Most Popular Books by Paul Theroux

''No one ever sees me write. One of the triumphs of fiction is that it is created in the dark. It leaves my house in a plain wrapper, with no bloodstains. Unlike me, my stories are whole and indestructible.'' In The Collected Stories, Paul Theroux''s canvas stretches from London to South-East Asia, from Boston to Paris, from Africa to Eastern Europe and from Moscow to the tropics in this vibrant collection. Full of suspense and the unexpected, these stories by the acclaimed author of The Old Patagonian Express and Dark Star Safari delve into the worlds of a vast spectrum of characters and display throughout a flair that shows Theroux to be a master of the form. Praise for Paul Theroux: ''A shimmering, kaleidoscopic and very entertaining collection'' Sunday Telegraph ''You close the book feeling you have read a single big narrative rather than a series of short ones . . . As a short-story writer, he makes a terrific novelist'' Sunday Times ''Theroux willingly explores the blighted territory of a failing marriage; the tangled jungle of a mad poet''s secret anti-Semitism; the belated sexual guilt of a Hindu . . . A book of many and varied pleasures; to read it is to feel alert, curious, adventurous'' Observer ''Paul Theroux''s writing is impeccable and thoughtfully entertaining . . . his artistry is individual, serene, yet also grainy with fierce truths'' The Times ''One needs energy to keep up with the extraordinary productive restlessness of Paul Theroux . . . [He is] the most gifted, most prodigal writer of his generation'' Jonathan Raban Paul Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts in 1941 and published his first novel, Waldo, in 1967. His subsequent novels include The Family Arsenal, Picture Palace, The Mosquito Coast, O-Zone, Millroy the Magician, My Secret History, My Other Life, and, most recently, A Dead Hand. His highly acclaimed travel books include Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, Fresh Air Fiend, and Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. He divides his time between Cape Cod and the Hawaiian Islands.

Indians, from India, outfox Fong, a Chinese grocer, in business dealings in a mythical East African country.

The acclaimed writer shares an intimate portrait of his former mentor V.S. Naipaul in this memoir of their thirty-year friendship and sudden falling out. Paul Theroux was a young aspiring writer when he met the legendary V.S. Naipaul in Uganda in 1966. There began a friendship that would span continents as both men ascended the ranks of literary stardom. Naipaul''s early encouragement of Theroux''s talent had a profound impact on him—yet the apprenticeship was not always easy. This heartfelt and revealing account of Theroux''s thirty-year friendship with Naipaul explores the unique effect each writer had on the other. Built around exotic landscapes, anecdotes that are revealing, humorous, and melancholy, and three decades of mutual history, this is a personal account of how one develops as a writer and how a friendship waxes and wanes between two men who have set themselves on the perilous journey of a writing life. A New York Times Notable Book

"A portrait of an optimist with curiosity and affection for humanity in all its forms."—The New York Times Book Review "Theroux is at the top of his game with his third collection of essays, a magisterial grouping of intimate remembrances, globe-trotting adventures, and incisive literary critiques."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "Theroux''s observations are so keen and writerly skills so sharp that he butter-slices narratives with a razor-thin surgeon''s scalpel, masterfully serving up both the world''s dark underbelly and its gloriously uplifting sustenance of love, longing and wonder-lust." —Forbes Paul Theroux’s latest collection of essays applies his signature searching curiosity to a life lived as much in reading as on the road. This writerly tour-de-force features a satisfyingly varied selection of topics. Travel essays take us to Ecuador, Zimbabwe, and Hawaii, to name a few. Gems of literary criticism reveal fascinating depth in the work of Henry David Thoreau, Muriel Spark, Joseph Conrad, and Hunter Thompson. And in a series of breathtakingly personal profiles, we take a helicopter ride with Elizabeth Taylor, go diagnosing with Oliver Sacks, eavesdrop on the day-to-day life of a Manhattan dominatrix, and explore New York with Robin Williams. An extended meditation on the craft of writing binds together this wide-ranging collection, along with Theroux’s constant quest for the authentic in a person or in a place.

This book is author''s choice of his best travel writing, harvested from half a dozen of his books. He has chosen his favourite people, his most vivid journeys, the landscapes that he treasures - some splendours, some miseries, all memorable.

"Since its discovery by Magellan in 1520, Patagonia has retained its fascination as a metaphor for The Ultimate. Here Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux join forces in a literary quest for some of the instances in which these ''final capes of exile'' have affected the literary imagination. This lively and delightful curio had its origins in an entertainment the two writers gave for The Royal Geographical Society, at a time when Paul Theroux was following Bruce Chatwin''s ''In Patagonia'' with ''The Old Patagonian Express''"--Publisher''s description, p. [2] of dust jacket.

Legendary travel writer Theroux drives the entire length of the U.S.-Mexico border, then goes deep into the hinterland to uncover the rich, layered world behind today''s brutal headlines.

The acclaimed author explores the greatest travel writing by literary adventurers from Freya Stark and James Baldwin to Nabokov and Hemmingway. Paul Theroux celebrates fifty years of wandering the globe with this meditative journey through the books that shaped him as a reader and traveler. Part philosophical guide, part miscellany, part reminiscence, The Tao of Travel enumerates "The Contents of Some Travelers'' Bags" and exposes "Writers Who Wrote about Places They Never Visited"; tracks extreme journeys in "Travel as an Ordeal" and highlights some of "Travelers'' Favorite Places." Excerpts from the best of Theroux''s own work are interspersed with selections from travelers both familiar and unexpected, including J.R.R. Tolkien, Samuel Johnson, Eudora Welty, Evelyn Waugh, Isak Dinesen, Charles Dickens, Henry David Thoreau, Pico Iyer, Mark Twain, Anton Chekhov, Bruce Chatwin, John McPhee, Peter Matthiessen, Graham Greene, Paul Bowles, and many more.

Impressies in woord en beeld van een treinreis door Pakistan, India en Bangladesh.

From legendary writer Paul Theroux comes an atmospheric novel following a big-wave surfer as he confronts aging, privilege, mortality, and whose lives we choose to remember.

“Suave and accomplished . . . [The stories] are unsettling, resistant to tidy denouement and faintly misanthropic.” — Washington Post “Beneath the deceptive elegance of these stories, land mines lurk, and Theroux detonates them with gusto.” — O, the Oprah Magazine A family watches their patriarch transform into the singing, wisecracking lead of an old-timey minstrel show. An art collector publicly destroys his most valuable pieces. Two boys stand by as their father wages war on the raccoons living under their house. In this new collection, acclaimed author Paul Theroux shows us humanity possessed, consumed by compulsive desire, always with his carefully honed eye for detail and the subtle idiosyncrasies that bring his characters to life. Searing, dark, and sure to unsettle, Mr. Bones is a stunning display of Theroux’s “fluent, faintly sinister powers of vision and imagination” (The New Yorker). “Fans of Theroux’s fiction will be pleased to observe, in the twenty stories collected in Mr. Bones, clear evidence of how little he has mellowed over time . . . Mr. Bones is a series of characteristically dark and sharply focused snapshots from the world that Paul Theroux has observed—and invented.” — Francine Prose, New York Times Book Review

From the legendary American master Paul Theroux comes a brilliant new novel of chilling psychological depth, the tale of a younger brother whose lifelong rivalry with his older brother—a powerful lawyer with a pattern of gleefully vicious betrayals—culminates in the ultimate plan: murder. Cal has always lived in the shadow of his manipulative and domineering brother, Frank, who was doted upon by their mother and beloved by the girls in their small New England hometown—including Cal’s own girlfriends. In an attempt to escape Frank’s intrusive presence, Cal pursues a different kind of freedom in the world’s wild spaces, prospecting for gold and precious minerals everywhere from the heat of the desert at the Mexican border to the Alaskan chill, to central Africa, and Colombian mines where he will meet the love of his life, Vida. Soon he is dripping in wealth, his pockets full of gold nuggets and emeralds, but the money means far less to him than his independence. To Frank, however, “Cash is king.” As Cal’s success grows, so too does Frank’s power and his influence in Cal’s affairs, the devastating threat he creates at the center of his little brother’s life. And, ultimately, when Frank decides to commit the ultimate betrayal…Cal is left with only one, final solution. Few writers have as keen an eye for human nature as the inimitable Paul Theroux, and this riveting tale of adventure, betrayal, and the true cost of family bonds is an unmissable new work from one of America’s most distinguished and beloved novelists.

When Jerry Delfont, a travel writer with writer''s block, receives a letter from an American philanthropist, Mrs Merrill Unger, with news of a scandal involving an Indian friend of her son''s, he is sufficiently intrigued to pursue the story. Who is the dead boy found on the floor of a cheap hotel room, how and why did he die - and will this writer, whom Mrs Unger claims to admire, find out what really happened? Jerry is swiftly captivated by the beautiful, mysterious Mrs Unger, and revived by her Tantric massages, but the circumstances surrounding the dead boy cause him increasingly to doubt the exact nature of her philanthropy. With his trademark clarity of description and observation, Theroux brings to dramatic life a dark and twisted narrative of obsession and need.

A final African adventure from the writer whose gimlet eye and effortless prose have brought the world to generations of readers Journeying alone, in what he feels will be his last African journey, Paul Theroux encounters a world increasingly removed from both the itineraries of tourists and the hopes of post-colonial independence movements. Having travelled down the right-hand side of Africa in Dark Star Safari, he sets out this time from Cape Town, heading northwards up the left-hand side, through South Africa and Namibia, to Botswana, heading for the Congo, in search of the end of the line.