<div>“A Vonnegut tinged absurdist satire . . . (a) tightly paced, expertly drawn comic romp” from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Mosquito Coast (LitReactor). Paul Theroux, one of the world’s most popular authors, both for his travel books and his fiction, has produced an off-beat story of 1960s weirdos unlike anything he has ever written. During the time of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, Herbie Gneiss is forced to leave college to get a job. His income from the Kant-Brake toy factory, which manufactures military toys for children, keeps his chocolate-loving mother from starvation. Mr. Gibbon, a patriotic veteran of three wars, also works at Kant-Brake. When Herbie is drafted, Mr. Gibbon falls in love with Herbie’s mother and they move in together at Miss Ball’s rooming house. Since Herbie is fighting for his country, Mr. Gibbon feels that he, too, should do something for his country and convinces Miss Ball and Mrs. Gneiss to join him in the venture. They decide to rob the Mount Holly Trust Company because it is managed by a small dark man who is probably a communist. There are some complications. Combine Donald E. Westlake with Abby Hoffman, add a bit of Gore Vidal at his most vitriolic, and you will have Murder in Mount Holly. “Parodies the American political fringe at a time when flags burned, hippies protested and commies lurked everywhere . . . you’ll have little difficulty inserting today’s fringe characters into Theroux’s lampoon.” —Star Tribune “The geezer psychopath finally gets his due . . . The fun here is in how hateful the characters are.” —The New York Times Book Review</div>

Murder in Mount Holly

<div>A travel writer is drawn into a strange criminal case, and an even stranger romantic affair, in a novel that brings India &ldquo;brilliantly, blazingly to life&rdquo; (The Washington Post). When Jerry Delfont, an aimless, blocked travel writer, receives a letter from an American philanthropist, Mrs. Merrill Unger, he is intrigued. She informs him about a scandal, involving an Indian friend of her son&rsquo;s. Who is the dead boy, found on the floor of a cheap hotel room? How and why did he die? And what is Jerry to make of a patch of carpet, and a package containing a human hand? Jerry is swiftly captivated by the beautiful, mysterious Mrs. Unger&mdash;and revived by her tantric massages&mdash;but the circumstances surrounding the dead boy cause him increasingly to doubt the woman&rsquo;s motives and the exact nature of her philanthropy. Without much to go on, Jerry pursues answers from the teeming streets of Calcutta to Uttar Pradesh. It is a dark and twisted trail of obsession and need. From the author of The Great Railway Bazaar, A Dead Hand is offers &ldquo;an abundance of richly drawn characters . . . Theroux has used his travel writer&rsquo;s eye and ear and his novelist&rsquo;s imagination to craft a tense, disturbing, funny and horrifying book around all of them&rdquo; (San Francisco Chronicle). &ldquo;The real pleasure is Theroux&rsquo;s talent for rendering place and his irreverent comments on everything from the British royals to pop culture, aging, and yes, the venerable Mother Teresa.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly</div>

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A Dead Hand

<div>In this &ldquo;moody thriller,&rdquo; a family business is targeted for takeover as control of Hong Kong shifts from the British to the Chinese (The New York Times). Ninety-nine years of colonial rule are ending as the British prepare to hand over Hong Kong to China. Betty Mullard and her son, Bunt, have lived here for years, mostly keeping apart from their foreign surroundings, except for some indulgence in the local food, or in Bunt&rsquo;s case, the local girls. The handover is not a concern for them&mdash;until the mysterious Mr. Hung from the mainland offers them a large sum for their family business. They refuse. But they fail to realize that Mr. Hung is unlike the other Chinese people they&rsquo;ve known: he will accept no refusals. When a young female employee whom Bunt has been dating vanishes, he is forced to make important decisions for the first time in his life&mdash;but his good intentions are pitted against the will of Mr. Hung, and the threat of the ultimate betrayal. &ldquo;A compact, provocative gem of a novel&rdquo; (The Boston Globe), from an award-winning author acclaimed for both his fiction and his travel memoirs&mdash;including Deep South, The Great Railway Bazaar, and The Mosquito Coast&mdash;Kowloon Tong was praised by Bette Bao Lord in The Washington Post Book World as &ldquo;a taut, illuminating story that transcends its timely subject.&rdquo;</div>

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Kowloon Tong

<div>This &ldquo;interesting, insightful book&rdquo; by the author of Deep South reveals &ldquo;a side of Britain few visitors see&rdquo; (The New York Times Book Review). After eleven years as an American living in London, the renowned travel writer Paul Theroux set out to travel clockwise around the coast of Great Britain to find out what the British were really like. The result is this perceptive, hilarious record of the journey. Whether in Cornwall or Wales, Ulster or Scotland, the people he encountered along the way revealed far more of themselves than they perhaps intended to display to a stranger. Theroux captured their rich and varied conversational commentary with caustic wit and penetrating insight. &ldquo;A sharp and funny descriptive writer . . . Theroux is a good companion.&rdquo; &mdash;The Times (London)</div>

The Kingdom by the Sea

<div>This collection of wide-ranging essays from the New York Times&ndash;bestselling travel writer is &ldquo;a steamer trunk full of delights&rdquo; (Chicago Sun-Times). This collection of decidedly opinionated articles, essays, and ruminations, by the author of My Other Life and Kowloon Tong, transports the reader not only to exotic, unexpected places in the world but also into the interior life of the writer himself. Whether it is his time serving in the Peace Corps, his memorable interview with tennis star John McEnroe, bearing witness to the uprising in Uganda, or the debt he owes to his mentor, V. S. Naipaul, Theroux approaches each subject with characteristic intelligence, insight, and an eye for life&rsquo;s great ironies. Over the course of two decades, Paul Theroux gathers people, places, and ideas in precise, evocative writing that &ldquo;serves as both the camera and the eye, and both the details and the illusions are developed with brilliance&rdquo; (Time). &ldquo;What makes Mr. Theroux most persuasive as a writer is simply his willingness to put himself on the line. . . . Gusty, personal, and astonishing.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times &ldquo;These pieces prove anew Theroux&rsquo;s unflagging, infectious enthusiams [sic] for exploring.&rdquo; &mdash;Kirkus Reviews</div>

Sunrise with Seamonsters

<div>The acclaimed travel writer journeys by train across the Americas from Boston to Patagonia in this international bestselling travel memoir.Starting with a rush-hour subway ride to South Station in Boston to catch the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago, Paul Theroux takes a grand railway adventure first across the United States and then south through Mexico, Central America, and across the Andes until he winds up on the meandering Old Patagonian Express steam engine. His epic commute finally comes to a halt in a desolate land of cracked hills and thorn bushes that reaches toward Antarctica. Along the way, Theroux demonstrates how train travel can reveal &ldquo;&quot;the social miseries and scenic splendors&rdquo; of a continent. And through his perceptive prose we learn that what matters most are the people he meets along the way, including the monologuing Mr. Thornberry in Costa Rica, the bogus priest of Cali, and the blind Jorge Luis Borges, who delights in having Theroux read Robert Louis Stevenson to him.</div>

The Old Patagonian Express

<div>The acclaimed author of The Great Railway Bazaar retraces his legendary journey through Europe and Asia in this &ldquo;funny, informative and lyrical&rdquo; travelogue (The Guardian, UK).Paul Theroux virtually invented the modern travel narrative by recounting his 25,000-mile journey by train through eastern Europe, central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, China, Japan, and Siberia. Three decades later, the world he recorded in The Great Railway Bazaar has undergone phenomenal change. The Soviet Union has collapsed and China has risen; India booms while Burma smothers under dictatorship; Vietnam flourishes in the aftermath of the havoc America was unleashing on it the last time Theroux passed through. Now Theroux returns to capture the texture, sights, smells, and sounds of this new landscape. Theroux&rsquo;s odyssey takes him from eastern Europe, still hung-over from communism. He experiences a tense but thriving Turkey, and a Georgia limping back toward feudalism while its neighbor Azerbaijan revels in oil-fueled capitalism. Through it all, Theroux travels as the locals do&mdash;by train, bus, taxi, and foot; he encounters fellow writers, including Orhan Pamuk, Haruki Murakami, and Arthur C. Clarke; and, as always, his omnivorous curiosity and unerring eye for detail capture it all.</div>

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

<div>The author of The Great Railway Bazaar explores the South Pacific by kayak: &ldquo;This exhilarating epic ranks with [his] best travel books&rdquo; (Publishers Weekly). In one of his most exotic and adventuresome journeys, travel writer Paul Theroux embarks on an eighteen-month tour of the South Pacific, exploring fifty-one islands by collapsible kayak. Beginning in New Zealand&#39;s rain forests and ultimately coming to shore thousands of miles away in Hawaii, Theroux paddles alone over isolated atolls, through dirty harbors and shark-filled waters, and along treacherous coastlines. Along the way, Theroux meets the king of Tonga, encounters street gangs in Auckland, and investigates a cargo cult in Vanuatu. From Australia to Tahiti, Fiji, Easter Island, and beyond, this exhilarating tropical epic is full of disarming observations and high adventure.</div>

The Happy Isles of Oceania

<div>The acclaimed author of Dark Star Safari journeys across western Africa in this &ldquo;thoroughly engrossing [and] at times tragic&rdquo; travelogue (Washington Post).Paul Theroux&rsquo;s best-selling Dark Star Safari chronicled his epic overland voyage from Cairo to Cape Town, providing an insider&rsquo;s look at modern Africa. Now, with The Last Train to Zona Verde, he returns to discover how both he and Africa have changed in the ensuing years. Traveling alone, Theroux sets out from Cape Town, going north through South Africa, Namibia, then into Angola, encountering a world increasingly removed from tourists&rsquo; itineraries and the hopes of postcolonial independence movements. After covering nearly 2,500 arduous miles, Theroux cuts short his journey, a decision he chronicles with unsparing honesty in a chapter titled &ldquo;What Am I Doing Here?&rdquo; Vivid, witty, and beautifully evocative, The Last Train to Zona Verde is a fitting final African adventure from the writer whose gimlet eye and effortless prose have brought the world to generations of readers. &ldquo;If this book is proof, age has not slowed Theroux or encouraged him to rest on his achievements . . . Gutsy, alert to Africa&#39;s struggles, its injustices and history.&rdquo; &mdash; San Francisco Chronicle</div>

The Last Train to Zona Verde

<div>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 &ldquo;The Contents of Some Travelers&rsquo; Bags&rdquo; and exposes &ldquo;Writers Who Wrote about Places They Never Visited&rdquo;; tracks extreme journeys in &ldquo;Travel as an Ordeal&rdquo; and highlights some of &ldquo;Travelers&rsquo; Favorite Places.&rdquo; Excerpts from the best of Theroux&rsquo;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.</div>

The Tao of Travel

<div>The acclaimed author recounts his epic journey across Europe and Asia in this international bestselling classic of travel literature: &ldquo;Compulsive reading&rdquo; (Graham Greene). In 1973, Paul Theroux embarked on a four-month journey by train from the United Kingdom through Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. In The Great Railway Bazaar, he records in vivid detail and penetrating insight the many fascinating incidents, adventures, and encounters of his grand, intercontinental tour. Asia&#39;s fabled trains&mdash;the Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Frontier Mail, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Mandalay Express, the Trans-Siberian Express&mdash;are the stars of a journey that takes Theroux on a loop eastbound from London&#39;s Victoria Station to Tokyo Central, then back from Japan on the Trans-Siberian. Brimming with Theroux&#39;s signature humor and wry observations, this engrossing chronicle is essential reading for both the ardent adventurer and the armchair traveler.</div>

The Great Railway Bazaar

<div>A writer turned Hawaiian hotel manager observes the many lives that pass through his rooms in this novel by the author of The Great Railway Bazaar. A New York Times Notable BookIn this wickedly satiric romp, a down-on-his-luck writer finds escape from his life as the manager of a low-rent hotel a few blocks from the beach in Waikiki. His boss is quick to explain that the Hotel Honolulu is a multistory establishment&mdash;and the writer soon discovers just how many stories are contained in its walls.Honeymooners, vacationers, wanderers, mythomaniacs, soldiers, and families all check in. Like the Canterbury pilgrims, every guest has come in search of something, whether it&rsquo;s sun, love, happiness, or objects of unnameable longing. And every guest&mdash;not to mention the staff, the owner, and the author himself&mdash;has a story. By turns hilarious, ribald, tender, and tragic, Hotel Honolulu offers a unique glimpse into the psychological landscape of an American paradise.&ldquo;A sun-soaked Decameron.&rdquo;&mdash;Chicago Sun-Times</div>

Hotel Honolulu

<div>The acclaimed travel writer chronicles a year of train travel across China in a revealing travelogue that &ldquo;gives the reader much to relish and think about&rdquo; (Publishers Weekly).The author of the train travel classics The Great Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express, takes to the rails once again in this account of his epic journey through China. The always irascible, infectiously curious author &ldquo;is in top form as he describes the barren deserts of Mongolia and Xinjiang, the ice forests of Manchuria and the dry hills of Tibet. He captures their otherworldly, haunting appearances perfectly. He is also right on target when he talks about the ugliness of China&#39;s poorly planned, hastily built cities&rdquo; (Mark Salzman, The New York Times). Theroux hops aboard a train as part of a tour group in London and sets out for China&#39;s border. He then spends a year traversing the country, where he pieces together a fascinating snapshot of a unique moment in history. From sweeping and desolate natural landscapes to the dense metropolises of Shanghai, Beijing, and Canton, Theroux offers an unforgettable portrait of a magnificent land and an extraordinary people.</div>

Riding the Iron Rooster

<div>The acclaimed author of The Great Railway Bazaar takes a revealing journey through the Southern US in a &ldquo;vivid contemporary portrait of rural life&rdquo; (Atlanta Journal-Constitution). Paul Theroux has spent decades roaming the globe and writing of his experiences with remote people and far-flung places. Now, for the first time, he turns his attention to a corner of America&mdash;the Deep South. On a winding road trip through Mississippi, South Carolina, and elsewhere below the Mason-Dixon, Theroux discovers architectural and artistic wonders, incomparable music, mouth-watering cuisine&mdash;and also some of the worst schools, medical care, housing, and unemployment rates in the nation. Most fascinating of all are Theroux&rsquo;s many encounters with the people who make the South what it is&mdash;from preachers and mayors to quarry workers and gun show enthusiasts. With his astute ear and penetrating mind, Theroux once again demonstrates his &ldquo;remarkable gift for getting strangers to reveal themselves&rdquo; in this eye-opening excursion into his own country (The New York Times Book Review). &ldquo;Paul Theroux&rsquo;s latest travel memoir had me at hello&hellip;Theroux pulls no punches in his quest to understand this overlooked margin of American life.&rdquo; &mdash; Boston Globe</div>

Deep South

<div>An American pimp in Singapore finds his life of pleasure turning against him in this comic novel by the acclaimed author of The Great Railway Bazaar. Once a small-time American hustler, Jack Flowers found his calling when he jumped into the Straits of Malacca and hitched a ride to Singapore. Deftly identifying the fastest route to fame along the seedy port, Jack started hiring girls out to lonely tourists, sailors, bachelors&mdash;anyone with some loose change and a wandering eye. Some years later, he&rsquo;s running two pleasure palaces and something of a legend among those in the know. But just as Jack is riding high, a shocking tumble toward the brink of death leaves him shaken, depressed and vulnerable. Desperate to pull himself back up, he&rsquo;s quick to do business with Edwin Shuck, a powerful American working to take down an unsuspecting general. Marked with Paul Theroux&rsquo;s trademark biting humor, Saint Jack is an audacious tale of sex, faith, guilt, innocence, middle-age, and the meaning of it all.</div>

Saint Jack

<div>The international bestselling author records his many insights and adventures traversing the world by train in these 3 classic travel memoirs. The Great Railway Bazaar In 1973, Paul Theroux embarked on his now-legendary journey from the United Kingdom through Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Asia&#39;s fabled trains&mdash;the Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Frontier Mail, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Mandalay Express, the Trans-Siberian Express&mdash;are the stars of a journey that takes Theroux on a loop eastbound from London&#39;s Victoria Station to Tokyo Central, then back from Japan on the Trans-Siberian. The Old Patagonia Express Starting with a rush-hour subway ride to South Station in Boston to catch the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago, Paul Theroux takes a grand railway adventure first across the United States and then south through Mexico, Central America, and across the Andes until he winds up on the meandering Old Patagonian Express steam engine. Ghost Train to the Eastern Star Thirty years after the epic journey chronicled in The Great Railway Bazaar, Paul Theroux retraces his 25,000-mile journey to witness and experience a landscape drastically transformed by the intervening decades. The Soviet Union has collapsed and China has risen; India booms while Burma smothers under dictatorship; Vietnam flourishes in the aftermath of the havoc America was unleashing on it the last time Theroux passed through.</div>

Riding the Rails with Paul Theroux

<div>In this &ldquo;candid, perceptive and intelligent&rdquo; trio of novellas, the acclaimed travel writer presents tales of Westerners transformed by sojourns in India (Independent, UK). These three intertwined novellas by the author of The Great Railway Bazaar capture the tumult, ambition, hardship, and serenity that mark today&rsquo;s India. Theroux&rsquo;s Westerners risk venturing far beyond the subcontinent&rsquo;s well-worn paths to discover truth, peace, or woe. A middle-aged couple on vacation veers heedlessly from idyll to chaos. A buttoned-up Boston lawyer finds succor in Mumbai&rsquo;s reeking slums. And a young woman befriends an elephant in Bangalore. We also meet Indian characters as singular as they are reflective of the country&rsquo;s subtle ironies: an executive who yearns to become a holy beggar, an earnest young striver whose personality is rewired by acquiring an American accent, a miracle-working guru, and others. As ever, Theroux&rsquo;s portraits of people and places explode stereotypes to exhilarating effect.</div>

The Elephanta Suite

<div>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</div>

Paul Theroux
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Books By Paul Theroux (18 Books)