Recommending Books for Purchase (Bulletin 184 - January 2022): Booker Prize, Women's Prize for Fiction

Recommending Books for Purchase : (Bulletin 184a - January 2022): Books of Booker Prize, Women's Prize for Fiction

Title List

The Fortune Men: Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Of The Year Award by Nadifa Mohamed
ISBN: 9780241466940

Publication Date: 2021-05-21

Description: SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021
SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2021

'Chilling and utterly compelling, The Fortune Men shines an essential light on a much-neglected period of our national life' Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland

Mahmood Mattan is a fixture in Cardiff's Tiger Bay, 1952, which bustles with Somali and West Indian sailors, Maltese businessmen and Jewish families. He is a father, chancer, some-time petty thief. He is many things, in fact, but he is not a murderer.

So when a shopkeeper is brutally killed and all eyes fall on him, Mahmood isn't too worried. It is true that he has been getting into trouble more often since his Welsh wife Laura left him. But Mahmood is secure in his innocence in a country where, he thinks, justice is served.

It is only in the run-up to the trial, as the prospect of freedom dwindles, that it will dawn on Mahmood that he is in a terrifying fight for his life - against conspiracy, prejudice and the inhumanity of the state. And, under the shadow of the hangman's noose, he begins to realise that the truth may not be enough to save him.

'A writer of great humanity and intelligence. Nadifa Mohamed deeply understands how lives are shaped both by the grand sweep of history and the intimate encounters of human beings' Kamila Shamsie, author of Home Fire

'A novel of tremendous power, compassion and subtlety, it feels unsettlingly timely' Pankaj Mishra
The Promise: WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 by Damon Galgut
ISBN: 9781784744076

Publication Date: 2021-06-21

Description: **WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021**

Discover the powerful prizewinning story of a family in crisis.

'Astonishing' Colm Tóibín

The Promise charts the crash and burn of a white South African family, living on a farm outside Pretoria. The Swarts are gathering for Ma's funeral. The younger generation, Anton and Amor, detest everything the family stand for - not least the failed promise to the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. After years of service, Salome was promised her own house, her own land... yet somehow, as each decade passes, that promise remains unfulfilled.

The narrator's eye shifts and blinks: moving fluidly between characters, flying into their dreams; deliciously lethal in its observation. And as the country moves from old deep divisions to its new so-called fairer society, the lost promise of more than just one family hovers behind the novel's title.

In this story of a diminished family, sharp and tender emotional truths hit home. Confident, deft and quietly powerful, The Promise is literary fiction at its finest.

'Gorgeous and pleasurable' Tessa Hadley

'The most important book of the last ten years' Edmund White

'Simply: you must read it' Claire Messud
China Room: A must-read novel on love, oppression, and freedom by Sunjeev Sahota by Sunjeev Sahota
ISBN: 9780670095070

Publication Date: 2021-05-24

Description: Longlisted for Booker Prize 2021, China Room is a literary masterpiece, inspired by real-life events, from award winning author Sunjeev Sahota

'Sunjeev Sahota's writing is the stuff of miracles' - Bryan Washington

'A gorgeous, gripping read' - Kamila Shamsie

'I'm blown away by it. I was gripped from the first page to the last' - Tessa Hadley

'Such a thrilling combination of beauty and heartbreak. It's breathtaking' - Charlotte Mendelson

'An intense drama of classic themes - love, family, survival, and betrayal - told with passion and precision in Sahota's economical, lyrical prose. China Room is a brilliant novel. I won't forget any of these characters' - Adam Foulds

A multigenerational novel of love, oppression, trauma and the pursuit of freedom, inspired in part by the author's own family history, China Room twines together the stories of a woman and a man separated by more than half a century but united by blood.

Mehar, a young bride in the rural Punjab of 1929, is trying to discover the identity of her new husband. She and her sisters-in-law, married to three brothers in a single ceremony, spend their days hard at work in the family's 'china room', sequestered from contact with the men. When Mehar develops a theory as to which of them is hers, a passion is ignited that puts more than one life at risk.

Spiralling around Mehar's story is that of a young man who, in 1999, travels from England to the now-deserted farm, its 'china room' locked and barred. In enforced flight from the traumas of his adolescence-his experiences of addiction, racism and estrangement from the culture of his birth-he spends a summer in painful contemplation and recovery, before finally finding the strength to return home.

1. This book is for all fiction lovers, especially historical fiction set in India.
2. Sunjeev Sahota was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize, the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and won the Encore Prize, the European Union Prize for Literature and the South Bank Sky Arts Award. He was chosen as one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists in 2013.
3. The book's deals with the themes of oppression, women's lives in India, arranged marriages, identity and freedom.
4. Sunjeev Sahota's previous works include Ours Are the Streets and The Year of the Runaways.
Silver Sparrow: From the Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction, 2019 by Tayari Jones
ISBN: 9781786078629

Publication Date: 2020-04-10

Description: My father, James witherspoon, is a Bigamist.' This is the breath-taking story of a man's deception, a family's complicity, and the two teenage girls caught in the middle. James witherspoon has two families, one public, the other a closely guarded secret. But when his daughters meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows the truth.Theirs is a relationship destined to explode. Silver sparrow is the stunning new novel from the critically acclaimed winner of the 2019 women's Prize for fiction, an author deemed one of the most important writers of her generation.
An American Marriage: WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION, 2019 by Tayari Jones
ISBN: 9781786075192

Publication Date: 2019-05-25

Description: Newlyweds celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American dream and the new South. He is a young executive and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, celestial finds herself. Bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her centre. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together. This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward – with hope and pain – into the future.
Circe: The International No. 1 Bestseller - Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019 by Madeline Miller
ISBN: 9781526614674

Publication Date: 2019-04-18

Description: A NUMBER ONE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN, TELEGRAPH, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, I PAPER, SUNDAY EXPRESS, IRISH TIMES, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, AMAZON, AUDIBLE, BUZZFEED, REFINERY 29, WASHINGTON POST, BOSTON GLOBE, SEATTLE TIMES, TIME MAGAZINE, NEWSWEEK, PEOPLE, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, KIRKUS, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AND GOODREADS

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. Circe is a strange child - not powerful and terrible, like her father, nor gorgeous and mercenary like her mother. Scorned and rejected, Circe grows up in the shadows, at home in neither the world of gods or mortals. But Circe has a dark power of her own: witchcraft. When her gift threatens the gods, she is banished to the island of Aiaia where she hones her occult craft, casting spells, gathering strange herbs and taming wild beasts. Yet a woman who stands alone will never be left in peace for long - and among her island's guests is an unexpected visitor: the mortal Odysseus, for whom Circe will risk everything.

So Circe sets forth her tale, a vivid, mesmerizing epic of family rivalry, love and loss - the defiant, inextinguishable song of woman burning hot and bright through the darkness of a man's world.
The Dutch House: Longlisted for the Women's Prize 2020 by Ann Patchett
ISBN: 9781526627599

Publication Date: 2020-07-20

Description: An unforgettably powerful new novel of the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go - from the Number One New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth and Bel Canto

'The book of the autumn. The American author of Commonwealth (brilliant) and Bel Canto (even better) releases perhaps her finest novel yet' - Sunday Times

'The buzz around The Dutch House is totally justified. Her best yet, which is saying something' - John Boyne

"'Do you think it's possible to ever see the past as it actually was?' I asked my sister. We were sitting in her car, parked in front of the Dutch House in the broad daylight of early summer."

Danny Conroy grows up in the Dutch House, a lavish mansion. Though his father is distant and his mother is absent, Danny has his beloved sister Maeve: Maeve, with her wall of black hair, her wit, her brilliance. Life is coherent, played out under the watchful eyes of the house's former owners in the frames of their oil paintings.

Then one day their father brings Andrea home. Though they cannot know it, her arrival to the Dutch House sows the seed of the defining loss of Danny and Maeve's lives. The siblings are drawn back time and again to the place they can never enter, knocking in vain on the locked door of the past. For behind the mystery of their own exile is that of their mother's: an absence more powerful than any presence they have known.

Told with Ann Patchett's inimitable blend of humour, rage and heartbreak, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale and story of a paradise lost; of the powerful bonds of place and time that magnetize and repel us for our whole lives.
A Woman is No Man: an emotional and gripping by Etaf Rum
ISBN: 9780008341060

Publication Date: 2019-12-25

Description: Palestine, 1990. Seventeen-year-old Isra prefers reading books to entertaining the suitors her father has chosen for her. Over the course of a week, the naïve and dreamy girl finds herself quickly betrothed and married and is soon living in Brooklyn. There Isra struggles to adapt to the expectations of her oppressive mother-in-law Fareeda and strange new husband Adam, a pressure that intensifies as she begins to have children – four daughters instead of the sons Fareeda tells Isra she must bear.
Brooklyn, 2008. Eighteen-year-old Deya, Isra’s oldest daughter, must meet with potential husbands at her grandmother Fareeda’s insistence, though her only desire is to go to college. Deya can’t help but wonder if her options would have been different had her parents survived the car crash that killed them when Deya was only eight. But her grandmother is firm on the matter: The only way to secure a worthy future for Deya is through marriage to the right man.
But fate has a will of its own and soon Deya will find herself on an unexpected path that leads her to shocking truths about her family – knowledge that will force her to question everything she thought she knew about her parents, the past and her own future.
Set in an America at once foreign to many and staggeringly close at hand, A Woman is No Man is a story of culture and honour, secrets and betrayals, love and violence. It is an intimate glimpse into a controlling and closed cultural world and a universal tale about family and the ways silence and shame can destroy those we have sworn to protect.
The Family Tree: shortlisted for the Costa First Book Award 2020 by Sairish Hussain
ISBN: 9780008405182

Publication Date: 2020-03-10

Description: Your roots can always lead you home… Amjad cradles his baby daughter in the middle of the night. He has no time to mourn his wife’s death. Saahil and zahra, his two small children, are relying on him. Amjad vows to love and protect them always. Years later, saahil and his best friend, Ehsan, have finished University and are celebrating with friends. But when the night turns dangerous, its devastating effects will ripple through the years to come. Zahra’s world is alight with politics and activism. But she is now her father only source of comfort, and worries she’ll never have time for her own aspirations. Life has taken her small family in different directions – will they ever find their way back to each other? The family tree is the moving story of a British Muslim family full of love, laughter and resilience as well as all the faults, mistakes and stubborn loyalties which make us human.
How We Disappeared: LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2020 by Jing-Jing Lee
ISBN: 9781786075956

Publication Date: 2020-03-15

Description: Singapore, 1942. As Japanese troops sweep down Malaysia and into Singapore, a village is ransacked, leaving only three survivors, one of them a tiny child. In a neighbouring village, seventeen-year-old Wang di is bundled into the back of a troop carrier and shipped off to a Japanese military brothel. After sixty years of silence, what she saw and experienced there still haunts her. And in the year 2000, twelve-year-old Kevin is sitting beside his ailing grandmother when he overhears a mumbled confession. He sets out to discover the truth, wherever it might lead, setting in motion a chain of events he could never have foreseen. Weaving together two time lines and two very big secrets, this evocative, profoundly moving and utterly dazzling debut opens a window on a little known period of history, and heralds the arrival of a thrilling new literary star.
Transcendent Kingdom: Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021 by Yaa Gyasi
ISBN: 9780241988657

Publication Date: 2022-03-31

Description: SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2021

**From the bestselling author of Homegoing**
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As a child Gifty would ask her parents to tell the story of their journey from Ghana to Alabama, seeking escape in myths of heroism and romance. When her father and brother succumb to the hard reality of immigrant life in the American South, their family of four becomes two - and the life Gifty dreamed of slips away.

Years later, desperate to understand the opioid addiction that destroyed her brother's life, she turns to science for answers. But when her mother comes to stay, Gifty soon learns that the roots of their tangled traumas reach farther than she ever thought. Tracing her family's story through continents and generations will take her deep into the dark heart of modern America.

Transcendent Kingdom is a searing story story of love, loss and redemption, and the myriad ways we try to rebuild our lives from the rubble of our collective pasts.
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'Absolutely transcendent. A gorgeously woven narrative . . . not a word or idea out of place' Roxane Gay

'A piercing story of faith, science and the opioid crisis . . . There's bravery as well as beauty here' Observer
Girl, Woman, Other: WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019 by Bernardine Evaristo
ISBN: 9780241984994

Publication Date: 2020-07-01

Description: THE SUNDAY TIMES 1# BESTSELLER & BOOKER PRIZE WINNER

BRITISH BOOK AWARDS AUTHOR & FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020

'The most absorbing book I read all year.' Roxane Gay
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This is Britain as you've never read it.
This is Britain as it has never been told.

From Newcastle to Cornwall, from the birth of the twentieth century to the teens of the twenty-first, Girl, Woman, Other follows a cast of twelve characters on their personal journeys through this country and the last hundred years. They're each looking for something - a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father, even just a touch of hope . . .
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'[Bernardine Evaristo] is one of the very best that we have' Nikesh Shukla on Twitter

'A choral love song to black womanhood in modern Great Britain' Elle

'Beautifully interwoven stories of identity, race, womanhood, and the realities of modern Britain. The characters are so vivid, the writing is beautiful and it brims with humanity' Nicola Sturgeon on Twitter

'Bernardine Evaristo can take any story from any time and turn it into something vibrating with life' Ali Smith, author of How to be both

'Exceptional. You have to order it right now' Stylist

'Sparkling, inventive' Sunday Times
Shuggie Bain: Winner of Booker Prize 2020 by Douglas Stuart
ISBN: 9781529064414

Publication Date: 2020-10-16

Description: Winner of the Booker Prize 2020
Shortlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction 2020
An Observer ‘Best Debut Novelist of 2020’

‘An amazingly intimate, compassionate, gripping portrait of addiction, courage and love’ - The judges of the Booker Prize

It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life. She dreams of greater things: a house with its own front door and a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect, but false, teeth). But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest.

Shuggie is different. Fastidious and fussy, he shares his mother’s sense of snobbish propriety. The miners’ children pick on him and adults condemn him as no’ right. But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place.

Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride. A counterpart to the privileged Thatcher-era London of Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty, it also recalls the work of Édouard Louis, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, a blistering debut by a brilliant writer with a powerful and important story to tell.
Milkman: WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018 by Anna Burns
ISBN: 9780571338757

Publication Date: 2021-11-18

Description: 'Blazing.' Daily Telegraph
'Outstanding.' New Statesman
'A triumph.' Guardian
'Utterly compelling.' Irish Times
'The best Booker winner in years.' Metro

In an unnamed city, where to be interesting is dangerous, an eighteen-year-old woman has attracted the unwanted and unavoidable attention of a powerful and frightening older man, 'Milkman'. In this community, where suggestions quickly become fact, where gossip and hearsay can lead to terrible consequences, what can she do to stop a rumour once it has started? Milkman is persistent, the word is spreading, and she is no longer in control . . .

Winner of the International Dublin Literary Award 2020 and the Man Booker Prize 2018

Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, the Women's Prize for Fiction, and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
My Dark Vanessa: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AS SEEN ON TIKTOK by Kate Elizabeth Russell
ISBN: 9780008342258

Publication Date: 2020-06-15

Description: The book everyone will be talking about' Louise O'Neill 'a package of dynamite' Stephen king a stylist best book of 2020 An era-defining novel about the relationship between a fifteen-year-old girl and her teacher all he did was fall in love with me and the world turned him into a monster Vanessa Wye was fifteen-years-old when she first had sex with her English teacher. She is now thirty-two and in the storm of allegations against powerful men in 2017, The teacher, Jacob strane, has just been accused of sexual abuse by another former student. Vanessa is horrified by this news, because she is quite certain that the relationship she had with strane wasn't abuse. It was love. She's sure of that. Forced to rethink her past, to revisit everything that happened, Vanessa has to redefine the great love story of her life – her great sexual awakening – as rape. Now she must deal with the possibility that she might be a victim, and just one of many. Nuanced, uncomfortable, bold and powerful, My dark Vanessa goes straight to the heart of some of the most complex issues our age.
Such a Fun Age: Longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize by Kiley Reid
ISBN: 9781526626813

Publication Date: 2020-07-20

Description: 'A new literary star' The Times
'An essential new talent' Guardian

The instant Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller

When Emira is apprehended at a supermarket for 'kidnapping' the white child she's actually babysitting, it sets off an explosive chain of events. Her employer Alix, a feminist blogger with the best of intentions, resolves to make things right.

But Emira herself is aimless, broke and wary of Alix's desire to help. When a surprising connection emerges between the two women, it sends them on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know - about themselves, each other, and the messy dynamics of privilege.
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*A REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK*
*A TIMES, STYLIST, ELLE AND GLAMOUR BEST BOOK OF 2020*

'A funny, charismatic book that will fire off a million debates . . . The one to watch' Sunday Times

'I couldn't put this down' Jojo Moyes

'Bites into the zeitgeist then spits it out with gusto' Stylist

'Twists that made me gasp out loud . . . A gripping page-turner' Madeline Miller

'A beautiful tale of how we live now' Elizabeth Day

'Charming, authentic and every bit as entertaining as it is calmly, intelligently damning' Observer
Girl in White Cotton (Burnt Sugar): Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 by Avni Doshi
ISBN: ‎9789390327942

Publication Date: 2020-09-10

Description: SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2020, AND PUBLISHED IN THE UK AS BURNT SUGAR

Utterly compelling, complex, unflinching realism - sometimes emotionally wrenching but also cathartic, written with poignancy and memorability. - The Booker Prize Judges 2020

Avni Doshi is a writer of surgical precision and sharp intelligence. This novel of mother-and-daughter resentments and the deep, intimate cuts of ancient family history gleams like a blade - both dangerous and beautiful. I loved it. - Elizabeth Gilbert, bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love

Taut and unsettling, a dark, ferocious novel. - Fatima Bhutto, author of The Runaways

Antara has never understood her mother Tara's decisions - walking out on her marriage to follow a guru, living on the streets like a beggar, shacking up with an unknown artist, rebelling against society's expectations ... But when Tara starts losing her memory, Antara searches for a way to make peace with their shared past, a past that haunts them both.

As she relives her childhood in Pune in the eighties, the time she spent at a Catholic boarding school in the hills of Maharashtra, and her years as a young artist in Bombay, Antara comes up against her own fears and neuroses, realizing she might not be so different from Tara after all.

Girl in White Cotton is a journey into shifting memories, altering identities, and the subjective nature of truth. Tracing the fragile line between familial devotion and deception, Avni Doshi's mesmerizing first novel will surprise and unsettle you.
The Dharma Forest: Longlisted for The JCB Prize for Literature 2021 by Keerthik Sasidharan
ISBN: 9780143448860

Publication Date: 2020-12-21

Description: As the Mahabharata war wages on, it shows no mercy and takes no prisoners. Death and destruction abound.

In the midst of a world rendered unrecognizable by the lust for power, malice and the machinations of war stand Bhishma, contemplating the immeasurable death he sees around himself as a man who cannot die, Draupadi, above and beyond the chaos and yet at the very centre of it, trying to protect her husbands at any cost, wondering whom to trust, and Arjuna, beloved, conflicted and melancholic in equal measure, uncertain of the ultimate cost of the war
he is intent on winning. The Dharma Forest is a magnificent first novel in a trilogy filled with complex characters, conflicted loyalties and erotic jealousies from India's most beloved epic.
Delhi: A Soliloquy by M. Mukundan
ISBN: 9789389648263

Publication Date: 2020-08-10

Description: ‘A gorgeous portrait of the lives of Malayali migrants in New Delhi during a turbulent period of India’s history. Simultaneously nostalgic and unflinching, evocative and savage, Delhi: A Soliloquy does the impossible, and makes me want to visit New Delhi again. Mukundan is a writer of immense power and refinement.’—Aravind Adiga, author of The White Tiger

It is the 1960s. Delhi is a city of refugees and dire poverty. The Malayali community is just beginning to lay down roots, and the government offices at Central Secretariat, as well as hospitals across the city, are infused with Malayali-ness. This is the Delhi young Sahadevan makes his home, with the help of Shreedharanunni, committed trade union leader and lover of all things Chinese.

Then, unexpectedly, China declares war on India. In a moment, all is split asunder, including Shreedharanunni’s family. Their battle to survive is mirrored in the lives of many others: firebrand journalist Kunhikrishnan and his wife Lalitha; maverick artist Vasu; call girl and inveterate romantic Rosily; JNU student and activist Janakikutty. As India tumbles from one crisis to another—the Indo-Pak War, the refugee influx of the 1970s, the Emergency and its excesses, the riots of 1984—Sahadevan is everywhere, walking, soliloquising and aching to capture it all, the adversities and the happiness.

Hailed as a contemporary classic in Malayalam, this is a masterful novel about ordinary people whose lives and stories have leached into the very soil and memories of Delhi.
A Town Called Solace: LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 by Mary Lawson
ISBN: 9781784743932

Publication Date: 2021-02-08

Description: 'I've been trying to tell everybody I know about Mary Lawson... [Each of her novels is] just a marvel' ANNE TYLER

Clara's sister is missing. Angry, rebellious Rose, had a row with their mother, stormed out of the house and simply disappeared. Eight-year-old Clara, isolated by her distraught parents' efforts to protect her from the truth, is grief-stricken and bewildered.

Liam Kane, newly divorced, newly unemployed, newly arrived in this small northern town, moves into the house next door, a house left to him by an old woman he can barely remember and within hours gets a visit from the police. It seems he's suspected of a crime.

At the end of her life Elizabeth Orchard is thinking about a crime too, one committed thirty years ago that had tragic consequences for two families and in particular for one small child. She desperately wants to make amends before she dies.

Set in Northern Ontario in 1972, A Town Called Solace explores the relationships of these three people brought together by fate and the mistakes of the past. By turns gripping and darkly funny, it uncovers the layers of grief and remorse and love that connect us, but shows that sometimes a new life is possible.
No One Is Talking About This: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021 by Patricia Lockwood
ISBN: 9781526633835

Publication Date: 2021-02-16

Description: 'A masterpiece' Guardian
'I really admire and love this book' Sally Rooney
'An intellectual and emotional rollercoaster' Daily Mail
'I can't remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book' David Sedaris
'It moved me to tears' Elizabeth Day

THE ONLY BOOK SHORTLISTED FOR BOTH THE BOOKER PRIZE AND THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2021
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This is a story about a life lived in two halves.

It's about what happens when real life collides with the increasing absurdity of a world accessed through a screen.

It's about living in world that contains both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.

It's a meditation on love, language and human connection from one of the most original voices of our time.

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'An utterly distinctive mixture of depth, dazzling linguistic richness, anarchic wit and raw emotional candour' Rowan Williams

A 2021 Book of the Year: Sunday Times, Guardian, Daily Mail, Telegraph, Evening Standard, The Times, New Statesman, Red, Observer, Independent, Daily Telegraph
Piranesi: ‘Spectacular’ The Times by Susanna Clarke
ISBN: 9781526622426

Publication Date: 2020-09-15

Description: The Beautiful Orderliness of the House is what gives us Life.

Piranesi has always lived in the House; or, for as long as he can remember.

Day after day, Piranesi records in his notebooks with precision and carefulness the House's endless halls, their great and strange statues, the ebb and flow of the tides within its walls. He speaks to the birds; and brings tributes of food and waterlilies to the House's Dead. Once in a while, he sees his friend the Other. But mostly, he is alone.

Then messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk and spelled out in pebbles. A new person has come to the House, and there is something they are trying to tell Piranesi.

But another story is unfolding, within the pages of Piranesi's own journal. A story written in his own hand, that he cannot remember writing; a story of a group of strangers, in an unfamiliar world.

The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.
The Discomfort of Evening: WINNER OF THE BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2020 by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld
ISBN: 9780571349371

Publication Date: 2020-09-24

Description: *WINNER OF THE BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2020*
*ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S BEST BOOKS OF 2020*
*A NYT CRITICS' TOP BOOK OF 2020*

'One of the best debut novels I have ever read. Shockingly good ... A classic.' Max Porter
'Haunting . . . reminded me a lot of Iain Bank. It's incredible that it's a debut.' Douglas Stuart

The sensational Dutch bestseller:
'Exceptional' (Financial Times)
'Exhilarating' (Independent)
'Luminous' (Observer)
'Beautifully wild' (Guardian)
'An earthy and irreverent new voice, thrillingly uninhibited' (New York Times)

I asked God if he please couldn't take my brother Matthies instead of my rabbit. 'Amen.'

Ten-year-old Jas has a unique way of experiencing her universe: the feeling of udder ointment on her skin as protection against harsh winters; the texture of green warts, like capers, on migrating toads; the sound of 'blush words' that aren't in the Bible. But when a tragic accident ruptures the family, her curiosity warps into a vortex of increasingly disturbing fantasies - unlocking a darkness that threatens to derail them all.

A bestselling sensation in the Netherlands, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld's radical debut novel is studded with images of wild, violent beauty: a world of language unlike any other, exquisitely captured in Michele Hutchison's translation.

'THE MOST TALKED ABOUT DEBUT NOVEL OF 2020 ALREADY' [Dazed & Confused]
ONE OF VOGUE'S TOP FIVE DEBUTS OF 2020
ONE OF THE OBSERVER'S HIGHLIGHTS OF 2020
ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S TOP TEN BEST NEW BOOKS IN TRANSLATION
Celestial Bodies (Winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2019): by Jokha Alharthi
ISBN: 9789386797568

Publication Date: 2019-05-30

Description: Celestial bodies is set in the village of al-awafi in Oman, where we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries abdallah after a heartbreak; asma, who marries from a sense of Duty; and khawla who rejects all offers while waiting for her beloved, who has emigrated to Canada. These three women and their families witness Oman evolve from a traditional, slave-owning society slowly redefining itself after the colonial era, to the crossroads of its complex present. Elegantly structured and taut, celestial bodies is a coiled Spring of a novel, telling of oman’s coming-of-age through the prism of one family losses and loves.
A Horse Walks into a Bar (Winner of the International Man Booker Prize 2017): by David Grossman
ISBN: 9781784704223

Publication Date: 2017-01-01

Description: WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017. One of the world’s great writers venturing into exciting new territory – a heartbreaking, visceral novel about a stand-up comedian.

The setting is a comedy club in a small Israeli town. An audience that has come expecting an evening of amusement instead sees a comedian falling apart on stage; an act of disintegration, a man crumbling, as a matter of choice, before their eyes. They could get up and leave, or boo and whistle and drive him from the stage, if they were not so drawn to glimpse his personal hell. Dovaleh G, a veteran stand-up comic – charming, erratic, repellent – exposes a wound he has been living with for years: a fateful and gruesome choice he had to make between the two people who were dearest to him.

A Horse Walks into a Bar is a shocking and breathtaking read. Betrayals between lovers, the treachery of friends, guilt demanding redress. Flaying alive both himself and the people watching him, Dovaleh G provokes both revulsion and empathy from an audience that doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry – and all this in the presence of a former childhood friend who is trying to understand why he’s been summoned to this performance.
The Nickel Boys: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2020 by Colson Whitehead
ISBN: 9780708899427

Publication Date: 2020-06-30

Description: WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2020

WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION 2020

Winner of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction 2020

Time #1 Novel of the Year 2019

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Author of The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in 1960s Florida.

Elwood Curtis has taken the words of Dr Martin Luther King to heart: he is as good as anyone. Abandoned by his parents, brought up by his loving, strict and clear-sighted grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But given the time and the place, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide 'physical, intellectual and moral training' which will equip its inmates to become 'honorable and honest men'.

In reality, the Nickel Academy is a chamber of horrors, where physical, emotional and sexual abuse is rife, where corrupt officials and tradesmen do a brisk trade in supplies intended for the school, and where any boy who resists is likely to disappear 'out back'. Stunned to find himself in this vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr King's ringing assertion, 'Throw us in jail, and we will still love you.' But Elwood's fellow inmate and new friend Turner thinks Elwood is naive and worse; the world is crooked, and the only way to survive is to emulate the cruelty and cynicism of their oppressors.

The tension between Elwood's idealism and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision which will have decades-long repercussions.

Based on the history of a real reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped and destroyed the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative by a great American novelist whose work is essential to understanding the current reality of the United States.

'If greatness is excellence sustained over time, then without question, Whitehead is one of the greatest of his generation. In fact, figuring his age, acclaim, productivity and consistency, he is one of the greatest American writers alive' Time

'A commanding triumph' Sunday Times

'Every chapter hits its mark' New York Times
The Night Watchman: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction 2021 by Louise Erdrich
ISBN: 9781472155368

Publication Date: 2021-03-04

Description: It is 1953. Thomas Wazhushk is the night watchman at the first factory to open near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a prominent Chippewa Council member, trying to understand a new bill that is soon to be put before Congress. The US Government calls it an 'emancipation' bill; but it isn't about freedom - it threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land, their very identity. How can he fight this betrayal?

Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Pixie - 'Patrice' - Paranteau has no desire to wear herself down on a husband and kids. She works at the factory, earning barely enough to support her mother and brother, let alone her alcoholic father who sometimes returns home to bully her for money. But Patrice needs every penny to get if she's ever going to get to Minnesota to find her missing sister Vera.

In The Night Watchman multi-award winning author Louise Erdrich weaves together a story of past and future generations, of preservation and progress. She grapples with the worst and best impulses of human nature, illuminating the loves and lives, desires and ambitions of her characters with compassion, wit and intelligence.
Hamnet: WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2020 by Maggie O'Farrell
ISBN: 9781472223821

Publication Date: 2021-04-01

Description: WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION - THE NO. 1 BESTSELLER
'Richly sensuous... something special' The Sunday Times
'A thing of shimmering wonder' David Mitchell

TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART.

On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?

Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.

Neither parent knows that Hamnet will not survive the week.

Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright: a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.
The Vanishing Half: Sunday Times Bestseller by Brit Bennett
ISBN: 9780349701455

Publication Date: 2020-06-02

Description: The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' story lines intersect?

Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

Praise for Brit Bennett:

'A writer to watch' Washington Post

'Bennett allows her characters to follow their worst impulses, and she handles provocative issues with intelligence, empathy and dark humour' New York Times

'A beautifully written, sad and lingering book' Guardian on The Mothers
Bewilderment: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021 by Richard Powers
ISBN: 9781785152641

Publication Date: 2021-09-21

Description: THE BRAND NEW NOVEL FROM THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING, BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF THE OVERSTORY

'It changed how I thought about the Earth and our place in it. . . . It changed how I see things and that's always, for me, a mark of a book worth reading.' Barack Obama on The Overstory
'Really, just one of the best novels, period.' Ann Patchett on The Overstory
'Breathtaking.' Barbara Kingsolver on The Overstory
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Picked as one of the 'Best Books of 2021' in the Sunday Times

Theo Byrne is a promising young astrobiologist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual nine-year-old. His son Robin is funny, loving, and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, adores animals, and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. He is also on the verge of being expelled from third grade, for smashing his friend's face with a metal thermos.

What can a father do, when the only solution offered to his rare and troubled boy is to put him on psychoactive drugs? What can he say when his boy comes to him wanting an explanation for a world that is clearly in love with its own destruction? The only thing for it is to take the boy to other planets, while all the while fostering his son's desperate campaign to help save this one.
_________________________
'The best book I've read in 10 years. A remarkable piece of literature ... a lodestone.' Emma Thompson on The Overstory

'Radical and exciting.' Jessie Burton on The Overstory

'A remarkable piece of fiction.' New York Times on The Overstory

'An extraordinary novel.' Guardian on The Overstory
Great Circle: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021 by Maggie Shipstead
ISBN: 9780857526816

Publication Date: 2021-05-04

Description: SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER
'Smart, ambitious and so beautifully written. An amazing literary feat' CURTIS SITTENFELD
'Epic in spirit and scope. A soaring masterclass' TELEGRAPH (five stars)
_______________________
I WAS BORN TO BE A WANDERER

From the night she is rescued as a baby out of the flames of a sinking ship; to the day she joins a pair of daredevil pilots looping and diving over the rugged forests of her childhood, to the thrill of flying Spitfires during the war, the life of Marian Graves has always been marked by a lust for freedom and danger.

In 1950, she embarks on the great circle flight, circumnavigating the globe. It is Marian's life dream and her final journey, before she disappears without a trace.

Half a century later, Hadley Baxter, a brilliant, troubled Hollywood starlet is irresistibly drawn to play Marian Graves, a role that will lead her to probe the deepest mysteries of the vanished pilot's life.

An enthralling journey over oceans and continents and a drama of exhilarating power, GREAT CIRCLE is perfect for book clubs and fans of William Boyd and Donna Tartt.
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'Gripping' SUNDAY TIMES
'Extraordinary' NEW YORK TIMES
'One of the most hotly anticipated books of the spring' MARIELLA FROSTRUP
Afterlives: By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021 by Abdulrazak Gurnah
ISBN: 9781526615862

Publication Date: 2020-10-29

Description: 'One of Africa's greatest living writers' Giles Foden

Restless, ambitious Ilyas was stolen from his parents by the Schutzruppe askari, the German colonial troops; after years away, he returns to his village to find his parents gone, and his sister Afiya given away.

Hamza was not stolen, but was sold; he has come of age in the schutztruppe, at the right hand of an officer whose control has ensured his protection but marked him for life.

The century is young. The Germans and the British and the French and the Belgians and whoever else have drawn their maps and signed their treaties and divided up Africa. As they seek complete dominion they are forced to extinguish revolt after revolt by the colonised. The conflict in Europe opens another arena in east Africa where a brutal war devastates the landscape. Hamza does not have words for how the war ended for him. Returning to the town of his childhood, all he wants is work, however humble, and security - and the beautiful Afiya.

As these interlinked friends and survivors come and go, live and work and fall in love, the shadow of a new war lengthens and darkens, ready to snatch them up and carry them away.
Paradise: A BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime, by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021 by Abdulrazak Gurnah
ISBN: 9781526653260

Publication Date: 2021-10-28

Description: **By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021**
A BBC RADIO 4 Book at Bedtime
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 1994

'A poetic and vividly conjured book about Africa and the brooding power of the unknown' Independent on Sunday

'Lingering and exquisite' Guardian

'An obliterated world is enthrallingly retrieved' Sunday Times
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Born in East Africa, Yusuf has few qualms about the journey he is to make. It never occurs to him to ask why he is accompanying Uncle Aziz or why the trip has been organised so suddenly, and he does not think to ask when he will be returning. But the truth is that his 'uncle' is a rich and powerful merchant and Yusuf has been pawned to him to pay his father's debts.

Paradise is a rich tapestry of myth, dreams and Biblical and Koranic tradition, the story of a young boy's coming of age against the backdrop of an Africa increasingly corrupted by colonialism and violence.
Gravel Heart: By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021 by Abdulrazak Gurnah
ISBN: 9781526603692

Publication Date: 2018-05-29

Description: Moving from revolutionary Zanzibar in the 1960s to restless London in the 1990s, Gravel Heart is a powerful story of exile, migration and betrayal, from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Paradise

Salim has always believed that his father does not want him. Living with his parents and his adored Uncle Amir in a house full of secrets, he is a bookish child, a dreamer haunted by night terrors.

It is the 1970s and Zanzibar is changing. Tourists arrive, the island's white sands obscuring the memory of recent conflict: longed-for independence from British colonialism swiftly followed by bloody revolution. When his father moves out, retreating into dishevelled introspection, Salim is confused and ashamed. His mother explains neither this nor her absences with a strange man; silence is layered on silence.

When glamorous Uncle Amir, now a senior diplomat, offers Salim an escape, the lonely teenager travels to London for college. But nothing has prepared him for the biting cold and seething crowds of this hostile city. Struggling to find a foothold, and to understand the darkness at the heart of his family, Salim must face devastating truths about himself and those closest to him - and about love, sex and power.

Evoking the immigrant experience with unsentimental precision and profound insight, Gravel Heart is a powerfully affecting story of isolation, identity, belonging and betrayal, and is Abulrazak Gurnah's most dazzling achievement.
At Night All Blood is Black: WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2021 by David Diop
ISBN: 9781782277538

Publication Date: 2021-06-30

Description: WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2021

A GUARDIAN and THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

'This slight book is an extraordinarily powerful exploration of what happens to the souls of men sent to kill and be killed' -- The Times, Historical Fiction Books of the Year

'Extraordinary... full of sadness, rage and beauty' Sarah Waters

Alfa and Mademba are two of the many Senegalese soldiers fighting in the Great War. Together they climb dutifully out of their trenches to attack France's German enemies whenever the whistle blows, until Mademba is wounded, and dies in a shell hole with his belly torn open.

Without his more-than-brother, Alfa is alone and lost amidst the savagery of the conflict. He devotes himself to the war, to violence and death, but soon begins to frighten even his own comrades in arms. How far will Alfa go to make amends to his dead friend?

At Night All Blood is Black is a hypnotic, heartbreaking rendering of a mind hurtling towards madness.
The Last Gift: By the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature by Abdulrazak Gurnah
ISBN: 9781526653246

Publication Date: 2021-10-28

Description: By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021

Abbas has never told anyone about his past; about what happened before he was a sailor on the high seas, before he met his wife Maryam outside a Boots in Exeter, before they settled into a quiet life in Norwich with their children, Jamal and Hanna. Now, at the age of sixty-three, he suffers a collapse that renders him bedbound and unable to speak about things he thought he would one day have to.

Jamal and Hanna have grown up and gone out into the world. They were both born in England but cannot shake a sense of apartness. Hanna calls herself Anna now, and has just moved to a new city to be near her boyfriend. She feels the relationship is headed somewhere serious, but the words have not yet been spoken out loud. Jamal, the listener of the family, moves into a student house and is captivated by a young woman with dark-blue eyes and her own, complex story to tell. Abbas's illness forces both children home, to the dark silences of their father and the fretful capability of their mother Maryam, who began life as a foundling and has never thought to find herself, until now.
An Island: Longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize by Karen Jennings
ISBN: 9789389104202

Publication Date: 2021-09-01

Description: LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE
'Moving, transfixing' BOOKER PRIZE JUDGES
'Absorbing...powerful' Catherine Taylor, GUARDIAN

A novel about guilt and fear, friendship and rejection; about the meaning of home.

A young refugee washes up unconscious on the beach of a small island inhabited by no one but Samuel, an old lighthouse keeper. Unsettled, Samuel is soon swept up in memories of his former life on the mainland: a life that saw his country suffer under colonisers, then fight for independence, only to fall under the rule of a cruel dictator; and he recalls his own part in its history.
In this new man’s presence he begins to consider, as he did in his youth, what is meant by land and to whom it should belong. To what lengths will a person go in order to ensure that what is theirs will not be taken from them?
Klara and the Sun: The Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year by Kazuo Ishiguro
ISBN: 9780571364886

Publication Date: 2021-03-02

Description: Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021

'The Sun always has ways to reach us.'

From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change for ever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans.

In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly-changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?
The Island of Missing Trees: Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Of The Year Award by Elif Shafak
ISBN: 9780241435007

Publication Date: 2021-08-17

Description: A REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK
SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2021

A rich, magical new novel from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World - now a top 10 Sunday Times bestseller

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. The taverna is the only place that Kostas and Defne can meet in secret, hidden beneath the blackened beams from which hang garlands of garlic and chilli peppers, creeping honeysuckle, and in the centre, growing through a cavity in the roof, a fig tree. The fig tree witnesses their hushed, happy meetings; their silent, surreptitious departures. The fig tree is there, too, when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns - a botanist, looking for native species - looking, really, for Defne. The two lovers return to the taverna to take a clipping from the fig tree and smuggle it into their suitcase, bound for London. Years later, the fig tree in the garden is their daughter Ada's only knowledge of a home she has never visited, as she seeks to untangle years of secrets and silence, and find her place in the world.

The Island of Missing Trees is a rich, magical tale of belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World.

'What a wonderful read! This book moved me to tears... in the best way. Powerful and poignant' Reese Witherspoon

'One of the best writers in the world today' Hanif Kureishi

'Shafak makes a new home for us in words' Colum McCann
The Sellout: WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2016 by Paul Beatty
ISBN: 9781786070173

Publication Date: 2016-06-10

Description: Born in the 'agrarian ghetto' of Dickens - on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles - the narrator of The Sell-out is raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist and spends his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. Led to believe his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes, he is shocked to discover, when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, that there never was a memoir. All that's left is a bill for a drive-through funeral. Fuelled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from embarrassment. Enlisting the help of Dickens' most famous resident - Hominy Jenkins - he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: Reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school. What follows is a remarkable journey that challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement and the holy grail of racial equality - the black Chinese restaurant.
The Secret History: From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author by Donna Tartt
ISBN: 9780140167771

Publication Date: 1993-05-07

Description: The Secret History is a murder mystery that goes in the reverse order. In the very first chapter, the narrator Richard Papen confesses that he is partly responsible for the death of his college mate Edmund "Bunny" Corcoran. The author does not give away a lot of details initially, but slowly builds up the mystery. Richard talks about his days at Hampden College in New England, where he was a part of a socially isolated group of Classics students. He introduces the readers to the other members, which include the twins Charles and Camilla, Henry Winter, Francis Abernathy, and Edmund Corcoran. Richard and Bunny find out that in the past Henry had once accidently killed a farmer. After having uncovered the truth, Bunny starts to blackmail the others.

In The Secret History, fearing that Bunny might tell the police of the murder, Henry and the gang decide to kill the boy. This novel looks into the aftermath of a crime. It shows how each individual deals with their psychological strains differently, where one becomes abusive and other starts getting panic attacks.

This novel, packed with elements of guilt, fear, friendship, and remorse, will keep readers hooked on till the last page. The Secret History, published by Penguin UK in 1993, is available in paperback.

Key Features:

The Secret History is Donna Tartts first novel.
The book has been translated into 24 languages, and is a bestseller.
A feature film is in production at Miramax.
Why We Kneel How We Rise: WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK by Michael Holding
ISBN: 9781398503243

Publication Date: 2021-06-29

Description: To say I was surprised at the volume of positive feedback I received from around the world after My comments on sky sports is an understatement. I came to realise I couldn't just stop there; I had to take it forward – hence the book, as I believe education is the way forward.' Michael holding rarely can a rain delay in a cricket match have led to anything like the moment when holding spoke out in the wake of the #black lives matter protests about the racism he has suffered and has seen all around him throughout his life. But as he spoke, he sought not only to educate but to propose a way forward that inspired so many. Within minutes, he was receiving calls from famous sports stars from around the world offering to help him to spread the message further. Now, in why we kneel, how we rise, holding shares his story together with those of some of the most iconic athletes in the world, including us a in Bolt, Adam goodes, Thierry Henry, Michael Johnson, ibtihaj Muhammad, makhaya ntini, Naomi Osaka and hope Powell. He delivers a powerful and inspiring message of hope for the future and a vision for change, while providing the background and history to an issue that has dogged the world for many centuries. Through the prism of sport and conversations with its legends, the book explains how racism dehumanises people; how it works to achieve that end; how it has been ignored by history and historians; and what it is like to be treated differently just because of the colour of your skin.