Alec Waugh

Novel based on the activities of British intelligence in the Middle East during WWII.

In this novel Alec Waugh returns to the theme of the motives and passions of European men and women in the tropics. Using as his locale the imaginary island of Karak in the South China Sea, he portrays the social and domestic relationships of the white colony against the wider issues of political intrigue.

In this beautifully written and searingly honest autobiography, the intrepid cyclist and traveler Dervla Murphy remembers her richly unconventional first thirty years. She describes her determined childhood self - strong-willed and beguiled by books from the first - her intermittent formal education and the intense relationship of an only child with her parents, particularly her invalid mother, whom she nursed until her death. Bicycling fifty miles in a day at the age of eleven, alone, it seems only natural that her first major journey should have been to cycle to India.

These anecdotal memories of British authors of the twentieth century include portraits of Evelyn Waugh, Robert Graves, Hugh Walpole, and Vyvyan Holland.

The history of the West Indies is the story of many colorful individuals--explorers, pirates, slave-traders, plantation owners, witch doctors, and missionaries.