Online competition:

Online competition:
Win a copy of Oxford Guide to Countries of the World

There are plenty of reference books that, for each country, give the geographical size, the population, the capital city, the currency, the language and a selection of demographic data. All this is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn’t give you much idea of what is going on in the country and what it is like to live there. For this sort of information, a brilliant source is the Oxford Guide to Countries of the World.

The Oxford Guide of course gives all the basic demographic material (in tabular form) but then goes much deeper into a narrative discussion of social structure, work and employment conditions, standards of living, housing and much more. The social and political problems facing the country are discussed and analysed in a way that gives you a feel for what is being talked about in the local coffee shops.

If your fictional character is passing through anywhere from Iceland (where membership of the EU is the hot topic) to Fiji (where they are more concerned with the question of land leases) you should study the Oxford Guide to make sure you get things right. It is full of useful stuff that doesn’t often come together in a single source.

You could win a free copy of The Oxford Guide to Countries of the World by answering this question, based on the information given in the Oxford Guide:

http://www.writersnews.co.uk/competitions/onlinecomp.asp