Gordon Sunday, an unemployed ex-football player, enters a strange fantasy world where he must help the Lady Glorian, her brother, Tag, and the telepathic lorra, Red, defeat the evil Tide of Blood

**THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER** A compulsively readable account of an African country now virtually inaccessible to the outside world and one journalist's daring and adventurous journey. When war correspondent Tim Butcher was sent to cover Africa in 2000 he quickly became obsessed with the idea of recreating H.M. Stanley's famous nineteenth century trans-Africa expedition - but travelling alone. Despite warnings that his plan was 'suicidal', Butcher set out for the Congo's eastern border with just a rucksack and a few thousand dollars hidden in his boots. Making his way in an assortment of vessels including a motorbike and a dugout canoe, helped along by a cast of unlikely characters, he followed in the footsteps of the great Victorian adventurers. Butcher's journey was a remarkable feat, but the story of the Congo, told expertly and vividly in this book, is more remarkable still. ‘A masterpiece’ John Le Carré ‘Extraordinary, audacious, completely enthralling’ William Boyd ‘A remarkable marriage of travelogue and history, which deserves to make Tim Butcher a star for his prose, as well as his courage’ Max Hastings

A British journalist retraces the legendary 1874 expedition of H. M. Stanley in this “remarkable marriage of travelogue and history” (Max Hastings, author of Armageddon). When Daily Telegraph correspondent Tim Butcher was sent to Africa in 2000,. he quickly became obsessed with the Congo River and the idea of recreating H. M. Stanley’s nineteenth-century journey along the nearly three-thousand-mile waterway. Despite repeated warnings that his plan was suicidal, Butcher set out for the Congo’s eastern border with just a backpack and a few thousand dollars hidden in his boots. Making his way in an assortment of vehicles, including a motorbike and a dugout canoe, helped along by a cast of characters from UN aid workers to a pygmy rights advocate, he follows in the footsteps of the great Victorian adventurer. Butcher’s forty-four-day journey along the Congo River is an unforgettable story of exploration, survival, and history come to life. “Quite superb . . . a masterpiece.” —John le Carré, #1 New York Times–bestselling author “Do NOT try to repeat Tim Butcher’s audacious and terrifying Congo journey. If you do, you will probably die.” —The Guardian “[Blood River] keeps the heart beating and the attention fixed from beginning to end.”—Fergal Keane, international bestselling author of Wounds “It is the wit and passion of the writing that keeps you engrossed.”—Giles Foden, author of The Last King of Scotland

The struggles of an enslaved African woman and two emigrant German farmers generate a sweeping saga of oppression, estrangement, and redeemed memory that binds together America's "Trail of Tears," South Africa's "Great Trek," and our contemporary search for reconciliation.

Nelson Mandela is dead and his dream of a rainbow nation in South Africa is fading. Twenty years after the fall of apartheid the white Afrikaner minority fears cultural extinction. How far are they prepared to go to survive as a people? Kajsa Norman's book traces the war for control of South Africa, its people, and its history, over a series of December 16ths, from the Battle of Blood River in 1838 to its commemoration in 2011. Weaving between the past and the present, the book highlights how years of fear, nationalism, and social engineering have left the modern Afrikaner struggling for identity and relevance. Norman spends time with residents of the breakaway republic of Orania, where a thousand Afrikaners are working to construct a white-African utopia. Citing their desire to preserve their language and traditions, they have sequestered themselves in an isolated part of the arid Karoo region. Here, they can still dictate the rules and create a homeland with its own flag, currency and ideology. For a Europe that faces growing nationalism, their story is more relevant than ever. How do people react when they believe their cultural identity is under threat? Bridge Over Blood River's haunting and subversive evocation of South Africa's racial politics provides some unsettling answers.