Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in China

The jagged mountains dividing China and Burma belong to the Wa, an indigenous group who have outwitted the CIA to create the world's mightiest narco-state, controlling more territory than Israel and with more troops than Sweden. Are they crime lords? Or visionaries?

In his latest entertaining and thought provoking narrative travelogue, Michael Booth sets out to discover how deep, really, is the enmity between these three 'tiger' nations and what prevents them from making peace. Currently China's economic power continues to grow, Japan is becoming more militaristic and Korea struggles to reconcile its westernized south with the dictatorial Communist north. Booth, long fascinated with the region, travels by car, ferry, train and foot, experiencing the people and culture of these nations up close. 

Tessa Keswick first travelled to China in 1982 and immediately fell in love with its history, culture and landscape. Over the next 30 years, she travelled extensively in China, visiting its temples and landmarks, the sites of its most famous battles and the birthplaces of its best-known poets and philosophers. She also witnessed China's transformation, as hundreds of millions were lifted out of poverty and the country emerged as an economic superpower in waiting.

Rachel Meller was never close to her aunt Lisbeth, a cool, unemotional woman with a drawling Viennese-Californian accent, a cigarette in her hand. But when Lisbeth died, she left Rachel an intricately carved Chinese box with a sunflower clasp. Inside the box were photographs, letters and documents that led Rachel to uncover a story she had never known: that of a passionate Jewish teenager growing up in elegant Vienna, who was caught up by war, and forced to flee to Shanghai.

The Mountains Are High is a beautifully written, candid memoir about how reevaluating what is really important and taking a leap of faith to reach it can genuinely transform your life. As one of the ‘new migrants' tells Alec when he arrives: it is easy to change your environment, far more difficult to change your mind.