Of all the endangered species, elephants are the most intriguing. Like whales, they are huge and intelligent. Much is known about them - their close family ties, their care for their own dying, their interest in their dead, their complex communication. This book is a journey in the shadow of the great beast, a portrait of its character, nature, culture and life, but also taking the broader view, looking at the elephant in the political, natural and human context. It is a book about the researchers, conservationists, the ivory carvers and elephant artists, the white hunters and African poachers, and the elephant's hired protectors. It shows too, how the fate of the elephant is entwined with some of the key African themes: overpopulation, land shortages, political instability, corruption and the lopsided meeting between African tradition and the modern world.

The last elephant: An African quest

Travel

Gavron, Jeremy

Travel Writing

London: HarperCollins

The author's travels chronicle the African elephant's struggle for survival in a world where its tusks carry a deadly value, a battle paralleling old Africa's struggle to survive in the age of modern Africa

KING LEOPOLD'S DREAM: Travels in the Shadow of the African Elephant

Africa

Pantheon

Dunsk, Lithuania, 1874: brought home dying from the mill, an old man leaves his new grandson the only thing of value he owns - his name.In one Jewish family, the forename Israel is handed down from generation to generation. But as parts of the family move across the world - beginning in Lithuania at the end of the 19th century and finishing in London at the beginning of the 21st - different Israels in different countries have very different relationships with the name and the weighty expectations it represents.

The Book of Israel

History

Middle East

Simon&Schuster

Light wear to cover. Shipped from the U.K. All orders received before 3pm sent that weekday.

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Gardners Books

On a farm in the highlands of Kenya, a young white boy befriends his father's enigmatic African driver, Ernest. But their time together is short-lived: as racial tension in the country escalates, confidences are betrayed, trust is broken and loyalties divided.

Moon

At number 30 the victim of a savage serial killer is found, and Inspector Abberline wonders whether he'll ever find the murderer they're calling Jack. At number 41 a man tries to hide his family in the shadows of a ruined London; 1500 years later, a gangster plays out the same story. At 246 a mammoth dies, and long afterwards, a giant's thighbone is discovered. Bangladeshis, Jews, Huguenots, brewers, soldiers, farmers and medieval monks - men on the run and families determined to make a new home. Each has come to Brick Lane. Each has left its ghosts.

An Acre of Barren Ground

At number 30 the victim of a savage serial killer is found, and Inspector Abberline wonders whether he'll ever find the murderer they're calling Jack.  At number 41 a man tries to hide his family in the shadows of a ruined London; 1500 years later, a gangster plays out the same story. At 246 a mammoth dies, and long afterwards, a giant's thighbone is discovered. Bangladeshis, Jews, Huguenots, brewers, soldiers, farmers and medieval monks - men on the run and families determined to make a new home.  Each has come to Brick Lane. Each has left its ghosts.

Simon Schuster(uk)

London, 1965: A brilliant young woman—a prescient advocate for women’s rights at the dawn of modern feminism—has just gassed herself to death, leaving behind a suicide note, two young sons, and a soon-to-be-published sociological study, The Captive Wife: Conflicts of Housebound Mothers. Hannah Gavron had seemingly led a charmed life since childhood: She had been a champion equestrian, had studied acting alongside Peter O’Toole. As a bright, sophisticated adult, swept up in the progressive politics of the ’60s, she was a promising academic and the wife of a rising entrepreneur. No one who knew Hannah ever imagined that she might take her own life. Jeremy Gavron was just four when his mother died. Afterward, a silence descended so completely on her family and friends that it was as if she had never lived. In this searching portrait of Hannah, Jeremy embarks on a quest to break forty years of silence, to try to understand who his mother was and what drove her to suicide. He’s left to piece her life together from what remains: letters, diaries, and the faded memories of old acquaintances. As he digs into her past, he uncovers a darker side to Hannah’s life—societal pressure, marital strife, and inescapable sexism that discounted her desire for more as a sign of mental illness. Ultimately, Jeremy not only comes as close as he can to knowing his mother—he also vividly captures the suffocating constrictions placed on every ambitious woman in the mid-twentieth century.

A Woman on the Edge of Time: A Son Investigates His Trailblazing Mother’s Young Suicide

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

The Experiment

“Jeremy Gavron’s quest to find his mother has produced a groundbreaking book and moving portrait of a spirited young woman—a ‘captive wife’—who refused to accept the social constraints of her time. Unforgettable.”—Tina Brown London, 1965: A brilliant young woman has just gassed herself to death, leaving behind a note, two young sons, and a soon-to-be-published book. A promising academic and feminist at the dawn of modern feminism, no one had imagined Hannah Gavron might take her own life. Forty years later, her son Jeremy attempts to solve both this mystery of his mother’s death and the mystery of the mother he never had the chance to know. From the fragments of life she left behind, he ultimately uncovers not only Hannah’s struggle to carve out her place in a man’s world; he examines the constrictions on every ambitious woman in the mid-20th century.

A Woman on the Edge of Time: A Son’s Search for a Mother Who Wanted More

Community & Culture

It's 1965, and in Primrose Hill, north London, a beautiful young woman has just gassed herself to death, leaving behind a suicide note, two small children, and an about-to-be-published manuscript: The Captive Wife . Like Sylvia Plath, who died in eerily similar circumstances two years earlier just two streets away, Hannah Gavron was a writer. But no one had ever imagined that she might take her own life. Bright, sophisticated, and swept up in the progressive politics of the 1960s, Hannah was a promising academic and the wife of a rising entrepreneur. Surrounded by success, she seemed to live a gilded life. But there was another side to Hannah, as Jeremy Gavron's searching memoir of his mother reveals. Piecing together the events that led to his mother's suicide when he was just four, he discovers that Hannah's success came at a price, and that the pressures she faced as she carved out her place in a man's world may have contributed to her death. Searching for the mother who was never talked about as he grew up, he discovers letters, diaries, and photos that paint a picture of a brilliant but complex young woman grappling to find an outlet for her creativity, sexuality, and intelligence. A Woman on the Edge of Time not only documents the too-short life of an extraordinary woman; it is a searching examination of the suffocating constrictions in place on intelligent, ambitious women in the middle of the twentieth century.

A Woman on the Edge of Time: a son's search for his mother

Scribe Publications

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gavron, Jeremy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Gavron, Jeremy

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gavron, Jeremy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The last elephant: An African quest

KING LEOPOLD'S DREAM: Travels in the Shadow of the African Elephant

The Book of Israel

The Book of Israel

Moon

An Acre of Barren Ground

An Acre of Barren Ground

A Woman on the Edge of Time: A Son Investigates His Trailblazing Mother’s Young Suicide

A Woman on the Edge of Time: A Son’s Search for a Mother Who Wanted More

A Woman on the Edge of Time: a son's search for his mother