Franz Kafka's The Castle is one of the greatest modern novels, famous for its dreamlike quality and its richness of interpretative possibility. The protagonist of the novel, K., is plunged into confusion and frustration when he arrives at a village to take up the job of a land surveyor that no-one seems to know anything about. He is told that he can get answers from the castle which rules over the village, but the castle turns out to be impenetrable fortress containing a never-ending...
Arctic explorer, survival expert and naturalist Freddy Spencer Chapman was trapped behind enemy lines when the Japanese overran Malaya in 1942. His response was to begin a commando campaign of such lethal effectiveness that the Japanese deployed an entire regiment against him, hunting for him as they did for no other. He was wounded, and racked by tropical disease. His companions were killed, or captured...