Seduced by the speed and glamour of the biggest annual sporting event in the world, and determined to tackle the most fearsome physical challenge outside classical mythology, Moore, the ultimate amateur, attempts to complete all 3,630km of the 2000 Tour in the weeks before the professionals set off.
Battling it out with the old men on butchers’ bikes across the plains of Aquitaine and pursued by cattle over Europe’s second highest road, Moore soon finds himself resorting to narcotic assistance, systematic overeating and waxed legs before summoning a support vehicle staffed by cruelly sceptical family and friends. Accounts of his suffering and chicanery, and those encountered in the race’s epic history, are interwoven through a look at rural France busy tarting itself up for those 15 seconds of fame as the Tour careers through at 50kph. An heroic depiction of an inadequate man’s attempt to achieve the unachievable, Moore’s Tour is a tale of calorific excess, ludicrous clothing and intimate discomfort.
In her stories of seemingly ordinary people living extraordinary lives, Miranda July reveals how a single moment can change everything. Whether writing about a middle-aged woman’s obsession with Prince William, or an aging factory worker who has never been in love, the result is startling, sexy and tender by turns.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer revolves around the youthful adventures of the novel’s schoolboy protagonist, Thomas Sawyer, whose reputation precedes him for causing mischief and strife.
In the blockbuster bestselling tradition of Heir to the Empire comes this thrilling addition to the Star Wars(r) saga, as peace gives way to a new threat…
The first book in a thrilling Viking trilogy that launched the career of acclaimed historical novelist Giles Kristian – who’s now confronting the tumult and devastation of the English Civil War in The Bleeding Land…
One of the most impressive of all Victorian scientists but also a marvelous writer account of his years in the upper reaches of the Amazon is almost too good to be true …
In Kashmir, a small expatriate community seek shelter from the fighting in a Catholic mission. But the tribesmen who sweep down from the hills are bent on rape and massacre.
Writing with profound emotion, and in the superb tradition of fiction by such writers as Orhan Pamuk and J. M. Coetzee, Yiyun Li gives us a stunning novel that is at once a picture of life in a special part of the world during a historic period, a universal portrait of human frailty and courage, and a mesmerizing work of art.
Luke Skywalker wanted to unify the Jedi order and bring peace to the universe. Instead his wife Mara lies dead at the hands of an unknown assassin, his wayward nephew Jacen has seized control of the Galactic Alliance, and the galaxy has exploded in all-out civil war.
From Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo, a landmark work of narrative nonfiction that tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century’s great, unequal cities.