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No grammar tests. No memory drills. No chance of failure. Welcome to Learn with Paul Noble – a unique, tried and tested language learning method that has been used by almost a million people to speak fluently and confidently in no time at all. Take a simple, relaxed approach to learning a...

A classic of travel writing, ‘A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush’ is Eric Newby’s iconic account of his journey through one of the most remote and beautiful wildernesses on earth. It was 1956, and Eric Newby was earning an improbable living in the chaotic family business of London haute...

Follow author Robert Whiting (The Chrysanthemum and the Bat, You Gotta Have Wa, Tokyo Underworld) as he watches Tokyo transform during the 1964 Olympics, rubs shoulders with the Yakuza and comes face to face with the city’s dark underbelly, interviews Japan’s baseball elite after publishing his first best-selling book on the subject, and learns how politics and sports collide to produce a cultural landscape unlike any other, even as a new Olympics is postponed and the COVID virus ravages the nation.

Persimmon Wind - part memoir, part martial arts history, and part travelogue - relates Dave Lowry's experiences as he travels to Japan to reunite with his sensei, visit the graves of others of his martial lineage, and explore a country and culture that profoundly influenced his life. Lowry's account reveals a Japan unlikely to be witnessed by the average Westerner. Drawing on his deep knowledge of the martial arts, Lowry acts as an interpreter of sorts, deftly describing for the listener the myriad ways in which Japan's subtle, yet rich customs and rituals inform and enrich the seemingly mundane practices of life.

No grammar tests. No memory drills. No chance of failure. Improve your everyday Mandarin Chinese speaking and listening skills by following typical, fun conversations and practicing what you hear in the dialogues. We recommend you finish the Complete and Next Steps courses before starting...

Korea is a global phenomenon. K-pop tops the charts, kimchi spices up meals and K-drama dominates TV screens. Now, it's time to discover more of the country and culture that's captivated the world. It might be a powerhouse of popular culture, but South Korea is so much more than BTS and bibimbap...

A heartfelt, one-of-a-kind memoir chronicling the hilarious, absurd, and thought-provoking experiences of an American pursuing comedy in China, learning first-hand how humor does and doesn’t translate—and whether laughter transcends borders. I marched onstage in a long robe beside my Shifu...

Since the East India Company merged seven islands into Bombay (now Mumbai), change has been constant-but now it is used as a weapon for displacement, disguised as development. Slums are erased overnight to make way for luxury towers priced in tens of crores. The working class is pushed to the...

Known as the twice-born - first into the flesh and again when initiated into their vocation - the Brahmins are a caste devoted to sacred learning. But what Taseer finds in Benares, the holy city of death also known as Varanasi, is a window on an India as internally fractured as his own continent-bridging identity.  

Vincent Ebrahim, star of the Emmy and Peabody award-winning The Kumars At No. 42, explores his ancestral home visiting Mumbai, Gujarat, Delhi, Agra, West Bengal, Darjeeling, Kolkata and the Himalayas in this varied and vivid audio diary.

Within the Tokyo underworld there is an industry which exists to break up marriages. It is known today as 'wakaresaseya' - agents who, for a fee, can be hired by one spouse to seduce the other and provide grounds for divorce on favourable terms. Inspired by a real case, this is the story of Kaitaro Nakamura, a wakaresaseya agent, who is hired by a man to seduce his wife. Kaitaro falls in love with his target, Rina, and after the divorce she moves in with him, unaware of his role in the demise of her marriage.   

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. 

Now tell us - did you ever like Japan? Do you know anything about its history, or just what you learned from television and anime, in general? That's a good starting point, anyway. If you want to delve deeper into Japanese history, in chronological order, and see the main events that transformed Japan into what it is today, you've just hit the jackpot.

In 1983, Ma Jian turned 30 and was overwhelmed by the desire to escape the confines of his life in Beijing. Deng Xiaoping was clamping down on 'Spiritual Pollution'; young people were rebelling. With his long hair, jeans and artistic friends, Ma Jian was under surveillance. One day he bought a train ticket to the westernmost border of China and set off in search of himself.

No one walks around the Buddhist holy places in India. Not today. They travel by bus with good reason. The Buddha’s homeland is now one of the most desperately overcrowded and poverty ridden places on the planet. It is also very dangerous. But Nick Scott and Ajahn Sucitto decided to do just that: to walk for six months and for over one thousand miles, sleeping out at night and living on alms food, just as the Buddha would have done.

Alastair Humphreys walked across India, from the Coromandel Coast to the Malabar Coast, following the course of a holy river. Walking alone and spending the nights sleeping under the stars, in the homes of welcoming strangers, or in small towns and villages, he experienced the dusty enchantment of ordinary, real India on the smallest of budgets. There Are Other Rivers tells the story of the walk through an account of a single day as well as reflecting on the allure of difficult journeys and the eternal appeal of the open road.

No grammar tests. No memory drills. No chance of failure. Welcome to Learn with Paul Noble – a unique, tried and tested language learning method that has been used by almost a million people to speak fluently and confidently in no time at all. Take a simple, relaxed approach to learning a...

A boldly rendered—and deeply intimate—account of Hong Kong today, from a resilient young woman whose stories explore what it means to survive in a city teeming with broken promises. “[A] pulsing debut . . . about what it means to find your place in a city as it vanishes before your eyes...

Have you ever taken a holiday where you turn up hopelessly unprepared and end up having to sleep under a curtain? How about when someone (maybe you?) had to be airlifted home? Or what about the time you went away and neglected to visit any of the breathtaking, world-renowned sights? Well, Anna Hart has done all those holidays, and more. As an avid traveller and then travel journalist, she's spent most of her working life on a plane somewhere, and over 10 years writing about the places she's ended up. In Departures she brings all of that knowledge together with the signature warmth and wit of her journalism.

While living in Japan, I felt frustrated that I was unable to speak and listen to the common Japanese phrases that service workers use over and over again. Eventually, I decided I wanted to stop guessing at what was being said and start understanding & knowing how to respond.