Collected here for the first time, Theroux's tales are funny, sardonic, sensuous and evocative, streaked with terror and cruelty. All glow with Theroux's intelligence, elegance and ironic wit; with his marvelous sense of place; and with his tragi-comic vision. Full of suspense and the unexpected, this collection shows Theroux, the secret writer, as a master of the form.

With no apparent plot, life, to the hero of My Other Life, is often messier than fiction - sometimes it appears our hero is leading many separate lives. The only connection is that they all involve the same person. Pavel Medved, Paulie, or Paul Theroux, the fictional narrator of these memoirs and a man of many guises, has reconstructed his past, giving it wit and life, tragedy and pathos and imposed an order on it through careful editing.

In Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Paul Theroux retraces the steps he took thirty years ago in his classic The Great Railway Bazaar. From the Eurostar in London, he once again sets out on a journey to the East, travelling overland through Eastern Europe, India and Asia. Infused with the changes that have shaped the exterior landscape and enriched with developments to his own perceptions and psychology, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star is an absorbing and beautifully written follow-up to The Great Railway Bazaar.

Theroux recounts his early adventures on an unusual grand continental tour. Asia's fabled trains are the stars of a journey that takes him on a loop eastbound from London's Victoria Station to Tokyo Central, then back from Japan on the Trans-Siberian. Brimming with Theroux's signature humor and wry observations, this engrossing chronicle is essential reading for both the ardent adventurer and the armchair traveler.

Part Two: 1979-1984 includes: The Orient Express; Rudyard Kipling; Railways of the Raj; Graham Greene's Traveling Companion; and Sunrise with Seamonsters.

Quintessential travel articles and thoughtful essays by the observant, witty and skeptical travel writer and novelist. Part One: 1964-1978 includes: "Winter in Africa"; "Leper Colony"; "V.S. Naipaul"; "Memories of Old Afghanistan"; "The Night Ferry to Paris"; and "A Circuit of Corsica".

A young, smart, and beautiful American woman signs up for an escort service to prove to a man she barely knows that she will do just about anything.

In Fresh Air Fiend, Theroux's pen serves him well with astute, lively pieces that stray far beyond simple "travel essays" and reveal his self-inflicted lifestyle of compulsive travel, writing, and alienation. In this collection, there's a strong autobiographical streak, as well as historical perspectives and a sardonic view on aging. "One of the more bewildering aspects of growing older," he writes in "'Memory and Creation,'" "is that people constantly remind you of things that never happened."

A writer accepts a job as a manager of a low-rent hotel in Hawaii. He acts as a witness to the hotel's cast of characters, chronicling their stories and ultimately regaining his will to write.

American-born Paul Theroux had lived in England for 11 years when he realized he'd explored dozens of exotic locations without discovering anything about his adopted home. So, with a knapsack on his back, he set out to explore by walking and by short train trips. The result is a witty, observant and often acerbic look at an ever eccentric assortments of Brits in all shapes and sizes.