On a hot August afternoon in 1811, an army of 10, 000 British redcoats splashed ashore through the muddy shallows off Batavia (the former name of Jakarta, Indonesia`s capital) to conquer the Dutch colony of Java. They would remain there for five turbulent years. Drawing on both British & Javanese archival sources, this entertaining & highly readable narrative history-cum-biography explores the bloody battles & furious controversies that marked British rule in Java, & reveals the future founder of Singapore, Thomas Stamford Raffles
- long celebrated as a hero, a liberal & a visionary
- in a shocking new light, showing how he crushed dissent, looted palaces & incited massacres to further his own insatiable ambitions. The book features the dramatic Battle of Batavia, the sinister British expedition to Palembang, the 1812 sacking & looting of Yogyakarta, & various fights between soldiers & civilians, buffaloes & tigers, & Englishmen & Javanese.

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By the time of his death, Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826) was the founder of Singapore & Governor of Java, having left school in his early teens to become a clerk for the British East India Company. Charismatic & daring, Raffles forged an extraordinary path for himself in South East Asia
- refusing to be satisfied with the trading posts available to the British, he defied Dutch governors & wrangled with warring local rulers to establish what is now a world city. An ardent linguist & zoologist, Raffles spoke fluent Malay & found time to write The History of Java, as well as naming several species of flora & fauna he discovered on his travels. He founded London Zoo & promoted the study of Malay alongside European languages in Southeast Asia. Raffles remains a controversial figure
- a utopian imperialist, disobedient employee & knight of the realm who died deeply in debt, predeceased by all but one of his children. He built racial segregation into his urban planning, but was also a staunch abolitionist. Renowned biographer Victoria Glendinning charts Raffles` prodigious rise in this new edition, specially updated for the bicentenary of the foundation of Singapore in 1819. His life was short, complicated & shot through with tragedy, but Raffles` fame lives on.

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This is the first biography in decades of the ` Father of Singapore`. Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826) was the charismatic & persuasive founder of Singapore & Governor of Java. An English adventurer, disobedient employee of the East India Company, utopian imperialist, linguist, zoologist & civil servant, he carved an extraordinary (though brief) life for himself in South East Asia. The tropical, disease-ridden settings of his story are as dramatic as his own trajectory
- an obscure young man with no advantages other than talent & obsessive drive, who changed history by establishing
- without authority
- on the wretchedly unpromising island of Singapore a settlement which has become a world city. After a turbulent time in the East Indies, Raffles returned to the UK & turned to his other great interests
- botany & zoology. He founded London Zoo in 1826, the year of his death. Raffles remains a controversial figure, & in the first biography for over forty years, Victoria Glendinning charts his prodigious rise within the social & historical contexts of his world. His domestic & personal life was vivid & shot through with tragedy. His own end was sad, but his fame immortal.



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Trisuli River on a detailed contoured map of south-central Nepal, with an overprint indicating different classes of rapids along the section from Bidur to the confluence with Kali Gandaki. Campsites are marked & within the adjoining Royal Chitwan National Park hotels & lodges are shown, as well as locations for spotting different types of animals. The map is indexed & has latitude & longitude margin ticks at intervals of 15 ...

Jose Maria, a construction worker, is in love with Rosa, a maid in an exclusive Buenos Aires mansion. Subjected to constant humiliation by his foreman, Jose Maria kills him. He hides on an empty floor in the mansion, & remains there for years without even raising Rosas` suspicion. Jose Maria silently observes his lover in her most intimate moments & watches the decadent behaviour of the owners & their hypocritical relationships. However, Jose Maria will also be privy to more humiliating experiences
- he watches as Rosa is raped by the young son of the family, & later becomes pregnant by a repulsive neighbour. Still, in the midst of all this & from his bizarre, self-imposed imprisonment, Jose Maria will, somehow, be able to reflect upon & understand the joys of fatherhood
- that is, before he meets his final fate. A metaphor for the decline of a social class, a country & the resentment that spreads like a plague penetrating to the core of its people, Rage is also a tale of love & suspense that raises the tension with each successive page until it unavoidably shifts toward an intimate, shattering catastrophe. Humour, misfortune, shrewd social commentary & thrilling erotic fantasy come together, offering the reader an inside vision of contemporary Argentina.

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Raghu Rai is India`s most famous & most lauded photographer. Here, he lends his creative genius to capturing the changing face of Delhi, the place of his birth & India`s capital city, over the last forty years. William Dalrymple says in his introduction to the book that [this is] the work of a sympathetic insider & has a tender & knowing intimacy that no outsider like myself can come close to. That quality is displayed to stunning effect in this spectacular, large format book, which will be prized by anyone with an interest in modern India or photography. ...

Raghu Rai`s ” India” is the India of the everyday
- the life of his rural childhood. His photographs talk about the simple people,
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Greedy, cruel & foolish, the Gods deserve to die.. . From the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession & The Children's Book comes a mesmerising tale of the end of the gods & the destruction of life on this planet. Into her version of Ragnarok, surely one of the most thrilling & apocalyptic of myths, A.S. Byatt weaves the story of a young girl evacuated to the British countryside during the Second World War. Struggling to make sense of her life, she is given a book of Norse myths, & her inner & outer worlds are transformed. ...

Recently evacuated to the British countryside & with World War Two raging around her, one young girl is struggling to make sense of her life. Then she is given a book of ancient Norse legends & her inner & outer worlds are transformed. Intensely autobigraphical & linguistically stunning, this book is a landmark work of fiction from one of Britain's truly great writers. Intensely timely it is a book about how stories can give us the courage to face our own demise. The Ragnarok myth, otherwise known as the Twilight of the Gods, plays out the endgame of Norse mythology. It is the myth in which the gods Odin, Freya & Thor die, the sun & moon are swallowed by the wolf Fenrir, the serpent Midgard eats his own tale as he crushes the world & the seas boil with poison. It is only after such monstrous death & destruction that the world can begin anew. This epic struggle provided the fitting climax to Wagner's Ring Cycle & just as Wagner was inspired by Norse myth so Byatt has taken this remarkable finale & used it as the underpinning of this highly personal & politically charged retelling ...

Set in turn-of-the-century New York, E.L. Doctorow`s ” Ragtime” seamlessly blends fictional characters & realistic depictions of historical figures to bring to life the events that defined American history in the years before the First World War. This ” Penguin Modern Classics” edition

Includes:: an introduction by Al Alvarez. Welcome to America at the turn of the twentieth century, where the rhythms of ragtime set the beat. Harry Houdini astonishes audiences with magical feats of escape, the mighty J. P. Morgan dominates the financial world & Henry Ford manufactures cars by making men into machines. Emma Goldman preaches free love & feminism, while ex-chorus girl Evelyn Nesbitt inspires a mad millionaire to murder the architect Stanford White. In this stunningly original chronicle of an age, such real-life characters intermingle with three remarkable families, one black, one Jewish & one prosperous WASP, to create a dazzling literary mosaic that brings to life an era of dire poverty, fabulous wealth, & incredible change
- in short, the era of ragtime. E.L. Doctorow (b.1931) is one of America`s most accomplished & acclaimed living writers. Winner of the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award (twice), the PEN/ Faulkner Award, & the National Humanities Medal, he is the author of nine novels that have explored the drama of American life from the late 19th century to the 21st, including ” Ragtime”, ” The Book of Daniel” & ” Billy Bathgate”. If you enjoyed ” Ragtime”, you might like John Dos Passos` ”U.S.A.”, also available in ” Penguin Classics”. ” In its perfection it stuns & holds from beginning to end”. (” Daily Mail”). ” Witty, lyrical, put together with admirable craft.. .dazzling economy & insight... Mr Doctorow knows what he is doing & has done it beautifully”. (” Guardian”). ” One of the best American novels for years”. (” Economist”).


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