Paradise with Serpents: Travels in the Lost World of Paraguay
By Robert Carver
HarperCollins £8.99
FT bookshop price: £7.19

Paraguay is, according to Robert Carver’s travel narrative, a black hole of information. Nobody visits this South American country – poor, corrupt and a place where guns are common as handkerchiefs – unless they have a very good reason. And many never make it out again.