In a breathtaking adventure story, the paranoid and brilliant inventor Allie Fox takes his family to live in the Honduran jungle, determined to build a civilization better than the one they've left. Fleeing from an America he sees as mired in materialism and conformity, he hopes to rediscover a purer life. But his utopian experiment takes a dark turn when his obsessions lead the family toward unimaginable danger.

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’.

"DAZZLING".— Time"[THEROUX'S] WORK IS DISTINGUISHED BY A SPLENDID EYE FOR DETAIL AND THE TELLING GESTURE; a storyteller's sense of pacing and gift for granting closure to the most subtle progression of events; and the graceful use of language. . We are delighted, along with Theroux, by the politeness of the Turks, amazed by the mountainous highlands in Syria, touched by the gesture of an Albanian waitress who will not let him pay for his modest meal. . The Pillars of Hercules [is] engrossing and enlightening from start (a damning account of tourists annoying the apes of Gibraltar) to finish (an utterly captivating visit with Paul Bowles in Tangier, worth the price of the book all by itself)".— Chicago Tribune"ENTERTAINING READING. . WHEN YOU READ THEROUX, YOU'RE TRULY ON A TRIP".— The Boston Sunday Globe"HIS PICARESQUE NARRATIVE IS STUDDED WITH SCENES THAT STICK IN THE MIND. He looks at strangers with a novelist's eye, and his portraits are pleasantly tinged with malice".— The Washington Post Book World"THEROUX AT HIS BEST. . An armchair trip with Theroux is sometimes dark, but always a delight".— Playboy"AS SATISFYING AS A GLASS OF COOL WINE ON A DUSTY CALABRIAN AFTERNOON. . With his effortless writing style, observant eye, and take-no-prisoners approach, Theroux is in top form chronicling this 18-month circuit of the Mediterranean".— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

From the best-selling author of Dark Star Safari and Hotel Honolulu, Paul Theroux's latest offers provocative tales of memory and desire. The sensual story of an unusual love affair leads the collection. The thrill and risk of pursuit and conquest mark the accompanying stories, which tell of the sexual awakening and rites of passage of a Boston boyhood, the ruin of a writer in Africa, and the bewitchment of a retiree in Hawaii. Filled with Theroux's typically exquisite yet devastating descriptions of people and places, The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro evokes "the complexities of matters of the heart with subtlety and grace" (People).

“A book to be plundered and raided.” — New York Times Book Review“A portal into a world of timeless travel literature curated by one of the greatest travel writers of our day.” — USA TodayPaul Theroux celebrates fifty years of wandering the globe in this collection of the best writing from the books that have shaped him as a reader and a traveler. Part philosophical guide, part miscellany, part reminiscence, The Tao of Travel contains excerpts from the best of Theroux’s own work interspersed with selections from travelers both familiar and unexpected:Vladimir Nabokov Eudora WeltyEvelyn Waugh James BaldwinCharles Dickens Pico IyerHenry David Thoreau Anton ChekhovMark Twain John McPheeFreya Stark Ernest HemingwayGraham Greene and many others“Dazzling. . Like someone panning for gold, Theroux reread hundreds of travel classics and modern works, shaking out the nuggets.” — San Francisco Chronicle

The author of the phenomenally selling Riding the Iron Rooster presents his own choice selection of his best travel writing. "There are those who think Theroux is the finest travel writer working in English. This collection can only enhance that reputation".-The New York Times Book Review.