A masterly epic that weaves a contemporary search for a missing father with a vivid story from the heyday of the British Empire. Liv, a Canadian filmmaker, is writing from a Tahitian jail, piecing together her troubled past and her family's buried history for the unknown daughter she gave up at birth. The search for her own father, a pilot missing since the Korean War, has brought her to the South Seas and landed her behind bars on a trumped-up murder charge. In the stillness of her cell, Liv ponders the secret journal of her ancestor Frank Henderson, who came to these same waters a century before on an extraordinary three-year voyage with Queen Victoria's grandsons--Prince George (later George V) and Prince Eddy, who would die young and disgraced, linked by the gutter press to the Ripper killings and many other scandals. Through unforgettable characters and a mesmerizing story, Henderson's Spear traces two tales of obsession, intrigue, and loss--from the 1890s and the 1990s. These stories reach around the world from Africa, England, and North America to converge with compelling effect in the Polynesian islands. With a deep understanding of the landscape and culture of the South Sea Islands, Ronald Wright's Henderson's Spear explores the patterns of history and the accidents of love.

A homeless man, Richard Starr, sees a terrified woman struggling in rain-swollen Black Creek. As he reaches to pull her ashore she suddenly sinks in the murky water. He dives into the creek but can't find her. Neither can the police. They dismiss his report as a hoax. Later, Richard learns that his friend, Joe Baker, had been attacked. Joe told a mutual acquaintance he was sleeping under a bridge when the unknown assailant struck. At the time, it was dark, and Joe was drunk and disoriented, so he couldn't tell what was going on, except that he was being dragged into the creek. The assailant broke off the attack and escaped into the water after Joe clobbered him with a baseball bat. Now, Joe is missing. That night, Richard is sitting under the bridge while a thunderstorm rages. During intermittent bursts of lightning, he sees a boy being attacked. He rushes to help the kid but finds no one at the scene of the attack. Seeking an explanation for the mysterious events, he follows clues left by the boy and discovers a bizarre world dominated by terrifying creatures, bent on inflicting unthinkable horrors on him and on Humankind.

From the charming city of Bath, featured in Jane Austen's Persuasion, to the Amazon of Mario Vargas Llosa's La Casa Verde, this unique travel guide brings you to the places you've only read about. Whether you want to learn more about a destination or follow in the footsteps of a favorite character, Reading on Location helps you make the most of your trip.

Each time history repeats itself, so it's said, the price goes up. The twentieth century was a time of runaway growth in human population, consumption, and technology, placing a colossal load on all natural systems, especially earth, air, and water -- the very elements of life. The most urgent questions of the twenty-first century are: where will this growth lead? can it be consolidated or sustained? and what kind of world is our present bequeathing to our future? In his #1 bestseller A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright argues that our modern predicament is as old as civilization, a 10,000-year experiment we have participated in but seldom controlled. Only by understanding the patterns of triumph and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we recognize the experiment's inherent dangers, and, with luck and wisdom, shape its outcome.

Traveling through Peru, tracing the history of the Incas from their royal cities of Cusco and Machu Picchu to their mythic origin in Lake Titicaca, Ronald Wright explores a country of contrasts—between Spanish and Indian, past and present, coastal desert and mountainous interior. In his highly entertaining and perceptive account, Wright brings to life a complex culture, a land of ancient traditions seeking its place in the modern world. Embracing history, politics, anthropology, and literature, Cut Stones and Crossroadsis a fascinating travel memoir and the study of a civilization by a writer who has won international awards as both a novelist and a historian.

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