Search results for ""gallic books""

At first it feels like a terrible mistake: they're the only residents and it's raining non-stop. Then three neighbours arrive, the sun comes out, and life becomes far more interesting and agreeable. Until, that is, some gypsies set up camp just outside their gated community -

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She understood women. She understood beauty. And she started a revolution. Helena Rubinstein was born into a poor Polish family at the end of the nineteenth century; by the time of her death in 1965 she had built a cosmetics empire that spanned the world. When Rubinstein opened her first salon in Melbourne, her scientific approach to beauty was an instant sensation. Women just couldn't get enough of her innovative advice on skincare, and her beauty products were constantly sold out. Having conquered Australia, Rubinstein went on to open salons in Europe and America, at a time when women were barely seen in business, let alone running their own multinational companies. For this visionary entrepreneur lived and breathed her work and nobody - lover, husband or child - was allowed to get in the way of business success. Helena Rubinstein was a total original, and her legacy can still be seen today in the methods used to market and manufacture cosmetics. This is her amazing life story.

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One of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies has employed him to track down their brilliant scientist, Professor Cormorant, who has disappeared abroad with the secret of a modern-day love potion. Leaving behind his troubled relationship with girlfriend Clara, Hector's adventure takes him to the Far East and into the arms of beautiful Vayla, forcing our hero to think deeply about what love really is/means. In his follow-up to the multi-million-selling Hector and the Search for Happiness, acclaimed writer and psychiatrist, Francois Lelord, offers us a new fable filled with thoughtful insights into the very human desire to find and keep love.

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Its France, 1761. Beyond the glittering court of Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour at Versailles, lies Paris, a capital in the grip of crime and immorality ...A police officer disappears and Nicolas Le Floch, a young recruit to the force, is instructed to find him. When unidentified human remains suddenly come to light, he seems to have a murder investigation on his hands. As the city descends into Carnival debauchery, Le Floch will need all his skill, courage and integrity to unravel a mystery which threatens to implicate the highest in the land. This is the first in a series of six historical crime novels which has sold in excess of 400,000 copies in French. The author brings eighteenth century Paris vividly to life and the story features real-life characters Madame de Pompadour and Loius XV as well as engaging hero Nicolas le Floch. It is soon to be adapted for French Television.

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From the author of The Red Notebook, described as ''Parisian perfection'' by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, The Readers'' Room is a thrilling murder mystery set in the world of publishing. ‘The plot blends mystery with comedy to great effect’- Daily Mail When the manuscript of a debut crime novel arrives at a Parisian publishing house, everyone in the readers’ room is convinced it’s something special. And the committee for France’s highest literary honour, the Prix Goncourt, agrees.  But when the shortlist is announced, there’s a problem for editor Violaine Lepage: she has no idea of the author’s identity. As the police begin to investigate a series of murders strangely reminiscent of those recounted in the book, Violaine is not the only one looking for answers. And, suffering memory blanks following an aeroplane accident, she’s beginning to wonder what role

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Described as 'deeply affecting' by The Guardian, Yasmina Khadra provides us with a fascinating insight into the mind of one of the most complex and controversial figures of recent history in this gripping imagining of the last hours of President Gaddafi. 'Khadra’s prose is gentle and precise' The New Yorker People say I am a megalomaniac. It is not true. I am an exceptional being, providence incarnate, envied by the gods, able to make a faith of his cause. October 2011. In the dying days of the Libyan civil war, Muammar Gaddafi is hiding out in his home town of Sirte along with his closest advisors. They await a convoy that will take them south, away from encroaching rebel forces and NATO aerial attacks. The mood is sombre. In what will be his final night, Gaddafi reflects on an extraordinary life, whilst still raging against the West, his fellow Arab nations and the ingratitude of the Libyan people.

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The sequel to The Foundling Boy sees Jean learning to make his way in a world of murky allegiances after the French defeat of 1940. 'A delight' Independent on Sunday In the aftermath of French defeat in July 1940, twenty-year-old Jean Arnaud and his ally, the charming conman Palfy, are hiding out at a brothel in Clermont-Ferrand, having narrowly escaped a firing squad. At a military parade, Jean falls for a beautiful stranger, Claude, who will help him forget his adolescent heartbreak but bring far more serious troubles of her own. Having safely reached occupied Paris, the friends mingle with art smugglers and forgers, social climbers, showbiz starlets, bluffers, swindlers and profiteers, French and German, as Jean learns to make his way in a world of murky allegiances. But beyond the social whirl, the war cannot stay away forever... In this sequel to the acclaimed novel The Foundling Boy, Michel Deon's hero comes to manhood not through combat but by discovering truths about desire and possession, sex and love, and the nuances that lie between crudely drawn battle lines.

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French Academician and Nazi sympathiser, Paul-Jean Husson, writes a letter to his local SS officer in the autumn of 1942. Tormented by an illicit passion for Ilse, his German daughter-in-law, Husson has taken a decision that will devastate several lives, including his own. The letter is intended to explain his actions. It is a dramatic, sometimes harrowing, story that begins in the years leading up to the war, when following the accidental drowning of his daughter, Husson's previously gilded life begins to unravel. And through Husson's confession, Romain Slocombe gives the reader a startling picture of a man's journey: from pillar of the French Establishment and World War One hero, to outspoken supporter of Nazi ideology and the Vichy government.

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Based on a true story, Orpheus Builds a Girl is a novel of sisterly love, sinister obsession, and the battle for control of the story. A dark, chilling debut novel from award-winning writer Heather Parry. German doctor Wilhelm Von Tore shares with the reader the story of his one true love; a love written in the stars, decades in the making, a love so strong it transcended death itself. When Wilhelm emigrates to America he carries with him a vision of a dark-haired beauty, presented to him in his dreams by his beloved late Grandmother. In Key West, Florida, a beautiful young woman is taken to him in the grip of illness, and he recognises her immediately as his promised bride. Despite his efforts, the sickness takes hold and his beloved slips away from him. But Wilhelm will not be kept from his destiny, not even by death. Using research compiled over decades, he sets about attempting to restore his love to her body, so that they might be together forever. But there's another voice in this story: Gabriela, and she will not let this version of events go unchallenged. From between the cracks in Wilhelm's story Gabriela recounts her own memory of her sister Luciana, a fiery and difficult young woman, and the madman who robbed her from her grave.

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OVER 10 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDESHORTLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD ‘Resistance is futile’ The Guardian ‘Clever, informative and moving’ The Observer''Witty and touching'' Gillian Anderson Renée is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building. She maintains a carefully constructed persona as someone uncultivated but reliable, in keeping with what she feels a concierge should be. But beneath this facade lies the real Renée: passionate about culture and the arts, and more knowledgeable in many ways than her employers with their outwardly successful but emotionally void lives.Down in her lodge, apart from weekly visits by her one friend Manuela, Renée lives with only her cat for company. Meanwhile, several floors up, twelve-year-old Paloma Josse is determined to avoid the pampe

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''Satire at its best'' ELEANOR CATTON, author of Birnam Wood''Outrageous, comic, disturbingly timely'' THE GUARDIAN A stubborn slacker is spurred to radical climate action by a snarky teenager with big ideas in this bold, darkly funny and brilliantly bizarre debut.Thirty-something Alice has an IQ of 159 (almost a genius) and lives at home with her mother, with whom she communicates only by Morse code. Meanwhile, the climate is in crisis. Wealthy immigrants are flocking to New Zealand for shelter, stealing land, driving up food prices and taking over. When Alice meets attractive wealthugee Pablo, she thinks she has found a way out of her dull existence. But then in walks his teenage daughter, Erika, an actual genius with impeccable eye makeup, and Alice finds herself drawn into action of the most radical - and dangerous - kind. Jus

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LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2024SHORLISTED FOR THE EDWARD STANFORD VIKING AWARD FOR FICTION 2024‘Perfect for the poolside or sitting outside a café with a pastis and olives’ The TimesPart swashbuckling adventure on the high seas and part modern-day love story set in the heart of Paris, An Astronomer in Love is an enchanting tale of destiny and the power of love from bestselling author Antoine Laurain.In 1760, Guillaume le Gentil, real-life astronomer to King Louis XV, sets out for the oceans of India to document the transit of Venus. The weather is turbulent, the seas are rough and his quest may be more complicated than initially thought. 250 years later, estate agent Xavier Lemercier chances upon Guillaume’s telescope in a property he''s sold. As he looks out across the rooftops of Paris, he discovers an intriguing woman

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A disillusioned Parisian writer finds inspiration in the ordinary lives of his neighbours, the Martins. 'A wonderful surprise' L'Express Is it true that every life is the stuff of novels? Or are some people just too ordinary? This is the question a struggling Parisian writer asks when he challenges himself to write about the first person he sees when he steps outside his apartment. Secretly hoping to meet the beautiful woman who occasionally smokes on his street, he instead sets eyes on octogenarian Madeleine. She's happy to become the subject of his project, but first she needs to put her shopping away... Wondering if his project is doomed to be hopelessly banal, he soon finds himself tangled in the lives of Madeleine's family. Though calm on the surface, the Martins have secrets, troubles and woes, and the writer discovers that the most compelling story is that of an ordinary life.

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For the first time, he found himself alone at the farm, with no sound whatever from the livestock, nor from anyone else, not the least sign of life. And yet, within these walls, life had always won through. ‘An outstanding, big, compassionate novel' Le Figaro 1999. As France prepares to see in a new millennium, the country is battered by apocalyptic storms. But holed up on the farm where he and his three sisters grew up, Alexandre seems less afraid of the weather than of the police turning up. Alone in the darkness, he reflects on the end of a rural way of life he once thought could never change. And his thoughts return to the baking hot summer of 1976, when he met Constanze, an environmental activist who fell for the beauty of the countryside, and was prepared to use any means to save it. Serge Joncour’s impassioned, ambitious novel charts three decades of political, social, and environmental upheaval through the lives of a French farming family, as the delicate bond between the human and natural worlds threatens to snap.

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A sublime psychological thriller from Polari Prize-shortlisted Charles Lambert. Fiona, sixteen, lives a life of glittering luxury, but her relationship with her mother is strained and difficult. When she discovers an old newspaper clipping of a woman and daughter, a little girl the mirror image of her own younger self, she sets off on a mission to find her true family. Her boyfriend Patrick, a charming fraudster, tracks down the doppelganger, and Fiona drops everything to find her. When Fiona arrives in Rome, she finds Maddy, living hand to mouth with her alcoholic mother. She wants nothing to do with the strange girl wearing her face, who seems to be stalking her every move. The two girls are caught in a push and pull; both fascinated and repulsed by one another, each coveting a life that seems beyond them. But they aren't the only people trying to control their fate, and the two girls will have to learn quickly that people aren't always as they seem, and that blood is thicker than water. Birthright is a dark, gripping literary thriller for fans of Consent by Annabel Lyon and The Push by Ashley Audrain.

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Described as 'accomplished, immersive, [and] moving' by New Zealand Listener, The Hope Fault is a crackling, complex family drama. 'Beautifully restrained' Radio New Zealand In Cassetown, Geologue Bay, Iris and her extended family ― her ex-husband and his wife and their new baby; her son and her best friend’s daughter ― gather on a midwinter long weekend, to pack up the family holiday house now that it has been sold. They are together for one last time, one last weekend, one last party. As the house is stripped bare, their secrets ― and the complex, messy nature of family relationships ― will be revealed. The Hope Fault is a celebration of the complexities of family ― aunties and steps and exes, and a baby in need of a name; parents and partners who are missing, and the people who replace them. It’s about the faultlines that run under the surface, and it’s about uncertainty ― the unsettling notion that the earth might shift, literally or metaphorically, at any moment. It’s a contemporary novel that plays with time and with ways of telling stories. It finds poetry and beauty in science, and pattern and magic in landscape.

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The experience of working for Violet Trench in her small-town cafe in the summer of 1963 shapes the lives of a group of women including Jessie Sandal, who follows Violet's influence as far as Cambodia.Fiona Kidman explores family relationships and the difficult journey to female independence.

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Longlisted for the 2014 Miles Franklin Literary Award Tracy Farr’s acclaimed debut novel is the fictional memoir of Dame Lena Gaunt: musician, octogenarian, junkie. ''Compelling reading'' The Listener  I hold one regret from that day: that I put my first love, my cello, aside. But it was to take up a bigger love, a greater thing; it was to step into the future. Music''s Most Modern Instrument. And I was to become Music''s Most Modern Musician. Tracy Farr''s debut novel is the fictional memoir of Dame Lena Gaunt: musician, octogenarian, junkie. Documentary filmmaker Mo Patterson approaches veteran musician Lena Gaunt after watching her play at a festival in Perth: her first performance in 20 years. While initially suspicious of Mo''s intentions and reluctant to have her privacy invaded, Lena finds herself sharing stories from her past. From a solitary childho

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'Haunting. Geppetto's voice, full of wistful overemphases and bewildered revelation, is absorbing as he takes in the oddity of his situation. And the book, sentence by sentence, offers much in which to luxuriate.' - Sunday Times 'Profound and delightful. It is a strange and tender parable of two maddening obsessions; parenting and art-making' - Max Porter 'Strange, moving and musical, it's a delight' - A. L. Kennedy I am writing this account, in another man's book, by candlelight, inside the belly of a fish. I have been eaten. I have been eaten, yet I am living still. From the acclaimed author of Little comes this beautiful and haunting imagining of the years Geppetto spends within the belly of a sea beast. Drawing upon the Pinocchio story while creating something entirely his own, Carey tells an unforgettable tale of fatherly love and loss, pride and regret, and of the sustaining power of art and imagination.

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[A] deservedly award-studded delight Strong Words Magazine ‘A smart, scathing and bleakly funny cross of folk horror, satire and historical fiction’ Toronto Star ‘Reads like a modern fairy tale’ New York Journal of Books 'Eerie and sensual' The Guardian 'So original, so beautifully done, and sinister and savage. I didn’t want it to end' Chris Whitaker Franck and Lise, a French couple in the film industry, rent a cottage in the quiet hills of the French Lot to get away from the stresses of modern life. In this remote corner of the world, there is no phone signal. A mysterious dog emerges, looking for a new master. Ghosts of a dark past run wild in these hills, where a German lion tamer took refuge in the First World War … Franck and Lise are confronted with nature at its most brutal. And they are about to discover that man and beast have more in common than they think. A literary sensation in France, Wild Dog is a dark, menacing tale of isolation, human nature and the infinite savagery of the wild.

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From the acclaimed author of The Foundling Boy, The Great and the Good is a 1950s American classic about a tranformative journey by sea. ''Slyly funny, yet still touching'' The Sunday Times Arthur Morgan is aboard the Queen Mary bound for the United States, where a scholarship at an Ivy League university awaits him, along with the promise of a glittering future. But the few days spent on the ship will have a defining effect on the young Frenchman, when he encounters the love of his life. 

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At least vultures have the decency to wait until their prey's dead before picking it apart ...After losing his wife and suffering a stroke, cantankerous retiree Edouard Lavenant has moved from Lyon to a village in the mountains with his put-upon nurse, Therese. One day, a man comes to the door claiming to be Edouard's long-lost son. Edouard's temper seems to be softening, but it isn't long before the local vultures are circling overhead ...

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"A writer who can understand man wherever he is." "The New York Times"Khadra's prose is gentle and precise." "The New Yorker"As a child living in a ghetto, Turambo dreamt of a better future. When his family find a home in the city anything seems possible. Through a succession of menial jobs, the constants for Turambo are rage at the injustice surrounding him, and a reliable left hook. A boxing apprenticeship offers Turambo a choice.Yasmina Khadra is the pen name of the Algerian author Mohammed Moulessehoul. He is the author of more than twenty novels, including "The Swallows of Kabul."

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From the #1 French Bestselling author of The Reunion, Where Would I Be Without You is an examination of love and life itself, told from the viewpoint of a Parisian policeman on the hunt for an art thief.It's no wonder that Guillaume Musso is one of France's most loved, bestselling authors' Harlan CobenSometimes, a second chance can come out of nowhere...Parisian cop Martin Beaumont has never really got over his first love, Gabrielle. Their brief, intense affair in San Francisco and the pain of her rejection still haunt him years later. Now, however, he''s a successful detective - and tonight he''s going to arrest the legendary art thief, Archibald Maclean, when he raids the Musee d''Orsay for a priceless Van Gogh. But the enigmatic Archibald has other plans . . .  Martin''s pursuit of the master criminal across Paris is the first step in an adventure that will take him back to San Francisco, and to

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"A delicious jeu d’esprit" The Times"A sheer delight." The GuardianWith trademark style and charming whimsy, Antoine Laurain’s new novel of intrigue, murder and neighbourly curiosity is sure to delight fans old and new. Nathalia Guitry was a successful photographer. Until the day she caught a murder on camera. At therapy, Doctor Faber suggests a way out of her creative block: she must write stories about the people she sees in the building opposite, floor by floor. Starting with the actor turned YouTube life coach on the ground floor and going all the way to the fifth via a cartoonist and an ex-trader, Nathalia creates vivid accounts of her Parisian neighbours’ lives. But are her tales real or imaginary? As their sessions play out, the doctor becomes increasingly uncertain. And when she gets to the final floor, it’s up to Faber to

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The temples and teahouses of Kyoto are the scene of a Frenchwoman's emotional awakening in the stunning new novel by international bestseller Muriel Barbery. Rose has turned 40, but has barely begun to live. When the Japanese father she never knew dies and she finds herself an orphan, she leaves France for Kyoto to hear the reading of his will. In the days before Haru's last wishes are revealed, his former assistant, Paul, takes Rose on a tour of the temples, gardens and eating places of this unfamiliar city. Initially a reluctant tourist and awkward guest in her late father's home, Rose gradually comes to discover Haru's legacy through the itinerary he set for her, finding gifts greater than she had ever imagined. This stunning novel from international bestseller Muriel Barbery is a mesmerizing story of second chances, of beauty born out of grief and roses grown from ashes.

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'There is a space between life and death: it's called waxworks' Born in Alsace in 1761, the unsightly, diminutive Marie Grosholtz is quickly nicknamed "Little." Orphaned at the age of six, she finds employment in the household of reclusive anatomist, Dr Curtius. Her role soon surpasses that of mere servant as the eccentric doctor takes an interest in his newfound companion, and begins to instruct her in the fine art of wax modelling. From the gutters of pre-revolutionary France to the luxury of the Palace of Versailles, from clutching the still-warm heads of Robespierre's Terror to finding something very like love, Little traces the improbable fortunes of a bloodstained crumb of a thing who went on to shape the word...

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'Roma Tearne is an exquisite writer and captivating storyteller' Aminatta FornaThrough endless years of glacial winter, artist Hera has known loss: her brother's arrest and imprisonment on terrorism charges, her mother's resulting death, and the collapse of normal life in a devastated London. Her one comfort has been her relationship with Raphael. As the thaw begins, can she track down her elusive lover?

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From the WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE 'A work of bewitching beauty and humanity' Chinua Achebe In 1948, a young J. M. G. Le Clezio left behind a still-devastated Europe with his mother and brother to join his father, a military doctor in Nigeria, from whom he had been separated by the war. In his characteristically intimate, poetic voice, the Nobel Prize-winning author relates both the child's dazzled discovery of freedom in the African savannah and the torment of recalling his fractured relationship with a rigid, authoritarian father. Now available to UK readers in English for the first time, The African is a poignant memoir of a lost childhood and a tribute to a father whom Le Clezio never really knew. His legacy is the passionate anti-colonialism that the author has carried through his life.

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Andrea Japp uses her remarkable knowledge of French history to tell an intricate and spellbinding story of a battle between church and state. 'An excellent read' Historical Novels Review 1304. The Church and the French Crown are locked in a power struggle. In the Normandy countryside, monks on a secret mission are brutally murdered and a poisoner is at large at Clairets Abbey. Young noblewoman Agnès de Souarcy fights to retain her independence but must face the Inquisition, unaware that she is the focus of an ancient quest.

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Set in the 1890s, Andre Gide's famous satire centres around a group of ingenious fraudsters ('The Millipede') who convince their wealthy victims that the pontiff has been imprisoned in the Vatican cellars, and a false Pope has been enthroned in his place. Posing as clergy, they con money by promising to obtain the true Pope's release and restoration. The book features one of Gide's most memorable creations: the amoral Lafcadio, who in pushing a man from a moving train commits the ultimate motiveless crime. Unavailable in the UK for 25 years, this scandalous, funny and highly original novel has been re-translated to mark the centenary of its publication. Supported by English PEN.

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Poor Hector. Tempus fugit, and our intrepid psychiatrist is not feeling quite as young as he used to. His current patients are concerned with time too. One feels she's always in a hurry, as if there's a clock ticking in her tummy - she would like time to slow down. But there's also a boy who wishes time would hurry along and turn him into an adult. And a third patient counts his remaining years of life in terms of how many dogs he'll have time to own. Hector feels he must get to the bottom of this time business and to do so, of course, a round-the-world adventure is required. Follow Hector as he sets off to uncover nuggets of universal wisdom on time. Who better to find out about the past, the future and how best to enjoy the present than the hero of Hector and the Search for Happiness and Hector and the Secrets of Love?

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Triumphant on the field of battle, Clisson turns his back on worldly success. He falls in love and marries and Eugenie, but how long will their love survive? The tragic story of Clisson and Eugenie reveals one of history's great leaders to also be an accomplished writer of fiction. Written in an eloquently Romantic style true to its period, the story offers the reader a fascinating insight into how the young Napoleon viewed love, women and military life.

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Can we learn how to be happy? Hector is a successful young psychiatrist. He's very good at treating patients in real need of his help. But many people he sees have no health problems: they're just deeply dissatisfied with their lives. Hector can't do much for them, and it's beginning to depress him. So when a patient tells him he looks in need of a holiday, Hector decides to set off round the world to find out what makes people everywhere happy (and sad), and whether there is such a thing as the secret of true happiness.

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