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Playfully perverse in form as well as content, riddled with puns and literary allusions, Nabokov's 1955 novel is a hymn to the Russian-born author's delight in his adopted language. Indeed, readers who want to probe all of its allusive nooks and crannies will need to consult the annotated edition. Lolita is undoubtedly, brazenly erotic, but the eroticism springs less from the "frail honey-hued shoulders ... the silky supple bare back" of little Lo than it does from the wantonly gorgeous prose that Humbert uses to recount his forbidden passion:

She was musical and apple-sweet ... Lola the bobby-soxer, devouring her immemorial fruit, singing through its juice ... and every movement she made, every shuffle and ripple, helped me to conceal and to improve the secret system of tactile correspondence between beast and beauty--between my gagged, bursting beast and the beauty of her dimpled body in its innocent cotton frock.

A distant relative of the first geneticist, pea-pollinating Gregor Mendel, Ben has long used libraries as a refuge, and education as a way out (if not up). Still in his 20s, he's determined to identify the gene that made him "one of nature's practical jokes." Offered a post at the Royal Institute for Genetics, he immediately puts achondroplasia on the table. The director may well consider research into dwarfdom commercially unviable, but Ben knows better. His height will finally be of help: "There are lots of organizations interested," he insists. "The Little People of America, groups like that. When they see me coming they reach for their covenant forms."

Mawer interleaves Ben's research with the story of his affair (a "menage à une et demi") with the Institute's ill-fated assistant librarian, Jeane Piercey: "Mousy, of course. I feel that all librarians ought to be mousy. It should be a necessary (but not sufficient) qualification for the job. Mousy? Agouti? What, I wonder, is its genetic control? Perhaps it is tightly linked to the gene for tidiness." Mawer also juxtaposes Ben's passion with that of his legume-obsessed ancestor. Mendel, it turns out, pined for Frau Rotway, a married woman in the inevitable company of her own achondroplastic, a dachshund.

Mendel's Dwarf wears its considerable learning lightly--the author is a biologist--and readers will be alternately moved, charmed, and shocked by Ben's "astringent kiss of irony." Because the hero makes several difficult choices in the course of this fine novel, we admire his bravery, along with his resilience, at every turn. For Ben, the smallest gesture can become the largest (nods being "big absurd things, my head being about the same size as my body. You can't miss them. They are the gestural equivalent of screaming"). And alas, such acts are often poignantly beyond Ben's grasp: "I wanted to put my arm around her, of course, to bring her that fragile thing that we call comfort. But of course I couldn't reach."

The suspense of the novel is sustained by the careful revelation of the central art-theft plot; in turn, each major character becomes the narrative center and offers an expanded understanding of the events at San Giovanni. While Argyll is troubled over his fiancée's frequent absences just prior to their wedding, Flavia feels compelled to keep odd hours. She's certain that her old nemesis, Mary Verney, has returned to Rome with the intention of committing a major new theft. And Verney, readers soon learn, is herself in jeopardy. She must steal a Madonna icon from the monastery--despite the close scrutiny she faces from the Rome police force--because the sadistic Mikis Charanis has kidnapped Verney's granddaughter, 8-year-old Louise, and he will only release the child when Verney has acquired the artifact from San Giovanni. Underlying each character's concerns is the mystery of the Madonna itself. Why does Charanis covet this piece over the more valuable, though still dubious, Caravaggio that is also in the monastery? In the end, the novel is a perfect melding of a tightly composed mystery plot, witty dialogue, and a realistic sense of character, all flowing from an intellectual's appreciation for the finer things in life. For readers who discovered Pears's fiction through An Instance of the Fingerpost, the Argyll series--particularly Death and Restoration--offers much to satiate the need for his pleasantly baroque sensibilities. Other works in the Argyll series include The Raphael Affair, The Titian Committee, The Bernini Bust, The Last Judgement, and Giotto's Hand. --Patrick O'Kelley

"The greatest writer of historical adventures today" (Washington Post) tackles his richest, most thrilling subject yet--the heroic tale of Agincourt.

Young Nicholas Hook is dogged by a cursed past--haunted by what he has failed to do and banished for what he has done. A wanted man in England, he is driven to fight as a mercenary archer in France, where he finds two things he can love: his instincts as a fighting man, and a girl in trouble. Together they survive the notorious massacre at Soissons, an event that shocks all Christendom. With no options left, Hook heads home to England, where his capture means certain death. Instead he is discovered by the young King of England--Henry V himself--and by royal command he takes up the longbow again and dons the cross of Saint George. Hook returns to France as part of the superb army Henry leads in his quest to claim the French crown. But after the English campaign suffers devastating early losses, it becomes clear that Hook and his fellow archers are their king's last resort in a desperate fight against an enemy more daunting than they could ever have imagined.

One of the most dramatic victories in British history, the battle of Agincourt--immortalized by Shakespeare in Henry V--pitted undermanned and overwhelmed English forces against a French army determined to keep their crown out of Henry's hands. Here Bernard Cornwell resurrects the legend of the battle and the "band of brothers" who fought it on October 25, 1415. An epic of redemption, Agincourt follows a commoner, a king, and a nation's entire army on an improbable mission to test the will of God and reclaim what is rightfully theirs. From the disasters at the siege of Harfleur to the horrors of the field of Agincourt, this exhilarating story of survival and slaughter is at once a brilliant work of history and a triumph of imagination—Bernard Cornwell at his best.

Historical Notes on Agincourt by Bernard Cornwell

The battle of Agincourt (Azincourt was and remains the French spelling) was one of the most remarkable events of medieval Europe, a battle whose reputation far outranked its importance. In the long history of Anglo-French rivalry only Hastings, Waterloo, Trafalgar, and Crécy share Agincourt’s renown. It is arguable that Poitiers was a more significant battle and an even more complete victory, or that Verneuil was just as astonishing a triumph, and it’s certain that Hastings, Blenheim, Victoria, Trafalgar, and Waterloo were more influential on the course of history, yet Agincourt still holds its extraordinary place in English legend. Something quite remarkable happened on 25 October 1415 (Agincourt was fought long before Christendom’s conversion to the new-style calendar, so the modern anniversary should be on 4 November). It was something so remarkable that its fame persists almost six hundred years later.

Agincourt’s fame could just be an accident, a quirk of history reinforced by Shakespeare’s genius, but the evidence suggests it really was a battle that sent a shock wave through Europe. For years afterward the French called 25 October 1415 la malheureuse journée (the unfortunate day). Even after they had expelled the English from France they remembered la malheureuse journée with sadness. It had been a disaster.

Yet it was so nearly a disaster for Henry V and his small, but well-equipped army. That army had sailed from Southampton Water with high hopes, the chief of which was the swift capture of Harfleur, which would be followed by a foray into the French heartland in hope, presumably, of bringing the French to battle. A victory in that battle would demonstrate, at least in the pious Henry’s mind, God’s support of his claim to the French throne, and might even propel him onto that throne. Such hopes were not vain when his army was intact, but the siege of Harfleur took much longer than expected and Henry’s army was almost ruined by dysentery.

The tale of the siege in the novel is, by and large, accurate, though I did take one great liberty, which was to sink a mineshaft opposite the Leure Gate. There was no such shaft, the ground would not allow it, and all the real mines were dug by the Duke of Clarence’s forces that were assailing the eastern side of Harfleur. The French counter-mines defeated those diggings, but I wanted to give a flavor, however inadequately, of the horrors men faced in fighting beneath the earth. The defense of Harfleur was magnificent, for which much of the praise must go to Raoul de Gaucourt, one of the garrison’s leaders. His defiance, and the long days of the siege, gave the French a chance to raise a much larger army than any they might have fielded against Henry if the siege had ended, say, in early September.

Maps of the Battlefield (Click to Enlarge)

England and France, 1415: One of the most dramatic victories in British history, the battle of Agincourt--immortalized by Shakespeare in Henry V--pitted undermanned and overwhelmed English forces against a French army determined to keep their crown out of Henry's hands.

The French Coast: The British campaign, which started at Harfleur, ended more than two months later on 25 October at Agincourt.	Harfleur: Henry's army landed in northern France on 13 August 1415 and besieged the port of Harfleur.	The Battle Lines: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.” – William Shakespeare, Henry V

"Most Americans living today never heard Ed Murrow in a live broadcast. This book is for them I want them to know that broadcast journalism was established by someone with the highest standards. Tabloid crime stories, so much a part of the lust for ratings by today's news broadcasters, held no interest for Murrow. He did like Hollywood celebrities, but interviewed them for his entertainment programs; they had no place on his news programs. My book is focused on this life in journalism. I offer it in the hope that more people in and out of the news business will get to know Ed Murrow. Perhaps in time the descent from Murrow's principles can be reversed."
—Bob Edwards

Despite the volumes written about World War II, many questions remain un-answered. In this balanced and thoughtful chronicle, historian and World War II expert Len Deighton dares to explore intriguing questions, including why the British weren't more prepared for the Blitz and why Hitler failed to thoroughly support his U-boat program. He also warns that we haven't yet learned the lessons of World War II, as ethnic cleansing, Middle East violence, and the widening gap between rich and poor still plague the world.

"The China of old, in Mr. van Gulik's skilled hands, comes vividly alive again." --Allen J. Hubin, New York Times Book Review

"If you have not yet discovered Judge Dee, I envy you that initial pleasure . . . the discovery of a great detective story. For the magistrate of Poo-yan belongs in that select group headed by Sherlock Holmes." --Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times

"Pleasing as a cup of jasmine tea." --Parade of Books

Robert van Gulik (1910-67), a Dutch diplomat and an authority on Chinese history and culture, drew his plots from the popular detective novels that appeared in seventeenth-century China.

Frayn's cunning conceit is to use the scientific underpinnings of atomic physics, from Schrödinger's famous cat to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, to explore how an individual's point of view renders attempts to discover the ultimate truth of any human interaction fundamentally impossible. To Margrethe, Heisenberg was always an untrustworthy student, eager to steal from her husband's knowledge. To Bohr, Heisenberg was a brilliant if irresponsible foster son, whose lack of moral compass was part of his genius. As for Heisenberg, the man who could have built the bomb but somehow failed to, his dilemma is at the heart of the play's conflict. Frayn's clever dramatic structure, which returns repeatedly to particular scenes from different points of view, allows several possible theories as to what his motives could have been. This isn't the first play to successfully merge the worlds of science and theater (one is inevitably reminded of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and Hapgood), but it's certainly one of the most dramatically successful. --John Longenbaugh

2,300 years ago an unbeaten army of the West invaded the homeland of a fierce Eastern tribal foe. This is one soldier’s story . . .

The bestselling novelist of ancient warfare returns with a riveting historical novel that re-creates Alexander the Great’s invasion of the Afghan kingdoms in 330 b.c.
In a story that might have been ripped from today’s combat dispatches, Steven Pressfield brings to life the confrontation between an invading Western army and fierce Eastern warriors determined at all costs to defend their homeland. Narrated by an infantryman in Alexander’s army, The Afghan Campaign explores the challenges, both military and moral, that Alexander and his soldiers face as they embark on a new type of war and are forced to adapt to the methods of a ruthless foe that employs terror and insurgent tactics. An edge-of-your-seat adventure, The Afghan Campaign once again demonstrates Pressfield’s profound understanding of the hopes and desperation of men in battle and of the historical realities that continue to influence our world.

Zoobooks, the 59-book animal series - the "everything you wanted to know but didn't know who to ask" guide to the world's most fascinating creatures. Each exciting edition of Zoobooks is packed with current scientific facts, striking photography, beautiful illustrations and unique activities that teach children about animals and the habitats in which they live. With innovative publications and products, Wildlife Education, Ltd. has enriched the lives of children, parents, and educators nationwide for 20 years. All titles are offered in library-bound hardcover and soft-cover styles. Zoobooks, ideal for the knowledge-hungry 4-11 year old!

The first important person in Lee's life is his grandmother, Celeste, who arrives annually from "N'awlins" bearing gifts and words of wisdom. "She's sixty-something, going on eighty. Spiritual possession, liquor, tobacco smoking, and sniffing powders has taken its toll, rasped her voice, sucked out her flesh, and taxed her skin." Celeste convinces Lee that Voudou and Baptism--"that down-on-your-knees-know-your-place-slave-church" that his mother belongs to--are just "a hog's whisker apart." Both Lee and Celeste hear voices, the living and the dead, which sometimes comes in handy; for instance, when predicting game scores and winning horses.

Lee falls in love with the daughter of a stereotypical southern racist and nearly gets the life kicked out of him for it. He is thrown on a freight train, mostly dead, and fetches up in St. Louis where he is eventually taken into a psych-ops part of the Army and meets a rich panoply of people as weird as he is. He has some fun at the induction physical: "I got to backtrack about growing up as an Iceland colored, with double-recessive white genes, because my mambo grandmother was only part black, while my daddy was pure Scandinavian blond." Life hands Lee another big surprise after which he is not only a white black person, but something even more startling. About that, Lee says: "Well, I can deal with change. I can wander beyond my comfort zones. I been black, and I been white. I been alive and dead, rich and poor, clever and stupid, entire and broke, one-brained and two-brained (courtesy of the Army), lost and found. But, for sure, there's a limit to how much you can handle..."

There are juicy aphorisms on every page of Cotton, but the book is never preachy, despite covering 25 years of race and gender strife in these United States. The ending is a little too pat, but the rest of the book is such fun to read, Wilson can be forgiven. Wilson's first novel was Mischief in which Charlie discovers that he was an abandoned baby, the last of the Xique Xiques of Brazil and that he has alien qualities that he must hide in order to get along in human society. Clearly, this author has a big imagination. --Valerie Ryan

Love and Longing in Bombay is a mesmerizing collection, filled with fully rounded characters and stories that resonate long after the book is back on the shelf. Chandra's prose is luminous, his tales satisfying. Scheherezade would be impressed.

To find out, Manchester visited those places in the Pacific where as a young Marine he fought the Japanese, and in this book examines his experiences in the line with his fellow soldiers (his "brothers"). He gives us an honest and unabashedly emotional account of his part in the war in the Pacific.

"The most moving memoir of combat on WW II that I have ever read. A testimony to the fortitude of man...a gripping, haunting, book." --William L. Shirer

The other star of the novel is youngish art historian Martin Clay (a Hugh Grant character gone to fat), who identifies the lost Bruegel in a tumbledown country home. The picture elicits an immediate shock of recognition:

Already, somewhere in those first few instants, something has begun to stir inside me. In my head, in the pit of my stomach. It's as if the sun's emerging from the clouds, and the world's changing in front of my eyes, from grey to golden. I can feel the warmth of the sunlight spreading over my skin, passing like a wave of beneficence through my entire body.

As Martin's obsession takes hold, the pace of the novel also accelerates into a breathless rush of action, comic anguish, and scholarly speculation. Not surprisingly, some of Martin's machinations go haywire, which leads to a certain amount of irritating slapstick--shady deals in underground parking lots, art treasures being tipped into the back of a filthy Land Rover, and so forth. But even if he makes his plot work overtime, Frayn is superb in the quest for the meaning of art, not to mention the lure of money and intellectual reputation. And for that alone, Headlong deserves to be called picture perfect. --Eithne Farry

Keegan never tries to ram his learning down your throat. Where other authors have struggled to explain how Britain could ever allow itself to be dragged into such a war in 1914, Keegan keeps his account practical. The level of communications that we enjoy today just didn't exist then, and so it was much harder to keep track of what was going on. By the time a message had finally reached the person in question, the situation may have changed out of all recognition. Keegan applies this same "cock-up" theory of history to the rest of the war, principally the three great disasters at Gallipoli, the Somme, and Passchendaele. The generals didn't send all those troops to their deaths deliberately, Keegan argues; they did it out of incompetence and ineptitude, and because they had no idea of what was actually going on at the front.

While The First World War is not afraid to point the finger at those generals who deserve it, even Keegan has to admit he doesn't have all the answers. If it all seems so obviously futile and such a massive waste of life now, he asks, how could it have seemed worthwhile back then? Why did so many people carry on, knowing they would die? Why, indeed. --John Crace, Amazon.co.uk

Zoobooks, the 59-book animal series - the "everything you wanted to know but didn't know who to ask" guide to the world's most fascinating creatures. Each exciting edition of Zoobooks is packed with current scientific facts, striking photography, beautiful illustrations and unique activities that teach children about animals and the habitats in which they live. With innovative publications and products, Wildlife Education, Ltd. has enriched the lives of children, parents, and educators nationwide for 20 years. All titles are offered in library-bound hardcover and soft-cover styles. Zoobooks, ideal for the knowledge-hungry 4-11 year old!

Emphasizing the points of view of what seems like all the men who took part in the ill-fated endeavor, Slotkin paints a vast, detailed portrait not only of the "Battle of the Crater," but the whole spectrum of mid-19th-century American society. Freed slaves, Jewish jay hawkers, "Molly Maguires" (Irish Pennsylvanian coal miners), northern industrialists, and generals and commanders on both sides all jostle for attention in this painstakingly elaborate literary reenactment, although the use of flashbacks and the prodigious inclusion of military communiques slows the novel's pace somewhat. Most Civil War novels concern themselves ultimately with the reconciliation of the American republic; The Crater focuses on the bleaker issues of race and class which defined the remainder of the 19th century. From its meticulous depiction of Irish-Yankee antagonism during the tunnel's construction to the needless sacrifice (and subsequent scapegoating) of black troops in battle, the novel portrays the War between the States not as the end of the sectional crisis, but as the beginning of a socially divisive industrial order. --John M. Anderson

Over 600 expertly captioned illustrations supplement an informative text that traces British military aviation from the Royal Engineers Balloon Section to the formation of the RAF out of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service during World War I, to the "few" who saved Britain during World War II, to the high-tech developments of the Cold War and post-Cold War world.

Join Lonely Planet Hawaii experts for the best advice on traveling to what Mark Twain called "the loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean." This is a great guide for people of every budget, featuring more than 60 maps, directions for the best outdoor activities, plus background notes on the islands' history, cultures, and people. There's also a Hawaiian language guide, including useful pidgin words and phrases. --Kathryn True

Here is the story of a class that ruled Japan for 700 years, covering such topics as:
-- Samurai organization and clans
-- Fighting strategies and accounts of battles
-- Weapons, armor, and ceremonial dress
-- The golden age of the shoguns
-- The Meiji Restoration and the decline of the samurai

Profusely illustrated with reproductions of artwork, line drawings, and photographs, this volume fully explores the colorful and violent warriors of Japan's feudal past.

From the Big Bend of Texas through the Sonoran and Mohave deserts you'll find cacti growing, their succulent and spiney forms defining the arid southwestern landscape. 70 Common Cacti of the Southwest is an indispensable guide to the names, characteristics, and range of the cacti you are most likely to encounter in this extraordinary region.

* More than 75 close-up photographs
* Includes the species you are most likely to encounter in southwestern deserts and foothills
* Handy information on how to indentify each species
* Brief description of habitat and range

Gendun, the senior lama at the monastery that has given Shan sanctuary, announces to his student, "'You are needed in the north. A woman named Lau has been killed. A teacher. And a lama is missing.'" Though reluctant to leave the gentle presence of the monks who are balm to his crippled soul, Shan realizes he has no choice:

Gendun had told him the one essential truth of the event; for the lamas everything else would be mere rumor. What they had meant was that this lama and the dead woman with a Chinese name were vital to them, and it was for Shan to discover the other truths surrounding the killing and translate them for the lamas' world.

The novel sports a practically Dickensian cast of characters, which might overwhelm the narrative by sheer numbers, yet Pattison manages to add depth to even the most minor of characters, and at the moments when the troupe threatens to become completely unwieldy, he deftly redeems the situation with moments of quiet poetry:

On they went, three small men in the vastness of the changtang, the wind sweeping the grass in long waves around them, the snow-capped peaks shimmering in the brilliant light of dawn. As they appeared over a small knoll they surprised a herd of antelope, which fled across the long plain. Except one, a small animal with a broken horn, which stared as if it recognized them, then ran beside them, alone, until they reached the road.

This brilliant and eloquent book by a distinguished scholar and critic examines the history, the limits, and the promise of the human mind and the knowledge of which it is capable. Professor Highet explores the meaning of our culture from the intellectual and moral monuments of the Greeks, Romans, and Judeo-Christians, and our contemporary thinkers. Out of this book comes a clear definition of knowledge and insights into the strength and limitations of the mind.

In the year 2248, Mars is ruled by a Politburo-like committee that actively discourages dissent as well as travel and exploration of other planets. Scientist Emma Weil becomes involved in a covert plot to convert a stolen ship into a self-supporting spaceship. She turns down a chance to accompany the starfarers, and returns to her beloved Mars where she joins the revolution already in progress.

Three centuries later, archaeologist Hjalmar Nederland unearths a governmental cover-up of the true facts behind the old revolution. At the same time, a Stonehenge-like monument is discovered on the north pole of Pluto, and Nederland sets out to prove his theory that the monument is connected to revolutionaries and their contemporaries who left for the stars. Seventy years later, his great-grandson Edmond Doya becomes convinced that Icehenge is a hoax, and attempts to disprove Nederland's theory.

In addition to futuristic issues such as interstellar travel and the terraforming of Mars, Robinson's characters grapple with politics, careers, families, and aging. Icehenge is a worthy introduction to the author's winning combination of hard science and believable characterization. --Bonnie Bouman

With well over a hundred inhabited islands and a territory that stretches from the Mediterranean to the Balkans, Greece has interest enough to fill months of travel. The historic sites span four millennia, encompassing the legendary and renowned - such as Mycenae, Olympia, Delphi and the Parthenon - and the obscure, where a visit can still seem like a personal discovery. The beaches are parcelled out along a convoluted coastline equal to France's in length, and they range from those of islands where the boat calls twice a week to resorts as cosmopolitan as any in the Mediterranean. Perhaps more surprisingly, the country's mountainous interior offers some of the best and least exploited hiking in Europe.

Modern Greece is the result of an extraordinary diversity of influences. Romans, Arabs, Latin Crusaders, Venetians, Slavs, Albanians, Turks, Italians, to say nothing of the Orthodox Byzantine empire, have been and gone since the time of Alexander the Great. All have left their mark: the Byzantines in countless churches and monasteries and in ghost towns like Mystra; the Venetians in impregnable fortifications at Nafplio, Monemvassia and Methoni in the Peloponnese; and other Latin powers, such as the Knights of Saint John and the Genoese, in magnificent castles throughout the eastern Aegean. Most obvious of all is the heritage of four hundred years of Ottoman Turkish rule which, while universally derided, exercised an inestimable influence on music, cuisine, language and way of life. The contributions, and continued existence, of substantial minorities - Vlachs, Muslims, Catholics, Jews, Gypsies - have also helped to forge the Hellenic identity.

All these players have been instrumental in forming a hard-to-define but powerful sense of Greekness, which has kept alive the people's sense of themselves throughout their turbulent history. With no local ruling class or formal Renaissance period to impose a superior model of taste or to patronize the arts, medieval Greek peasants, fishermen and shepherds created a vigorous and truly popular culture. It is still manifest in a thousand instinctively tasteful ways, ranging from traditional music, intricate embroidery, woven goods and carved furniture, to the stereotypically white cubist houses of popular images.

Of course there are formal cultural activities as well: museums that shouldn't be missed in Athens, Thessaloniki and Iraklion; the compelling monasteries of the Meteora and Mount Athos; the magnificent mansions of Zagori and Pílion; castles such as those in the Dodecanese, northeast Aegean, central Greece and the Peloponnese; as well, of course, as the great ancient sites dating from the Mycenaean, Minoan, Classical, Macedonian, Roman and Byzantine eras. The country hosts some excellent summer festivals too, bringing international theatre, dance and musical groups to perform in ancient theatres at Epidaurus, Dodona and Athens, as well as castle courtyards and more contemporary venues in coastal and island resorts.

But the call to cultural duty should never be too overwhelming on a Greek holiday. The hedonistic pleasures of languor and warmth - always going lightly dressed, swimming in balmy seas at dusk, talking and drinking under the stars - are just as appealing. But despite recent improvements to the tourism "product", Greece is still essentially a land for adaptable sybarites, not for those who crave five-star treatment with super-soft beds, faultless plumbing, Cordon-Bleu cuisine and attentive service. Except at the growing number of luxury facilities in new or restored buildings, hotel and pension rooms can be box-like, campsites offer the minimum of facilities, and the food at its best is fresh and uncomplicated.

"The only thing I know about Slovakia is what I learned first-hand from your foreign minister, who came to Texas."

George W. Bush replying to a Slovak journalist. Bush had, in fact, met the leader of Slovenia. The complexities of central European politics can be baffling to outsiders. In fact, even those who knew their Slovaks from their Slovenes were surprised when, on New Year’s Day 1993, after seventy years of (sometimes turbulent) cohabitation, the Czechs and Slovaks went their separate ways and Czechoslovakia ceased to exist. To the outsider, at least, it had looked like a match made in heaven. Yet just three years after the Velvet Revolution – when true to their pacifist past, the Czechs and Slovaks shrugged off 41 years of Communist rule without so much as a shot being fired – came the Velvet Divorce.

In the ten years since then, the two republics have continued to change at an unprecedented rate and are now more accessible today than at any time since the 1930s. The major cities buzz with a cultural and commercial diversity, and – apart from the obligatory high-rise suburbs – fail to conform to most people’s idea of former Eastern Europe. Luxury hotels have sprouted up all over Prague and, while the remoter regions can sometimes seem more reminiscent of the early twentieth century than the twenty-first, private shops and restaurants now exist in even the most provincial of rural villages. Instead of posters exhorting the country’s citizens to fulfil the next five-year plan, there are now billboards advertising mobile phones, investment portfolios and cars. Inevitably, the pace of change in both republics has been bewildering for those who lived through the Communist era, and along with the new-found freedom have come the usual suspects: multinationals, mafia and all the vices that plague the western world. Few Czechs or Slovaks would want to turn the clock right back, but when the Czech Communists receive eighteen percent of the vote, and the most popular Slovak politician is a nationalist who inveighs against the EU and NATO, it’s clear that not everybody’s happy with the changes.

Most Czechs and Slovaks, however, simply shrug their shoulders at the problems, since neither nation has ever felt in full control of its historical destiny. When Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918, it was always a marriage of convenience: the Czechs reasoned that the Slovaks would help dilute the number of ethnic Germans in the new country; the Slovaks needed to escape the unwanted attentions of the Hungarians, who were keen to reform Greater Hungary. The Nazis broke up the marriage in 1938 by forcing the Slovaks into a Faustian pact; ten years later, any thoughts of divorce were thrown out of the window as the country disappeared behind the Iron Curtain; and in 1968, Warsaw Pact tanks trampled on the country’s dreams of "socialism with a human face". The 1989 Velvet Revolution only took place because the Soviet leader Gorbachev allowed it to. Even the break-up of the country was cooked up by the intransigent leaders of the two main political parties, and went ahead without a popular referendum.

In contrast to the political upheavals that have plagued the region, the Czech and Slovak Republics have suffered very little physical damage over the last few centuries. Gothic castles and Baroque chateaux have been preserved in abundance, town after town in Bohemia and Moravia has retained its old medieval quarter, and even the wooden architecture of Slovakia has survived beyond all expectations. Geographically speaking, the two republics are the most diverse of all the former Eastern Bloc states. Together they span the full range of central European cultures, from the old German towns of the west to the Hungarian and Rusyn villages in East Slovakia. In physical terms, too, there’s enormous variety: Bohemia’s rolling hills, lush and relentless, couldn’t be more different from the flat Danube basin, or the granite alpine peaks of the High Tatras, the beech forests of the far east, or the coal basins of the Moravian north.

Abundantly illustrated, with sources from Egyptian pyramid paintings to searing photos from today's news magazines, War is a telling account of mankind’s most destructive tradition.

"When you are ordered to march through areas such as Pinkville--GI slang for Song My, parent village of My Lai ... you do some thinking. You hallucinate. You look ahead a few paces and wonder what your legs will resemble if there is more to the earth in that spot than silicates and nitrogen. Will the pain be unbearable? Will you scream or fall silent? Will you be afraid to look at your own body, afraid of the sight of your own red flesh and white bone? You wonder if the medic remembered his morphine."

O'Brien paints an unvarnished portrait of the infantry soldier's life that is at once mundane and terrifying--the endless days of patrolling punctuated by firefights that end as suddenly and inconclusively as they begin; the mind-numbing brutality of burned villages and trampled rice patties; the terror of tunnels, minefields, and the ever-present threat of death. Powerful as these scenes are, perhaps the most memorable chapter in the book concerns his decision to desert just a few weeks before he was sent to Vietnam. "The AWOL bag was ready to go, but I wasn't.... I burned the letters to my family. I read the others and burned them, too. It was over. I simply couldn't bring myself to flee. Family, the home town, friends, history, tradition, fear, confusion, exile: I could not run." Tim O'Brien went into the war opposing it and came out knowing exactly why. If I Die in a Combat Zone is more than just a memoir of a disastrous war; it is also a meditation on heroism and cowardice, on the mutability of truth and morality in a war zone and, most of all, on the simple, human capacity to endure the unendurable. --Alix Wilber

This guide offers intelligent, entertaining insights into history, art festivals and lifestyles, comprehensive listings for the chewiest churros, the plumpest cochinillo, where to be seen and where to slip away as well as practical and reliable advice on where to eat drink, shop and stay.

How all of this trouble derived from Weaver's pursuit of the culprit behind a priest’s recent spate of hate mail propels the balance of this yarn--the sequel to Liss's Edgar Award-winning debut novel, A Conspiracy of Paper. It also pushes the Jewish "ruffian-for-hire" into the jeopardous midst of a British power struggle that pits supporters of King George I against the Jacobites, who favor the return of his dethroned Catholic rival, James II. Assisted by his puckish surgeon friend Elias Gordon, Weaver assumes the role of a prosperous plantation owner from Jamaica and penetrates the upper echelons of 1722 London society, hoping to gather information he can use against Dennis Dogmill, a "vicious and unpredictable" tobacco man who may actually have ordained Yate's killing. As Weaver ranges through London's fetid pubs and fancy theaters, and attracts the amorous attention of Dogmill's surprisingly shrewd sister, he also finds himself in the uncomfortable position of backing Griffin Melbury, a Tory candidate for the House of Commons--and the man who stole away his beloved Miriam Lienzo.

Liss has a keen eye for entertaining details of Georgian life, from that period’s exotic diction ("The men in your gang are nothing but cutpurses and mollies and buggerantos") to its most reprehensible pastimes, including "goose pulling"--about which the less said, the better. And though some readers may bog down in the explained distinctions between Whigs and Tories, the author finds considerable humor in that political rivalry and the parties' get-out-the-vote efforts. Once you accept the rather dubious notion that fugiti