It presents a portrait of labour discrimination, appalling housing conditions and one man's humanitarian act of defiance.

    Laokol�, at the same age, simply wants to finish high school. Together, they narrate a crossing of paths that has explosive results. Set amid the chaos of West Africa's civil wars, and acclaimed by such writers as Philip Roth and Chinua Achebe, Emmanuel Dongala's powerful, exuberant, and terrifying new work is a coming-of-age story like no other.

    Along her route - from Kenya through Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia to Zimbabwe - Dervla Murphy observed the harrowing problems of the people among whom she traveled. She witnessed the devastating effects of AIDS, drought and economic collapse on the land, as well as the skepticism of Africans about Western "development projects" and "aid schemes" which promise so much but deliver so little. She also discovered a wide range of reactions to AIDS, which has reached epidemic proportions in Africa, and which poses a new and mysterious threat to traditional family life.

    Years later, Azalea is trying to live a quiet normal life when Liam comes crashing back into her lonely existence. When Liam finds out who his mate is, he knew he needed to reject her to save her. Years later, he works to right the wrongs done by everyone around him. What he needs to figure out? Why can he still feel the mate bond between them?

    Van der Post describes his desert travels, the splendid landscape and wildlife, and his encounters with the Bushman, an elusive culture. Drawings by Maurice Wilson.

    Now I was thinking of cars, bungalows, servants and whatever else Caroline missed by changing sides. But for a poor house-boy who has fallen in love with the beautiful daughter of his civil-servant master, the path to riches is not easy. In desperation Chuma moves from petty crime to a world of gangsters. It is only after much heartache on both sides that the two lovers are united.

    In HAMMERTOWN, poet Peter Culley re-imagines his home town of Nanaimo, British Columbia, not as it is, but as it might be imagined in the mind of a Parisian who had rarely left his city. This is Culley's fifth book of poetry.