A goddess in the stones - Norman Lewis

'The great virtue of Norman Lewis as a writer is that he can make the most boring things interesting; whatever he is describing - whether it is a rickshaw driver, an alcohol-crazed elephant, or a man defecating by the side of the road - Lewis's senses are awake for sounds or smells, and he can make you think twice about scenes you have seen ten thousand times before. He has a good eye for the odd, the weird and the curious, and the book is full of some of the strangest facts imaginable: the tribe which marries ten-year-old boys to thirty-year-old women; the method of training a sloth bear to dance; the market where you can buy herbal remedies to hasten your enemy's menopause or procure the growth of a serpent in her intestines; philtres to spread or extinguish the fires of love; a sap which, painted on the skin, ensures invisibility against tigers. . . a joy to read' William Dalrymple, Spectator 'A marvellous travel book' Independent 'The best travel writer of our age, if not since Marco Polo' Auberon Waugh