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Tiny Sunbirds Far Away Christie Watson |
'Everything changed after Mama found Father lying on top
of another woman.' 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 |
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The Dovekeepers Alice Hoffman |
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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 and a pioneer in the British Women's Movement. But,
for all her independence of mind, Fido is too trusting of her once-dear
companion and 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 and
counter-accusations of cruelty and attempted rape, as well as a
mysterious 'sealed letter' that could destroy more than one life
...Based on blow-by-blow newspaper reports of the 1864 Codrington
Divorce, THE SEALED LETTER, full of sparkling characters and wicked
dialogue, is a thought-provoking mystery and gripping drama of friends,
lovers and marriage |
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The Hare with Amber Eyes Edmund De Waal |
264 Japanese wood & ivory carvings, none of them bigger
than a matchbox: Edmund De Waal was entranced when he first
encountered the collection in his great uncle Iggie's Tokyo apartment.
When he later inherited the 'netsuke', they unlocked a story far larger
& more dramatic then he could ever have imagined. From a
burgeoning empire in Odessa to fin de siecle Paris, from occupied Vienna
to Tokyo, Edmund de Waal traces the netsuke's journey through
generations of his remarkable family against the backdrop of a
tumultuous century. |
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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. |
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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 |
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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 |
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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. |
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The Hand That First Held Mine Maggie O'Farrell |
A
gorgeously written story of love and motherhood, this is a tour de force
from one of our best loved novelists. When the sophisticated Innes Kent
turns up on her doorstep, Lexie Sinclair realises she cannot wait any
longer for her life to begin, and leaves for London. There, at the heart
of the 1950s Soho art scene, she carves out a new life.
In the present day, Elina and Ted are reeling from the difficult birth
of their first child. Elina struggles to reconcile the demands of
motherhood with sense of herself as an artist, and Ted is disturbed by
memories of his own childhood that don't tally with his parents' version
of events. As Ted begins to search for answers, an extraordinary
portrait of two women is revealed, separated by fifty years, but
connected in ways that neither could ever have expected.
Winner of the Costa Novel
Award 2011 |
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Major 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? |
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The Blasphemer Nigel Farndale |
A pacey, exciting read. |
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The Snowman Jo Nesbo |
The night the first snow falls a young boy wakes to find his mother
gone. He walks through the silent house, but finds only wet footprints
on the stairs. In the garden looms a solitary figure: a snowman bathed
in cold moonlight, its black eyes glaring up at the bedroom windows.
Round its neck is his mother's pink scarf. Also by Nesbo -
Devil's Star, Nemesis, The Redeemer & The Leopard
For readers of Stieg Larsson |
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Serena Ron Rash |
George & Serena Pemberton arrive in the wilds of the North Caroline
mountains to build a life together. Unlike any woman the timber
empire has ever seen, Serena oversees crews, hunts rattlesnakes & even
saves her husband's life. But when Serena learns she will never
bear a child, it sets in motion a course of events that will change the
lives of everyone in the community |
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South of Broad Pat Conroy |
Leopold Bloom King is the son of an amiable,
loving father who teaches science at the local high school. His
mother, a former nun, is the high school principal and a
respected Joyce scholar. He has had an unremarkable, happy
family life.
But after Leo's ten-year-old brother commits suicide, the family
struggles with the shattering effects of his death, and Leo,
lonely and isolated, searches for something to sustain him.
Eventually, he finds his answer when he becomes part of a tight
knit group of older high school students that includes Sheba and
Trevor Poe - glamorous twins with an alcoholic mother and a
prison-escapee father ; hard-scrabble mountain runaways Niles
and Starla Whitehead; socialite Molly Huger and her boyfriend,
Chadworth Rutledge X - and an ever-widening circle whose
liaisons will ripple across two decades. The ties among
them endure for years, surviving marriages happy and troubled,
unrequited loves and unspoken longings, hard-won successes and
devastating breakdowns, as well as the American South's dark
legacy of racism and class divisions.
But the final test of friendship that brings them to San
Francisco is something no one is prepared for. |
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The Twin Gerbrand Bakker
IMPAC 2010 WINNER |
When his twin brother dies in a car accident, Helmer
returns to the small family farm in Holland. After his father has been
transferred upstairs, Helmer sets about furnishing the house. 'A double
bed and a duvet', advises Ada, who lives next door. Then Riet appears,
the woman once engaged to marry his twin. Could Riet and her son live
with him for a while?
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The Lacuna Barbara Kingsolver ORANGE
PRIZE WINNER 2010 |
"The Lacuna" is the heartbreaking story of a man's search
for safety of a man torn between the warm heart of Mexico and the cold
embrace of 1950s McCarthyite America. Born in the U.S. and reared in
Mexico, Harrison Shepherd is a liability to his social-climbing flapper
mother, Salome.
Making himself useful in the household of the famed Mexican artists
Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and exiled Bolshevik leader Lev Trotsky,
young Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution. A
violent upheaval sends him north to a nation newly caught up in World
War II. In the mountain city of Asheville, North Carolina he remakes
himself in America's hopeful image.
But political winds continue to throw him between north and south, in a
plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach - the lacuna -
between truth and public presumption. A gripping story of identity,
loyalty and the devastating power of accusations to destroy innocent
people, "The Lacuna" is as deep and rich as the New World. |
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Last Train from Liguria Christine Dwyer Hickey |
From the bestselling Irish novelist, here comes a
sweeping tale of consequences that spans from the 1930s to the 1990s.
"Last Train from Liguria" takes us on a journey from claustrophobic
Dublin and the tense formality of London, to the heat and bustle of the
pre-war Italian Riviera. This is a must-read for fans of books by Rose
Tremain and Helen Dunmore.
In 1933, Bella Stuart leaves her quiet London life to move to Italy to
tutor the child of a beautiful Jewish heiress and an elderly Italian
aristocrat. Living at the family's summer home, Bella's reserve softens
as she comes to love her young charge, and find friendship with Maestro
Edward, his enigmatic music teacher. But as the decade draws to an end
and fascism tightens its grip on Europe, the fact that Alec is Jewish
places his life in grave danger.
Bella and Edward take the boy on a terrifying train journey out of Italy
- one they have no reason to believe any of them will survive... |
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Sex & Stravinsky Barbara Trapido |
The time is 1995, but everybody is linked by their past.
Brilliant Australian Caroline can command everyone except her own
ghoulish mother, which means that things aren't easy for Josh and Zoe,
her husband and twelve-year-old daughter. Josh has bizarre origins in a
South African mining town, but now teaches mime in Bristol.
Zoe reads girls' ballet books and longs for ballet lessons; a thing
denied her until, on a school French exchange, she meets a runaway boy
in a woodland hut. Meanwhile, on the east coast of Africa, Hattie
Thomas, Josh's first love, has taken to writing girls' ballet books from
the turret of her fabulous house - that's when she can carve out the
space between the forceful presence of Herman and her crosspatch
daughter Cat who, after some illicit snooping, is secretly planning a
make-or-break essay on mask dancers in Mali. Hattie wakes from a dream
of Stravinsky's Pulcinella and asks herself about the composer, 'Do his
glasses look sexy?' His glasses are just like Josh's glasses from two
decades earlier.
From far and wide, they are all drawn together; drawn to Jack's place.
Or is he Jacques? Or Giacomo?Beautiful, mysterious Jack, the one-time
backyard housemaid's child who, having journeyed via Mozambique and
Senegal to Milan, is back exactly where he started - only not for long.
In its mix of people from different spheres, the book throws up the
complexity, cruelty and richness of the global world while, as a
sequence of personal stories, it comes together like a dance; a
masquerade in which things are not always what they seem.
From the author of 'Frankie & Stankie' |
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The Postmistress Sarah Blake |
Letters of love, telegrams of loss -
the postmistress awaits them all. The wireless crackles with news of
blitzed-out London and of the war that courses through Europe, leaving
destruction in its wake. Listening intently on the other side of the
Atlantic, newly-wed Emma considers the fragility of her peaceful married
life as America edges closer to the brink of war.
As the reporter's distant voice fills the room, she sits convincing
herself that the sleepy town of Franklin must be far beyond the war's
reach. But the life of American journalist Frankie, whose voice seems so
remote, will soon be deeply entangled with her own. With the delivery of
a letter into the hands of postmistress Iris, the fates of these three
women become irrevocably linked.
But while it remains unopened, can Iris keep its truth at bay? |
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The Betrayal Helen Dunmore |
Leningrad in 1952 is a city recovering from war, where
Andrei, a young hospital doctor and Anna, a nursery school teacher, are
forging a life together. Summers at the dacha, preparations for the
hospital ball, work and the care of sixteen year old Kolya fill their
minds. They try hard to avoid coming to the attention of the
authorities, but even so their private happiness is precarious.
Stalin is still in power, and the Ministry for State Security has new
targets in its sights. When Andrei has to treat the seriously ill child
of a senior secret police officer, Volkov, he finds himself and his
family caught in an impossible game of life and death - for in a land
ruled by whispers and watchfulness, betrayal can come from those closest
to you. A gripping and deeply moving portrait of life in post-war Soviet
Russia, "The Betrayal" brilliantly shows the epic struggle of ordinary
people to survive in a time of violence and terror. |
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Brixton Beach Roma Tearne |
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. London.
On a bright July morning a series of bombs brings the capital to a halt.
Simon Swann, a medic from one of the large teaching hospitals, is
searching frantically amongst the chaos and the rubble. All around
police sirens and ambulances are screaming but Simon does not hear. He
is out of breath because he has been running, and he is distraught.
But who is he looking for? To find out we have first to go back thirty
years to a small island in the Indian Ocean where a little girl named
Alice Fonseka is learning to ride a bicycle on the beach. The island is
Sri Lanka, and its community is on the brink of civil war. Alice's life
is about to change forever.
Soon she will have to leave for England, abandoning her beloved
grandfather, and accompanied by her mother Sita, a woman broken by a
series of terrible events. In London, Alice grows into womanhood.
Trapped in a loveless marriage, she has a son.
Slowly she fulfils her grandfather's prophecy and becomes an artist.
Eventually she finds true love. But London in the twenty-first century
is a mass of migration and suspicion.
The war on terror has begun and everyone, even Simon Swann, middle
class, rational, medic that he is, will be caught up in this war in the
most unexpected and terrible way. |
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The Housekeeper & the Professor Yoko Ogawa |
He is a brilliant maths professor with a peculiar problem
- ever since a traumatic head injury seventeen years ago, he has lived
with only eighty minutes of short-term memory. She is a sensitive but
astute young housekeeper who is entrusted to take care of him. Each
morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are reintroduced to one
another, a strange, beautiful relationship blossoms between them.
The Professor may not remember what he had for breakfast, but his mind
is still alive with elegant equations from the past. He devises clever
maths riddles - based on her shoe size or her birthday - and the numbers
reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her
ten-year-old son. With each new equation, the three lost souls forge an
affection more mysterious than imaginary numbers, and a bond that runs
deeper than memory. |
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The Help Kathryn Stockett |
It was Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Black maids raise
white children, but aren't trusted not to steal the silver. Some lines
will never be crossed.
Aibileen is a black maid: smart, regal, and raising her seventeenth
white child. Yet something shifted inside Aibileen the day her own son
died while his bosses looked the other way. Minny, Aibileen's best
friend, is by some way the sassiest woman in Mississippi.
But even her extraordinary cooking won't protect Minny from the
consequences of her tongue. Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter returns home
with a degree and a head full of hope, but her mother will not be happy
until there's a ring on her finger. Seeking solace with Constantine, the
beloved maid who raised her, Skeeter finds she has gone.
But why will no one tell her where? Seemingly as different as can be,
Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny's lives converge over a clandestine project
that will not only put them all at risk but also change the town of
Jackson for ever. But why? And for what? "The Help" is a deeply moving,
timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones
we won't. Itis about how women, whether mothers or daughters, the help
or the boss, relate to each other - and that terrible feeling that those
who look after your children may understand them, even love them, better
than you. |
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Trespass Rose Tremain |
In a silent valley stands an isolated stone farmhouse, the Mas Lunel.
Its owner is Aramon Lunel, an alcoholic so haunted by his violent past
that he's become incapable of all meaningful action, letting his hunting
dogs starve and his land go to ruin. Meanwhile, his sister, Audrun,
alone in her modern bungalow within sight of the Mas Lunel, dreams of
exacting retribution for the unspoken betrayals that have blighted her
life.
Into this closed Cevenol world comes Anthony Verey, a wealthy but
disillusioned antiques dealer from London. Now in his sixties, Anthony
hopes to remake his life in France, and he begins looking at properties
in the region. From the moment he arrives at the Mas Lunel, a
frightening and unstoppable series of consequences is set in motion.
Two worlds and two cultures collide. Ancient boundaries are crossed,
taboos are broken, a violent crime is committed. And all the time the
Cevennes hills remain, as cruel and seductive as ever, unforgettably
captured in this powerful and unsettling novel, which reveals yet
another dimension to Rose Tremain's extraordinary imagination.
Fantastic!
The Road Home - Rose
Tremain
Winner Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2008
Lev is on his way from Eastern Europe to
Britain, seeking work. Behind him loom the figures of his dead
wife, his beloved young daughter & his outrageous friend Rudi who -
dreaming of the wealthy West - lives largely for his battered Chevrolet.
Ahead of Lev lies the deep strangeness of the British: their hostile
streets, their clannish pubs, their obsession with celebrity.
London holds the alluring possibility of friendship, sex, money & a new
career &, if Lev is lucky, a new sense of belonging. eur€8.99
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One Day David Nicholls |
'I can imagine you at forty,' she said, a hint of malice in her voice.
'I can picture it right now.' He smiled without opening his eyes. 'Go on
then.' 15th July 1988.
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.
A great read, and refreshingly modern day. Brilliant for a book
club. |
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Mornings in Jenin Susan Abulhawa |
Presents a story of love and loss, of
childhood, marriage and parenthood, and finally the need to share the
author's history with her daughter, to preserve the greatest love she
has. This title helps us to take a fresh look at one of the defining
political conflicts of our lifetime.
A MUST-READ. |
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The Well & The Mine Gin Phillips |
Carbon Hill 1931: in a small Alabama coal-mining town,
9 year old Tess Moore watches from the darkness of her porch as a
strange woman lifts the cover off the family well & tosses a baby in
without a word.
It is the height of the Depression, while Tess's father Albert, performs
backbreaking & dangerous work at the mine, her mother, Leta, makes do
without meat on her table. But the family are luckier than most: the
food they can grow on their plot of land has so far saved them from the
crippling poverty & near-starvation that besets their neighbours.
As Tess tries to unravel the mystery of the woman at the well, a
portrait emerges of a family & a community struggling to survive the
darkest of times.
A thoroughly enjoyable book. With vague echoes of 'To Kill a
Mockingbird' and Fannie Flagg, this is a book which truely captives the
characters & the time it is set in. Each character has a voice, Leta,
Albert, Tess, Tess's older sister Virgie and younger brother Jack and
each voice tells a story - about men who are incapacitated or killed by
accidents in the local mines; about neighbors living off what they can
grow on their patch of land; and about blacks like Albert's fellow miner
and friend Jonah who are segregated in another part of Carbon Hill—and
often hauled off to jail arbitrarily.
A novel you don't want to finish! |
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The Volumptuous Delights of Peanut Butter & Jam Lauren Liebenberg |
Nyree and Cia live on a remote farm in the east of what
was Rhodesia in the late 1970s. Beneath the dripping vines of the Vumba
rainforest, and under the tutelage of their heretical grandfather,
theirs is a seductive childhood laced with African paganism, mangled
Catholicism and the lore of the Brothers Grimm. Their world extends as
far as the big fence, erected to keep out the 'Terrs' whom their father
is off fighting.
The two girls know little beyond that until the arrival from the outside
world of 'the bastard', their orphaned cousin Ronin, who is to poison
their idyll for ever.This is a very well
written book that evokes so much emotion....hilarious one minute but
overall, THE saddest book I have ever read.
Brilliant fodder for a book club |
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Child 44 Tom Rob Smith |
In Stalin's Soviet Union, crime does not exist. But still
millions live in fear. The mere suspicion of disloyalty to the State,
the wrong word at the wrong time, can send an innocent person to his
execution.
Officer Leo Demidov, an idealistic war hero, believes he's building a
perfect society. But after witnessing the interrogation of an innocent
man, his loyalty begins to waver, and when ordered to investigate his
own wife, Raisa, Leo is forced to choose where his heart truly lies.
Then the impossible happens.
A murderer is on the loose, killing at will, and every belief Leo has
ever held is shattered. Denounced by his enemies and exiled from home,
with only Raisa by his side, he must risk everything to find a criminal
that the State won't admit even exists. On the run, Leo soon discovers
the danger isn't from the killer he is trying to catch, but from the
country he is trying to protect.
Heart stopping
in a way - an interesting, horrifying insight into life in cold war
Russia. |
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Burnt Shadows Kamila Shamsie |
1945, Nagasaki, Hiroko Tanaka takes in the view of the terraced
slopes from her Veranda. Wrapped up in a kimono with 3
black cranes across the back, she is 21 and in love with the man
she is to marry - Konrad Weiss. In a split second, the
world turns white. In the numbing aftermath of a bomb that
obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the
bird-shaped burns on her back. Searching for new
Beginnings, Hiroko travels to Delhi to find Konrad's relatives,
and falls in love with their employee Sajjad Ashraf, from whom
she starts to learn Urdu. As the years unravel, new homes
replace those left behind & old wars are seamlessly usurped by
new conflicts. But the shadows of history-personal,
political - are cast over the entwined worlds of the different
families as they are transported from Pakistan to New York in
the novel's astonishing climax. |
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The Story of Edgar Sawtelle David
Wroblewski |
On a farm in remote Wisconsin, the mute Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic
life with his parents, raising a unique breed of dog. Then when
his uncle Claude returns, tragedy befalls the family - a tragedy which
forces Edgar to run away and survive in the wilderness.
This is a story with all the elements - happiness & tragedy, love &
hate, that ambles along at a lovely pace. A little work is
involved as it is best read chunks at a time, but the writing is such
that you get gripped by it, fall into it and leave very reluctantly. |
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Girl who Played with Fire Stieg Larsson |
The follow-on to the bestselling
'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'.....
When Mikael Blomkvist is approached by a young journalist with an
investigation into sex trafficking, he cannot resist waging war on the
powerful figures who control this lucrative industry.
When a young couple are found dead in their apartment, it's a
straightforward job for Inspector Bublanski & his team. The killer
left the weapon at the scene and the fingerprints point only in 1
direction.
Lisabeth Salander is wanted for murder. Her history of
unpredictable & vengeful behaviour makes her an official danger to
society-but no-one can find her.
Also out 'The Girl who Kicked
the Hornet's Nest' |
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Brooklyn Colm Toibin |
It is Enniscorthy in early 1950s. Eilis Lacey is one among many of
her generation who cannot find work at home. Thus when a job is
offered in America, it is clear to everyone that she must go.
Leaving her family & country, Eilis heads for the unfamiliar Brooklyn,
and to a crowded boarding house where the landlady's intense scrutiny &
the small jealousies of her fellow residents only deepen her isolation.
Slowly, however, the pain of parting is buried beneath the rhythms of
her new life - days at the fill in a large department store, night
classes in Brooklyn College and friday evenings in the dance floor of
the parish hall - until she begins to realise that she has found a sort
of happiness. As she falls in love, news comes from home, that
forces her back to Enniscorthy, not to the constrictions of her old
life, but to new possibilities which conflict deeply with the life she
has left behind in Brooklyn. |
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Born Under a Million Shadows Andrea Busfield |
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A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry |
Set in mid-1970s India,
'A Fine Balance' tells the story of 4 unlikely people whose lives come
together during a time of political turmoil soon after the government
declares a 'State of Internal Emergency'. Through days of
bleakness & hope, their circumstances - and their fates - become
inextricably linked in ways no-one could have foreseen. |
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Half of a Yellow Sun
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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In 1960s Nigeria, a country blighted by civil
war, 3 lives intersect. Ugwa, a boy from a poor village, works as
a houseboy for a university lecturer. Olanna, a young woman, has
abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos to live with her charismatic
new lover, the professor. The third is Richard, a shy Englishman
in thrall to Olanna's enigmatic twin sister. When the shocking
horror of the war engulfs them, their loyalties are severely tested as
they are pulled apart and thrown together in ways that none of them
imagined...... |
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The Thirteenth Tale
Diane Setterfield
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Angelfield House stands abandoned and
forgotten. It was once the imposing home of the March family -
fascinating, manipulative Isabelle, Charlie, her brutal and dangerous
brother and the wild twins Adeline & Emmeline. But Angelfield
House conceals a chilling secret whose impact still resonates......
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Animal's People Indra
Sinha
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Ever since he can
remember, Animal has gone on all fours, the catastrophic result of what
happened on 'that night', when, thanks to an American chemical company,
the Apocalypse visited his slum. Now, not yet 20, he leads a
hand-to-mouth existence with his dog Jara and a crazy old num called Ma
Franci and spends his time wondering what it's like to get laid.
When a young American doctor comes to town to open a free clinic, Animal
plunges into a web of intrigues, scams and plots with the unabashed aim
of turning it all to his advantage. |
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The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers |
Hector, Eck to his friends, has left the army; at a bit of a
loose end, he agrees to help his old pal by working in his investment
fund company as a greeter. But while on holiday with his friend Harry,
he meets Charlie Summers. This inadvertently sparks a change in
the course of his life, including being drawn into a scheme to import
luxury Japanese dog food into the UK, and ends up with an uninvited
houseguest.
In the same quirky style as 'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen' & 'The
Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce' this is a light hearted
book, which leaves you wondering 'how on earth did that happen'!!!
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Poisonwood Bible
Barbara Kingsolver |
Told by the wife & four
daughter of Nathan Price, a fierce evangelical Baptist, who takes his
family & mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959, this is the story of one
family's tragic undoing & remarkable reconstruction over the course of 3
decades. |
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Water for Elephants Sara Gruen |
Orphaned, penniless,
Jacob Jankowski jumps a freight train in the dark and in that instant,
transforms his future. By morning, he's landed a job with the
Flying Squadron of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.
By nightfall, he's in love. In an America made colourless by
prohibition & the depression, the circus is a refuge of sequins &
sensuality. But behind the glamour lies a darker world, where both
animals and men are dispensable. Where falling in love is the most
dangerous act of all...... |
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Notes from an Exhibition Patrick Gale |
Artist Rachel Kelly is
a whirlwind of creative highs & anguished lows. She's also
something of an enigma to her husband & 4 children. So when she is
found dead in her Penzance studio, leaving behind some extraordinary new
paintings, there's a painful need for answers. Her Quaker husband
appeals for information on the internet. The fragments of a
shattered life slowly come to light, and it becomes clear that bohemian
Rachel has left her children not only a gift for art - but also her
haunting demons. |
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People of the Book Geraldine Brooks |
During World War 2 a Bosnian Muslim risks his life to
save the book from the Nazis; it gets caught up in the intrigues of
hedonistic 19th Century Vienna; a Catholic priest saves it from burning
in the fires of the Inquisition. These stories and more make up
the secret history of the priceless Sarajevo Haggadah - a medieval
Jewish prayer book recovered from the smouldering ruins of the war-torn
city. Now it in the skilled hands of rare-book restorer Hanna
Heath. And while the content of the book interests her, it is the
hidden history which captures her imagination. Because to her tiny
clues - salt crystals, a hair, wine stains - that she discovers in the
pages & bindings are keys to unlock its mysteries....... |
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Pharmakon Dirk Wittenborn |
Friedrich, a young ambitious professor of psychology at Yale, has
stumbled upon a drug that promises to make him famous. Derived
from an exotic plant, 'The Way Home' seems to possess the secret
ingredient of happiness. But Friedrich & his colleague Bunny
Winton must find subjects willing to test their hypothesis & in Casper
Gedsic, a fiercely intelligent, socially inept, near-suicidal maths
student they seem to have found their perfect guinea pig. But when
their plan goes awry & Casper seeks murderous revenge, his actions will
haunt Friedrich & his family forever.
Zach, who is born afterwards, grows up in the shadow of Casper Gedsic.
His presence is real and despite Friedrich & his wife's best efforts,
the family remains defined and imprisioned by the memory of Casper.
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The Outlander Gil Adamson |
On a moonlit night in 1903, a mysterious young woman flees
alone across the Canadian Wilderness, one quick step ahead of
her pursuers. Mary Boulton is 19 years old, half mad and
widowed - by her own hand. Tearing through the forest with
dogs howling in the distance, she is desperate, her nerves
burning & she is certain of 1 thing - that her every move is
being traced. 2 red-headed brothers, rifles across their
backs, lurch close behind her. She has murdered their
brother & their cold lust for revenge is unswerving.As the widow scrambles to stay ahead of them, the burden of
her existence becomes a battle in which the dangers of her own
mind are more menacing than the dangers of the night.
Along the way, the outlaw encounters a changing cast of misfits
& eccentrics - some provide brief respite from solitude, others
offer support, only to reveal that they too have demons raging
inside.
Brilliant!
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The Secret Scripture Sebastian Barry |
Roseanne McNulty is nearing her 100th
birthday in the mental hospital where she was committed as a
young woman. Finishing up his case notes before the
hospital is closed, psychiatrist Dr Grene finds himself
intrigued by the story of his elderly patient. While Dr
Grene investigates, Roseanne looks back on the tragedies &
passions she has locked away in her secret journal, from her
turbulent rural childhood to the marriage she believed would
bring her happiness. But when Dr Grene finally uncovers
the circumstances of her arrival at the hospital, it leads to a
shocking secret. |
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The Other Hand Chris Cleave |
This is a story of 2 women.
Their lives collide 1 fateful day, and 1
of them has to make a terrible choice.
2 years later, they meet again - the story starts here.......... |
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When Will There be Good News?
Kate Atkinson |
In a quiet corner of rural Devon,
16 year-old Joanna Mason witnesses an appalling crime. 30 years
later the man convicted of the crime, Andrew Decker, is released from
prison.
In Edinburgh, 16 year-old Reggie,
wise beyond her years, works as a nanny for a G.P. But Dr Hunter
has gone missing & Reggie seems to be the only person who is worried.
Across town, Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe is also looking for
a missing person, unaware that hurtling towards her is an old friend -
Jackson Brodie - himself on a journey that is about to be fatally
interrupted.
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August |
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann
Schaffer |
It's January 1946 & writer Juliet
Ashton sits at her cluttered desk in London, struggling to find a
subject for her next book. Out of the blue, she receives a letter
from Dawsey Adams, who, as well as sharing her love of Charles Lamb, is
a member of the Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society, set up in
secret during the German Occupation. It's not long before Juliet
begins to hear from the other members & discovers that the society is
every bit as extraordinary as its name. There's Isola, who sells
love potions along with her vegetables; Eben a fisherman with a passion
for Shakespeare; Will, the creator of the famous potato peel pie; &
Dawsey himself, a bashful farmer with a tender heart. As the
letters fly back & forth, Juliet's curiosity turns into genuine
affection and she decides to visit her new friends & learn more about
Elizabeth, the founding member of the society, who fell in love with a
German Officer and was sent away to a concentration camp, leaving her
only child behind
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