SHORTLISTED FOR STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEARFrom a trip to The Lightning Field in New Mexico, to chasing Gauguin`s ghost in French Polynesia, White Sands is a creative exploration of why we travel. Episodic, wide-ranging & funny, Geoff Dyer blends travel writing, essay, criticism & fiction with a smart & cantankerous wit that is unmatched. From one of the most original writers in Britain, this is a book for armchair travellers & procrastinating philosophers everywhere. ...

This is a book about Polynesia after the cruise ship has left, the jet has flown off into the sunset, & the mai tai curtain has dropped on a dream that was more performance than reality. This first-hand narrative introduces the reader to the Cook Islands & an extraordinary array of their inhabitants: Susy No Pants who lives an uproarious life of pleasure, but never strays far from who she is or where she came from; a nuclear nomad from the Tuamotus who attempts suicide by ancient means in California`s Balboa Fun Zone, home of the chocolate-dipped banana; & French bureaucrats who concoct an elaborate charade to create an uplifting image of the Foreign Legion in Papeete, Tahiti. The author encounters missionaries, randy kings, dictators, sailors, drunk island tyrants & visionaries on remote isles where tourists seldom tread. Kernahan does not find paradise, although she admits to having looked for it. ...

The ideal desk accessory for anyone needing a bit of escapism without even having to leave your chair, the Insight Whites Sea 10cm (4) Globe is a compact yet remarkably detailed desktop globe mounted on an attractive & a curiously addictive swivel-&-tilt base. With high-quality metal globe construction, stylish & stable weighted base & clearly defined political cartography with up-to-date political boundaries & place names, this little marvel makes a perfect addition to any desk, whether used as an educational aid for children or as a stress-buster at work. ...

The White Sea 10cm (4) Globe from Insight Guides is the ideal desk accessory for anyone needing a bit of escapism, without having to leave the chair. This is a compact yet remarkably detailed desktop globe mounted on an attractive & a curiously addictive swivel-&-tilt base. It features high-quality construction, stylish & stable weighted base & clearly defined political cartography with up-to-date political boundaries & place names. This little marvel makes a perfect addition to any desk, whether used as an educational aid for children or as a stress-buster at work ...

The Quercy Blanc
- named for its white stone
- is a wild & sparsely populated area of rural France, squeezed between the great

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Zadie Smith`s White Teeth is a funny, generous, big-hearted novel on a scrambled, heterogeneous sprawl of mixed-race & immigrant family life in 20th-century gritty London. It follows the roots & the lives of three families: the Iqbals, the Jones` & the Chalfens. With an interesting concoction of cultures, ranging from the Radio-4-listening, herbal-tea-drinking Chalfens, to the Bengali, strict muslim Iqbals, Zadie Smith generates a colourful & exciting picture of West London. With a perfect ear for the nuances of identity & social position, Smith takes on race, sex, class, history, religion, the classic immigrant fears of dilution & disappearance, & the minefield of gender politics. & such is her wit & inventiveness that these weighty subjects seem effortlessly light. Dipping into the ancestry of characters along the way, White Teeth provides humorous, well-rounded & thoughtful accounts of all of its protagonists. They aren`t heroic, just real: warm, funny, misguided, & entirely familiar. Dealing
- among many other things
- with friendship, love, war, three cultures & three families over three generations, one brown mouse, & the tricky way the past has of coming back & biting you on the ankle, it is a life-affirming, riotous must-read of a book.

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One of the most talked about first novels ever, White Teeth is a funny, generous, big-hearted novel, adored by critics & readers alike. Dealing
- among many things
- with friendship, love, war, three cultures & three families over three generations, one brown mouse, & the tricky way the past has of coming back & biting you on the ankle, it is a life-affirming, riotous must-read of a book.

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In this landmark book, Nancy Isenberg argues that the voters who boosted Trump all the way to the White House have been a permanent part of the American fabric, & reveals how the wretched & landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlements to today`s hillbillies. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century & the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics
- a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms & Lyndon B. Johnson`s Great Society; they are now offered up as entertainment in reality TV shows, & the label is applied to celebrities ranging from Dolly Parton to Bill Clinton. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the centre of major political debates over the character of the American identity. Surveying political rhetoric & policy, popular literature & scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America`s supposedly class-free society
- where liberty & hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility
- & forces a nation to face the truth about the enduring, malevolent nature of class.


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The wretched white poor in America have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement to today`s banjo-plucking hillbillies. They have been labelled Clay-Eaters & Waste People, an underclass that runs contrary to the American dream that hard-work begets success. Yet these marginalized whites have always been near the centre of major debates over the character of the American identity, as crucial to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century as they have been to the election of Donald Trump in 2017. In her groundbreaking history of the class system in America, Nancy Isenberg takes on a nation`s comforting myths about equality, uncovering the legacy of ever-present, always embarrassing
- if occasionally entertaining
- white trash.

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This is an inspiring, high quality, paddling guidebook aimed at the recreational tourist kayaker, canoeist or rafter who is considering a holiday trip to the European Alps. It contains 65 classic runs in France, Italy & Switzerl&. In the last 16 years this title has established itself as probably the most popular rivers guidebook in Europe. This new edition has been freshly researched, re-designed in full colour, completely re-written & updated. It now

Includes:: a brand new paddling area, 9 new rivers, 30 new full colour maps, numerous cartoons & a huge number of stunning & inspiring photographs. The South Alps are Europe`s top destination for white water sports & this new edition reflects this with contributions from local experts & top international river runners. The authors are renowned expedition kayakers. It

Includes:: the best white water in Europe, & detailed rafting advice. It is conveniently grouped by centres. It offers expert travel & logistics advice. It features over 450 km of river descriptions & a huge variety of runs.



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