Set in early 1930’s Los Angeles, The Big Sleep introduces the figure of Philip Marlowe, a hard drinking detective who stumbles through a maze of subterfuge involving blackmailers, pornographers, and bootleggers.

In Coup d’Etat, Malaparte attempts to study the means by which a coup can be won or lost, by comparing eight different examples.

Best known in the English speaking world for his book Le Feu Follet, which has been adopted into several films, Pierre Drieu la Rochelle considered the semi-autobiographical Gilles to be his greatest work.

Written during the height of the suffraget movement, Henry Louis Mencken sets his sights on the most influential women of his time in this biting critique of them.

Blood and Oil in the Orient is the story of Lev Nussimbaum, a young Azerbaijani nobleman, and his mad flight across Asia to escape the Bolshevik terror sparked by the Russian Revolution.

Stirred by the great patriotic sentiment of pre-war Italy, Harukichi Shimoi accompanied the elite Italian Aridit troops during the First World War. The Italian war as seen by a Japanese is an epistolary novel comprised of several letters written during his time at the front.

As a member of the French Parliament, Alexis de Tocqueville took it upon himself to become France’s foremost expert on the Algerian question. To this end, he studied the history and people of Algeria, visited the country several times, and undertook a study of both the Islamic religion and Arab language.