Patrick Holland

Joseph, a journalist living in Saigon, is approached by a foreign businessman describing a brothel known as 'the darkest little room'. This mysterious informant shows him a photograph of a beautiful woman covered in wounds. Joseph sets out to investigate, not only to uncover the mistreatment of these women, but in the hope of at last finding the one woman he cannot forget.

The Darkest Little Room

Grey's mother dies giving birth to his sister Irene and the tragedy haunts his life in the small town of Mary Smokes. Grey prays that his mother will be returned to him in some form, so he might protect her from the world as his father did not. This prayer, Grey believes is answered in his sister Irene. He becomes obsessed with protecting her purity and innocence.Also with his mother gone and his father turned to drink, Grey begins running with the wild boys, horse-handlers and fox hunters and part-time timber workers - members of a small, vanishing tribe who find themselves caught between an old relationship with place and a new one that is exemplified by the highway that threatens their town. A rash gamble by Grey and Irene's broken father means he and the Mary Smokes boys must steal horses to ensure Irene's safety. The consequences seem set to fall on Greys' closest friend, ?Ook' Eccleston. As Grey's, Eccleston's and Irene's lives are put at stake his allegiances falter and the world of Mary Smokes slips into a heightened state of darkness and threat.With the passion of Emily Bronte in Wuthering Heights and the distilled beauty of Ondaatje Patrick Holland captures the fragility and grace of small town life and how one fateful moment can forever alter the course of our lives.

The Mary Smokes Boys

Arriving late in Kyoto Patrick Holland cannot find a room for the night. Homeless and disorientated and in a place where loitering is not encouraged his only solution is to ride the trains. The train journey is the starting point for a book that also describes travels through Vietnam, mountains in the Chinese Himalaya, lost cities of the Silk Road, mist-swathed cemeteries in Japan and the flat plains of Australia.

Travels in the Sacred and Supermodern East

Riding the Trains in Japan

Junko Azukawa

Navigatio tells the story of Saint Brendan of Clonfert, a sixth century monk and adventurer, and his legendary quest for the Isle of the Blessed via a gauntlet of monsters, devils, angels, prophets and beautiful maidens. Brendan's battles with the sea and the cosmos bear out what William Faulkner once called 'the human heart in conflict with itself'. This haunting parable of darkness and light, of temptation and belief, of voice and silence, is told with the utmost economy of words, making it a small masterpiece of compassionate perception. 'This is the spirit under sail. A beautiful mediation on losing one way and finding another. It is sensual and soulful. A rich and mellow book, one to take time over and savour in its many moods.' Michael McGirr, author of Things You Get For Free and Bypass

Navigatio

Riding the Trains in Japan: Travels in the Sacred and Supermodern East, 2 Edition

Graham Huggan

Looks at how contemporary travel writing reflects gender, cultural history, and social class

Patrick Holland

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