Starting off on the Eurostar from London, Paul Theroux sets out on a railway journey through the East, travelling overland through Eastern Europe, and eventually reaching India and Asia.

A powerful and personal journey through Southeast Asia, which explains that despite democratisation and economic growth, the stability of the region remains questionable, its politics unpredictable, and its societies still in flux.

Erika Fatland takes the reader on a journey that is unknown to even the most seasoned globetrotter. The five former Soviet Republics' Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan all became independent when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991. How have these countries developed since then?

From the time of the ancient Greeks onwards the West's relationship with Asia consisted for the most part of outrageous tales of strange beasts and monsters, of silk and spices shipped over vast distances and an uneasy sense of unknowable empires fantastically far away. By the 20th century much of Asia might have come under Western rule after centuries of warfare, but its intellectual, artistic and spiritual influence was fighting back. 'The Light...