Emma, a historian of classical garden design, travels to France for research and makes an unlikely friendship that introduces her into a dazzling new world. London recedes into the background as life in France becomes more significant in every respect. It is not until a horrifying episode puts an end to this fascination, that Emma is reconciled to her duller but safer life at home. Quintessential Brookner.
SWEETNESS IN THE BELLY
by Camilla Gibb
The first-person narrative of this novel alternates seamlessly between England in the 1980’s and Ethiopia in the 1970’s, tracing the life of a white British Muslim nurse, Lily, and her quest to maintain faith and love through revolution, upheaval and life in exile. A keenly observed and affecting novel about people whose lives are marked by poverty, war and alienation.
NATURAL FLIGHTS OF THE HUMAN MIND
by Clare Morrall
Peter Straker lives in a disused lighthouse on the Devon coast. He speaks to no one — except in his dreams. There he converses with some of the seventy-eight people he believes he killed twenty-four years ago, when his airplane collided with a passenger train. Then he meets Imogen, an embittered divorcee who has recently inherited a derelict cottage nearby. An utterly engaging story of two misfits who become bound together in unlikely ways.
JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR NORRELL
by Susannah Clarke
Set at the beginning of the 19th century during the Napoleonic Wars, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell details the rebirth of practical magic in England after years of neglect. Two very different magicians emerge to aid England in the Napoleonic Wars, first as master and pupil, and then as rivals. Susannah Clarke interweaves fictional characters with real figures from 19th century England in this mixture of historical reality and fantasy.
LUDMILA'S BROKEN ENGLISH
by D B C Pierre
DBC Pierre's second novel charts the unlikely meeting between East and West that follows Ludmila Derev's appearance on a Russian brides website. Meanwhile in England, the Heath twins are separated after 33 years conjoined at the abdomen and suddenly plunged into a world churning with opportunity, self-empowerment and sex. A raucous, dark tale, every bit as outrageous as his debut novel, Vernon God Little.
IN THE COMPANY OF THE COURTESAN
by Sarah Dunant
1527. While the Papal city of Rome burns, a fabulous courtesan and her dwarf companion slip away, their stomachs churning on the jewels they have swallowed as the enemy breaks down their doors. They head for Venice where they hope to set up again. However, once there, a young blind woman insinuates her way into their lives and hearts with devastating consequences.
HUMAN TRACES
by Sebastian Faulks
Jacques Rebiere and Thomas Midwinter come from different countries and contrasting families, but are united by their quest to explore the nature of madness. Thomas's sister Sonia becomes the pivotal figure in the volatile relationship between the two men, which threatens to explode with the arrival in their sanatorium of an enigmatic patient whose illness epitomises all that divides them.
THE SECRET RIVER
by Kate Grenville
Following a childhood of poverty and petty crime in the slums of 19th century London, William Thornhill is sentenced to be transported to New South Wales. With his family, he arrives in the convict colonies to a life that feels like a death sentence. A dramatic and evocative historical novel about colonial life and the tragedy of the confrontation between Aborigine and white settler.
OXFORD BOOK OF PARODIES
by JOHN GROSS, ed.
Summer 2010
BETRAYAL
by HELEN DUNMORE
Sequels are deservedly avoided by and large, but in this case the ever-splendid Helen Dunmore follows up "The Siege", deservedly shortlisted for both the Orange and the Whitbread novel-of-the-year award, with a corker. In post-war Leningrad, a doctor finds himself obliged to treat the seriously sick child of a senior police officer against his will. Moving, literate and smart: she's done it again.
Spring 2010
THE COLLABORATORS
by Reginald Hill
When Janine Simonian faces trial as a collaborator following the liberation of France, she stands proudly before the jury of former Resistance members and pleads guilty to the charges. Reginald Hill’s gripping novel of conscience and betrayal portrays the human dilemmas brought about by the Nazi occupation of France, and asks uncomfortable questions about the priorities of personal and national loyalty in time of war.
THE ISLAND
by Victoria Hislop
Alexis Fielding’s mother, Sofia, refuses to talk about her past. When Alexis decides to visit her mother’s birth place in Crete, however, she is given a letter to take to an old friend, and promised that through her she will learn more. Arriving in Plaka, Alexis discovers that it lies next to the island of Spinalonga - Greece's former leper colony. When she meets Fortini, she discovers the story that Sofia has buried all her life.
WOMEN IN THE BACKGROUND
by Barry Humphries
Life can't get much better for Derek Pettyfer. He's rich, famous and between wives. He's risen above his unexceptional origins in Australia to become the toast of the London stage and a top television performer. Next, it's the fall - slowly at first, then with frightening speed. Barry Humphries' comic novel is about a life in a goldfish bowl, in which the goldfish happen to be piranhas.
NEVER LET ME GO
by Kazuo Ishiguro
The students at Hailsham, a private school in the English countryside, are clones, raised solely for the purpose of medical harvesting of organs once they are adults. However only by rumor and the occasional indiscreet remark do they become aware of their unconventional origins and bizarre destiny. A poignant love story, and a resonant modern parable about how we treat the vulnerable and different in our society.
LIGHTHOUSEKEEPING
by Jeanette Winterson
Motherless and anchorless, the young orphan Silver is taken in by Mr. Pew, keeper of the Cape Wrath lighthouse, who tells Silver tales of love, passion, loss and longing. One life, Babel Dark's, a nineteenth-century clergyman, opens like a map that Silver must follow, and the intertwining of myth and reality, of storytelling and experience, lead her through her own particular darkness. Winterson in classic form.
SECOND HONEYMOON
by Joanna Trollope
Ben is, at last, leaving home. His mother Edie, an actress, is distraught. His father Russell, a theatrical agent, is hoping to get his wife back, after decades of family life. His brother, Matthew, is wrestling with a relationship in which he achieves and earns less than his girlfriend. His sister Rosa is wrestling with debt, and the end of a love affair. Meet the Boyd family and the empty nest, 21st century style.
MARTIN LUKES: WHO MOVED MY BLACKBERRY
by Lucy Kellaway
Martin Lukes is Marketing Director for a-b global, switched on 24/7, a legend in his own lunchtime. Crass, spectacularly unself-aware and possessing an enormous but fragile ego, Lukes is an hilarious bundle of corporate cliches. Told entirely through the emails of Lukes, his colleagues, friends and family, this is a wickedly funny satire of 21st century corporate fads and trends.
THE WAVE THEORY OF ANGELS
by Alison MacLeod
A story that unfolds across two far-flung centuries, two worlds and two families. In each, the lives of a father and his two daughters are about to be catapulted into crisis. Through it all the riddles of magic, metaphysics and modern-day science transport the reader from the enchantment of 13th century France to the disenchant-ment of 21st century America and back again.
THE 2 1/2 PILLARS OF WISDOM
by Alexander McCall Smith
Welcome to the extraordinary world of Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, an unnaturally tall and memorable character whose sublime insouciance is a blend of the cultivated pomposity of Frasier Crane and Inspector Clouseau’s hapless gaucherie. The complete exploits of this unlikely adventurer are delightfully captured in The 21⁄2 Pillars of Wisdom.
SATURDAY
by Ian McEwan
Henry Perowne is a successful neurosurgeon. A minor car accident brings him into a confrontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive, young man, on the edge of violence. To Perowne's professional eye, there appears to be something profoundly wrong with him. Towards the end of a day rich in incident, Perowne's family gathers for a reunion. But with the sudden appearance of Baxter, Perowne's earlier fears seem about to be realised.
QUITE HONESTLY
by John Mortimer
Lucy is fresh out of university and volunteers to be a 'mentor' for ex-cons. It's not long before a habitual house burglar distracts her with his seductive lessons in the criminal life. With a cast of characters that rivals anything in his Rumpole stories, and a compulsive plot, Quite Honestly is a wonderfully comic novel packed with John Mortimer's entertaining reflections on crime.
SNOWMAN
by JO NESBO
March 2010
WINTER IN MADRID
by C J Sansom
Part thriller, part love story, and set against the backdrop of Spain's bloody Civil War and war-torn London, Winter in Madrid follows the fortunes of three young men - formerly at public school together, now set on profoundly opposing courses, and navigating the tumultuous world of 1930s Spain with their differing values and political affiliations.
THE ACCIDENTAL
by Ali Smith
The Accidental follows the fortunes of four members of one family while on their summer holiday in Norfolk. A beautiful young woman turns up out of nowhere and affects each of them differently - at first for the better and later, dramatically, for the worse. Gradually, the family's lives unravel. Ali Smith writes with humour, humanity and breathtaking originality. Booker Shortlist 2005.
OUT AND ABOUT WITH THE TOTTERINGS
by ANNIE TEMPEST
Those who recall the immortal Osbert Lancaster, and/or subscribe to the equally durable "Country Life", will identify immediately with Annie Tempest, whose inimitable cartoons more than match her predecessor's and have done so for years. They come, admittedly, at a price; but bearing in mind they are, unusually, in colour and, by definition, aimed at the posher end of the market, the print run is necessarily limited. Nonetheless, gather ye laughter while ye may: this is a splendidly snobby send-up of Ascot, Belgravia and British society in general.
January 2010
THE DARKNESS OF WALLIS SIMPSON
by Rose Tremain
Wallis Simpson, the woman for whom Edward Vlll abdicated his throne in 1936, ended her life as the prisoner of her lawyer, who would not allow anyone to visit her in her flat. Rose Tremain takes this true story and transforms it into an imaginative and ironic fiction. The other stories in this fine collection range over a variety of themes, equally original and unexpected. Rose Tremain on top form.
