frederick`s heart, a song that began as an aria, was jazzed by ragtime, & became an anthem of love for his adopted country that the family still hears to this day. ” There`s plenty of storytelling charm on display here, with echoes of John Irving`s humane zaniness”. (The New York Times). ” Epic, lyrical, compelling”. (USA Today).”A sweeping, lush intergenerational novel about a family of German-Americans learning to live in 20th-century America”. (Oprah.com).

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