Your home away from home
If you fancy broadening your minds and your horizons this summer, our non-fiction section has books on almost every topic imaginable. Here’s a selection of non-fiction books that are fresh out this summer so you can enjoy on your hols without exceeding your suitcase allowance. (Unless you are flying Ryanair obviously)
Summer is here! Well hopefully somewhere it is. Are you braving the UK climate with a week in Skegness or jetting off to a Caribbean oasis? Whatever your holiday of choice, you will need some good books to entertain you so here’s a few of our vacation favourites.
Today our friends across the pond celebrate their day of Independence so here at Parade’s End we are talking about some of our favourite books set in the good old Us of A.
Stories From the Tenants Downstairs by Sidik Fofana
Banneker Terrace on 129th and Fred Doug ain’t pretty, but it’s home. Home to young and old, folk just trying to get by. Cookouts with beer and wings, summertime with souped-up cars bumpin music.
People don’t come here for the bad; they came here to make a good life.
It is home to Swan down in 6B, reconnecting with his boy Boons, just out of prison. Home to Mimi in 14D, raising Swan’s child, doing hair on the side. Home to Quanneisha in 21J, longing to leave but it’s where she grew up. Home to Mr Murray in 2E, who has played chess outside on the sidewalk for years.
Some of the residents of Banneker have got it together, some can’t make rent or pay bills, some are raising kids, some are hustling on the side, all are living.
Stories from the Tenants Downstairs expertly showcases the strengths, struggles and hopes of one Harlem community, who are grappling with the effects of gentrification alongside their own personal challenges.
It captures the joy and pain of the human experience and heralds the arrival of a uniquely talented writer.
Mona of The Manor by Armistaud Maupin
When Mona Ramsey married Lord Teddy Roughton to secure his visa—allowing him to remain in San Francisco to fulfil his wildest dreams—she never imagined she would, by age 48, be the sole owner of Easley House, a romantic country manor in the UK.
Now, with her adopted son, Wilfred, Mona has opened Easley’s doors to paying guests to keep her inherited English manor afloat.
As they welcome a married American couple to Easley, Mona and Wilfred discover their new guests’ terrible secret. Instead of focussing on the imminent arrival of old friend Michael Tolliver and matriarch Anna Madrigal, Mona will need to use her considerable charm, willpower and wiles to set things right before Easley’s historic Midsummer ceremony.
Hurdling barriers both social and sexual, Maupin leads the eccentric tenants of Barbary Lane through heartbreak and triumph, through nail-biting terrors and gleeful coincidences in 1980s San Francisco and beyond.
The result is a glittering and addictive comedy of manners that continues to beguile new generations of readers.
The Mississippi River, 1861.
When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan.
Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town.
Thus begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the Mississippi River, towards the elusive promise of the free states and beyond. As James and Huck begin to navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise.
With rumours of a brewing war, James must face the burden he carries: the family he is desperate to protect and the constant lie he must live.
And together, the unlikely pair must face the most dangerous odyssey of them all . . .
Long Island is Colm Tóibín’s masterpiece: an exquisite, exhilarating novel that asks whether it is possible to truly return to the past and renew the great love that seemed gone forever.
A man with an Irish accent knocks on Eilis Fiorello’s door on Long Island and in that moment everything changes. Eilis and Tony have built a secure, happy life here since leaving Brooklyn – perhaps a little stifled by the in-laws so close, but twenty years married and with two children looking towards a good future.
And yet this stranger will reveal something that will make Eilis question the life she has created. For the first time in years she suddenly feels very far from home and the revelation will see her turn towards Ireland once again. Back to her mother. Back to the town and the people she had chosen to leave behind. Did she make the wrong choice marrying Tony all those years ago? Is it too late now to take a different path?
The sequel to Colm Tóibín’s prize-winning, bestselling novel Brooklyn.
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
She will discover the best of herself in the worst of times . . .
Texas, 1934. Elsa Martinelli had finally found the life she’d yearned for. A family, a home and a livelihood on a farm on the Great Plains.
But when drought threatens all she and her community hold dear, Elsa’s world is shattered to the winds.
Fearful of the future, when Elsa wakes to find her husband has fled, she is forced to make the most agonizing decision of her life. Fight for the land she loves or take her beloved children, Loreda and Ant, west to California in search of a better life.
Will it be the land of milk and honey? Or will their experience challenge every ounce of strength they possess?
From the overriding love of a mother for her child, the value of female friendship and the ability to love again – against all odds – Elsa’s incredible journey is a story of survival, hope and what we do for the ones we love.
A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country from LA to NY. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.
Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction.
With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom.
Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic and domestic life of a 45-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectations while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman.
Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.
Real Americans by Rachel Khong
HOW FAR WILL WE GO TO BELONG?
On the precipice of Y2K, unpaid intern Lily Chen is attempting to live the American dream in New York City. But her scientist parents imagined so much more for her when they fled Mao’s cultural revolution, hoping for a better life. Despite the glamour of her media job, Lily can barely make rent – until she falls into the arms of Matthew. This young financier can give her a fairy tale life of luxury, and for the first time her dreams appear within reach.
High school student Nick Chen and his best friend Timothy are plotting to break free. College promises escape from an isolated and close-knit island in Washington State, space from his strict and secretive mum Lily, and the chance to finally fit in. But when Nick sets out to find his long-lost father, a world of questions opens, and it is one unexpected member of the Chen family who holds the key to it all.
Real Americans is a family epic about identity, sacrifice, choices and fate. It is a wildly imaginative and profound story of betrayal and forgiveness that asks us how far we should go for those we love.
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett returns home to his younger brother Billy after serving fifteen months in a juvenile facility for involuntary manslaughter. They are getting ready to leave their old life behind and head out to sunny California.
But they’re not alone. Two runaways from the youth work farm, Duchess and Wolly, have followed Emmett all the way to Nebraska with a plan of their own, one that will take the four of them on an unexpected and fateful journey in the opposite direction – to New York City
Well it looks like we finally have a Summer! And while the days are still long, that means we can kick back after work and settle down in the garden with a sundowner and a good book. Here’s a few books coming out this month to inspire you.
I Will Crash by Rebecca Watson
It was a peace offering, I knew that
you don’t appear on someone’s doorstep uninvited, saying Alright
unless you want to make amends
It’s been six years since Rosa last saw her brother. Six years since they last spoke. Six years since they last fought. Six years since she gave up on the idea of having a brother.
She’s spent that time carefully not thinking about him. Not remembering their childhood. Not mentioning those stories, even to the people she loves.
Now the distance she had so carefully put between them has collapsed. Can she find a way to make peace – to forgive, to be forgiven – when the past she’s worked so hard to contain threatens to spill over into the present?
From the acclaimed author of little scratch, this is a moving, powerfully honest novel about how we love, how we grieve and how we forgive.
In January 2003, the Berest family receive a mysterious, unsigned postcard. On one side was an image of the Opéra Garnier; on the other, the names of their relatives who were killed in Auschwitz: Ephraïm, Emma, Noémie and Jacques.
Years later, Anne sought to find the truth behind this postcard. She journeys 100 years into the past, tracing the lives of her ancestors from their flight from Russia following the revolution, their journey to Latvia, Palestine, and Paris, the war and its aftermath.
What emerges is a thrilling and sweeping tale based on true events that shatters her certainties about her family, her country, and herself.
At once a gripping investigation into family secrets, a poignant tale of mothers and daughters, and an enthralling portrait of 20th-century Parisian intellectual and artistic life, The Postcard tells the story of a family devastated by the Holocaust and yet somehow restored by love and the power of storytelling.
At a lavish party in the hills outside of San Francisco, Jin Han meets Lidija Jung and nothing will ever be the same for either woman.
A brilliant young photographer, Jin is at a crossroads in her work, in her marriage to her college love Phillip, and in who she is and who she wants to be. Lidija is an alluring, injured world-class ballerina on hiatus from her ballet company under mysterious circumstances. Drawn to each other by their intense artistic drives, the two women talk all night.
Cracked open, Jin finds herself telling Lidija about an old familial curse, breaking a lifelong promise. She’s been told that if she doesn’t keep the curse a secret, she risks losing everything; death and ruin could lie ahead.
As Jin and Lidija become more entangled, they realize they share more than the ferocity of their ambition, and begin to explore hidden desires. Something is ignited in Jin: her art, her body, and her sense of self irrevocably changed. But can she avoid the specter of the curse? Urgent, bold, and deeply moving, this novel asks: how brightly can you burn before you light your life on fire?
When Ben Masters’ father, a dedicated naturalist, is confined to the house with inoperable cancer, he is unable to follow the butterfly season for the first time since his childhood. His son must become his connection to the outdoors, reporting back on his beloved Purple Emperors, Lulworth Skippers, Wood Whites and Silver-studded Blues. The problem is, his son knows practically nothing about the natural world.
Blending natural history, pop culture, and literary biography, this unforgettable memoir charts a terminal summer when butterflies become a way for father and son to talk about masculinity, memory, identity, generational differences, and, ultimately, loss and continuation.
The Flitting takes readers on an unlikely journey, flitting between the lives and works of Vladimir Nabokov and other literary lepidopterists; the artistic metamorphoses of Prince and Joni Mitchell; butterflies and gender in Virginia Woolf, Angela Carter and The Sopranos; the voices of John Clare and Luther Vandross. These diverse subjects come together in an intensely authentic portrait of a father and son sharing passions, lessons and regrets as they run out of time.
The Dead Friend Project by Joanna Wallace
Everyone needs a hobby…
Things haven’t been going well for Beth. Her husband has left her for one of her friends. Her fellow school mums judge her for swearing too much and not shifting the baby weight. And now she’s stuck in A&E after her son fell off the climbing wall on the first day of school.
In fact, things haven’t been going well for Beth since Charlotte died – her best friend, a favourite at the school pick-ups and the only person to ever run an interesting PTA meeting. But after being hit by a car while on an ill-timed evening jog, Charlotte is no longer there to help Beth pick up the pieces of her increasingly difficult life.
That is, until Beth discovers that Charlotte left her toddler alone in the house during that fatal run. The Charlotte she knew would never do something so irresponsible, and suddenly Beth is questioning whether Charlotte’s death was really an accident. With a newfound purpose and a glass of wine in hand, it’s time for Beth to uncover what really happened to her best friend. And what better place to start than the circle of chatty school mums, who can’t be as perfect as they pretend. But which of them is hiding something? Beth’s determined to find out. Once she’s put the kids to bed, of course…
The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende
No, we’re not lost. The wind knows my name. And yours too.
Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht — the night their family loses everything.
As her child’s safety seems ever harder to guarantee, Samuel’s mother secures a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England. He boards alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin. Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. But their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and seven-year-old Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes her tenuous reality through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination.
Meanwhile, Selena Duran, a young social worker, enlists the help of a successful lawyer in hopes of tracking down Anita’s mother. Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of these two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home. It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make, and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers — and never stop dreaming.
Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Welcome to Chain-Gang All-Stars, the popular and highly controversial programme inside America’s private prison system.
In packed arenas, live-streamed by millions, prisoners compete as gladiators for the ultimate prize: their freedom.
Fan favourites Loretta Thurwar and Hamara ‘Hurricane Staxxx’ Stacker are teammates and lovers.
Thurwar is nearing the end of her time on the circuit, free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer.
As she prepares for her final encounters, as protestors gather at the gates, and as the programme’s corporate owners stack the odds against her.
Will the price be simply too high?
The Midnight Panther by Poonam Mistry
Panther is not like the other cats. Leopard has beautiful spots, Tiger has impressive stripes and Lion has a magnificent mane. Panther is small, shy and dark.
One night he decides to go and find out where in the jungle he really belongs. Finally summoning the courage to scale the treetops, he answers the call of moonlight and ink-black night. Perhaps up among the stars he will find out something about his own strength and beauty.
A stunning fable about courage and finding your place in the world, with beautiful illustrations by Greenaway-shortlisted Poonam Mistry. The perfect gift book.
All this week we are celebrating the joy that independent bookshops bring to book fans everywhere. We do hope to see you in the shop this week, in the meantime, here are a few of our best-selling books this year so far.
The BBC Proms is the world’s biggest and longest-running classical music festival and one of the jewels in the crown for the BBC.
Held every summer at the Royal Albert Hall in London and across the UK, it is one of the strongest brand names in the music world and attracts a glittering array of artists and orchestras from the UK and around the world.
Whether you’re a first-time visitor or an experienced Prommer, watching at home or listening on radio or online, the BBC Proms Guide is an excellent companion to the festival, which you can treasure and return to in years to come.
Filled with concert listings and articles by leading writers, the BBC Proms Guide offers an insight into the performers and repertoire, as well as thought-provoking opinion pieces about music, musicians and music-making.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
This is the story of Sam and Sadie. It’s not a romance, but it is about love.
When Sam catches sight of Sadie at a crowded train station one morning he is catapulted straight back to childhood, and the hours they spent immersed in playing games.
Their spark is instantly reignited and sets off a creative collaboration that will make them superstars.
It is the 90s, and anything is possible.
What comes next is a decades-long tale of friendship and rivalry, fame and art, betrayal and tragedy, perfect worlds and imperfect ones.
And, above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.
The world’s most beloved beagle shares his philosophy on life in this beautifully produced gift book for all generations.
In his inimitable style, Snoopy spends his days extolling the virtues of dancing.
Hanging out with his best bird friend Woodstock.
Pursuing a full supper dish and giving his owner – our favourite lovable loser, Charlie Brown – the run-around.
For the millions of faithful Charles Schulz fans, and those who fondly remember the joyful dog with the wild imagination, this is the first in a new series to cherish that will see the beguiling Peanuts gang share their sentiments on everything from food to friendship.
For Geeta, life as a widow is more peaceful than life as a wife…
Until the other women in her village decide they want to be widows, too.
Geeta is believed to have killed her vanished husband – a rumour she hasn’t bothered trying to correct, because a reputation like that can keep a single woman safe in rural India.
But when she’s approached for help in ridding another wife of her abusive drunk of a husband, her reluctant agreement sets in motion a chain of events that will change the lives of all the women in the village….
In 1914, war feels far away to Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood.
They’re too young to enlist, and anyway, Gaunt is fighting his own private battle – an all-consuming infatuation with the dreamy, poetic Ellwood – not having a clue that his best friend is in love with him, always has been.
When Gaunt’s mother asks him to enlist in the British army to protect the family from anti-German attacks, he signs up immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings.
But Ellwood and their classmates soon follow him into the horrors of trenches.
Though Ellwood and Gaunt find fleeting moments of solace in one another, their friends are dying in front of them, and at any moment they could be next.
An epic tale of the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip, In Memoriam is a breathtaking debut.
Cloudstreet is Tim Winton’s great family drama, a twenty-year story of life and love, full of boisterous energy, joy and heartbreak.
His visceral evocation of the Australian landscape is nowhere more extraordinary than in this classic.
No.1 Cloudstreet: a broken-down house on the wrong side of the tracks, a place teeming with memories, with shudders and shadows and spirits.
From separate catastrophes, two families, the Pickles and Lambs, flee to the city and find themselves thrown together, forced to start their lives afresh.
As they roister and rankle, the place that began as a roof over their heads becomes a home for their hearts.
It is 1921 and at Cassowary House in the Straits Settlements of Penang, Robert Hamlyn is a well-to-do lawyer and his steely wife Lesley a society hostess. Their lives are invigorated when Willie, an old friend of Robert’s, comes to stay.
Willie Somerset Maugham is one of the greatest writers of his day. But he is beleaguered by an unhappy marriage, ill-health and business interests that have gone badly awry. He is also struggling to write.
The more Lesley’s friendship with Willie grows, the more clearly she see him as he is – a man who has no choice but to mask his true self.
As Willie prepares to leave and face his demons, Lesley confides secrets of her own, including how she came to know the charismatic Dr Sun Yat Sen, a revolutionary fighting to overthrow the imperial dynasty of China. And more scandalous still, she reveals her connection to the case of an Englishwoman charged with murder in the Kuala Lumpur courts – a tragedy drawn from fact, and worthy of fiction.
Bunny vs Monkey: Bunny Bonanza
Monkey and the gang are on a hunt to find Bunny, after he mysteriously disappeared . . .
On their search they’ll be bamboozled by Old Bunny, Neanderbunny, the mysterious Shadow Bunny and the always-confusing Not Bunny.
Will they ever find their faithful friend? It’s a rollicking race to the rightful rabbit in this cornucopia of chuckles!
Dads are notoriously difficult to buy for aren’t they? Well why not treat yours to the gift of a book this Father’s Day? We have books on every genre, topic and interest so we are sure to have something for your father figure even if you think he already has everything he could possibly need by having you!
Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan
From the author of Mayflies, an irresistible, unputdownable, state-of-the-nation novel – the story of one man’s epic fall from grace.
Campbell Flynn – art historian and celebrity pundit – is entering the empire of middle age. Fuelled by an appetite for controversy and novelty, he doesn’t take people half as seriously as they take themselves.
Which will prove the first of his huge mistakes.
The second? Milo Mangasha, his beguiling and provocative student. Milo inhabits a more precarious world. He has experiences and ideas that excite his teacher. He also has a plan.
Over the course of an incendiary year a web of secrets and crimes will be revealed, and Campbell Flynn may not be able to protect himself from the shattering exposure of all his privilege really involves.
But then, he always knew: when his life came tumbling down, it would occur in public.
Empire World by Sathnam Sanghera
2.6 billion people are inhabitants of former British colonies.
The empire’s influence upon the quarter of the planet it occupied, and its gravitational influence upon the world outside it, has been profound: from the spread of Christianity by missionaries, to nearly 1 in 3 driving on the left side of the road, to the origins of international law. Yet Britain’s idea of its imperial history and the world’s experience of it are two very different things.
With an inimitable combination of wit, political insight and personal honesty, the award-winning author and journalist explores the international legacies of British empire – from the creation of tea plantations across the globe, to environmental destruction, conservation, and the imperial connotations of Royal tours.
His journey takes him from Barbados and Mauritius to India and Nigeria and beyond. In doing so, Sanghera demonstrates just how deeply British imperialism is baked into our world.
And why it’s time Britain was finally honest with itself about empire.
Weird Walk: Wanderings and Wonderings through the British Ritual Year
In this book is a radical idea.
By walking the ancient landscape of Britain and following the wheel of the year, we can reconnect to our shared folklore, to the seasons and to nature.
Let this hauntological gazetteer guide you through our enchanted places and strange seasonal rituals.
SPRING: Watch the equinox sunrise light up the floating capstone of Pentre Ifan and connect with the Cailleach at the shrine of Tigh nam Bodach in the remote Highlands.
SUMMER: Feel the resonance of ancient raves and rituals in the stone circles of southwest England’s Stanton Drew, Avebury and the Hurlers.
AUTUMN: Bring in the harvest with the old gods at Coldrum Long Barrow, and brave the ghosts on misty Blakeney Point.
WINTER: Make merry at the Chepstow wassail, and listen out for the sunken church bells of the lost medieval city of Dunwich.
Only 656 people in human history have left Earth. In Space: The Human Story, astronaut Tim Peake traces the lives of these remarkable men and women who have forged the way, from Yuri Gagarin to Neil Armstrong, from Valentina Tereshkova to Peggy Whitson.
Full of exclusive new stories, and astonishing detail only an astronaut would know, the book conveys what space exploration is really like: the wondrous view of Earth, the surreal weightlessness, the extraordinary danger, the surprising humdrum, the unexpected humour, the newfound perspective, the years of training, the psychological pressures, the gruelling physical toll, the thrill of launch and the trepidation of re-entry. The book also examines the surprising, shocking and often poignant stories of astronauts back on Earth, whose lives are forever changed as they readjust to terra firma.
Publication of the book comes on the eve of NASA’s plans to return to the moon, fifty years after an astronaut last walked on the lunar surface. In 2024 the Artemis II mission will send four astronauts to orbit the moon. In 2025 Artemis III will send the first woman and the first person of colour to step on the lunar surface. What will separate these upcoming moonwalkers from the legendary Apollo crews? Does it still take a daring-do attitude, super-human fitness, intelligence, plus the ‘Right-stuff’ – a fabled grace under pressure? And how will astronauts travel even further – to Mars and beyond? Space: The Human Story reveals all.
A searing, deeply personal account of enduring a brutal attempt on his life, thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him – from internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize-winner Salman Rushdie
On the morning of 12 August 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man in black – black clothes, black mask – rushed down the aisle towards him, wielding a knife. His first thought: So it’s you. Here you are.
What followed was a horrific act of violence that shook the literary world and beyond. Now, for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, Rushdie relives the traumatic events of that day and its aftermath, as well as his journey towards physical recovery and the healing that was made possible by the love and support of his wife, Eliza, his family, his army of doctors and physical therapists, and his community of readers worldwide.
Knife is Rushdie at the peak of his powers, writing with urgency, with gravity, with unflinching honesty. It is also a deeply moving reminder of literature’s capacity to make sense of the unthinkable, an intimate and life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art – and finding the strength to stand up again.
When Naomi Klein discovered that a woman who shared her first name, but had radically different, harmful views, was getting chronically mistaken for her, it seemed too ridiculous to take seriously. Then suddenly it wasn’t. She started to find herself grappling with a distorted sense of reality, becoming obsessed with reading the threats on social media, the endlessly scrolling insults from the followers of her doppelganger. Why had her shadowy other gone down such an extreme path? Why was identity – all we have to meet the world – so unstable?
To find out, Klein decided to follow her double into a bizarre, uncanny mirror world: one of conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers and demagogue hucksters, where soft-focus wellness influencers make common cause with fire-breathing far right propagandists (all in the name of protecting ‘the children’). In doing so, she lifts the lid on our own culture during this surreal moment in history, as we turn ourselves into polished virtual brands, publicly shame our enemies, watch as deep fakes proliferate and whole nations flip from democracy to something far more sinister.
This is a book for our age and for all of us; a deadly serious dark comedy which invites us to view our reflections in the looking glass. It’s for anyone who has lost hours down an internet rabbit hole, who wonders why our politics has become so fatally warped, and who wants a way out of our collective vertigo and back to fighting for what really matters.
Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford
In a city that never was, in an America that never was, on a snowy night at the end of winter, two detectives find a body on the roof of a skyscraper.
It’s 1922, and Americans are drinking in speakeasies, dancing to jazz, stepping quickly to the tempo of modern times.
Beside the Mississippi, the ancient city of Cahokia lives on – a teeming industrial metropolis, containing every race and creed.
Among them, peace holds. Just about.
But that body on the roof is about to spark off a week that will spill the city’s secrets, and bring it, against a soundtrack of wailing clarinets and gunfire, either to destruction or rebirth.
The multiple-award-winning Francis Spufford returns, with a lovingly created, richly pleasure-giving, epically scaled tale set in the golden age of wicked entertainments.
The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks
A CHILD WILL BE BORN WHO WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING
When a young American academic Talissa Adam offers to carry another woman’s child, she has no idea of the life-changing consequences.
Behind the doors of the Parn Institute, a billionaire entrepreneur plans to stretch the boundaries of ethics as never before. Through a series of IVF treatments, which they hope to keep secret, they propose an experiment that will upend the human race as we know it.
Seth, the baby, is delivered to hopeful parents Mary and Alaric, but when his differences start to mark him out from his peers, he begins to attract unwanted attention.
The Seventh Son is a spectacular examination of what it is to be human. It asks the question: just because you can do something, does it mean you should? Sweeping between New York, London, and the Scottish Highlands, this is an extraordinary novel about unrequited love and unearned power.
Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart
A searing insider’s account of ten extraordinary years in Parliament from Rory Stewart, former Cabinet minister and co-presenter of breakout hit podcast The Rest Is Politics.
Over the course of a decade from 2010, Rory Stewart went from being a political outsider to standing for prime minister – before being sacked from a Conservative Party that he had come to barely recognise.
Tackling ministerial briefs on flood response and prison violence, engaging with conflict and poverty abroad as a foreign minister, and Brexit as a Cabinet minister, Stewart learned first-hand how profoundly hollow our democracy and government had become. Cronyism, ignorance and sheer incompetence ran rampant.
Uncompromising, candid and darkly humorous, Politics On the Edge is his story of the challenges, absurdities and realities of political life and a remarkable portrait of our age.
How can you fight something if you don’t know it exists?
We live under an ideology that preys on every aspect of our lives: our education and our jobs; our healthcare and our leisure; our relationships and our mental wellbeing; the planet we inhabit – the very air we breathe. So pervasive has it become that, for most people, it has no name. It seems unavoidable, like a natural law.
But trace it back to its roots, and we discover that it is neither inevitable nor immutable. It was conceived, propagated, and then concealed by the powerful few. Our task is to bring it into the light—and to build a new system that is worth fighting for.
Neoliberalism. Do you know what it is?
Can you believe it’s June already? We are almost halfway through the year and here at Parade’s End we are determined to reach our reading goals of at least 1 book a week. We’d love to know your reading goals if you’d like to leave us a comment.
In the meantime, here are our recommendations for new books this month.
When Naomi Klein discovered that a woman who shared her first name, but had radically different, harmful views, was getting chronically mistaken for her, it seemed too ridiculous to take seriously. Then suddenly it wasn’t. She started to find herself grappling with a distorted sense of reality, becoming obsessed with reading the threats on social media, the endlessly scrolling insults from the followers of her doppelganger. Why had her shadowy other gone down such an extreme path? Why was identity – all we have to meet the world – so unstable?
To find out, Klein decided to follow her double into a bizarre, uncanny mirror world: one of conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers and demagogue hucksters, where soft-focus wellness influencers make common cause with fire-breathing far right propagandists (all in the name of protecting ‘the children’). In doing so, she lifts the lid on our own culture during this surreal moment in history, as we turn ourselves into polished virtual brands, publicly shame our enemies, watch as deep fakes proliferate and whole nations flip from democracy to something far more sinister.
This is a book for our age and for all of us; a deadly serious dark comedy which invites us to view our reflections in the looking glass. It’s for anyone who has lost hours down an internet rabbit hole, who wonders why our politics has become so fatally warped, and who wants a way out of our collective vertigo and back to fighting for what really matters.
Learned By Heart by Emma Donoghue
Eliza and Lister have never been this wide-awake in their lives, and the Slope, with its curtains drawn wide, is bright with starlight. They talk in whispers, not to disturb the maids who lie sleeping on the other side of the box room. The question Eliza’s been needing to ask swells like a great berry in her mouth, and all at once she’s not scared to let it out, not scared at all, not scared of anything . . .
In 1805 fourteen-year-old Eliza Raine is a school girl at the Manor School for Young Ladies in York. The daughter of an Indian mother and a British father, Eliza was banished to this unfamiliar country as a little girl. When she first stepped off the King George in Kent, Eliza was accompanied by her older sister, Jane, but now she boards alone at the Manor, with no one left to claim her. She spends her days avoiding the attention of her fellow pupils until, one day, a fearless and charismatic new student arrives at the school. The two girls are immediately thrown together and soon Eliza’s life is turned inside out by this strange and curious young woman.
Learned by Heart, Emma Donoghue’s mesmerising new novel, tells the heartbreaking story of the tangled lives of two women whose intense, and unlikely, relationship will change them for ever.
The Hairdresser’s Son by Gerbrand Baker
Multi–award winning Dutch author Gerbrand Bakker’s phenomenal new novel about grief and the unavoidable power of family ties.
Simon never knew his father, Cornelis. When his wife told him she was pregnant, Cornelis packed his bags, and a day later he was dead. Or everyone assumed he was dead; after all, he was on the passenger list of the KLM plane that crashed in Tenerife in 1977.
Simon is a hairdresser, just like his father and grandfather before him, but he is not passionate about cutting and shaving. ‘Closed’ appears on his shop’s front door more often than ‘open’, because every customer is a person, and people suck the energy from him. But there is one client he regularly interacts with: the writer. The writer is looking for a subject for his next book, and becomes captivated by the story of Simon’s father.
As Simon probes the mystery of what happened to his father, a deeply humane and beautifully observed portrait of loneliness emerges in another captivating novel from one of Europe’s greatest storytellers.
For Such a Time as This by Shani Akilah
These are the people who sustain us through good times and bad.
Meet Niah and her friends.
They’re young, they’re smart, they’re part of a tight friendship group determined to make the most of every day.
And their lives are about to change forever.
From the tingling excitement of a new relationship to the challenges of online dating, from the shadow of racism in the workplace to the isolation of Covid-19, the stories in For Such a Time as This burst with romance and friendship.
This stunning new collection is a powerful snapshot of the relationships – and moments – that make us who we are.
Early Sobrieties by Michael Deagler
Dennis Monk is about to spend his first summer sober.
At twenty-six he is ready to re-join sensible adult life, but just when Dennis needs stability, his uptight parents kick him out into a world of couch-surfing.
Everything around him has changed and everyone he knows seems to be doing better than he is.
At every street corner, former classmates, estranged drinking buddies, and prospective lovers threaten to burst the bubble of his recovery. And Dennis Monk is about to learn the difference between getting sober and staying sober in this new world.
Early Sobrieties is a devastatingly witty novel about coming of age a second time. Deagler’s debut marks the arrival of an astonishing new voice in American fiction.
Ettie and the Midnight Pool by Julia Green
Ettie has lived blissfully with just her grandma for company and the wild woods as her playground.
Until she meets the mysterious Cora and she starts to crave more – now she wants to explore further, to discover secrets of her own.
So, when Cora leads her to the hidden quarry pool – deep, cold, beautiful and dangerously inviting – Ettie is ready to jump straight in.
But the quarry has secrets too, and Ettie will have to dive deep into the darkness to uncover them . . .
We enjoyed our extra long weekends in May, now we have to wait until August until we get another! We hope the extra time off gave you the opportunity to finally read that book you’ve been meaning to get round to all year. Here’s what our booksellers enjoyed last month.
A Woman of Opinion by Sean Lusk
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu longs for adventure, freedom and love, believing that only by truly living can she ever escape the stalking crow of Death…
An aristocratic woman in 18th century England is expected to act in certain ways. But Mary has never let society’s expectations stifle her: she writes celebrated poetry and articles advocating for equality, as well as endless, often scandalous, letters to her many powerful friends.
However, Mary wants more from the world. Using her charm and connections, she engineers a job offer for her husband as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Travelling to Constantinople, Mary finally discovers the autonomous life she dreams of. And when she observes Turkish women ‘engrafting’ children against smallpox, she resolves to bring the miracle cure back to England.
Despite this, Mary’s reputation becomes increasingly tainted. Her inability to abide by the rules, her outspoken opinions on women’s rights, and her search for love and desire at all costs gains her powerful enemies. While Mary tries to ensure her name will live on by arranging the publication of her diaries after her death, her own daughter works against her, afraid of what they might contain…
An illuminating and beautiful novel which gives a voice to the tragically unremembered yet extraordinary life of pioneering poet and feminist, Mary Wortley Montagu.
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
It is 1921 and at Cassowary House in the Straits Settlements of Penang, Robert Hamlyn is a well-to-do lawyer and his steely wife Lesley a society hostess. Their lives are invigorated when Willie, an old friend of Robert’s, comes to stay.
Willie Somerset Maugham is one of the greatest writers of his day. But he is beleaguered by an unhappy marriage, ill-health and business interests that have gone badly awry. He is also struggling to write. The more Lesley’s friendship with Willie grows, the more clearly she see him as he is – a man who has no choice but to mask his true self.
As Willie prepares to leave and face his demons, Lesley confides secrets of her own, including how she came to know the charismatic Dr Sun Yat Sen, a revolutionary fighting to overthrow the imperial dynasty of China. And more scandalous still, she reveals her connection to the case of an Englishwoman charged with murder in the Kuala Lumpur courts – a tragedy drawn from fact, and worthy of fiction.
From Man Booker Prize-shortlisted Tan Twan Eng, The House of Doors is a masterful novel of public morality and private truth a century ago. Based on real events it is a drama of love and betrayal under the shadow of Empire.
The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan.
Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town.
Thus begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the Mississippi River, towards the elusive promise of the free states and beyond.
As James and Huck begin to navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise.
With rumours of a brewing war, James must face the burden he carries: the family he is desperate to protect and the constant lie he must live. And together, the unlikely pair must face the most dangerous odyssey of them all . . .
At the age of 17, after a childhood in a fostered family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate.
He learned that his real name was not Norman.
It was Lemn Sissay.
He was British and Ethiopian. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth.
This is Lemn’s story; a story of neglect and determination, misfortune and hope, cruelty and triumph.
Sissay reflects on a childhood in care, self-expression, and Britishness, and in doing so explores the institutional care system, race, family, and the meaning of home.
July 1346. The Hundred Years’ War has begun, and King Edward and his lords are on the march through France. But this war belongs to the men on the ground.
Swept up in the bloody chaos, a tight-knit company from Essex must stay alive long enough to see their home again. With sword, axe and longbow, the Essex Dogs will fight, from the landing beaches of Normandy to the bloodsoaked field of Crécy.
There’s Pismire, small enough to infiltrate enemy camps. Scotsman, strong enough to tear down a wall. Millstone, a stonemason who’ll do anything to protect his men. Father, a priest turned devilish by the horrors of war.
Romford, a talented young archer on the run from his past. And Loveday FitzTalbot, their battle-scarred captain, who just wants to get his boys home safe.
Some men fight for glory. Others fight for coin. The Essex Dogs? They fight for each other.
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
Feyre is a huntress, but when she kills what she thinks is a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution.
Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor, Tamlin, is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal Fae.
And there’s more to the Fae than the legends suggest.
As Feyre adapts to her new home, her feelings for Tamlin begin to change.
Icy hostility turns to fiery passion that burns through every lie she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae.
But shadows are creeping in, and Tamlin has a dark secret that he cannot share. Fate brought Feyre to Tamlin for a reason, but saving him from the darkness that threatens his world will lead her down a path that she can never return from.
Abroad in Japan by Chris Broad
When Englishman Chris Broad landed in a rural village in northern Japan he wondered if he’d made a huge mistake.
With no knowledge of the language and zero teaching experience, was he about to be the most quickly fired English teacher in Japan’s history? Abroad in Japan charts a decade of living in a foreign land and the chaos and culture clash that came with it.
Packed with hilarious and fascinating stories, this book seeks out to unravel one the world’s most complex cultures. Spanning ten years and all forty-seven prefectures, Chris takes us from the lush rice fields of the countryside to the frenetic neon-lit streets of Tokyo.
With blockbuster moments such as a terrifying North Korean missile incident, a mortifying experience at a love hotel and a week spent with Japan’s biggest movie star, Abroad in Japan is an extraordinary and informative journey through the Land of the Rising Sun.
Isaac Asimov’s Robot series – from the iconic collection I, Robot to four classic novels – contains some of the most influential works in the history of science fiction. Establishing and testing the Three Laws of Robotics, they continue to shape the understanding and design of artificial intelligence to this day.
What happens when a robot begins to question its creators? What would be the consequences of creating a robot with a sense of humour? Or the ability to lie? How do we truly tell the difference between man and machine?
In I, Robot, Asimov sets out the Three Laws of Robotics – designed to protect humans from their robotic creations – and pushes them to their limits and beyond.
Following genius robopsychologist Dr. Susan Calvin and engineers Powell and Donovan, these short stories helped to transform artificial intelligence from a dream into a science and changed perceptions of robots for ever.
Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan
It’s 1990 in London and, after the death of a young girl on an estate, the finger of suspicion is pointing at one reclusive Irish family: the Greens.
At their heart sits Carmel: beautiful, other-worldly, and once destined for a future beyond her circumstances until life – and love – got in her way.
Now, as the scandal unfolds and the tabloids hunt their monster, she must confront the secrets and silences that have trapped her family for so many generations.
It’s never too early to start picking up a book and they make learning fun! We hope your little ones will love this selection of books to see them through the school years.
EARLY YEARS
In this uplifting picture book, you imagine a world where everyone looks identical, where all food tastes the same, where we all speak the same language.
A world that is…well, pretty boring. But with an explosion of colour, the pages soon come to life. This joyful picture book encourages children to imagine the world as a vast library, with room on the shelves for everybody’s story.
It is a celebration of our incredibly diverse world as it really is: home to 195 countries with thousands of different cultures, 10 million colours and 4,300 religions.
Written by Uju Asika, author of Bringing up Race, this beautiful picture book celebrates the beauty and joy of living in a wonderfully diverse world.
YEAR 1
Welcome to a strange and wonderful land, where nothing is quite what it seems! The Emperor of Absurdia is a gloriously rich and beautiful picture book from Chris Riddell, the award-winning creator of Once Upon a Wild Wood.
This is Absurdia: trees are birds, umbrellas are trees, and the sky is thick with snoring fish. Join one small boy as he tumbles out of bed into a crazy dreamland of wardrobe monsters, dragons and amazing adventures!
The Emperor of Absurdia is a brilliantly imaginative and original story from the bestselling picture book creator, Chris Riddell.
With a story to enchant even the youngest reader and wonderfully rich and detailed illustrations, it will delight parents and children alike.
YEAR 2
This unusual rhyming journey through a world of dynamic story starters, was created in collaboration with twelve illustrators, to excite and engage everyone from avid book lovers, to the most reluctant readers.
Children at home will ask for the book again and again, reliving their adventure across every contrasting page. In school environments this book is used by teachers in Key stages 1 and 2 to engage reluctant readers and writers, inspiring them to write creatively and map stories using the fun and disruptive content. Other more able writers in school extend their stories into fully illustrated poems.
This book is a great tool for anyone who wants to reignite the imaginative wonder in the mind of their child/student.
YEAR 3
When the Stewarts spend a sunny, frosty December day at London Zoo, they’re enchanted by one small penguin.
At the delight of young Imogen and Arthur, Mrs Stewart insists the penguin “must come and stay with them whenever he likes.”
But not one Stewart expects the penguin to turn up at their door that evening, rucksack labelled “Einstein” on his back…
The family’s new feathered friend helps Arthur to come out of his shell and makes massive demands on Imogen’s amateur sleuthing. But together they must find out why Einstein came to them and they must keep away from the mysterious white-coat man.
And Einstein can’t stay forever, can he…?
YEAR 4
Enter the darkly funny world of Stitch Head, as he steps out of the shadows into the adventure of an almost-lifetime…
Deep in the maze-like dungeons of Castle Grotteskew, eccentric Professor Erasmus created Stitch Head, a small, almost-human creature.
His experiments continued, filling the castle with creations so fabulously monstrous that Stitch Head was long forgotten.
Until a travelling circus ringmaster knocks at the castle door, promising to make Stitch Head a star.
Is this Stitch Head’s chance to venture beyond the castle walls?
Or could he be making a terrible mistake…?
YEAR 5
THIS IS THE SYSTEM OPERATOR.
WHO IS USING THIS ACCOUNT? PLEASE IDENTIFY YOURSELF…
Vicky’s life is completely normal. Maybe even a little boring.
But all that changes when her dad is accused of stealing a million pounds from the bank where he works.
Vicky knows for sure that her dad is innocent, and is determined to prove it.
Luckily for him, she is a seasoned computer hacker. Using the skills he taught her, she’s going to attempt to break the bank’s files. Should be simple, right?
But it’s a race against time to find the cyber-thief, before they find her . . .
YEAR 6
A mind-bending adventure from the author of Brightstorm!
A year after the death of her older brother, Prue Haywood’s family is still shattered by grief. But everything changes when a stranger arrives at the farm.
A new, incredible technology has been discovered in the city of Medlock, where a secretive guild of inventors have developed a way to capture spirits of the dead in animal-like machines, bringing them back to life.
Prue knows that the “Ghost Guild” might hold the key to bringing her brother back, so she seizes the stranger’s offer to join as an apprentice. But to find her brother, she needs to find a way to get the ghost machines to remember the people they used to be.
Yet if Prue succeeds, all of society could come apart…
We understand hardbacks aren’t for everyone but that does mean you have to wait a while longer for that book you’ve had your eye on to come out in paperback. Well wait no longer. Here are some of our favourite books from 2023 that are coming out in paperback this summer.
Normal Rules Don’t Apply by Kate Atkinson
The first story collection from Kate Atkinson in twenty years, Normal Rules Don’t Apply is a dazzling array of eleven interconnected tales from the bestselling author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life
In this first full collection since Not the End of the World, we meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep.
A secretary who watches over the life she has just left.
A man whose luck changes when a horse speaks to him.
With clockwork intricacy, inventiveness and sharp social observation.
Kate Atkinson conjures a feast for the imagination, a constantly changing multiverse in which nothing is quite as it seems.
London, chief city of Airstrip One, the third most populous province of Oceania. It’s 1984 and Julia Worthing works as a mechanic fixing the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Under the ideology of IngSoc and the rule of the Party and its leader Big Brother, Julia is a model citizen – cheerfully cynical, believing in nothing and caring not at all about politics. She routinely breaks the rules but also collaborates with the regime whenever necessary. Everyone likes Julia. A diligent member of the Junior Anti-Sex League (though she is secretly promiscuous) she knows how to survive in a world of constant surveillance, Thought Police, Newspeak, Doublethink, child spies and the black markets of the prole neighbourhoods. She’s very good at staying alive.
But Julia becomes intrigued by a colleague from the Records Department – a mid-level worker of the Outer Party called Winston Smith – when she sees him locking eyes with a superior from the Inner Party at the Two Minutes Hate. And when one day, finding herself walking toward Winston, she impulsively hands him a note – a potentially suicidal gesture – she comes to realise that she’s losing her grip and can no longer safely navigate her world.
Seventy-five years after Orwell finished writing his iconic novel, Sandra Newman has tackled the world of Big Brother in a truly convincing way, offering a dramatically different, feminist narrative that is true to and stands alongside the original. For the millions of readers who have been brought up with Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, here, finally, is a provocative, vital and utterly satisfying companion novel.
Sister Perpetue is not to move. She is not to fall asleep. She is to sit, keeping guard over the patient’s room. She has heard the stories of his hunger, which defy belief: that he has eaten all manner of creatures and objects. A child even, if the rumours are to be believed. But it is hard to believe that this slender, frail man is the one they once called The Great Tarare, The Glutton of Lyon.
Before, he was just Tarare. Well-meaning and hopelessly curious, born into a world of brawling and sweet cider, to a bereaved mother and a life of slender means. The 18th Century is drawing to a close, unrest grips the heart of France and life in the village is soon shaken. When a sudden act of violence sees Tarare cast out and left for dead, his ferocious appetite is ignited, and it’s not long before his extraordinary abilities to eat make him a marvel throughout the land.
Following Tarare as he travels from the South of France to Paris and beyond, through the heart of the Revolution, The Glutton is an electric, heart-stopping journey into a world of tumult, upheaval and depravity, wherein the hunger of one peasant is matched only by the insatiable demands of the people of France.
Truth and fiction. Jamaica and Britain. Who deserves to tell their story? Zadie Smith returns with her first historical novel.
Kilburn, 1873. The ‘Tichborne Trial’ has captivated the widowed Scottish housekeeper Mrs Eliza Touchet and all of England. Readers are at odds over whether the defendant is who he claims to be – or an imposter.
Mrs Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her novelist cousin and his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects England of being a land of façades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.
Andrew Bogle meanwhile finds himself the star witness, his future depending on telling the right story. Growing up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica, he knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realise.
Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about how in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what’s true can prove a complicated task.
This is a story about Peter Duke who went on to be a famous actor. This is a story about falling in love with Peter Duke who wasn’t famous at all. It’s about falling so wildly in love with him – the way one will at twenty-four – that it felt like jumping off a roof at midnight.
There was no way to foresee the mess it would come to in the end. It’s spring and Lara’s three grown daughters have returned to the family orchard.
While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the one story they’ve always longed to hear – of the film star with whom she shared a stage, and a romance, years before.
Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents lead before their children are born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart.
The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende
No, we’re not lost. The wind knows my name. And yours too. Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht — the night their family loses everything. As her child’s safety seems ever harder to guarantee, Samuel’s mother secures a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England. He boards alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin. Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States.
But their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and seven-year-old Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes her tenuous reality through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination. Meanwhile, Selena Duran, a young social worker, enlists the help of a successful lawyer in hopes of tracking down Anita’s mother. Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of these two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home.
It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make, and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers — and never stop dreaming.
Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Welcome to Chain-Gang All-Stars, the popular and highly controversial programme inside America’s private prison system.
In packed arenas, live-streamed by millions, prisoners compete as gladiators for the ultimate prize: their freedom.
Fan favourites Loretta Thurwar and Hamara ‘Hurricane Staxxx’ Stacker are teammates and lovers.
Thurwar is nearing the end of her time on the circuit, free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer.
As she prepares for her final encounters, as protestors gather at the gates, and as the programme’s corporate owners stack the odds against her – will the price be simply too high?
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
A profound and explosive novel about a spirited girl alone in the wilderness, trying to survive
A servant girl escapes from a settlement.
She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her.
What she finds is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief of everything that her own civilization has taught her.
The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how -and if – we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
Every relationship has one beginning.
This one has two endings.
Andy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy.
And he can’t work out why she stopped.
Now he is. . .
1. Without a home
2. Waiting for his stand-up career to take off
3. Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn’t looking
Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak at a time when everything he thought he knew about women, and flat-sharing, and his friendships has transformed beyond recognition, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of their broken relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him.
Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend’s side of the story.