Facing bankruptcy, English journalist Roger is advised by his accountant to make use of a legal loophole: in Germany married couples have their tax bill halved. So the search is on for a German bride. Writing incisively and almost without prejudice, Roger Boyes describes the peculiarities of everyday life in Germany in this laugh-out-loud romp.

German military figures had a certain terrifying glamour,' wrote Patrick Leigh Fermor, recalling views about Germany during the First World War. When, he asked, had the bristling general replaced the 'philosophers and composers and bandsmen and peasants and students drinking and singing in harmony?' The enchanted forest, symbol of Romantic idealism and traditional folktales, had given way to other images of Germany and Germans. By following Leigh Fermor, and over eighty other British and North American literary visitors to Germany, this original anthology shows how different generations of English-speakers have depicted this country. Starting in the sixteenth century with some of the earliest travel accounts in English, Brian Melican presents a wide range of writing about, or set in, Germany. Letters from Johnsonians such as Boswell and Garrick and the Romantic poets Coleridge and Wordsworth; the journals of Herman Melville and Henry James; ante bellum fiction by authors such as D. H. Lawrence and Ford Madox Ford: all of this and more reveals an oft-forgotten richness in encounters with Germany before the horrors of the twentieth century. Work by Christopher Isherwood, Stephen Spender and wartime reporters through the 1940s exposes the country's darkest moments, while sometimes surprising takes on the conflict emerge from authors inside Germany with unique perspectives such as Christabel Bielenberg and Michael Howard. Post-war writing ranges from the spy fiction of Len Deighton to the writers who dissected post-Nazi Germany. The diversity of writing about Germany today encompasses light-hearted accounts and more searching passages taken from an eclectic selection of authors. Recorded and imagined images of Germany have changed dramatically across the centuries. Yet views on many of its features especially its cities and rivers, customs and cuisine have often remained constant. This anthology, with extensive introductions and annotations, offers a range of opinions, both typical and atypical of their time, and invites readers to venture beyond the usual discussion about this country at the very heart of Europe.

A literary antholog of over 80 visitors to Germany... ?By following over eighty North American and British literary travellers, starting in the sixteenth century with some of the earliest travel accounts in English, Brian Melican presents a wide range of writing about, or set in, Germany. Letters from Boswell and Garrick, Coleridge and Wordsworth; the journals of Herman Melville and Henry James; fiction by D. H. Lawrence and Ford Madox Ford reveal an oft-forgotten richness in encounters with Germany before the horrors of the twentieth century. Post-war writing ranges from the spy fiction of Len Deighton, to travel writing by Leigh Fermor, and the writers who dissected post-Nazi Germany. The diversity of writing about Germany today encompasses light-hearted accounts and more searching passages taken from an eclectic selection of authors. Recorded and imagined images of Germany have changed dramatically across the centuries. Yet views on many of its features especially its cities and rivers, customs and cuisine have often remained constant. This anthology invites readers to venture beyond the usual discussion about this country at the very heart of Europe.

A collection of happy, sad, silly, funny, thought provoking, poems and short stories, and a novella to help pass the time for those who have periods of enforced idleness.

In the beginning, in 1973, when a young couple met at a seminary in the city of Boston, during a time of great racial tension over an issue called bussing, they dared to share a dream and the dream was about faith, progress, unity, love and sustainable development in Africa. She trained in education, her Canadian husband schooled in medicine. They would return to the Ugandan paradise island of her youth in Lake Victoria only to discover that beauty hid the beast; that an interracial couple, white and black and their Ancient Orthodox faith would cause a spark which turned verdant fields into flames of conflict. Truths would be told and taboos would be broken. Courage would be unveiled and passions uncovered. This story is about the glue that maintained the vision until time, politics and war wore it away. It is also about survival and rebirth and the ultimate seeds which gave birth to a new crop of hopes. "What are you looking at old man?" the young doctor queried. The elder was looking into a rotten log. "I am seeing the face of God," he smiled standing up, allowing the doctor to see the sun kissed orchid." "The face of God," he said, and so it was, for their five years on Bukasa island uncovered the weaknesses and strengths of this couple and the community around them. That they would fail was inevitable, but that they would survive in a real and mystical way was the hidden treasure....