New Releases by Paul Theroux

Chosen by John Irving in the New York Times as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century “Paul Theroux has exploited this biographical lacuna with great shrewdness and gusto… his fictional account of Blair’s life there [Burma] is a valid and entirely credible attempt to add flesh to the skeletal facts we have of this time. […]this novel is one of his finest, in a long and redoubtable oeuvre.” —New York Times Book Review From the acclaimed author of The Mosquito Coast and The Bad Angel Brothers comes a riveting new novel exploring one of English literature’s most beloved and controversial figures—George Orwell—and the early years as an officer in colonial Burma that transformed him from Eric Blair, the British Raj policeman, into Orwell the anticolonial writer. At age nineteen, young Eton graduate Eric Blair set sail for India, dreading the assignment ahead. Along with several other young conscripts, he would be trained for three years as a servant of the British Empire, overseeing the local policemen in Burma. Navigating the social, racial, and class politics of his fellow British at the same time as he learned the local languages and struggled to control his men would prove difficult enough. But doing all of this while grappling with his own self-worth, his sense that he was not cut out for this, is soon overwhelming for the young Blair. Eventually, his clashes with his superiors, and the drama that unfolds in this hot, beautiful land, will change him forever.

From the legendary American master Paul Theroux comes a brilliant new novel of chilling psychological depth, the tale of a younger brother whose lifelong rivalry with his older brother—a powerful lawyer with a pattern of gleefully vicious betrayals—culminates in the ultimate plan: murder. Cal has always lived in the shadow of his manipulative and domineering brother, Frank, who was doted upon by their mother and beloved by the girls in their small New England hometown—including Cal’s own girlfriends. In an attempt to escape Frank’s intrusive 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 central Africa, and Colombian mines where he will meet the love of his life, Vida. Soon he is dripping in wealth, his pockets full of gold nuggets and emeralds, but the money means far less to him than his independence. To Frank, however, “Cash is king.” As Cal’s success grows, so too does Frank’s power and his influence in Cal’s affairs, the devastating threat he creates at the center of his little brother’s life. And, ultimately, when Frank decides to commit the ultimate betrayal…Cal is left with only one, final solution. Few writers have as keen an eye for human nature as the inimitable Paul Theroux, and this riveting tale of adventure, betrayal, and the true cost of family bonds is an unmissable new work from one of America’s most distinguished and beloved novelists.

«—¿Cómo se llama este pueblo, señor? —Es San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca —dijo—. Allá está el viejo convento. Era una iglesia rota, enorme, hueca y solitaria. —¿Qué significa Coixtlahuaca? —El llano de las serpientes.» Paul Theroux ha recorrido el mundo en busca de las historias y los pueblos que dan vida a los lugares que llaman hogar. Ahora, mientras los debates sobre inmigración hierven en todo el mundo, Theroux se ha propuesto explorar un país clave para comprender el discurso global actual: México. Con la misma sensibilidad humanizadora que lo caracteriza, el legendario escritor de viajes recorre toda la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México, se adentra en las carreteras de Chiapas y Oaxaca, visita a los trabajadores de los molinos zapotecas en el altiplano y asiste a una reunión del partido zapatista para descubrir el mundo rico y estratificado que también hay detrás de un país convulso. «Hace amigos, va a todos lados, aprende español con otros extranjeros, ve cómo hacen mezcal, toma clases de cocina y, sobre todo, aprende y escucha, una de las lecciones del libro. [...] Un libro tan complejo, tan interesante y sobre todo tan imprescindible.» Pedro Ángel Palou, El Heraldo

From legendary writer Paul Theroux comes an atmospheric novel following a big-wave surfer as he confronts aging, privilege, mortality, and whose lives we choose to remember.

Der US-Präsident will die Grenze zum südlichen Nachbarn abriegeln. Paul Theroux, bekannt für seine unermüdliche »Neugier auf die Menschen und ihr Leben in all seinen Facetten« (New York Times), nimmt das zum Anlass für einen ausgiebigen Roadtrip in ein zerrissenes Land. Täglich lesen wir die Schlagzeilen über Migrantenströme und Kartellmorde – und auch Theroux wird immer wieder gewarnt, dass er sich auf gesetzloses Territorium begibt, wo ein Menschenleben keinen Wert mehr hat. Wohl wissend, dass diese Schreckensbilder nur ein Teil der Wahrheit sein können, versucht er zu verstehen, wie sich in einem derart von Gewalt geprägten Land Herzlichkeit und Solidarität halten, Menschen sich widersetzen und an ein besseres Morgen glauben können. Dabei entdeckt er ein faszinierendes, vielgestaltiges Mexiko und hält so den Beschwörungen des US-Präsidenten ein tapferes Zeugnis der Aufklärung entgegen.

Legendary travel writer Theroux drives the entire length of the U.S.-Mexico border, then goes deep into the hinterland to uncover the rich, layered world behind today''s brutal headlines.

"A portrait of an optimist with curiosity and affection for humanity in all its forms."—The New York Times Book Review "Theroux is at the top of his game with his third collection of essays, a magisterial grouping of intimate remembrances, globe-trotting adventures, and incisive literary critiques."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "Theroux''s observations are so keen and writerly skills so sharp that he butter-slices narratives with a razor-thin surgeon''s scalpel, masterfully serving up both the world''s dark underbelly and its gloriously uplifting sustenance of love, longing and wonder-lust." —Forbes Paul Theroux’s latest collection of essays applies his signature searching curiosity to a life lived as much in reading as on the road. This writerly tour-de-force features a satisfyingly varied selection of topics. Travel essays take us to Ecuador, Zimbabwe, and Hawaii, to name a few. Gems of literary criticism reveal fascinating depth in the work of Henry David Thoreau, Muriel Spark, Joseph Conrad, and Hunter Thompson. And in a series of breathtakingly personal profiles, we take a helicopter ride with Elizabeth Taylor, go diagnosing with Oliver Sacks, eavesdrop on the day-to-day life of a Manhattan dominatrix, and explore New York with Robin Williams. An extended meditation on the craft of writing binds together this wide-ranging collection, along with Theroux’s constant quest for the authentic in a person or in a place.

“Theroux possesses a fabulously nasty sense of humor.” — Stephen King, New York Times Book Review To those in her Cape Cod town, Mother is an exemplar of piety, frugality, and hard work. To her husband and seven children, she is a selfish, petty tyrant. She excels at playing her offspring against each other. Her favorite, Angela, died in childbirth; only Angela really understands her, she tells the others. The others include the officious lawyer, Fred; the uproarious professor, Floyd; a pair of inseparable sisters whose devotion to Mother has consumed their lives; and JP, the narrator, a successful writer whose work she disparages. As she lives well past the age of one hundred, her brood struggles with and among themselves to shed her viselike hold on them. Mother Land is a piercing portrait of how a parent’s narcissism impacts a family. While the particulars of his tale are unique, Paul Theroux encapsulates with acute clarity and wisdom a circumstance that is familiar to millions of readers. “Paul Theroux ladles a steaming cup of dysfunctional-family chowder in Mother Land.” — Vanity Fair “An engrossing, emotionally tangled and often merciless examination of family and self . . . Mother Land is a bittersweet, brutally frank family saga that offers enough redemption to make the journey worth it.” — Shelf Awareness

Paul Theroux, grootmeester van de reisliteratuur, reist door het Zuiden van de Verenigde Staten. Hij ontdekt gastvrijheid maar ook armoede, racisme en de diepe sporen van het verleden. ‘Het diepe Zuiden’ van Paul Theroux gaat over het Zuiden van de Verenigde Staten, een gebied met twee gezichten: er wonen de vriendelijkste en meest gastvrije mensen van Amerika. Men hecht er het meest aan traditie, er wordt hard gewerkt, en met succes. Maar racisme ligt hier vaak nog aan de oppervlakte en het contrast tussen arm en rijk is groter dan in de rest van het land. De band met het land is intens: ondanks natuurgeweld – overstromingen, orkanen, met als recent dieptepunt Katrina – wil ieder die het ontvlucht, niets liever dan terugkeren. Het Zuiden ziet zichzelf graag als het échte Amerika, en dat heeft het hard te verduren gekregen. Dit is het gebied dat Paul Theroux ontdekt in ‘Het diepe Zuiden’, en hij reist erdoorheen als was het een vreemd land: ‘De hoofdweg verlaten, de musea overslaan, op zoek naar de menselijke architectuur.’ Dus gaat hi naar de kerk, naar een wapenshow, langs boerderijen die nog steeds ‘plantages’ worden genoemd; hij gaat naar het hart van de zuidelijke geschiedenis. Op zoek naar het geheim van dit gebied.

"Paul Theroux has spent fifty years crossing the globe, adventuring in the exotic, seeking the rich history and folklore of the far away. Now, for the first time, in his tenth travel book, Theroux explores a piece of America--the Deep South. He finds there a paradoxical place, full of incomparable music, unparalleled cuisine, and yet also some of the nation''s worst schools, housing, and unemployment rates. It''s these parts of the South, so often ignored, that have caught Theroux''s keen traveler''s eye."--

"This is my only story. Now that I am sixty I can tell it." He, the narrator, was a twenty-one-year-old art student traveling the world. She was a countess -- apparently cold, haughty, and inaccessible -- traveling with Haroun, her ambiguous companion. When the young man makes their acquaintance at a hotel in Sicily, he finds himself filled with unexpected lust and playing a part in something he doesn''t quite understand. Filled with Theroux''s typically effortless but devastating descriptions of people and places, The Stranger at the Palazzo d''Oro is a brilliant portrayal of aging and decay, a shocking tale of sensuality in a golden age. The thrill and risk of pursuit and desire mark the accompanying stories of the sexual awakening and rites of passage of a Boston boyhood, the ruin of a writer in Africa, and the bewitchment of a retiree in Hawaii. This is Paul Theroux at his most allusive and wise, writing with a deep understanding of the frailties of men and boys.

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 blindness. His world is altered profoundly: Ava stays by his side, he writes an erotic, autobiographical novel with the drug serving as muse, and he returns to stardom. Steadman becomes addicted to the drug and the insights it provides, only to have them desert him, along with his sight. Will he regain his vision? His visions? Or will he forgo the world of his imagining and his ambition? As Theroux leads us toward the answers, he makes fresh magic out of the venerable intertwined themes of sight and insight. He also offers incisive, sometimes hilarious takes on the manifold ironies of travel, of trespass and trangession, and of the trappings of the writer’s life—from the fear of the blank page to the unexpected challenges of the book tour.

El libro ideal para preparar nuestros viajes: para disfrutarlos, comprenderlos y recordarlos. No puedes transitar el camino hasta que tú mismo te conviertes en el camino. Paul Theroux celebra cincuenta años de viajar por el mundo y reúne lo mejor de su obra y los pasajes más memorables de aquellos autores que lo han formado como lector y viajero: Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Johnson, Evelyn Waugh, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, GrahamGreene y DH Lawrence entre otros se dan cita en estas páginas. Guía filosófica y libro de viajes a la vez, El Tao del viajero es una obra para regalar y atesorar, para leer una y otra vez, como libro de cabecera que marca el camino espiritual del viajero que todos llevamos dentro. La crítica ha dicho: «Theroux sigue siendo ese autor que atrae de un modo adictivo, incansablemente perceptivo y curioso.» The Washington Post «Siga a Theroux dondequiera que vaya, se verá sorprendido y cautivado...» Globe and Mail «Paul Theroux: monumento vivo de la prosa de viajes.» El País «Lectura perfecta para el verano que se le avecina a quien quiera viajar; a quien, queriendo, no pueda; y a quien, precisamente por no querer o no poder, está dispuesto a emprender un viaje imaginario.» Enrique de Hériz, El Periódico de Catalunya «Paul Theroux aúna sabiduría e ironía. El Tao del viajero es una guía escueta y fundamental... Un placer viajar por sus palabras.» Laura Revuelta, ABCultural «Una referencia indispensable en la literatura de viaje, [...] con un estilo narrativo que lo iba a hacer mundialmente famoso.» Ana Polo Alonso, El Independiente

''No one ever sees me write. One of the triumphs of fiction is that it is created in the dark. It leaves my house in a plain wrapper, with no bloodstains. Unlike me, my stories are whole and indestructible.'' In The Collected Stories, Paul Theroux''s canvas stretches from London to South-East Asia, from Boston to Paris, from Africa to Eastern Europe and from Moscow to the tropics in this vibrant collection. Full of suspense and the unexpected, these stories by the acclaimed author of The Old Patagonian Express and Dark Star Safari delve into the worlds of a vast spectrum of characters and display throughout a flair that shows Theroux to be a master of the form. Praise for Paul Theroux: ''A shimmering, kaleidoscopic and very entertaining collection'' Sunday Telegraph ''You close the book feeling you have read a single big narrative rather than a series of short ones . . . As a short-story writer, he makes a terrific novelist'' Sunday Times ''Theroux willingly explores the blighted territory of a failing marriage; the tangled jungle of a mad poet''s secret anti-Semitism; the belated sexual guilt of a Hindu . . . A book of many and varied pleasures; to read it is to feel alert, curious, adventurous'' Observer ''Paul Theroux''s writing is impeccable and thoughtfully entertaining . . . his artistry is individual, serene, yet also grainy with fierce truths'' The Times ''One needs energy to keep up with the extraordinary productive restlessness of Paul Theroux . . . [He is] the most gifted, most prodigal writer of his generation'' Jonathan Raban Paul Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts in 1941 and published his first novel, Waldo, in 1967. His subsequent novels include The Family Arsenal, Picture Palace, The Mosquito Coast, O-Zone, Millroy the Magician, My Secret History, My Other Life, and, most recently, A Dead Hand. His highly acclaimed travel books include Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, Fresh Air Fiend, and Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. He divides his time between Cape Cod and the Hawaiian Islands.

A taut, tense, darkly suspenseful novel about a man who flees to Africa after his marriage falls apart, only to be caught up in a precarious situation in a seemingly benign village.

Winner of the Stanford Dolman Lifetime Contribution to Travel Writing Award 2020 The Mosquito Coast - winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize - is a breathtaking novel about fanaticism and a futile search for utopia from bestseller Paul Theroux. Allie Fox is going to re-create the world. Abominating the cops, crooks, junkies and scavengers of modern America, he abandons civilisation and takes the family to live in the Honduran jungle. There his tortured, messianic genius keeps them alive, his hoarse tirades harrying them through a diseased and dirty Eden towards unimaginable darkness. ''Stunning. . . exciting, intelligent, meticulously realised, artful'' Victoria Glendinning, Sunday Times ''An epic of paranoid obsession that swirls the reader headlong to deposit him on a black mudbank of horror'' Christopher Wordsworth, Guardian ''Magnificently stimulating and exciting'' Anthony Burgess American travel writer Paul Theroux is known for the rich descriptions of people and places that is often streaked with his distinctive sense of irony; his novels and collected short stories, My Other Life, The Collected Stories, My Secret History, The Lower River, The Stranger at the Palazzo d''Oro, A Dead Hand, Millroy the Magician, The Elephanta Suite, Saint Jack, The Consul''s File, The Family Arsenal, and his works of non-fiction, including the iconic The Great Railway Bazaar are available from Penguin.

“A Vonnegut tinged absurdist satire . . . (a) tightly paced, expertly drawn comic romp” from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Mosquito Coast (LitReactor). Paul Theroux, one of the world’s most popular authors, both for his travel books and his fiction, has produced an off-beat story of 1960s weirdos unlike anything he has ever written. 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 is fighting for his country, Mr. Gibbon feels that he, too, should do something for his country and convinces Miss Ball and Mrs. Gneiss to join him in the venture. They decide to rob the Mount Holly Trust Company because it is managed by a small dark man who is probably a communist. There are some complications. Combine Donald E. Westlake with Abby Hoffman, add a bit of Gore Vidal at his most vitriolic, and you will have Murder in Mount Holly. “Parodies the American political fringe at a time when flags burned, hippies protested and commies lurked everywhere . . . you’ll have little difficulty inserting today’s fringe characters into Theroux’s lampoon.” —Star Tribune “The geezer psychopath finally gets his due . . . The fun here is in how hateful the characters are.” —The New York Times Book Review

As mentioned in The Times Travel Book Club 2020 Award winning writer Paul Theroux embarks on a journey that, though closer to home than most of his expeditions, uncovers some surprising truths about Britain and the British people in the ''80s in The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around the Coast of Great Britain. Paul Theroux''s round-Britain travelogue is funny, perceptive and ''best avoided by patriots with high blood pressure...'' After eleven years living as an American in London, Paul Theroux set out to travel clockwise round the coast and find out what Britain and the British are really like. It was 1982, the summer of the Falklands War, the ideal time, he found, to surprise the British into talking about themselves. The result makes superbly vivid and engaging reading. ''A sharp and funny descriptive writer. One of his golden talents, perhaps because he is American and therefore classless in British eyes, is the ability to chat up and get on with all sorts and conditions of British. . . Theroux is a good companion'' The Times ''Filled with history, insights, landscape, epiphanies, meditations, celebrations and laments'' The New York Times ''Few of us have seen the entirety of the coast and I for one am grateful to Mr Theroux for making my journey unnecessary. He describes it all brilliantly and honestly'' Anthony Burgess, Observer American travel writer Paul Theroux is known for the rich descriptions of people and places that is often streaked with his distinctive sense of irony; his other non-fiction titles, Riding the Iron Rooster, The Happy Isles of Oceania, Sunrise with Seamonsters, The Tao of Travel, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, The Old Patagonian Express, The Great Railway Bazaar, Dark Star Safari, Fresh-air Fiend, Sir Vidia''s Shadow, The Pillars of Hercules, and his novels and collections of short stories, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize winner The Mosquito Coast are available from Penguin.

Award-winning writer Paul Theroux takes us on a journey through small town Malaysia through the eyes of the exuberant Spencer Savage in his breathtaking novel The Consul''s File. Spencer Savage, a young American consul, is posted to Ayer Hitam, a small Malaysian town, in the 1970s. Told to close down this remote outpost in the sweltering jungle, he instead finds himself drawn to the many characters he meets among the Malays, Indians, Japanese, Chinese and the clubbable expat Brits. Through his eyes we see the rich tapestry of multi-ethnic life in post-colonial Malaysia, from adultery to murder, from ghost stories to the murky waters of diplomatic politics. It is a brilliant portrait of a vanished time, a lost landscape and scattered peoples. ''A cool and witty sequence. . . a polished and professional performance'' Guardian ''Theroux''s writing is at its most adventurous in The Consul''s File. There is no book I can compare this to: Mr Theroux''s artistry is individual, serene, yet also grainy with fierce truths'' The Times American travel writer Paul Theroux is known for the rich descriptions of people and places that is often streaked with his distinctive sense of irony; his novels and collected short stories, My Other Life, The Collected Stories, My Secret History, The Lower River, The Stranger at the Palazzo d''Oro, A Dead Hand, Millroy the Magician, The Elephanta Suite, Saint Jack, The Family Arsenal, The Mosquito Coast, and his works of non-fiction, including the iconic The Great Railway Bazaar are available from Penguin.

This beautiful collection of travel wisdom is the perfect gift for any Theroux fan, and will equally delight seasoned travelers, young adventurers, and everyone in between. Few have traveled more than Paul Theroux, and fewer have crafted the original, perceptive, and entertaining body of work that he has. The Tao of Travel is a departure for him: it''s a gift book, a gorgeously illustrated and pithy distillation of quotes about the pleasures and perils of travel by Theroux himself, as well as many other travel writers he admires, including Dervla Murphy, Graham Greene, and Bruce Chatwin. Inspired by the number of readers who have asked him for his favourite travel book, Theroux has artfully selected over 1000 quotes, both historical and contemporary, giving the reader genuine insight into what underlies the travel urge in humans. Whether it''s modes of travel or the art of packing, loneliness or the unexpected kindnesses of strangers, unusual meals in weird places or encountering danger, The Tao of Travel contains a smorgasbord of delights for any travel junkie.

“There are those who think that Paul Theroux is the finest travel writer working in English. This collection can only enhance that reputation.”—The New York Times Book Review Author and travel writer Paul Theroux does what no one else can: he travels to the isolated, unusual, and fascinating spots of the world, and creates an elegy to them that makes readers feel they are traveling with him. Evocative, breathtaking, intriguing, here is the armchair traveler''s guide to the sites of the world he makes us feel we know. Praise for To the Ends of the Earth “Reads like a wonderful novel.”—The Pittsburgh Press “Powerful . . . This compendium unequivocally offers insight into the mind of a foremost American fiction writer who became an accidental tourist.”—The Christian Science Monitor “Theroux is a wonderful traveling companion. . . . To the Ends of the Earth combines the best of his travel writing. . . . With him the reader shares a conversation with a sultan on a polo ground in Malaysia; hears people ‘mourn with firecrackers, scattering cherrybombs on the tombstone’ in a Chinese cemetery in Singapore; feels overdressed around nudists in Corsica; sees sandbagged houses and bombcraters left in Vietnam on a cold December day in 1973.”—The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star “Travel writing at its best . . . As you travel voyeuristically with Theroux, across the vast wastelands of interior China, the convoluted cultures of Latin America or campy seacoast towns of England, you''re struck with his slightly jaundiced eye for the overlooked but telling detail, his skeptic''s ear for the offhand but important comment.”—The Houston Post

"Theroux''s best novel in years." CHICAGO TRIBUNE MY SECRET HISTORY is Paul Theroux''s tour de force. It is the story of Andre Parent, a writer, a world traveler, a lover of every kind of woman he chances to meet in a life as varied as a man can lead. From his days as an altar boy, to his job as a teenaged lifeguard, and then as a youth caught between the attentions of a beautiful young student and an amorous older woman. And as the boy becomes a man he turns his attention to writing, which brings him fame, and a wife, who may finally bring him to know himself. But not before he sets up his most dangerous secret life, one that any man might envy, but that could cost Andre Parent the delicate balance that makes him who he is....

Paul Theroux returns to India with a stylish and gripping novel of crime and obsession in Calcutta. In A Dead Hand, Paul Theroux brings to dramatic life a dark and twisted narrative of obsession and need. When Jerry Delfont, a travel writer with writer’ s block, receives a letter from a captivating and seductive American philanthropist with news of a scandal involving an Indian friend of her son’s, he is sufficiently intrigued to pursue the story. Who is the boy found on the floor of a cheap hotel room, how and why did he die—what is it that pulls Delfont into this story, and will he ever find the truth about what happened?

In Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Theroux recreates an epic journey he took thirty years ago, a giant loop by train (mostly) through Eastern Europe, Turkey, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, China, Japan, and Siberia. In short, he traverses all of Asia top to bottom, and end to end. In the three decades since he first travelled this route, Asia has undergone phenomenal change. The Soviet Union has collapsed, China has risen, India booms, Burma slowly smothers, and Vietnam prospers despite the havoc unleashed upon it the last time Theroux passed through. He witnesses all this and more in a 25,000 mile journey, travelling as the locals do, by train, car, bus, and foot. His odyssey takes him from Eastern Europe, still hungover from Communism, through tense but thriving Turkey, into the Caucasus, where Georgia limps back toward feudalism while its neighbour Azerbaijan revels in oil-driven capitalism. As he penetrates deeper into Asia’s heart, his encounters take on an otherworldly cast. The two chapters that follow show us Turkmenistan, a profoundly isolated society at the mercy of an almost comically egotistical dictator, and Uzbekistan, a ruthless authoritarian state. From there, he retraces his steps through India, Mayanmar, China, and Japan, providing his penetrating observations on the changes these countries have undergone. Brilliant, caustic, and totally addictive, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star is Theroux at his very best.

This fabulous, far-reaching bookbreathtakingly captures the tumult, ambition, hardship and serenity that mark modern India . Theroux''s characters risk venturing far beyond its well-worn paths to discover woe or truth or peace. A holidaying middle-aged couple veer heedlessly from idyll to chaos. A buttoned-up Boston lawyer finds relief in Mumbai''s reeking slums. A young woman befriends an elephant in Bangalore . W e also meet Indian characters as distinctive as they are indicative of their country''s subtle ironies- an executive who yearns to become a holy beggar, an earnest young striver whose personality is transformed by acquiring an American accent, a miracle-working guru, and more. The Elephanta Suiteurges us towards a fresh, compelling, and often inspiring notion of India and its effect on those who try to lose - or find - themselves there.

In Two Stars Paul Theroux explores the significance of two of the twentieth century''s most celebrated stars Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe.

No one but Paul Theroux could write this romp of a book, with its acutely drawn characters and canny insights into a place that is often viewed as a simple island paradise. In this unforgettable novel, Theroux reveals a funny, languid floating world, island style.