Bridge Street Books

Wicklow

Book Club Recommendations
We read, we love, then we recommend!

All books that we suggest for book clubs, have been tried & tested, either by us or by other book clubs around Wicklow.  If you can suggest any other titles, that your book club has found particularly good for discussion, please let us know. (*indicates large sized paperback/hardback)

Bridge Street Book Club is in the Wicklow Wine Company on the last Thursday of every month.  We charge 5euro a head to include wine tasting.  The book to be read is also on sale for a 10% discount to all members.  Please contact us if you would like to join.

Remember:  We offer €1 off your book club book.
The Cold Eye Of Heaven:*  Christine Dwyer Hickey  Farley is an elderly Irishman, frail in body but sharp as a tack.  Waking in the middle of the night, he finds himself lying paralyzed on the cold bathroom floor.  And so his mind begins to move backwards, taking us with him.  As Farley unravels the wrap & welt of his life, he relives the loves, losses & betrayals with the darkly comic wit of a true Dubliner.  For this is also Dublin's story, the city Farley has seen through poverty & prosperity, boom & bust - each the other's constant companion during his 75 years. The Sense of an Ending: * Julian Barnes  Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life.  Now Tony is retired.  He's had a career & a single marriage, a calm divorce.  He's never tried to hurt anybody.  Memory, though, is imperfect.  It can throw up surprises, as a lawyers letter is about to prove.
Booker Prize Winner 2011
 		 The Dovekeepers: *  Alice Hoffman  In 70 AD 900 Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on a mountain outside the Judean desert.  2 women & 5 children survived.  Based on this tragic event, this is a spellbinding tale of 4 extraordinary bold & resourceful women, whose lives intersect in the desperate days of the siege.  Yael's mother died in childbirth, & her father, an expert assassin never forgave her for that death.  Revka, a baker's wife, watched the brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers.  Aziza is a warrior's daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider & expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier.  Shirah is wise in the ways of ancient magic & medicine, a woman with uncanny insight & power & as loyal as she is dangerous.  All are dovekeepers, and all are keeping secrets - about who they are, where they come from & who they love
We Need to Talk About Kevin:  Lionel Shriver  Eva never really wanted to be a mother; certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher who tried to befriend him. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood and Kevin's horrific rampage.

 		 Grace Williams Says it Loud:  Emma Henderson  The doctors said no more could be done & advised Grace's parents to put her away.  On her first day in the Briar Mental Institute, Grace, aged 11, meets Daniel.  Debonair Daniel, an epileptic who can type with his feet, sees a different Grace:  someone to share secrets & canoodle with, some one to fight for. When God was a Rabbit:  Sarah Winman  This is a book about a brother & a sister.  It is about childhood & growing up, friendships & families, triumph & tragedy & everything in between.  More than anything, it's a book about love in all its forms.
The Sealed Letter: Emma Donoghue  After a separation of many years, Emily 'Fido' Faithfull bumps into her old friend Helen Codrington on the streets of Victorian London.  Much has changed:  Helen is more and more unhappy in her marriage to the older Vice-Admiral Codrington, while Fido has become a successful woman of business & a pioneer in the British Women's Movement.  But, for all her independence of mind, Fido is too trusting of her once-dear companion & finds herself drawn into aiding Helen's obsessive affair with a young army officer.  When the Vice-Admiral seizes the children and sues for divorce, the women's friendship unravels amid accusations of adultery & counter-accusations of cruelty & attempted rape, as well as a mysterious 'sealed letter' threat could destroy more than one life..... On Canaan's Side:*  Sebastian Barry  Narrated by Lilly Bere, 'On Canaan's Side' opens as she mourns the loss of her grandson, Bill. The story then goes back to the moment she was forced to flee Dublin, at the end of the First World War, and follows her life through into the new world of America, a world filled with both hope and danger.  At once epic & intimate, Lilly's narrative unfurls as she tries to make sense of the sorrows & the troubles of her life & of the people whose lives she has touched.  Spanning nearly 7 decades, it is a novel of memory, war, family ties & love.

 		 The Invisible Ones: * Stef Penney  It has been 7 years since Rose Jenko has disappeared, and nobody has said a word.  When Rose married the attractive Ivo Janko, she became part of a travelling Gypsy family.  But rumour had it she ran off when her baby boy was born with the family's genetic disability.  Her father Leon is not so sure.  He wants to know the truth & he hires a private detective to discover it.  Enter Ray Lovell, a small-time PI who has the added advantage of being of Gypsy descent & therefore not an outsider.  He agrees to take the case.  But after 7 long years he fears the trail has run cold, and his investigation is hampered by the very people who ought to be helping him - the Jankos.  Ray cannot understand their reluctance to become involved.  Why don't they want to find Rose Janko?
Lean on Pete:  Willy Vlautin 15 yr old Charley Thompson wants a home and some structure to his life. But as the son of a single father working at warehouses across the Pacific Northwest, he's been pretty much on his own for some time. This book opens as he and his father arrive in Portland, Oregon and Charley takes a stables job, illegally, at the local race track The Blasphemer: Nigel Farndale  An ambitious and compelling novel, a story about conditional love, cowardice and the possibility of redemption that sweeps from the trenches of Passchendaele to the terrorist-besieged streets of London today   The Postmistress: Sarah Blake  It is 1940, and bombs fall nightly on London. In the thick of the chaos is young American radio reporter Frankie Bard. She huddles close to terrified strangers in underground shelters, and later broadcasts stories about survivors in rubble-strewn streets. But for her listeners, the war is far from home. 
Child 44: Tom Rob Smith  Debut novel set in Soviet Russia in 1953. Although crime does not exist, millions live in fear of being sent to their death.  Officer Leo Demidov believes in what he is doing, but when he witnesses the interrogation of an innocent man, he begins to question his loyalties.   One Day: David Nicholls  Emma and Dexter meet for the first time on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year that follows? Twenty years, two people, ONE DAY  Burnt Out Town of Miracles: Roy Jacobsen  Set in Finland in 1939, this is the story of one man who remains in his home town, when everyone else has fled the invading Russians. A powerful but understated novel about the lives of ordinary people dragged into war. 
A Fair Maiden: Joyce Carol Oates  A short, gripping suspense novel in which an elderly aristocrat becomes obsessed with a young girl. The Hand that first held mine: Maggie O’Farrell  Winner of the Costa Novel Award 2011   No & Me: Delphine de Vigan  a schoolgirl who becomes friends with a homeless girl 
Brixton Beach: Roma Treane  Opening dramatically with the horrors of the 2005 London bombings, this is the profoundly moving story of a country on the brink of civil war and a child's struggle to come to terms with loss. Brooklyn: Colm Toibin  It is Ireland in the early 1950s and for Eilis Lacey,as for so many young Irish girls, opportunities are scarce. So when her sister arranges for her to emigrate to New York, Eilis knows she must go,leaving behind her family and her home for the first time. Serena: Ron Rash  Features a newlywed couple who go to live in the North Carolina mountains. When Serena, the bride, discovers she can't have children, things take a sinister turn
Outlander: Gil Adamson   Sea of Poppies: Amitav Ghosh   Rough Music: Patrick Gale 
A Fine Balance:  Rohinton Mistry  Set in mid-1970s India, a subtle and compelling narrative about four unlikely characters who come together in circumstances no one could have foreseen soon after the government declares a 'State of Internal Emergency'. It is a breathtaking achievement: panoramic yet humane, intensely political yet rich with local delight. Pure:  Andrew Miller  Deep in the heart of Paris, its oldest cemetery is, by 1785, overflowing, tainting the very breath of those who live nearby. Into their midst comes Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young, provincial engineer charged by the king with demolishing it. At first Baratte sees this as a chance to clear the burden of history, a fitting task for a modern man of reason.
But before long, he begins to suspect that the destruction of the cemetery might be a prelude to his own		 We had It So Good:  Linda Grant  In 1968 Stephen Newman arrives in England from California. Sent down from Oxford, he hurriedly marries his English girlfriend Andrea to avoid returning to America and the draft board. Over the next forty years they and their friends build lives of middle-class success until the events of late middle-age and the new century force them to realise that their fortunate generation has always lived in a fool's paradise.
De Niro’s Game: Rawi Hage   Senator’s Wife: Sue Miller   Cloudstreet: Tim Winton 
Remarkable Creatures: Tracy Chevalier  set in the 19th century, following the life of a female fossil hunter and scientist. Based on the real life of Mary Anning, who was an eminent scientist whose work influenced Darwin, but who faced prejudice in the male-dominated society she worked in The Children’s Book: A.S. Byatt  Although shortlisted, A.S. Byatt's acclaimed new novel didn't actually win the Man Booker Prize 2010, but with its fantastic reviews it is sure to be a bestseller in this paperback edition. It is an unashamedly literary novel, a panoramic exploration of family secrets, about predators and innocents, war and peace  The Other Hand: Chris Cleave The story starts on an African Beach, but the book doesn't. And it's what happens afterwards that is most important.
The Good Parents: Joan London  A novel of loss and longing featuring parents who search for their missing teenage daughter whilst recollecting her and their own lives   Shantaram: Gregory David Roberts  A gripping adventure story,superbly written meditation on good and evil and an authentic evocation of Bombay life. This is an epic tale of slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison torture, mafia gang wars and Bollywood films.   Sister:  Rosamund Lupton  What would you do if your sister disappeared without a trace?  This is an emotionally fraught and at some times terrifying story about two sisters and the strength that binds them. 
The Betrayal: Helen Dunmore  Leningrad, 1952. Andrei, a young hospital doctor, and Anna, a nursery school teacher, are forging a life together in the postwar, postsiege wreckage. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Shaffer Solar:  Ian McEwan  A compulsive womaniser, Michael Beard finds his fifth marriage floundering. When Beard's professional and personal worlds collide in a freak accident, an opportunity presents itself for Beard to extricate himself from his marital mess, reinvigorate his career and save the world from environmental disaster.

 
Room: Emma Donoghue  Jack is five. He lives with his Ma. They live in a single, locked room. They don't have the key. Jack and Ma are prisoners. Booker shortlisted 2010  Book Thief: Markus Zarkus  The story of a young German girl who steals books, her family and the Jewish boxer hidden in their basement as they struggle to survive in Nazi Germany  Snowdrops*: A.D. Miller  Englishman & lawyer living in Russia, Nicholas falls in love with Masha. This is novel of moral ambiguity, uncertainty and corruption  
The Long Song: Andrea Levy  Set in Jamaica during the last turbulent years of slavery and the early years of freedom that followed. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010  I Know This Much is True: Wally Lamb   Sweeping up Glass: Carolyn Wall 
Lacuna: Barbara Kingsolver  Secret Scripture: Sebastian Barry  Last Train from Liguria: Christine Dwyer Hickey  
Secret Intensity of Everyday Life: William Nicholson   The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter & Jam: Lauren Liebenberg  Book of Negroes: Lawrence Hill  An epic novel about slavery  
Mayor Pettigrew’s Last Stand: Helen Simonson Major Ernest Pettigrew (Ret'd) is not interested in the frivolity of the modern world. Since his wife Nancy's death, he has tried to avoid the constant bother of nosy village women, his grasping, ambitious son, and the ever spreading suburbanization of the English countryside, preferring to lead a quiet life upholding the values that people have lived by for generations -respectability, duty, and a properly brewed cup of tea (very much not served in a polystyrene cup with teabag left in). But when his brother's death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs.
Ali, the widowed village shopkeeper of Pakistani descent, the Major is drawn out of his regimented world and forced to confront the realities of life in the twenty-first century. Drawn together by a shared love of Literature and the loss of their respective spouses, the Major and Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship on the cusp of blossoming into something more.
But although the Major was actually born in Lahore, and Mrs. Ali was born in Cambridge, village society insists on embracing him as the quintessential local and her as a permanent foreigner. The Major has always taken special pride in the village, but how will the chaotic recent events affect his relationship with the place he calls home? Written with sharp perception and a delightfully dry sense of humour, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand is a heart warming love story with a cast of unforgettable characters that questions how much one should sacrifice personal happiness for the obligations of family and tradition		 When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: Peter Godwin  - Peter Godwin, an award-winning writer, is on assignment in Zululand when he is summoned by his mother to Zimbabwe, his birthplace. His father is seriously ill; she fears he is dying. Godwin finds his country, once a post-colonial success story, descending into a vortex of violence and racial hatred.
His father recovers, but over the next few years Godwin travels regularly between his family life in Manhattan and the increasing chaos of Zimbabwe, with its rampant inflation and land seizures making famine a very real prospect. It is against this backdrop that Godwin discovers a fifty-year-old family secret, one which changes everything he thought he knew about his father, and his own place in the world. Peter Godwin's book combines vivid reportage, moving personal stories and revealing memoir, and traces his family's quest to belong in hostile lands a quest that spans three continents and half a century		 Tiny Sunbirds Far Away:  Christie Watson - Blessing and her brother Ezikiel adore their larger-than-life father, their glamorous mother and their comfortable life in Lagos. But all that changes when their father leaves them for another woman.
Their mother is fired from her job at the Royal Imperial Hotel - only married women can work there - and soon they have to quit their air-conditioned apartment to go and live with their grandparents in a compound in the Niger Delta. Adapting to life with a poor countryside family is a shock beyond measure after their privileged upbringing in Lagos. Told in Blessing's own beguiling voice, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away shows how some families can survive almost anything.
At times hilarious, always poignant, occasionally tragic, it is peopled with characters you will never forget  COSTA Book Award Winner 2012
Cutting for Stone:  Abraham Verghese - Marion and Shiva Stone, born in a mission hospital in Ethiopia in the 1950s, are twin sons of an illicit union between an Indian nun and British doctor. Bound by birth but with widely different temperaments they grow up together, in a country on the brink of revolution, until a betrayal splits them apart. But fate has not finished with them - they will be brought together once more, in the sterile surroundings of a hospital theatre.
From the 1940s to the present, from a convent in India to a cargo ship bound for the Yemen, from a tiny operating theatre in Ethiopia to a hospital in the Bronx, this is both a richly visceral epic and a riveting family story
Help: Kathryn Stockett Water for Elephants: Sara Gruen   White Girl on a Green Bicycle: Monique Roffey
The Housekeeper & the Professor: Yoko Ogawa  An enchanting Japanese novel about a brilliant mathematician who only has 80 minutes of short term memory, and the young housekeeper entrusted to look after him. Mornings in Jenin: Susan Abulhawa  A heart-wrenching, powerfully written novel, Spans 5 countries and 4 generations to explain one of the most intractable conflicts of our lifetime The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: David Wroblewski  A coming-of-age story set in the remote wilderness of northern Wisconsin. The mute Edgar is convinced his uncle killed his father, but when the time comes to prove it, he must choose between revenge and preserving the family legacy.

* indicates large sized paperback