RESULTS IN BOOKS FOR ADULTS

Closed to the world for half a century, the wilderness of Xinjiang in north-west China is returning to the light. The picture it presents is both fascinating and disturbing. Despite a savage landscape and climate, Xinjiang has a rich past. But what China sees as its property, the Uighurs regards as theft by an alien occupier. Tension has led to violence and savage reprisals. This portait of Xinjiang should be essential reading for travellers and for anyone interested in today's China and the fate of minority peoples.

In the 21st century every sixth human being will be Indian. India is very close to becoming the second largest consumer market in the world, with a buying middle class numbering over half a billion. Yet at least 200 million Indians remain desperately poor. Illiteracy rates are high. Communal violence is widespread; corruption endemic. Brides are still tortured and burnt for dowries; female infanticide is common. The caste system has lost little of its power and none of its brutality How are we to make sense of these apparently contradictory pictures of India today? And how can we overcome the many misconceptions about India that are fed by western stereotypes and Indians' own myths about themselves. Pavan Varma turns a sharply observant gaze on his fellow countrymen to examine what really makes Indians tick. Being Indian is an essential book for anyone who wishes to understand Indians, and for Indians who wish to understand themselves.

From the author of Thirty Miles: A Local Journey in Food, an intriguing dynamic adventure that strikes at the heart of the cuisine along the Mekong River. Ian Walker guides you along the twelfth longest river in the world, from its low-lying delta in Vietnam to its source high on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. His achievement made him the second British person to reach this remote location. The beating heart of a cobra snake contrasts with the remarkable everyday cuisine of Cambodia; in Laos, Ian devours lizard, ant eggs and beetles that thrive on water buffalodung, leading to the Yunnan Province where he hunts and forages with the Miao tribes, as well as exploring the rich pickings of Puer tea.His insatiable appetite allows nothing to be refused, although he finds his morals tested in Vietnam and his stomach churning on the road journeys in Northern Yunnan that take him into the mysterious land of Tibet. Yak tea, yoghurt and tsampa become the staples as Ian eats and lives with nomads, culminating in an incident packed finale as he pushes to the river's source.

Louisa Waugh's passionately written account of her time in a remote Mongolian village. Frustrated by the increasingly bland character of the capital city of Ulan Bator, she yearned for the real Mongolia and got the chance when she was summoned by the village head to go to Tsengel far away in the west, near the Kazakh border. Her story transports the reader to the glacial cold and the wonders of the Seven Kings as they steadily emerge from the horizon. Through her we sense their trials as well as their joys, rivalries and even hostilities, many of which the author shared or knew about. Waugh's time in the village was marked by coming to terms with the harshness of climate and also by how she faced up to new feelings towards the treatment of animals, death, solitude and real loneliness, and the constant struggle to censor her reactions as an outsider. Above all, she aims to involve readers with the locals' lives in such a way that we come to know them and care for their fates.

Forget George Bush. Put to one side the Iraq war. Avert your eyes from the overweight inhabitants of Kansas. This book is about the real America: a counterblast to the lazy anti-Americanism that infects European thinking, an effort to answer the simple question, "Why is America so successful?" without sneering at that success of claiming that it is illegitimate or artificial.

Have a Nice Day does not shy away from the guns, the racial divisions or the crazy preachers. But it puts the rough edges of American life in context - geographical and intellectual. With the election of a new president in November 2008, America is making its next big move. This is exactly the right time, Justin Webb claims, for the world to take a new look at the essence of the USA, at why Americans think as they do, and why they might just have a point.

Spain's Moorish past is evident everywhere you look: in the language, culture and customs of modern Spain; in its most visited tourist sites - the Mosque at Cordoba, the Giralda in Seville, the Alhambra in Granada. From the year 711 to the 16th century, Spain was the only European country to have sustained contact with the Islamic world, and Christians, Muslims and Jews lived there for centuries side by side in peace. During that time, it was home to some of the greatest philosophers, geographers, poets and physicians in the world, and after the Moors' expulsion by King Phillip II, all their knowledge, skill and artistry was lost, sending Spain spiralling into an economic decline from which it has only just begun to recover. Jason Webster originally travelled to Spain to learn to play the flamenco guitar, and told of his adventures on the Spanish wild side in the acclaimed DUENDE. A qualified Arabist, he now embarks on another journey together with the intrepid Pepe, following in the footsteps of an Austrian nobleman who wrote of his Grand Tour of Spain in 1494. In his quest for the forgotten soul of Spain's Arabic legacy, Jason has encounters with illegal immigrants, border patrol guards and Moorish descendants which are amusing and frequently dramatic, giving a very modern twist to this timely story. Because of the current political world climate, are there any lessons to be learnt from the harmony that existed for so long in medieval Spain - and from the fervent attitude to race that ultimately prompted the expulsion of the Jews and Muslims? Spain's Moorish past is evident everywhere you look: in the language, culture and customs of modern Spain; in its most visited tourist sites - the Mosque at Cordoba, the Giralda in Seville, the Alhambra in Granada. From the year 711 to the 16th century, Spain was the only European country to have sustained contact with the Islamic world, and Chrisians, Muslims and Jews lived there for centuries side by side in peace. During that time, it was home to some of the greatest philosophers, geographers, poets and physicians in the world, and after the Moors' expulsion by King Phillip II, all their knowledge, skills and artistry was lost, sending Spain spiralling into an economic decline from which it has only just begun to recover. Jason Webster originally travelled to Spain to learn to play the flamenco guitar, and told of his adventures on the Spanish wild side in the acclaimed DUENDE. A qualified Arabist, he now embarks on another journey together with the intrepid Pepe, following in the footsteps of an Austrian nobleman who wrote of his Grand Tour of Spain in 1494. In his quest for the forgotten soul of Spain's Arab legacy, Jason has encounters with recent immigrants, border patrol guards and Moorish descendants which are amusing, frequently dramatic, giving a very modern twist to this timely story. Because of the current political world climate, are there any lessons to be learnt from the harmony that existed for so long in medieval Spain - and from the fervent attitude to race that ultimately prompted the expulsion of the Jews and Muslims?

This is a romantic, utterly alluring leap into Spanish sunshine, remote mountains and rural life. Jason Webster had lived in Spain for several years before he and his partner, the flamenco dancer Salud, decided to buy a deserted farmhouse clinging to the side of a steep valley in the eastern province of Castellon, near the sacred peak of Penaglosa. With help from local farmers - and from a 12th century Moorish book on gardening - Jason set about creating his dream. He had never farmed before, and knew nothing of plants, but slowly he and Salud cleared the land, planted and harvested their olives, raised the healing herbs they learned about from local people, set up bee-hives and nurtured precious, expensive truffles, the black gold of the region. And beyond all this they started to fulfil another vision, bringing the native trees back to the cliffs ravaged by fire. At the same time they became drawn into the life of the valley: this is a book rich with characters as well as plants. It follows the people of the village from the winter rains to baking summer heat, from the flowering of the almond trees in spring to the hilarious, fiery festivals and ancient pilgrimages, and tells the history of the region through folk-songs and stories of the Cathar and Templar past. Jason and Salud lived through storms that destroyed their roof and fire that swept across their valley, but as the year passed and his farm flourished Jason found himself increasingly in tune with the ancient, mystical life of the sierra, a place that will haunt your imagination and raise your spirits, as it did his.

Travels With Boogie is the story of two city slickers - one an unattractive but streetwise mongrel from Stockwell, the other the long-suffering author - and how they came to terms with England's countryside and waterways. First they had to survive against all odds as they embarked on a heroic journey up hill and down dale, with rucksacks full of Kennomeat, along Britain's longest coastal footpath - from Somerset to Devon, from Cornwall to Dorset. And they did it. Then, undaunted, they took on the treacherous waters of the Thames. Not exactly as Mark had planned, however: this time his companion was to be the delectable Jennifer - but she was held up at the office, and when Boogie was dropped off at the kennels the other dogs complained.

Squeezed in between a vast ocean and the longest mountain range on earth, Chile is 2,600 miles long and never more than 110 miles wide - not a country which lends itself easily to maps. Nor, as Sara Wheeler found out, does it easily lend itself to a lone woman with two carpetbags who wishes to travel from the top to the bottom, from the driest desert in the world to the sepulchral wastes of Antarctica. Yet, despite bureaucratic, geographic and climatic setbacks, Sara Wheeler managed to complete that journey in six months, discovering en route a country that is quite extraordinarily diverse. This is an account of an odyssey which included Christmas Day spent with a llama sandwich on the Tropic of Capricorn at 13,000 feet, a sex hotel in the capital, four days wedged aboard a cargo boat, a wet tent and and high street bank in Patagonia. In Santiago she talked her way into the prisons, in Tierra del Fuego she hitched a lift around Cape Horn on a supply boat delivering a coffin, and in the high Andes she lived on a Vedic commune. From Easter in the slums to an eventful week on Robinson Crusoe Island, the author picks her way through the complex reality of South American Catholicism and the fragile peace of a newly-born democracy. She also drinks a lot of wine. This improbable ribbon of land has been home to Andean tribes who remain the most scientifically neglected people in the world; it has been conquered by conquistadores, pillaged by Sir Francis Drake (no hero in Chile), exploited by foreign imperialists, blighted by the Panama Canal, governed by the world's first democratically-elected Marxist president and stamped upon by one of this century's most reviled dictators. And, as Sara Wheeler discovered, they have all left their mark on today's Chile - an extravagantly complex country, hidden behind the Andes and stretching to the end of the world. Other work by the author includes An Island Apart.

In this engrossing and timely book, Tony White explores both South Eastern Europe itself, and the Western European fascination with 'the Balkans'. Following in the footsteps of Rebecca West in addition to other key contemporary writers and commentators, White paints vivid and revealing pictures of the cultural lives and landscapes in this fascinating region; drawing on the views and ideas he finds there, and extensive interviews with politicians, writers and artists. The Balkans are often unjustly depicted as a barbarous bridge between Europe and Asia, a territory which just cannot help itself. White has gone in search of humour and humanity, as well as the historical background to these common misconceptions.