Paul Theroux

"Cal has always lived in the shadow of his brother, Frank, a complicated narcissist who was doted upon by their mother and beloved by the girls in their hometown-including Cal's own girlfriends. In an attempt to escape Frank's insidious presence, Cal pursues a different kind of freedom in the world's wild spaces, prospecting for gold and precious minerals everywhere from the heat of the desert at the Mexican border to the Alaskan chill to the suffocating...

"Legendary travel writer Paul Theroux fearlessly drives the entire length of the US-Mexico border, then goes deep into the hinterland, on the back roads of Chiapas and Oaxaca, to uncover the rich, layered world behind today's brutal headlines."--Provided by publisher.

Jay, one of seven living children, contemplates his mother's influence on the family and his life, as he struggles with her disappointment in him and suspects she may have sabotaged a budding relationship.

"[Hock] knows he is ensorcelled by exoticism, but he can't help himself. And, as things go from bad to worse and the pages start to turn faster, neither can we. A."—Entertainment Weekly
When he was a young man, Ellis Hock spent four of the best years of his life with the Peace Corps in Malawi. So when his wife of forty-two years leaves him, he decides to return to the village where he was stationed in search of the happiness...

The world's most acclaimed travel writer journeys through western Africa from Cape Town to the Congo.

In the Washington Post Book World, Sven Birkerts called this exuberant novel "a complex and gripping work of invention and confession . . . I understood again how the prose of a true writer can bring us to a world beyond." The book spans almost thirty years in the life of a fictional "Paul Theroux," who moves through young bachelorhood in Africa, in and out of marriage, affairs, and employment, and between continents. It's a wry, worldly, erotic,

...

Slade Steadman's lone opus, published twenty years ago, was Trespassing, a cult classic about his travels through dozens of countries without benefit of passport. With his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend Ava in tow, Steadman sets out for Ecuador's jungle in search of a rare hallucinogenic drug and the cure for his writer's block. Amid a gang of thrill-seeking tourists, he finds his drug and his inspiration but is beset with an unnerving side effect—periodic...

"Never a dull moment . . . Vivid and deft." — New York Review of Books
Maude Pratt is a legend, a photographer famous for her cutting-edge techniques and uncanny ability to strip away the masks of the world's most recognizable celebrities and luminaries. Now in her seventies, Maude has been in the public eye since the 1920s, and her unparalleled portfolio includes intimate portraits of Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, and Picasso. While Maude possesses...

Counter Paul Theroux invites us to join him on the journey of a lifetime, in the grand romantic tradition, by train across Europe, through the vast underbelly of Asia into the heart of Russia, and then up to China. Here is China by rail (the Iron Rooster is the name of a train), as seen and heard through the eyes and ears of one of the most intrepid and insightful travel writers of our time.

During the time of Lyndon Johnson's presidency, Herbie Gneiss is forced to leave college to get a job. His income from the Kant-Brake toy factory, which manufactures military toys for children, keeps his chocolate-loving mother from starvation. Mr. Gibbon, a patriotic veteran of three wars, also works at Kant-Brake. When Herbie is drafted, Mr. Gibbon falls in love with Herbie's mother and they move in together at Miss Ball's rooming house. Since Herbie...