Arcadia Books – serie

In an exquisite personal pilgrimage, Corinne Hofmann delves into the slums of Nairobi to uncover the heart-warming and heart-breaking stories of unforgettable people and places, then treks 500 miles across the Namibian desert to discover the lives of the nomadic Himba people. Joined by her half-Kenyan daughter, Napirai, they travel to Nairobi together for the first time to discover Napirai s roots and finally meet her father and half-siblings. Africa, My Passion is a poignant, touching and exciting story about one woman's love affair with a unique man, which led to a lifelong obsession with Africa. Moving, vividly recounted, eye-opening and, above all, filled with passionate hope and unparalleled detail, this is an extraordinary sequel to a bestselling series of memoirs.

An incisive portrait of small-town life, exploding into a panoramic portrayal of the nature of change, freedom, pride and prejudice.

In countries where scarce surface water causes disease and conflict, an abundance of water can bring peace.With the growing impact of climate change, an estimated one third of the world's population lacks fresh water. By 2050 it could well be over half, some five billion people.Alain Gachet, known as the "Wizard of H2O", explores and unravels the interrelated humanitarian, environmental, scientific and geo-political concerns generated by water scarcity. An archaeological explorer and mining engineer, Gachet has developed a technology (using Nasa satellite imagery) to identify massive aquifers beneath the earth's surface using a mathematical algorithm that could completely change our future.As well as exploring our current environmental crisis (and offering some solutions), Gachet gives an account of his extraordinary adventures as a mining engineer both before and since he became an expert in deep groundwater - in Congo; in Libya, where he has an audience with Colonel Gaddafi; in Darfur, where he works alongside refugee agencies to provide water to vast camps, often at risk to his life; in Iraq and in Kurdistan, where he encounters both the Peshmerga and the Yazidi people; and in the Turkana region of Kenya, where his discoveries of vast underground reservoirs have been transformative to the lives of the people in an area plagued by drought and disputes over livestock for generations.Gachet discusses the critical issues of climate change and desertification, melting glaciers and rising sea levels, but this is also a book about the people he meets in some of the world's most challenging zones of conflict and deprivation. Ultimately this is a book of hope as we explore some of the solutions for the future."If the quest to find high-quality water for millions has a superstar, that person is Alain Gachet. Living a truly adventurous life in a scientific field where underground water is hidden and elusive, he has advanced the science and, at the same time, uniquely served society. This is an exciting story of risk, daring, hydrophilanthropy, and reflection on one of the most important challenges facing humankind." DAVID K. KREAMER, President, International Association of Hydrogeologists

"A wonderful, vivid account of a record-breaking, 18,000-mile adventure" Cycle ActiveAn incredible record-breaking journey around the world in 169 days - solo and by bike - by the Stanford Dolman Prize-winning travel writer.When Julian Sayarer learns the world record for a circumnavigation by bicycle has been broken, and that adventure has been bought by banks and big business, he leaves his job as a London bike courier and sets out determined to take it back.Riding an average of 110 miles a day and as much as 240, he lives six months on the road and on a daily budget of £8.84. His route leads him through Europe and Russia, east to Shanghai, before reaching the jungles of Malaysia, the hills of New Zealand and the deserts and plains of North America. Twenty countries pass beneath his wheels, rolling through hurricanes and alongside homeless cycling tramps.Life Cycles is not only an account of incredible physical endurance but also a roadside view of a changing world. From US trailer families to Chinese factories and Kazakh nomads, this thrilling tale of discovery and adventure is a reminder that the world is out there and waiting for us.

"A rich layering of motive and emotion . . . robust dialogue, streetwise humour and muscular, mischievous vernaculour" IndependentSet on the streets of Brixton, south London, BRENTON BROWN is a fatal love story about a man who never got over his first love, a perfect love with his half-sister Juliet that has left him unable to form any real relationships since they both decided it must end."Wheatle's dialogue sings" GuardianJuliet is consumed by guilt because she knows that her half-brother, Brenton, grew up in children's homes with no family to speak of, while she received all her mother's love. She has a career with good prospects in politics, and has married Clayton, a successful banker, to please her mother. He treats her daughter, Breanna, like his own - but secretly he has always suspected that there has been something going on between Juliet and Brenton.Unable to let go physically or emotionally, Brenton takes the advice of his longstanding friend Floyd, and decides to start a new life in another country. When their good intentions fail, Juliet and Brenton must pay the ultimate price.A story about family ties, forbidden love and life, BRENTON BROWN is shot through with robust humour, unforgettable characters, unerringly pitched dialogue and towering emotion.

'Alex Wheatle writes from a place of honesty and passion with the full knowledge and understanding that change can only happen through words and actions' - Steve McQueen Four schoolchildren decide to run away from the the horrors of their everyday lives in a children's home. Seeking asylum in the woods, they enjoy the exhilaration of freedom and the first flush of adolescence. Yet the forest slowly asserts its own power and what happens out in the wild will affect the four boys' lives forever. With his compelling narrative directness, rhythmic prose, and trademark humour, Alex Wheatle shows himself to be an author of real calibre, exposing the social stigma associated with children's homes, and the horrifying psychological consequences of their impact on children at the most sensitive stage. Never losing pace or failing to engage the reader at every moment, Home Boys is an unflinchingly honest depiction of disrupted childhoods.

Short stories from the award-winning, bestselling and acclaimed Michael Arditti'[These stories] simply and elegantly break your heart. They deserve a wide audience, and will create a wiser one' Amanda CraigArditti imbues his stories of loneliness, confusion and the uncertainties of sexual neophytes with genuine pathos and . . . humour' The TimesA young boy discovers the ambiguity of adult affection. A camp comedian cracks up on stage. A picture-restorer learns to accept her husband's true nature. A travel agent tastes the mysterious power of the Internet. A honeymoon couple take an unconventional route to love . . .These stories employ a spectrum of different voices to explore all aspects of experience - friendship, family, misunderstandings, frustrations, griefs and joys. They will appeal not only to the author's loyal readers, but also to a broad new readership for their assured style, humour, compassion and insight.

The story of a lost film about the relationship between Adolf Hitler and the English aristocrat Unity Mitford'A wonderful novel, written with exceptional knowledge and understanding of past and present Germany' Gitta Sereny'The most intriguing and thought-provoking novel I have read this year' Daily Express'A remarkable, unsettling book' The Times'A gripping read packed with intrigue, sex, politics and death. What more could you possibly want?' AttitudeUnity tells the story of a lost film about the relationship between the English aristocrat, Unity Mitford, and Hitler, set against the background of the Red Army Faction terror campaign in 1970s Germany. Shooting has to be abandoned when the leading actress, Felicity Benthall, joins in the campaign, following her affair with a charismatic Palestinian. The author himself features in the narrative when, almost thirty years later, he attempts to uncover the truth about Felicity and another university friend, Luke Dent, who wrote the film-script. He consults Luke's letters from the set and the diaries of the former Hollywood child star and revolutionary socialist, Geraldine Mortimer, who played Diana Mosley; interviews two of the German actors and the film's producer, Thomas Bücher, an Auschwitz survivor turned high-powered pornographer; reads a revealing memoir by the director's widow; and corresponds with Carole Medhurst, a British actress turned Hollywood mogul. Their testimonies set up an intricate chain of associations from 1930s Britain to post-war Germany, painting a disturbing picture of corruption and fanaticism, and casting light on the nature of evil.

'To stand with your peace-flag in front of an army tank and be surprised when you get shot at: this is all the joy of youth. To ask to be fired upon and then have all your friends be outraged for you: this is love.'In the first years of this century, three young people, Anne-Marie, David and Mohammed, try to find their places in a changed world of identity politics, religion, conflict and betrayal. Set against the background first of student life and then Palestine, Israel and the Balkans, this beautifully written, original and powerful debut novel draws on the poetry of the Song of Songs and the Persian poet Rumi, and asks searching questions about the nature of betrayal, loyalty and identity, both in our personal lives and in today's troubled world.

Corinne Hofmann describes her return to Switzerland and the difficulties that faced her there, detailing how she built a new life for herself and her daughter and overcame all obstacles, with the same courage and optimism with which she faced the demands of her life in the Kenyan outback.

"I have read few autobiographies more extraordinary . . . Astonishing" OBSERVER"A classic. I preferred it to Primo Levi's If This is a Man" EDWARD WILSON"A child's clear-eyed journey to hell" ANNE SEBBAThis is a story of a young boy's journey from a sleepy provincial town in Hungary during the Second World War to the concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen. After a winter in Bergen-Belsen where his father died, he and his mother were liberated by the Americans outside a small German village, and handed over to the Red Army. They escaped from the Russians, and travelled, hiding on a goods train, through Prague to Budapest. Unlike other books dealing with this period, this is not a Holocaust story, but a child's recollection of a journey full of surprise, excitement, bereavement and terror. Yet this remains a testimony of survival, overcoming obstacles which to adults may seem insurmountable but to a child were just part of an adventure and, ultimately, recovery. After having established a career in the West, the author decided to revisit the stages on his earlier journeys, reliving the past through the perspective of the present. Along the way, ghosts from the past are finally laid to rest by the kindness of new friends.With an introduction by Lisa Appignanesi

The Buddha taught that to live is to experience suffering. Few family sagas, especially first ones, have captured this aspect of suffering and so many other truths in as lyric a fashion as "When Memory Dies". Through the viewpoints of three generations of a Sri Lankan family (taking the reader from 1920 through the 1980s), Sivanandan explores a culture destroyed first by colonization, then through the ethnic divisions that are released when the country achieves independence. The family, which lives at a level of poverty that makes survival a constant struggle, must also balance love for one another with a deep love of their homeland. Without bending to romanticism or proselytization, the author evokes a compelling and very human story of a lost country. It is a vision as beautifully told as it is unrelenting in its devotion to truth. In the process, the work also supplies a rich historic background to the often underreported news accounts of the massacres and upheavals in Sri Lanka.

"Gripping, hugely involving, and very satisfying" KATE MOSSE"A dramatic story of family intrigue, religious passions and riproaring romance" MICHELE ROBERTSTyphoon is set in Chiragpur, a Pakistani village warped in time, space and guilt, whose inhabitants are still traumatised by what happened some twenty years earlier in a courtroom (kacheri). With the arrival of a beautiful stranger from the city, the villagers are helplessly swept along by a typhoon-like series of events and become buried under the burden of their guilt.Closely guarding their small silk parcels containing a lock of a woman's hair, they all hope to return it to its rightful owner and beg her forgiveness. Typhoon is a tragic tale of three young women, each one demonised by their past: Naghmana - the glamorous stranger from the city; Chaudharani Kaniz - the village land baron, and Gulshan - the innocent wife. One is caught in the arms of another woman's husband in the middle of the night; another was raped in her youth; and the third woman's world fell apart as she lost her husband, before her eyes, to a total stranger and her mother vowed revenge. For all three there is no escape from what fate has in store.

This is an edge-of-your-seat Brock and Kolla mystery set within a radical artists' community in London where three children have been abducted in a matter of weeks. The most recent is six-year-old Tracey Rudd, daughter of the infamous Turner Prize winner Gabriel Rudd. After his wife's suicide five years ago, Tracey's grandparents laid the blame with the self-absorbed Rudd, and now hint at his complicity in this newest tragedy. Unbelievably, he begins almost immediately to exploit Tracey's abduction as inspiration for a major and controversial new artwork, in the full glare of media attention. The superb duo DCI David Brock and DS Kathy Kolla are embroiled in their most compelling case yet, conducting an intensive hunt for the missing children and their kidnappers, who appear to be connected to an eccentric and suspicious community of artists, dealers and collectors, all of whom are under suspicion.

An expert's guide to tracing ancestry in the Caribbean islandsBy a genealogist who has dedicated more than 11 years of his life to uncovering the saga of his African slave ancestors comes a guide for others to capitalise on his informed techniques and discover just what it means to know where one is from.Offering ground-breaking insights into how to delve into one's past, this book is intended both for beginners, educationalists and experienced researchers and provides inspiration to those who believe that their search may be hampered by having mixed parentage or a history of migration through the ages. An instructive guide for those interested in finding out more about their family connections with the Caribbean islands, it offers techniques and approaches that can be applied to any one researching their ancestors around the world.

One night, two men waving guns and knives break and enter their Paris hotel room, terrorizing Russell and his much older companion, a famous American poet named Edward Cannon. The intruders, not finding what they seemingly expected, leave without further incident. But the baffling, traumatic events overwhelm Cannon who dies in his sleep later that night. Now Russell is left to ponder the meaning of the attack, what to do with the poet's unfinished, problematic memoir and, perhaps most importantly, how to reconstruct and move forward with his own life.Hearing of the disturbing circumstances of Cannon's death, an Italian writer, Marina Vezzoli, invites Russell to recuperate at her villa in Tuscany. But what at first seems like a generous invitation slowly reveals itself to be a calculated offer. As Russell's stay in Italy lengthens, he begins to realize that the people in his life are using or manipulating him, most of all the poet's New York publishers who, against the dying poet's wishes, are trying to acquire his unfinished manuscript. Looming over everything is the long and fascinating legacy of Villa Guidi, where during Word War II a Jewish family hid in the subterranean floors, later undergoing a conversion to Catholicism. In an echo of this dramatic history, Russell is forced to undergo a conversion of his own in order to find redemption and meaning in his life.

This is one of Scandinavia's top crime writers in the tradition of Henning Mankell. It was one of those days in February of which there are far too many, despite its being the shortest month of the year. February is the year's parenthesis. The tax forms have already been sent in and the tourist season has not yet started: there is nothing on the schedule. Greyish-brown slush lay in the gutters and the hills around the city were barely visible through the fog. Like the golden buttons on the waistcoat of a forgotten snowman, you could just make out the lights of the funicular up the hillside and the street lamps were lit even in the middle of the day...In this crime drama detective Varg Veum's adventures lead him into a dark world of privileged teenage girls who have been drawn into drugs and prostitution. The situation worsens when the local judge is discovered in a luxury hotel, dead and clad only in women's lingerie. Called in by anxious parents to look for a missing daughter and explain the judge's death, Varg finds clues that lead him only deeper into Bergen's criminal underworld.

Skeletons are discovered in a wasteland behind Cockpit Lane, a poor largely black area of inner south London, and DCI David Brock and DS Kathy Kolla of Scotland Yard's Serious Crimes Branch are called in to investigate. The discovery that the victims died during the Brixton riots, over twenty years before, lead Brock and Kolla on a dark and dangerous journey in which past and present come together in an intricate web of deception and intrigue as Brock encounters a formidable old antagonist, Spider Roach. In a desperate search to find a crucial piece of evidence, Brock and Kolla unwittingly set in train a series of events that erupt in a shocking, violent conclusion. Written with Maitland's characteristically vivid sense of character and place, "Spider Trap" is Maitland at his scrupulously plotted, complex and compelling best.

Josiah Horatio Nelson is born to unusual parents. Having met in a psychiatric hospital, they decide to bring up their child far away from the constraints of conventional society. But social services soon intervene to remove him from his idyllic home. Friendless, ostracised and bullied, Josiah is saved from despair when he meets his Latin tutor,Thomas Marius, with whom he soon forms an intense relationship. Marius takes him to Italy on an educational visit but returns to find he is suspected of child abuse...

The hazards and secrets of the book trade and writing for television and the theatre are revealed and co-mingle with the joys of travel, family and entertaining. The alarums and excursions of an arson attack and the efforts to ease the lot of fellow writers imprisoned for their beliefs in democracy are eclipsed temporarily as Rosemary Friedman emerges from the valley of the shadow of death into which she is unexpectedly precipitated. With her skill and acute eye she takes us behind the scenes of the theatre (in which applause is the writer's personal laurel wreath) and lets us into the machinations of auditions, directors and stage managers and the dynamics of plays themselves in which every actor is expected to be 'dead letter perfect'. In summing up she concludes (with WS Gilbert) that life ' - is a joke that's just begun'.

The year is 1949 and the Allied Powers' advance on Moscow in the wake of Nazi defeat has failed. As Stalin's tanks rumble through the streets of London, Winston Churchill decides to put an end to his life. Fast forward to 1989 and England is divided between the Soviets and the Americans, with the capital split in two. Metropolitan People's Police detective Harry Stark is called to investigate a corpse found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge. An American infiltrator tells him the body is linked to a dissident plot involving Churchill's notorious suicide...

"Gripping, hugely involving, and very satisfying" KATE MOSSESet in Pakistan, London and Egypt, this epic drama centres around the life of Zarri, the glamorous daughter of a wealthy landowner. Zarrie Bano is the charismatic 28-year-old daughter of a wealthy Muslim landowner. She falls in love with Sikander, a business tycoon to whom her father takes an immediate dislike. When Zarri's brother is killed in a freak accident, her father decides to make her his heiress, resurrecting an ancient tradition and forcing her into marriage to the Holy Koran, to become her clan's 'holy woman' - a nun.A powerful and compelling family drama, The Holy Woman is a romantic story of love and betrayal within a wealthy Muslim community.

A turbulent affair plays out in the pilgrim city of Lourdes'Carries you through with humour, warmth and, above all, the urgency of a great romance' Guardian'Closing this novel after reading the last page, one briefly believes in miracles, at least of the human redemptive kind' Independent on Sunday'Jubilate is something to celebrate indeed' IndependentA woman wakes in a Lourdes hotel room beside her lover of just two days. She has brought her brain-damaged husband on a pilgrimage to seek a miracle cure; her lover is making a TV documentary to mark the shrine's 150th anniversary year. Setting aside personal doubts, family ties and spiritual differences, they embark on a turbulent affair from which neither they nor those around them will emerge unchanged.

Starting in the ramshackle but romantic capital of Havana, Peter Millar travels with ordinary Cubans, sharing anecdotes, life stories and political opinions to the far end of the island, the Guantanamo naval base and detention camp.

Follow Peter Millar on a journey in the heart of Cold War Europe, from the carousing bars of 1970s Fleet Street to the East Berlin corner pub with its eclectic cast of characters who embodied the reality of living on the wrong side of the wall.

Berlin. A city where nightclubs stay open from Friday night till Monday morning. A city with an underbelly as dark and addictive as the 24-hour drugs, drinking, dancing and sex in filthy toilets that it serves up. Three young men, from different backgrounds, meet here by chance, struggling to find a future and to escape from the past. Tobias was violated as a child and tossed from one city to another by separated parents. Now he's got AIDS and can find only fleeting happiness with a new lover. Armand fled from his middle-class family home to live as a painter and set up house with a high-school sweetheart. Tugged between expectations, desire and responsibilities, he flees to give release his artistic soul. But at what cost? Franz was raised in a good, wealthy German family and believed he was capable of achieving anything he wanted. A job in a nightclub leads him into the Berlin underworld, where his life takes an unexpected turn and he is threatened with ruin. Berlin promises both escape and salvation for these three young men, in a stunning coming-of-age story by award-winning author Oscar Coop-Phane.With grace and affection, he depicts a cast of flawed characters whose lives spiral downwards, their lifestyles drawing them into a grimy abyss that threatens to eclipse them. A literary masterpiece, Tomorrow, Berlin is a compelling ode to youth and desire, and a stark reminder that escape can only ever be an illusion.

"Rhodes' depiction of disaster and ensuring PTSD has the ring of authenticity: he was at Hillsborough that fateful day" DAILY MAIL"A remarkable thing to read. It has immense power and is utterly compelling" SCOTT PACKIn 1989, 18-year-old John Finch spends his Saturdays following Nottingham Forest up and down the country, and the rest of the week trudging the streets of his hometown as a postal worker. Leading inexorably towards the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough, the worst sporting disaster on British history, 'Fan' glides between 1989 and 2004, when the true impact of this tragic day becomes evident.Fan is a book about personal and collective tragedy. It's about growing up and not growing up, about manhood and about what makes a man, and about football's role in reflecting a society never more than a brick's throw away from shattering point.Dark, haunting and deeply personal, Danny Rhodes' heart-felt novel explodes with gut-wrenching emotion and exposes how disaster can not only affect a life, but change its course for ever.

Laura Glass's life seems perfect. She's beautiful, wealthy, her husband loves her and their teenage kids Leo and Jemima are at good schools. Then one day Laura's happiness is shattered when she sees her husband kissing a young woman in a doorway. Some of Laura's friends tell her to divorce him; others say ignore it. Instead Laura goes off on an adventure of her own with the beautiful young Jed. On their return, seeing that her husband is still continuing his affair, she invites his lover to live in their home. And Jed too, just, for good measure.

Olivia is thirty-two and living back home with her mother in Caprock, small-town Texas. Her therapist is a girl she went to high school with; her promising career in journalism has dwindled to nothing, and she spends her days hawking jewellery in a Mall following a favour from a friend. Life is back on an even-keel after her descent into drug abuse, but it's a far cry from the one she imagined ...Then, under pressure to take up a hobby, she decides to try urban exploration. Soon she's poking through derelict homes, churches and schools across North Texas. But Olivia knows her therapist would disapprove. What began as a harmless distraction soon becomes a lucrative business as she collects and sells antique fittings and fixtures online.Her new-found freedom starts to spiral out of control. Victimless trespass is fast evolving into criminal behaviour, and the path her rehabilitation is taking leads Olivia to question her own moral code. She's not supposed to withhold information from her therapist - yet she does.Nor is she supposed to be stashing money in a secret account when she owes so much to so many - and although she's supposedly prohibited from communicating with people from her past, old friends keep showing up, making demands and threats. To add to it all, her baby sister has turned up pregnant, the question of their absent fathers has once more been unearthed, and her prescribed medication is inducing an unnatural detachment that makes her feel as though she's not present in her own life.Tackling difficult subjects with a warmth and humour, and creating an unforgettable protagonist, Jen Waldo brings an electrifying tone to fiction - she is an astonishing new American voice who will stop you in her tracks.