From travel fiction to chic-lit and brit-lit. Some of my fave reads.
Explore a curated list of favorite reads from travel fiction to chic-lit and Brit-lit. Discover top book recommendations for Brit, chic, and travel fiction lovers.
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The Beach
by Alex Garland
The irresistible novel that was adapted into a major motion picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The Khao San Road, Bangkok -- first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia. On Richard's first night there, in a low-budget guest house, a fellow traveler slashes his wrists, bequeathing to Richard a meticulously drawn map to "the Beach." The Beach, as Richard has come to learn, is the subject of a legend among young travelers in Asia: a lagoon hidden from the sea, with white sand and coral gardens, freshwater falls surrounded by jungle, plants untouched for a thousand years. There, it is rumored, a carefully selected international few have settled in a communal Eden. Haunted by the figure of Mr. Duck -- the name by which the Thai police have identified the dead man -- and his own obsession with Vietnam movies, Richard sets off with a young French couple to an island hidden away in an archipelago forbidden to tourists. They discover the Beach, and it is as beautiful and idyllic as it is reputed to be. Yet over time it becomes clear that Beach culture, as Richard calls it, has troubling, even deadly, undercurrents. Spellbinding and hallucinogenic, The Beach by Alex Garland -- both a national bestseller and his debut -- is a highly accomplished and suspenseful novel that fixates on a generation in their twenties, who, burdened with the legacy of the preceding generation and saturated by popular culture, long for an unruined landscape, but find it difficult to experience the world firsthand.
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Smoking Poppy
by Graham Joyce
Called "a sharp, short, terrifying adventure" by "Kirkus Reviews, " Graham Joyce's latest novel is a literary page turner, as a father searches for his missing daughter in the hothouse atmosphere of Thailand.
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Losing Gemma
by Katy Gardner
Two young British woman go on a backpacking trip through Indian and one dies.
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Rachel's Holiday
by Marian Keyes
The fast lane is much too slow for Rachel Walsh. And Manhattan is the perfect place for a young Irish female to overdo everything. But Rachel's love of a good time is about to land her in the emergency room. It will also cost her a job and the boyfriend she adores. When her loving family hustles her back home and checks her into Ireland's answer to the Betty Ford Clinic, Rachel is hopeful. Perhaps it will be lovely—spa treatments, celebrities, that kind of thing. Instead, she finds a lot of group therapy, which leads her, against her will, to some important self-knowledge. She will also find something that all women like herself fear: a man who might actually be good for her.
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Sushi for Beginners
by Marian Keyes
Lisa Edwards This Prada-wearing magazine editor thinks her life is over when her "fabulous" new job turns out to be a deportation to Dublin to launch Colleen magazine. The only saving grace is that her friends aren't there to witness her downward spiral. Might her new boss, the disheveled and moody Jack Devine, save her from a fate worse than hell? Ashling Kennedy Ashling, Colleen's assistant editor, is an award-winning worrier, increasingly aware that something fundamental is missing from her life -- apart from a boyfriend and a waistline. Clodagh "Princess" Kelly Ashling's best friend, Clodagh, lives the domestic dream in a suburban castle. So why, lately, has she had the recurring urge to kiss a frog -- or sleep with a frog, if truth be told? As these three women search for love, success, and happiness, they will discover that if you let things simmer under the surface for too long, sooner or later they'll boil over. Discover the Keyes to a Great Read!
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Adored
by Tilly Bagshawe
- British rights for Adored were acquired for a hefty advance in a three-day, six-publisher auction, followed by major sales throughout the world. - Adored will appeal to the same audience that made bestsellers of Plum Sykes's Bergdorf Blondes (Miramax, 4/04), Jackie Collins's Hollywood Divorces (Simon & Schuster, 2003), and Sidney Sheldon's Are You Afraid of the Dark? (William Morrow, 2004). - The fact that a beautiful, accomplished 31-year-old Cambridge University graduate has taken it upon herself to reinvent and revel in such big-canvas story-telling is sure to attract considerable media attention. - Tilly Bagshawe is a freelance journalist and regular contributor to The Sunday Times, Daily Mail, and other major British publications. She lives in Los Angeles and London with her husband and daughter.
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The Dirt
by Tommy Lee
The most influential, enduring, and iconic metal band of the 1980's reveals everything a tell-all of epic proportions. This unbelievable autobiography explores the rebellious lives of four of the most influential icons in American rock history. Motley Crue was the voice of a barely pubescent Generation X, the anointed high priests of backward-masking pentagram rock, pioneers of Hollywood glam, and the creators of MTV's first "power ballad." Their sex lives claimed celebrities from Heather Locklear to Pamela Anderson to Donna D'Errico. Their scuffles involved everyone from Axl Rose to 2LiveCrew. Their hobbies have included collecting automatic weapons, cultivating long arrest records, pushing the envelope of conceivable drug abuse, and dreaming up backstage antics that would make Ozzy Osbourne blanch with modesty. Provocatively written and brilliantly designed, this book includes over 100 photos, many never before published, for the most exciting and insightful look ever into the Crue.
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How to Make Love Like a Porn Star
by Jenna Jameson
When the stewardess brought me off the plane in a wheelchair, I lowered my head. I was too scared to even look at my father. I didn't want to see the disappointment and horror on his face. All that hate I had accumulated for him over the years, all the resentment against him for not understanding what I was going through, just released with the tears. "So, where are your parents?" the stewardess asked me after a few minutes. "I can't wait here with you much longer." I looked up and wiped my eyes. My father was standing ten feet away. He didn't even recognize me. In the underbelly of Las Vegas, a cesspool of warring biker gangs and seedy strip clubs transformed the gawky, brace-faced Jenna Massoli into the bombshell Jenna Jameson. Today, Jenna Jameson is the biggest star in the history of adult movies, consistently ranked as one of the most beautiful women alive. But behind the glamour and the meteoric rise to fame was a path paved with tragedy and heartbreak. As a teenager drawn into a chaotic world ruled by rape, abuse, and murder, Jenna plunged into a downward spiral of addiction, even as she became one of the most photographed women in adult magazines. Determined to overcome this past, Jenna rebounded in the adult-film business, where she encountered sadistic directors, experienced lovers of both sexes, amorous celebrities (from Howard Stern to Marilyn Manson to Tommy Lee), bitter rival starlets, and finally, glory, as she went on to become the biggest porn star the world has ever seen. But her struggle for happiness did not end when the accolades began. For years she wrestled with her resentment at her estranged father, the loneliness of growing up from the age of two without a mother, and her enduring childhood desire to find a man who could give her the security and love she never had. Her unforgettable memoir is many things at once: a shocking sexual history, an insider's guide to the secret workings of the billion-dollar adult-film industry, and a gripping thriller that probes deep into Jenna's dark past. An unparalleled exploration of sexual freedom, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star ventures far beyond the flesh, into the heart-shredding tragedies and adrenaline-pumping triumphs of a woman who has already lived a hundred lifetimes. Always witty and humorous even as she faces the demons of her past, Jenna offers hilarious anecdotes about one of the most controversial businesses in history, and shares outrageous advice, including her ten commandments of dating and sex, how to become a "suitcase pimp," and how to make it in the business as a female (or a male). Add to this never-before-seen photographs from Jenna's private collection and others taken exclusively for this book, and the result is certain to be one of the most talked-about books of the year.
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Under and Alone
by William Queen
In 1998, William Queen was a veteran law enforcement agent with a lifelong love of motorcycles and a lack of patience with paperwork. When a “confidential informant” made contact with his boss at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, offering to take an agent inside the San Fernando chapter of the Mongols (the scourge of Southern California, and one of the most dangerous gangs in America), Queen jumped at the chance, not realizing that he was kicking-starting the most extensive undercover operation inside an outlaw motorcycle gang in the history of American law enforcement. Nor did Queen suspect that he would penetrate the gang so successfully that he would become a fully “patched-in” member, eventually rising through their ranks to the office of treasurer, where he had unprecedented access to evidence of their criminal activity. After Queen spent twenty-eight months as “Billy St. John,” the bearded, beer-swilling, Harley-riding gang-banger, the truth of his identity became blurry, even to himself. During his initial “prospecting” phase, Queen was at the mercy of crank-fueled criminal psychopaths who sought to have him test his mettle and prove his fealty by any means necessary, from selling (and doing) drugs, to arms trafficking, stealing motorcycles, driving getaway cars, and, in one shocking instance, stitching up the face of a Mongol “ol’ lady” after a particularly brutal beating at the hands of her boyfriend. Yet despite the constant criminality of the gang, for whom planning cop killings and gang rapes were business as usual, Queen also came to see the genuine camaraderie they shared. When his lengthy undercover work totally isolated Queen from family, his friends, and ATF colleagues, the Mongols felt like the only family he had left. “I had no doubt these guys genuinely loved Billy St. John and would have laid down their lives for him. But they wouldn’t hesitate to murder Billy Queen.” From Queen’s first sleight of hand with a line of methamphetamine in front of him and a knife at his throat, to the fearsome face-off with their decades-old enemy, the Hell’s Angels (a brawl that left three bikers dead), to the heartbreaking scene of a father ostracized at Parents’ Night because his deranged-outlaw appearance precluded any interaction with regular citizens, Under and Alone is a breathless, adrenaline-charged read that puts you on the street with some of the most dangerous men in America and with the law enforcement agents who risk everything to bring them in.
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Echo Park
by Michael Connelly
Eleven years after his investigation into the 1995 disappearance of Marie Gesto goes cold, Harry Bosch finally gets a chance to put the case to rest when a man accused of two brutal killings agrees to come clean about several others.
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The Vampire Lestat
by Anne Rice
#1 New York Times Bestselling author - Surrender to fiction's greatest creature of the night - Book II of the Vampire Chronicles The vampire hero of Anne Rice’s enthralling novel is a creature of the darkest and richest imagination. Once an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-revolutionary France, now a rock star in the demonic, shimmering 1980s, he rushes through the centuries in search of others like him, seeking answers to the mystery of his eternal, terrifying exsitence. His is a mesmerizing story—passionate, complex, and thrilling. Praise for The Vampire Lestat “Frightening, sensual . . . Anne Rice will live on through the ages of literature. . . . To read her is to become giddy as if spinning through the mind of time, to become lightheaded as if our blood is slowly being drained away.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Fiercely ambitious, nothing less than a complete unnatural history of vampires.”—The Village Voice “Brilliant . . . its undead characters are utterly alive.”—The New York Times Book Review “Luxuriantly created and richly told.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
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The Villa
by Nora Roberts
#1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts exposes a proud family’s deadly secrets in this passionate tale of two Napa Valley rivals... PR executive Sophia Giambelli loves her job and has never worried about competition. For three generations, her family’s wines have been world-renowned for their quality. But things are about to change at Villa Giambelli. Tereza, the matriarch, has announced a merger with the MacMillan family’s winery—and Sophia will be assuming a new role. As a savvy businesswoman, Sophia knows she must be prepared for anything...but she isn’t prepared for Tyler MacMillan. They’ve been ordered to work together very closely, to facilitate the merger. Sophia must teach Ty the finer points of marketing—and Ty, in turn, shows her how to get down and dirty, to use the sun, rain, and earth to coax the sweetest grapes from the vineyard. As they toil together, both in and out of the fields, Sophia is torn between a powerful attraction and a professional rivalry. At the end of the season, the course of the company’s future—and the legacy of the villa—may take an entirely new direction. And when acts of sabotage threaten both the family business and the family itself, Sophia’s quest will be not only for dominance, but also for survival.
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Sweet Revenge
by Nora Roberts
“You can’t bottle wish fulfillment, but Nora Roberts certainly knows how to put it on the page.”—The New York Times At twenty-five, Princess Adrianne lives a life most people would envy. Beautiful and elegant, she spends her days dabbling in charities and her nights floating from one glamorous gala to the next. But her pampered-rich-girl pose is a ruse, a carefully calculated effort to hide a dangerous truth. For ten years Adrianne has lived for revenge. As a child, she could only watch the cruelty hidden behind the facade of her parents’ fairy-tale marriage. Now she has the perfect plan to make her famous father pay. She will take possession of the one thing he values above all others—The Sun and the Moon, a fabled necklace beyond price. Yet just as she is poised to take her vengeance, she meets a man who seems to divine her every secret. Clever, charming, and enigmatic, Philip Chamberlain has his own private reasons for getting close to Princess Adrianne. And only when it’s too late will she see the hidden danger . . . as she finds herself up against two formidable men—one with the knowledge to take her freedom, the other with the power to take her life. Praise for Sweet Revenge “Move over, Sidney Sheldon: the world has a new master of romantic suspense, and her name is Nora Roberts.”—Rex Reed “Her stories have fueled the dreams of twenty-five million readers.”—Entertainment Weekly
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Dog Handling
by Clare Naylor
Stunned when her fiancé calls off their wedding, Liv Elliot embarks on a life-altering trip to Sydney, Australia, where she finds a new career and new romance, until a chance encounter with Ben Parker, with whom she had indulged in a brief summer fling, turns her life of upside down. Reprint.
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The Devil You Know
by Louise Bagshawe
New York...Smart, sexy Rose Fiorello grows up poor with nothing but a blistering hatred of Rothstein Realty, the developer that crushed her father's business...and a shocking plan to get even. Los Angeles...Pampered society princess Poppy Allen wants to escape the smothering cocoon of her parents' privileged life to embrace the excitement of becoming a rock star...or rock star maker. London...Plump, bullied Daisy Markham devours trashy bestsellers to escape her misery at boarding school...until she discovers that writing them can bring the acceptance-and man-she secretly desires. But as each of these gutsy women goes after her dreams, a brutal act committed long ago will suddenly explode their worlds-revealing the betrayal that stole the heritage of three baby girls... uniting them now with one common passion: revenge.
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The Devil Wears Prada
by Lauren Weisberger
A small-town girl fresh out of an Ivy League college lands a job at a prestigious fashion magazine, but wonders if the glamorous perks are worth working for the editor from hell.
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Love, Lucy
by Lucille Ball
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The one and only autobiography by the iconic Lucille Ball, hailed by TV Guide as the “#1 Greatest TV Star of All Time.” Love, Lucy is the valentine Lucille Ball left for her fans—a warm, wise, and witty memoir written by Lucy herself. The legendary star of the classic sitcom I Love Lucy was at the pinnacle of her success when she sat down to record the story of her life. No comedienne had made America laugh so hard, no television actress had made the leap from radio and B movies to become one of the world's best-loved performers. This is her story—in her own words. The story of the ingenue from Jamestown, New York, determined to go to Broadway, destined to make a big splash, bound to marry her Valentino, Desi Arnaz. In her own inimitable style, she tells of their life together—both storybook and turbulent; intimate memories of their children and friends; wonderful backstage anecdotes; the empire they founded; the dissolution of their marriage. And, with a heartfelt happy ending, her enduring marriage to Gary Morton. Here is the lost manuscript that her fans and loved ones will treasure. Here is the laughter. Here is the life. Here’s Lucy... “The comic actress in her own words...intensley moving.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Filled with light and laughter.”—New York Times Book Review
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Losing My Virginity
by Richard Branson
Not long ago the Big Thicket of East Texas was still one of those places singular in its southernness, like the Mississippi Delta or the Carolina Low Country. Now its old-timers and their ways are nearly gone. They will not be forgotten, though, for in My Grandfather's Finger Edward Swift recalls a Big Thicket populated by family and friends as gloriously vibrant and enigmatic as the land itself. From Camp Ruby to nearby Woodville and all the swamps, bayous, and forests in between, Swift shows us a place and time so fecund with humor, tragedy, and good talk that, in growing up there, he had no choice but to become a novelist. We meet, among many others, Mother, a widowed war bride who would spring-clean the inside of her house with a garden hose, and Aunt Coleta, childlike and always surrounded by an entourage of kids half enchanted by her and half scared witless. Then there are Uncle Frank, who, with self-fulfilling flair, would have drawn a pistol at the merest suggestion that his family was dysfunctional, and, of course, Grandfather, who lost his finger to a machete and his mind to cough medicine. A mystical world of carnivals, talking fiddles, houses on wheels, atomic bombs, and total-immersion baptisms, Edward Swift's Big Thicket was also a world in which he was loved unconditionally--and that alone makes it worth getting to know.
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Building a Company
by Bob Thomas
Roy O Disney and the Creation of an Entertainment Empire Roy and Walt Disney will go down in entertainment history as one of its all-time most successful teams. Everyone knows about Walt but what of Roy, the older brother whose stormy relationship with Walt helped build their business empire? This is a fully authorised look at the other Disney genius, featuring previously unpublished interviews, notes, letters, and photographs. It illuminates the Disney story as never before.
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Memoirs of a Geisha
by Arthur Golden
Because her mother is dying and her father old, Chiyo, nine, is sold to a wealthy geisha house in Gion where she learns her trade and works it in the 1930s and 1940s.
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Southeast Asia on a Shoestring
by China Williams
Hit the Southeast Asia hippy trail in a rickety bus packed with chickens. You'll find your nirvana at a Buddhist temple, on a perfect beach or in a bowl of noodle soup. Written for backpackers by backpackers, this guide to 11 countries lets you go further, stay longer and pay less for an adventure of a lifetime.This original and longest-running travel guide to Southeast Asia covers Myanmar, East Timor, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.There are suggested itineraries by expert authors with over 20 years combined travel experience in Southeast Asia. A "Getting Started" chapter provides insider tips on getting the most out of travel in this popular travel destination-including how to eat, sleep and travel without blowing the budget. Included are dedicated sections on studying, working and volunteering, as well as responsible travel.