RESULTS IN BOOKS FOR ADULTS

For the first time in John Murray B-format paperback, this is Patrick Leigh Fermor's spellbinding part-travelogue, part inspired evocation of a barely-written part of Greece's past. Joining him in the Mani, one of Europe's wildest and most isolated regions, cut off from the rest of Greece by the towering Taygettus mountain range and hemmed in by the Aegean and Ionian seas, we discover a rocky central prong of the Peleponnese at the southernmost point in Europe. Bad communications only heightening the remoteness, this Greece - south of ancient Sparta - is one that maintains a perhaps stronger relationship with the ancient past than with the present. Myth becomes history, and vice versa...Leigh Fermor's hallmark descriptive writing and capture of unexpected detail have made this book, first published in 1958, a classic - together with its Northern Greece counterpart, Roumeli.

Adam Levin discards his middle-class life in Johannesburg and starts walking - and watching, thinking, laughing, dancing - as he searches for remote people, forgotten places and his own identity on the continent of his birth. The Wonder Safaris is a collection of these stories.

City-dweller Richard Lewis has been having a problem with roots. His, he means. It would have been so much more romantic if he had been born in Dublin or Marseille. But what if you're simply from Croydon? What hope for romance then? Starting with the conviction that England must have a folklore as compelling, as exotic and as beautiful as that of other places, Lewis embarks on a search for traditional roots that takes him well off the beaten track, from the humble folk clubs of the fenlands, across the Yorkshire moors via the Morris-dancing Cotswolds to a magic circle of druids deep beneath the Forest of Dean. The Magic Spring seeks to not only dispel some myths about English traditions, but to tell the story of their creation, to examine why they persist and how they connect to the modern land. Lewis follows the changing seasons, digs into his own past and discovers not only a deep affinity with his country, but also, in a climax on the Isle of Avalon, that roots are less about where you're from than he thought.

In 1996 Sarah Lyall, a New York Times reporter, left behind her American roots and moved to London for love. As that newspaper's correspondent in London, she became known here for her witty and incisive dispatches from her adopted country, as she conjured with her new and eccentric countrymen. She also found herself with a ringside seat at a singular moment in British life: the roller-coaster years of Tony Blair's New Labour had inaugurated a battle between the old world of aristocratic privilege and a new world of modern meritocracy. In A Field Guide to the British, Lyall strides her way readably, eloquently and perceptively across the social, political and cultural landscape of contemporary Britain. In a narrative studded with memorable anecdote and rich in humour, she explores themes as diverse as peers, politics, the media, understatement, the weather, and Britain's relationship with animals, alcohol and sex. She ponders such matters as the missing link between the famous British reserve and the famous British hooliganism (could it possibly be binge drinking?) ; how any parliamentary motion is ever passed when the Commons act like naughty schoolboys and the Lords spend two days debating UFOs; and the age-old question of how anyone could possibly enjoy a game as tedious as cricket.

At the beginning of the 1950s, the interior of West and Central Africa was still known to most of the outside world as 'The White Man's Grave', and there were still large parts where its forests were primeval. These forests inhabited the minds of most Westerners as places of foreboding. To Donald MacIntosh - a 23-year-old Gaelic-speaking Scottish forester - however, it was a dream come true when he found himself posted to the humidity of the fabled lands. During the next 30 years he was to wander through some of the most remote areas of West Africa, stretching along the shores of the Gulf of Guinea from Liberia to Gabon, where he operated as a surveyor, tree prospector and forest botanist. There he listened to the tales of ancient Africa from the lips of hunters, fishermen, chiefs and witch doctors from a vast variety of tribes in myriad encampments, drinking palm wine with them, attending their village dances and ceremonies under the tropic moon, or often simply lying on his own in the village clearing, listening to the tattoo of distant drums sounding through the columnar mahoganies. MacIntosh had many adventures with the creatures of the forest, from leopards to homicidal buffalo, and from vipers to spitting cobras. Each tale is recounted in this volume in an odyssey which he describes as 'fun and adventure all the way'. Despite its reputation, MacIntosh was rarely ill in the 'White Man's Grave' and he encountered a host of characters along the way - 'Old Man Africa', 'Magic Sperm', 'Famous Sixpence' and 'Pisspot' among them. His story is of an Africa which no longer exists, providing a glimpse into the region's vanished past.

Rory Maclean had hoped to get through life without ever visiting Florida. Then one day the "Daily Mail" is delivered to his house by mistake. Twenty-four hours later he is in the land of Mickey Mouse, gull-wing Thunderbirds and eternal youth. He discovers the Garden of Eden, communes with the hereafter and narrowly avoids gratuitous sex. He swims alongside mermaids, meets the granddaughters of slaves and shares "Marshmallow Bunnies" with Florida's last remaining monks. Along the way he considers the role chance plays in our lives, and how American dreams might seem to come true under the swaying palms of Florida.

Manchán travels overland from London to Nairobi in a truck with a group of squabbling, treacherous cast-offs of Thatcher's Britain, including privately educated schoolgirls, a predatory market gardener, a former torturer from the British Army, a locksmith claiming to be a UFO abductee, three conniving nurses and a prim quantity surveyor. A rollercoaster of adventure, anecdote and fresh observations about the nature of Africa and what it means to travel through.

Simon is obsessed with food. He is able to remember every meal he has ever eaten and comes from a family of food lovers whose relationships are all based around food. In the midst of a mid-life crisis, Simon Majumdar decided to pack in his nine to five day job and embark on a trip of a lifetime: to go everywhere and eat everything. Part travelogue, part memoir Eat My Globe is a culinary tour of the world that Simon has always dreamed of making. From Philly Cheese steak in the US to mouldy shark in Iceland, he crosses the globe in search of variety and the ultimate taste experience. He also meets a fascinating array of people, whose foodie passion impresses even Simon. Both witty and inspirational, Eat My Globe is an eye-opening look at the world through food.

For 175 years the British have lived with the railway, and for a long while it was a love affair - the grandeur of the Victorian heyday, the glorious age of steam, the romance of Brief Encounter. Then the love affair turned sour - strikes, bad food, delays, disasters... Parallel Lines tells the story of these two railways: the real railway and the railway of our dreams. Travelling all over Britain, Ian Marchant examines the history of the British railway and meets those who still hold the railways close to their hearts - the model railway enthusiasts, the train-spotters and bashers (a hybrid of train-spotting where the individual - usually male - has to travel behind a certain locomotive in order to catalogue it), the steam enthusiasts. He swaps stories with commuters at the far reaches of London suburbia, he travels to deserted railway museums, and smokes cigarettes on remote, windswept stations in the furthest corners of Scotland, turning his characteristic eye for character, humour and surprise to one of the great shared experiences of the British nation.

An account of Justin Marozzi's 1,500-mile journey by camel along the slave-trade routes of the Libyan Sahara. Marozzi and his travelling companion Ned had never travelled in the desert, nor had they ridden camels before embarking on this expedition. Encouraged by a series of idiosyncratic Touareg and Tubbu guides, they learnt the full range of desert survival skills, including how to master their five faithful camels. The caravan of two explorers, five camels with distinctive personalities and their guides undertook a gruelling journey across some of the most inhospitable territory on earth. Despite threats from Libyan officialdom and the ancient, natural hardships of the desert, Marozzi and Ned found themselves growing ever closer to the land and its people. More than a travelogue, South from Barbary is a fascinating history of Saharan exploration and efforts by early British explorers to suppress the African slave trade. It evokes the poetry and solitude of the desert, the companionship of man and beast, the plight of a benighted nation, and the humour and generosity of its resilient people.