A computer programmer by day, he is tolerably content, until he's packed off with a colleague - the sexually-frustrated Raphael Tisserand - to train provincial civil servants in the use of a new computer system.

A timely, instructive and controversial book, which delivers unexpected answers.

More than any previous '60s music autobiography, Boyd offers the real story of what it was like to be there

Why don't Penguins' feet freeze? Do Polar Bears get lonely? and Why can't elephants jump? (2010), this collection gives well-informed answers to a range of baffling science questions.

An irreverent sleuth tackles the riddle of existence that has puzzled man since the dawn of time

Why are some nations more prosperous than others? This book sets out to answer this question, with a compelling and elegantly argued new theory: that it is not down to climate, geography or culture, but because of institutions. It explains why the world is divided into nations with wildly differing levels of prosperity.

Why does the West rule? This title answers this provocative question, drawing on 15,000 years of history and archaeology, and the methods of social science.

Between the Orinoco and the Amazon lies a fabulous forested land, barely explored. Much of Guiana seldom sees sunlight, and new species are often tumbling out of the dark trees. Beautiful and occasionally brutal, it is one of the great forgotten corners of the Earth: the Wild Coast. The author sets off along this coast, gathering up its story.