Paul Edward Theroux Book order (chronological)

Paul Theroux' geboortegrond Cape Cod en een ongelukkig gezin met zeven kinderen dat heel erg lijkt op het gezin waarin hij opgroeide vormen het decor van zijn nieuwe roman Moederland. Theroux richt zijn waarnemersogen en -oren op een tolstojaanse familie waarin moeder de scepter zwaait. Voor de buitenwereld is ze het toonbeeld van vroomheid, nijverheid en vlijt. Voor haar echtgenoot en zeven kinderen is ze de egoïstische, kleinzielige alleenheerser over Moederland, de koningin die regeert met een succesvol verdeel-en-heersbeleid. Terwijl de jaren voorbij sjokken, en moeder tot ieders verbijstering de honderd nadert, proberen de kinderen zich met wisselend succes aan haar wurggreep te ontworstelen. Moederland is een scherp portret van het narcisme van een ouder- en hoe dit een gezin te gronde dreigt te richten.

Decades ago Massachusetts salesman Ellis Hock spent four years in Africa - and the continent has never left him. So when his wife walks out and his business goes belly up, Ellis turns back to the one place in which he briefly found happiness. Yet returning to the village of Malabo shocks him. The school he built is a ruin.

Als Jerry Delfont, een reisschrijver met een writer's block, een brief ontvangt van een Amerikaanse filantroop, Mrs. Merrill Unger, met daarin het bericht over een schandaal waarin een Indiase vriend van haar zoon is verwikkeld, voelt hij plotseling de enorme behoefte deze zaak tot op de bodem uit te zoeken. Want wie is de jongen die dood gevonden is op de vloer van een goedkope hotelkamer? Hoe, en vooral waarom, is hij doodgegaan, en zal deze auteur ' die bij Mrs. Unger hoog in het vaandel staat ' erachter komen wat er nu echt gebeurd is? Jerry is al snel geboeid door de mooie, mysterieuze Mrs. Unger ' wier tantrische massage hem doet herleven ' maar de omstandigheden rond de dode jongen doen hem twijfelen over de precieze aard van haar liefdadigheid. In heldere beschrijvingen en met een scherp observerend oog vertelt Theroux een duister verhaal over noodzaak en obsessie.

The book is a travelogue by American novelist Paul Theroux. It recounts Theroux's four-month journey by train in 1973 from London through Europe, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, and his return via the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Op een kostschool in Kenia is de komst van een nieuwe, Britse leerlinge aanleiding tot spanningen tussen de blanke onderwijzeressen.

This startling, far-reaching book captures the tumult, ambition, hardship, and serenity that mark today’s India. Theroux’s Westerners risk venturing far beyond the subcontinent’s well-worn paths to discover woe or truth or peace. A middle-aged couple on vacation veers heedlessly from idyll to chaos. A buttoned-up Boston lawyer finds succor in Mumbai’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’s subtle ironies: an executive who yearns to become a holy beggar, an earnest striver whose personality is rewired by acquiring an American accent, a miracle-working guru, and others. As ever, Theroux’s portraits of people and places explode stereotypes to exhilarating effect. The Elephanta Suite is a welcome gift to readers of international fiction and fans of this extraordinary writer.

Een Amerikaanse schrijver begint een nieuw leven als hotelmanager op Hawaiï en observeert de levens van de hotelgasten en personeelsleden.

Vier verhalen waarin erotiek een prominente rol speelt.

At the gateway to the Mediterranean lie the two Pillars of Hercules: Gibraltar and Ceuta, in Morocco. Paul Theroux decided to travel from one to the other taking the long way round. He travels by a dilapidated taxi, smoke-filled bus, bicycle and even a cruise-liner. This eventful tour aims to evoke the essence of Mediterranean life.

Verzameling autobiografische stukken, reisverhalen en essays.

For Neville "Bunt" Mullard and his mother, Betty, Hong Kong is part of Britain - one of the pleasanter parts; it is also cozy, monotonous, profitable, and homely. Now ninety-nine years of colonial rule are about to end, and the British government is about to hand over Hong Kong to China. Betty and Bunt can see China from their parlor, but they have never been there. They detest Chinese food. "The Chinese take-away, " as they call the Hand-over, does not particularly concern them. When Bunt first meets Mr. Hung, a well-spoken gentleman from the Chinese mainland, he pays him little heed. And when Mr. Hung offers the Mullards a handsome sum for their family business - a fifty-year-old textile factory, Imperial Stitching, that was cofounded by Bunt's late father - Bunt refuses him out of hand. Yet it soon grows clear that Mr. Hung is different from the Chinese the Mullards have lived alongside for years. For Mr. Hung will accept no refusals. Then a young woman from the Mullards' factory vanishes, one of many disappearances. But this one is different. Ah Fu has last been seen in the company of Mr. Hung. And so Bunt is forced for the first time in his forty-three years to make decisions that matter. He even begins, maybe, to discover love. Yet against all of Bunt's good, if half-formed, intentions are pitted the will of Mr. Hung and the looming threat of the ultimate betrayal.

Describes the author's travels by train in every province of the People's Republic of China.

In denkbeeldige herinneringen vertelt de auteur over ontmoetingen en gebeurtenissen in zijn leven, in zijn huwelijk en in zijn werk als schrijver.

The Old Patagonian Express tells of Paul Theroux’s train journey down the length of North and South America. Beginning on Boston’s subway, he depicts a voyage from ice-bound Massachusetts to the arid plateau of Argentina’s most southerly tip, via pretty Central American towns and the ancient Incan city of Macchu Pichu. Shivering and sweating by turns as the temperature and altitude rise and plummet, he describes the people he encountered – thrown in with the tedious, and unavoidable, Mr Thornberry in Limón and reading to the legendary blind writer, Jorge Luis Borges, in Buenos Aires. Witty, sharply observed and beautifully written, this is a richly evocative account of travelling to ‘the end of the line’.

One of the world's premier travel writers launches his most exotic and tantalizing adventure yet, as he kayaks the shimmering Pacific, exploring the islands, and taking up residence to discover the secrets of these happy isles.

He knifes silently through the shadows of the steamy Chicago summer night, prowling for lonely souls who need his help. The desperate come to him, answering his ads with promises of romantic evenings and possibly a future, never suspecting that they are the prey, chosen to satiate a twisted sexual desire. Parker Jagoda is also a successful businessman with a wife, a child, and a house in the suburbs--respectable, health-conscious, and polite. Nobody knows about his jagged double life, his dark, hungry obsessions. He has fooled everyone except those who gasp their last dying scream. And, of course, he has not fooled himself - which may be the only glimmer of hope left inside the darkest of hearts....

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.

Deels autobiografisch relaas over het leven van een Amerikaan vanaf zijn vijftiende jaar tot aan de nadering van de middelbare leeftijd.

Een jonge Amerikaanse leidt in Londen een hachelijk dubbelleven bij een escort-service.

In this unique and hugely entertaining railway odyssey, Theroux vividly recounts his travels--and the people, places, and landscapes he encountered--on the Orient Express, the Khyber Mail, and the Trans-Siberian Express, through such countries as Turkey, Iran, India, Southeast Asia, Japan, and the Soviet Union.