Books about Switzerland

Five-year-old Heidi goes to live with her grandfather in his lonely hut high in the Alps. She quickly learns to love her new life with him. But her strict aunt decides that Heidi must be sent away again, to live in town. Heidi cannot bear being away from the mountains and is determined to return to the happiness of life with her grandfather.

In Dinnie Doone's life, she moved home a dozen times. Then, without warning, she was snatched by total strangers and taken far away. Dinnie arrives in Switzerland and becomes a pupil at an international boarding school. Separated from her family, she starts a new life that's strange, frightening, beautiful and full of adventure.

Into the rarefied atmosphere of the Hotel du Lac timidly walks Edith Hope, romantic novelist and holder of modest dreams. Edith has been exiled from home. She has refused to sacrifice her ideals and remains stubbornly single. But among the pampered women and minor nobility Edith finds Mr Neville, and her chance to escape from spinsterhood.

The new bestselling novel, now in paperback, from international literary phenomenon Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist. A chance meeting in Rio takes Maria to Geneva, where she dreams of finding fame and fortune, yet ends up working the streets as a prostitute. In Geneva, Maria drifts further and further away from love while at the same time developing a fascination with sex. Eventually, Maria'

Obsessed by creating life itself, Frankenstein plunders graveyards for material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life using electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear.

Divers, Dick and Nicole hold court at their villa. Into their circle comes Rosemary Hoyt, a film star, who is instantly attracted to them, but understands little of the dark secrets and hidden corruption that hold them together.

This is an intellectual drama of the forces which play upon modern man. Its theatre is a sanatorium in the Swiss mountains - a community organized with exclusive reference to ill-health.

Looks at Switzerland's history, wildlife and culture, with maps and plans. The color section introduces the country's highlights, from snowboarding in the Alps and sampling swiss wine to the country's Gothic cathedrals and medieval castles. This guide includes listings of the places to eat, drink and stay, plus 'author picks' to present the best.

Complete, practical country guide for independent travellers. Outdoor activities chapter, covering everthing from spa breaks, hiking, mountain-biking, skiing and showboarding. City information covering shopping, museums and galleries, varied nightlife from clubbing to opera, festivals and conferences.

This novel takes the form of the journal of a young man attending a school for butlers, the Benjamenta Institute. First published as Jakob Von Gunten in 1909, the book is now the subject of a Channel 4 feature film.

Raimund Gregorious is a predictable character. A bookish Latin professor, well-respected, perhaps a little boring. One stormy morning, he encounters a beautiful, distraught Portuguese woman in a red leather coat. Later that day Raimund realises: that moment changed everything. All of a sudden, nothing in his life feels right.

Tells the story of a middle-class UNESCO engineer called Walter Faber, who believes in rational, calculated world. Strange events undermine his security - an emergency landing in a Mexican desert against all odds, his friend Joachim hangs himself in the Mexican jungle, and he falls in love with a woman who dies of a concussion.

This statement of faith, philosophy and principles is a piece of self-analysis and provides the model for the application of Jungian psychoanalysis to an individual's life. The book contains Jung's systematic thinking about the existence of God.