Inspire

The August Bank Holiday means Summer is almost over but we have a long weekend of decent weather coming up so there is still time to head to the beach or relax in the garden. However you are spending the bank holiday weekend, make sure one of your companions is a good book.

The Villa by Ruth Kelly

Death and mayhem erupt on an exclusive island as it plays host to a reality television show like no other . . . From bestselling author Ruth Kelly, The Villa is an electrifying summer read, perfect for fans of Lucy Foley and Catherine Cooper.

A VILLA IN PARADISE
It’s destined to be the ultimate reality TV show. Ten contestants. A luxurious villa on a private island. Every moment streamed live to a global audience who have total control over those competing for the cash prize.

A JOURNALIST UNDERCOOVER
Reporter Laura is told to get the inside scoop on her fellow contestants. But once the games begin, she soon finds herself at the mercy of a ruthless producer willing to do anything to increase viewer numbers.

A REALITY SHOW TO DIE FOR
There is more to every contestant than meets the eye, including Laura. They all have secrets they’d like to keep buried, and the pressure in paradise quickly reaches boiling point. How far will the contestants go to secure audience votes? And would somebody really kill to win?

Heatwave by Victor Jestin

Oscar is dead because I watched him die and did nothing.

It is the end of August and the long summer holidays are drawing to a close. Seventeen-year-old Leonard is on a camping holiday with his family in the South of France. Awkward and ill at ease, he is an outsider who creeps away from parties unnoticed after a couple of drinks.

On the final Friday of the trip, unable to sleep, Leonard goes for a walk and sees one of the boys from the campsite, Oscar, hanging from the rope of a playground swing. Leonard watches as the rope slowly strangles Oscar. Then, unable to think straight, he buries the body in the sand, and returns to his tent.

The next day is the hottest in seventeen years. Disoriented by the oppressive heat, and distracted by his desire for a girl named Luce, Leonard spends the ensuing hours trying not to unravel.

A literary sensation in France, Heatwave is an unsettling and evocative novel that examines our darkest impulses.

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Nora is a cut-throat literary agent at the top of her game.

Her whole life is books.

Charlie is an editor with a gift for creating bestsellers.

And he’s Nora’s work nemesis.

Nora has been through enough break-ups to know she’s the one men date before finding their happy-ever-after.

To prevent another dating dud, Nora’s sister has persuaded her to swap her city desk for a month’s holiday in Sunshine Falls.

It’s a small town straight out of a romance novel, but instead of meeting sexy lumberjacks, handsome doctors or cute bartenders, Nora keeps bumping into…Charlie.

Love Untold by Ruth Jones

Grace is about to turn ninety and she doesn’t want parties or presents or fuss. She just wants a quiet celebration: her daily swim in the sea and a cup of tea with granddaughter Elin and great-granddaughter Beca. More than anything, she wants to heal the family rift that’s been breaking her heart for decades.

And to do that she must find her daughter, Alys – the only person who can help to put things right.But thirty years is a long time.And many words have been left unsaid.So is it too late now to heal the pain of the past?

This is a story about mothers and daughters: the love inherent in that bond and the heartache that miscommunication can bring. More than anything, it’s about the importance of being true to oneself. Meet Grace, Alys, Elin and Beca – a family you’ll come to know, and to love.

The Seaplane on Final Approach by Rebecca Rukeyser

Tourists arrive all summer, by boat or seaplane, at Stu and Maureen Jenkins’s Lavender Island Wilderness Lodge in the Kodiak Archipelago, expecting adventure. But the spontaneity of their authentic Alaskan wilderness experience is meticulously scripted, except when real danger rears its head. Stu and Maureen’s lodge is failing, as is their marriage.

Mira has been hired for the season as the lodge’s baker and housekeeper. But she’s also busy gleefully nursing twin obsessions: building a working theory of what constitutes ‘sleaze’ and pursuing a young fisherman she deems the embodiment of all things deliciously sleazy. Her plans become more perverse and elaborate, even as life on Lavender Island starts to unravel.

By midseason, it becomes clear that Stu, the jovial, predatory patriarch of the lodge, has turned his sexual attentions to another young employee. As the mood of the lodge spirals into chaos, the inhabitants realize just how isolated Lavender Island really is.

Hilarious, sensual, and charged with menace, The Seaplane on Final Approach brilliantly illuminates the mirage-thin line between the artificial and the feral. In this daring and psychologically razor-sharp debut, Rukeyser’s characters tear aside the façade of good manners to reveal all of our deepest needs and naked desires.

Uncle Paul by Celia Fremlin

The holidays have begun.

In a seaside caravan resort, Isabel and her sister Meg build sandcastles with the children, navigate deckchair politics, explore the pier’s delights, gorge ice cream in the sun.

But their half-sister Mildred has returned to a nearby coastal cottage where her husband – the mysterious Uncle Paul – was arrested for his first wife’s attempted murder: and family skeletons emerge.

Now, on his release from prison, is he returning for revenge, seeking who betrayed him?

Or are all three women letting their nerves get the better of them? Though who really is Meg’s new lover? And whose are those footsteps …?

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka

For the people who swim there each day, the local pool is a haven of unexpected kinship and private solace.

For Alice, her daily laps have become the ritual that gives her life meaning, even though she may not remember the combination to her locker or where she put her towel.

But one day, a crack appears deep beneath the surface of the water, and then another, and then another.

The pool must close for repairs, and with that Alice is plunged into dislocation and chaos.

Away from the steady routines of her swimming, she is engulfed by difficult memories of her own past. And as her sense of home, and of herself, slip further out of her grasp, her daughter must navigate the newly fractured landscape of their relationship.

The Three of Us by Ore Agbaje-Williams

A nice house, a carefree life, a doting husband, a best friend who never leaves your side. What more could you ask for?

There’s just one problem: your husband and best friend love you, but they hate each other.

Set over a single day, husband, wife and best friend Temi toe the lines of compromise and betrayal.

Told in three parts, three people’s lives, and their visions of themselves and one another begin to slowly unravel, until a startling discovery throws everyone’s integrity into question.

Oscar is dead because I watched him die and did nothing.

It is the end of August and the long summer holidays are drawing to a close. Seventeen-year-old Leonard is on a camping holiday with his family in the South of France. Awkward and ill at ease, he is an outsider who creeps away from parties unnoticed after a couple of drinks.

On the final Friday of the trip, unable to sleep, Leonard goes for a walk and sees one of the boys from the campsite, Oscar, hanging from the rope of a playground swing. Leonard watches as the rope slowly strangles Oscar. Then, unable to think straight, he buries the body in the sand, and returns to his tent.

The next day is the hottest in seventeen years. Disoriented by the oppressive heat, and distracted by his desire for a girl named Luce, Leonard spends the ensuing hours trying not to unravel.

A literary sensation in France, Heatwave is an unsettling and evocative novel that examines our darkest impulses

Rather predictably, the English weather has let us down and the school holidays have been a bit of a damp affair so far. We know how long those 6 weeks can seem when you have little ones to entertain so here’s our August selection of children’s books that will hopefully help.

The Best Sleepover in the World by Jacqueline Wilson

A long-awaited sequel to the hugely popular book Sleepovers!

Daisy’s worst ever enemy Chloe is desperate to win back her friends so she announces she’s going to have THE BEST SLEEPOVER IN THE WORLD. Chloe’s party is going to have a swim in a luxury pool, a special makeover for every guest, and a real live meeting with a social media superstar.

All Chloe’s old friends are invited, even Daisy’s best friend Emily. But Daisy is left out.

Daisy’s sister Lily is non-verbal but she’s learned Makaton at her new special school. She signs to Daisy that she wants a sleepover. Will family and friends somehow make Lily’s party THE BEST SLEEPOVER IN THE WORLD?

A moving look at friendship, sleepovers and siblings from the much loved, bestselling Jacqueline Wilson.

The Ocean Gardner by Clara Aganuzzi

Ayla and her marine biologist mum live on a beautiful tropical island, surrounded by a coral reef. One morning, Ayla notices that many of the fish have disappeared, and the once vibrant corals have turned pale. Is it too late to save the reef?

This stunningly illustrated picture book captures the beauty and magic of the coral reef, and the important role it plays in the ocean’s eco-system. From the impact global warming has on reefs to the amazing things marine biologists are doing to protect it, readers will love learning about this fascinating topic.

Clara Anganuzzi’s gentle text and breath taking artwork looks at the complex topic of global warming in an eye-opening but positive way, showing us that we have time to reverse the damage which has been caused.

Polly Pecorino by Emma Chichester Clark

An enchanting and divinely illustrated young fiction novel about a kind girl and a lost bear cub, with a classic feel from the much-loved, award-winning author-illustrator.

Are you brave enough to enter the Wild Bear Woods?

Polly Pecorino rescues animals, and she can talk to them too. She spends all of her time caring for those at Happy Days Zoo, where the devious owners, Mr and Mrs Snell, will do anything to make money.

One day they steal a bear cub, certain that he will do wonders for ticket sales, but the ferocious bears living in Wild Bear Woods want their cub back.

Will Polly be brave enough to stand up to the Snells and take Booboo, the bear cub, back where he belongs?

A Boy, His Dog and the Sea by Anthony Browne

A poignant picture book about a boy and his dog finding adventure where they least expect it, from the acclaimed Kate Greenaway Medal-winning author-illustrator and former Children’s Laureate, Anthony Browne.
Danny isn’t expecting much excitement when he takes his dog, Scruff, for a walk on the beach. He would much rather play with his older brother, Mick. Scruff loves the beach, but Danny thinks it’s boring.

Will Danny discover just how extraordinary the beach really is?

From the international phenomenon, Anthony Browne, comes a heartfelt, visually stunning picture book, about the hidden treasures of the seaside and the wonderful relationship between a boy and his dog.

Finn’s Little Fibs by Tom Percival

Finn has always loved going to stay with his grandma . . . until one day, he tells a little fib that gets out of control! A book about telling the truth, from the bestselling author of the Big Bright Feelings series.

Be open, be honest, be you! Big Bright Feelings for little people.

When Finn accidentally breaks his grandma’s precious clock, he tells a teeny tiny little lie – and blames it on his sister instead! Soon, Finn’s little fib is OUT OF CONTROL, and it’s getting in the way of everything! Can he find a way to tell the truth?

This reassuring and humorous book is the perfect springboard for talking to children about the importance of honesty.

The Wonder Brothers by Frank Cottrell-Boyce

No matter how big the show, family, friendship and adventure shine through in The Wonder Brothers by multi-award-winning author Frank Cottrell-Boyce, illustrated throughout by Steven Lenton.

‘Maybe you don’t believe me. Maybe you don’t believe in magic. I bet you will by the time you’ve heard what happened to us.’

Cousins Middy and Nathan love magic. The on-stage, cape-swirling, bunny-out-of-a-hat kind.

For Middy, it’s all about patience and practice. She uses magic skills to help her out of tricky situations.

Nathan is a show-off and a total danger magnet, he is drawn to the sensation, spectacle and audience.

So when the famous Blackpool Tower dramatically vanishes the night of the Grand Lights Switch-On, showman Nathan announces live on TV that they will magic it back home.

With a stick of rock, a spangly cape, and a bit of misdirection, they end up lost in Las Vegas, home to the grand master of illusion, Perplexion, ‘Legend of Magic’.

Full of tricks, twists and deceptions, the delightful Nathan and Middy will keep you guessing until the very end.

Well the weather wasn’t quite what we expected for July but those rainy afternoons can often be a great excuse to curl up with a good book. Here at Parade’s End our booksellers are lining up our holiday reads, in the meantime, here’s what we read in July.

The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman

TO LOVE IS TO FALL . . .

On a rooftop in Elizabethan London two worlds collide. Shay is a messenger-girl and trainer of hawks who sees the future in the patterns of birds.

Nonesuch is the dark star of the city’s fabled child theatre scene, as famous as royalty yet lowly as a beggar.

Together they create The Ghost Theatre: a troupe staging magical plays in London’s hidden corners. As their hallucinatory performances incite rebellion among the city’s outcasts, the pair’s relationship sparks and burns against a backdrop of the plague and a London in flames.

Their growing fame sweeps them up into the black web of the Elizabethan court, where Shay and Nonesuch discover that if they fly too high, a fall is sure to come…

Lessons by Ian McEwan

When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines’s life is turned upside down.

Stranded at boarding school, his vulnerability attracts his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.

Twenty-five years later Roland’s wife mysteriously vanishes, and he is left alone with their baby son.

Her disappearance sparks of journey of discovery that will continue for decades, as Roland confronts the reality of his rootless existence and attempts to embrace the uncertainty – and freedom – of his future.

Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou

‘In the first decade of the twentieth century, it was not a good time to be born black, or woman, in America.’

So begins this stunning portrait of Vivian Baxter Johnson: the first black woman officer in the Merchant Marines, purveyor of a gambling business and rooming house, and mother to Maya Angelou, beloved and bestselling author I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS.

Anyone who’s read the classic, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, knows Maya Angelou was raised by her paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. In Mom & Me & Mom, Angelou details what brought her mother to send her away and unearths the well of emotions Angelou experienced long afterward as a result.

While Angelou’s six autobiographies tell of her out in the world, influencing and learning from statesmen and cultural icons, Mom & Me & Mom shares the intimate, emotional story about her own family.

Run Rose Run by Dolly Parton and James Patterson

Find a future. Lose a past.

She’s a star on the rise, singing about the hard life behind her.

She’s also on the run.

Nashville is where she’s come to claim her destiny.

It’s also where the darkness she’s fled might find her. And destroy her . . .

RUN ROSE RUN: a story glittering with danger and desire.

Also available: an album of 12 original Dolly Parton songs made for the novel!

Ultra-Processes People by Chris van Tulleken

An eye-opening investigation into the science, economics, history and production of ultra-processed food.

It’s not you, it’s the food.

We have entered a new ‘age of eating’ where most of our calories come from an entirely novel set of substances called Ultra-Processed Food, food which is industrially processed and designed and marketed to be addictive. But do we really know what it’s doing to our bodies?

Join Chris in his travels through the world of food science and a UPF diet to discover what’s really going on. Find out why exercise and willpower can’t save us, and what UPF is really doing to our bodies, our health, our weight, and the planet (hint: nothing good).

For too long we’ve been told we just need to make different choices, when really we’re living in a food environment that makes it nigh-on impossible. So this is a book about our rights. The right to know what we eat and what it does to our bodies and the right to good, affordable food.

Maybe In Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid

At the age of twenty-nine, Hannah Martin still has no idea what she wants to do with her life. She has lived in six different cities and held countless jobs since graduating college. On the heels of leaving another city, Hannah moves back to her hometown of Los Angeles and takes up residence with her best friend Gabby. Shortly after, Hannah goes out to a bar one night with Gabby and meets up with her high school boyfriend, Ethan.

Just after midnight, Gabby asks Hannah if she’s ready to go. A moment later, Ethan offers to give her a ride later if she wants to stay. Hannah hesitates. What happens if she leaves with Gabby? What happens if she leaves with Ethan?

In concurrent story lines, Hannah lives out the effects of each decision. Quickly, these parallel universes develop into radically different stories with large-scale consequences for Hannah, as well as the people around her. As the two alternate realities run their course, Maybe in Another Life raises questions about fate and true love: Is anything meant to be? Is there such a thing as a soul mate? Hannah believes there is. And, in both worlds, she’s found him.

This Boy by Alan Johnson

Alan Johnson’s childhoodwas not so much difficult as unusual, particularly for a man who was destined to become Home Secretary. Not in respect of the poverty, which was shared with many of those living in Britain’s post-war slums, but in its transition from being part of a two-parent family to having a single mother and then to no parents at all…

This is essentially the story of two incredible women: Alan’s mother, Lily, who battled against poor health, poverty, domestic violence and loneliness to try to ensure a better life for her children; and his sister, Linda, who had to assume an enormous amount of responsibility at a very young age and who fought to keep the family together and out of care when she herself was still only a child.

This Boy is one man’s story, but it is also the story of England and the West London slums which are hard to imagine in the capital today. No matter how harsh the details, Alan Johnson writes with a spirit of generous acceptance, of humour and openness which makes his book anything but a grim catalogue of miseries.

The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White

‘Then the rhythm of the train changed, and she seemed to be sliding backwards down a long slope. Click-click-click-click. The wheels rattled over the rails, with a sound of castanets.’

Iris Carr’s holiday in the mountains of a remote corner of Europe has come to an end, and since her friends left two days before, she faces the journey home alone. Stricken by sunstroke at the station, Iris catches the express train to Trieste by the skin of her teeth and finds a companion in Miss Froy, an affable English governess. But when Iris passes out and reawakens, Miss Froy is nowhere to be found. The other passengers deny any knowledge of her existence and as the train speeds across Europe, Iris spirals deeper and deeper into a strange and dangerous conspiracy.

First published in 1936 and adapted for the screen as The Lady Vanishes by Alfred Hitchcock in 1938, Ethel Lina White’s suspenseful mystery remains her best-known novel, worthy of acknowledgement as a classic of the genre in its own right.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Life is (not)* a Romantic Comedy…

With a series of heartbreaks under her belt, Sally Milz – successful script writer for a legendary late-night TV comedy show – has long abandoned the search for love.

But when her friend and fellow writer begins to date a glamorous actress, he joins the growing club of interesting but average-looking men who get romantically involved with accomplished, beautiful women.

Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch, poking fun at this ‘social rule’. The reverse never happens for a woman.

Then Sally meets Noah, a pop idol with a reputation for dating models. But this isn’t a romantic comedy – it’s real life.

Would someone like him ever date someone like her?

Skewering all our certainties about why we fall in love, ROMANTIC COMEDY is a witty and probing tale of how the heart will follow itself, no matter what anyone says. It is Curtis Sittenfeld at her most sharp, daring and compassionate best.

Mrs Porter Calling by A J Pearce

Emmy Lake is the much-loved agony aunt at Woman’s Friend magazine, relied upon by readers across the country as they face the challenges of life on the Home Front. With the problem page thriving and a team of fantastic women behind her, Emmy finally feels she is Doing Her Bit.

But when a glamorous new owner arrives, everything changes. As the Honourable Mrs Porter tries to charm her way around the rest of the team, Emmy realizes that she plans to destroy everything readers love about the magazine.

With happiness quickly turning to heartbreak and war still raging in Europe, will Emmy and her friends find the inner strength they need to keep keeping on – and save the magazine they love?

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.

The Years by Annie Ernaux

Considered by many to be the iconic French memoirist’s defining work, The Years is a narrative of the period 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present, cultural habits, language, photos, books, songs, radio, television, advertising and news headlines.

Annie Ernaux invents a form that is subjective and impersonal, private and collective, and a new genre – the collective autobiography – in order to capture the passing of time. At the confluence of autofiction and sociology, The Years is ‘a Remembrance of Things Past for our age of media domination and consumerism’ (New York Times), a monumental account of twentieth-century French history as refracted through the life of one woman.

On 30 July 1935, the first books bearing the ubiquitous penguin were published. Orange for fiction, blue for biography and green for crime. Each book cost sixpence. Ernest Hemingway, Andre Marois and Agatha Christie led the rollout. We are celebrating the day this year by re-connecting with some old Penguin favourites from across the years.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

‘Everything, somehow, fit together; some sly and benevolent Providence was revealing itself by degrees and I felt myself trembling on the brink of a fabulous discovery, as though any morning it was all going to come together—my future, my past, the whole of my life—and I was going to sit up in bed like a thunderbolt and say oh! oh! oh!’

Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries.

But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

‘Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice’

Gabriel García Márquez’s great masterpiece is the story of seven generations of the Buendía family and of Macondo, the town they built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and its miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book, and only Aureliano Buendía can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny.

Blending political reality with magic realism, fantasy and comic invention, One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most daringly original works of the twentieth century.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

A Clockwork Orange takes place in a futuristic city governed by a repressive, totalitarian super-State. In this society, ordinary citizens have fallen into a passive stupor of complacency, blind to the insidious growth of a rampant, violent youth culture.

The protagonist of the story is Alex, a fifteen-year-old boy who narrates in a teenage slang called nadsat, which incorporates elements of Russian and Cockney English. Alex leads a small gang of teenage criminals—Dim, Pete, and Georgie—through the streets, robbing and beating men and raping women.

Alex and his friends spend the rest of their time at the Korova Milkbar, an establishment that serves milk laced with drugs, and a bar called the Duke of New York.

Dazzling and transgressive, this frightening fable about good and evil asks the meaning of human freedom.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

‘If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.’

It’s Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school…

Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning.

The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

‘To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.’

Drought and economic depression are driving thousands from Oklahoma.

As their land becomes just another strip in the dust bowl, the Joads, a family of sharecroppers, decide they have no choice but to follow.

They head west, towards California, where they hope to find work and a future for their family. But while the journey to this promised land will take its inevitable toll, there remains uncertainty about what awaits their arrival . . .

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

‘Shoot all the Bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a Mockingbird.’

Atticus Finch gives this advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this classic novel – a black man charged with attacking a white girl.

Through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Lee explores the issues of race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s with compassion and humour. She also creates one of the great heroes of literature in their father, whose lone struggle for justice pricks the conscience of a town steeped in prejudice and hypocrisy.

This edition of one of the world’s best-loved books features the original text.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers.

Bernard Marx seems alone harbouring an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress…

Huxley’s ingenious fantasy of the future sheds a blazing light on the present and is considered to be his most enduring masterpiece.

The weather may have other ideas but Summer officially starts this weekend. Whether you are planning the overseas trip of a lifetime, taking a break in the UK or simply taking time off to relax at home, we have some perfect books for you to delve into over the next 6 weeks.

Night Crawling by Leila Mottley

We’ll laugh because we can, until the sun disintegrates and nighttime threatens to set us free just to capture us again, back into the things we can’t escape.

Kiara does not know what it is to live as a normal seventeen-year-old.

With her mother in a halfway house, she fends for herself – and for nine-year-old Trevor, whose own mother disappears for days at a time.

But as the pressures of rent to pay and mouths to feed increase, Kiara finds herself walking the streets after dark, determined to survive in a world that refuses to protect her.

The Maid by Nita Prose

I am your maid.
I know about your secrets. Your dirty laundry.
But what do you know about me?

Molly the maid is all alone in the world. A nobody. She’s used to being invisible in her job at the Regency Grand Hotel, plumping pillows and wiping away the grime, dust and secrets of the guests passing through. She’s just a maid – why should anyone take notice?

But Molly is thrown into the spotlight when she discovers an infamous guest, Mr Black, very dead in his bed. This isn’t a mess that can be easily cleaned up. And as Molly becomes embroiled in the hunt for the truth, following the clues whispering in the hallways of the Regency Grand, she discovers a power she never knew was there. She’s just a maid – but what can she see that others overlook?

The Winners by Fredrik Backman

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO STAND TOGETHER? 

‘It’s often said that winners write history, but there are no winners here’

This is a small story about big questions.
It’s a story about family, community, life. 
It starts with a storm – and a death. 
But how does it end?  

Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about. Everyone has tried to move on, but there’s something about this place that prevents it. The residents continue to grapple with life’s big questions: What is a family? What is a community? And what, if anything, are we willing to sacrifice in order to protect them?

As the locals of Beartown struggle to overcome the past, great change is on the horizon. Someone is coming home after a long time away. Someone will be laid to rest. Someone will fall in love, someone will try to fix their marriage, and someone will do anything to save their children. Someone will submit to hate, someone will fight, and someone will grab a gun and walk towards the ice rink.

So what are the residents of Beartown willing to sacrifice for their home?

Everything.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

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 winter morning he is catapulted back to the brief time they spent playing together as children.

Their unique spark is instantly reignited.

What comes next is a story of friendship and rivalry, fame and creativity, betrayal and tragedy, perfect worlds and imperfect ones.

And, ultimately, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.

Too Late by Colleen Hoover

A breath-taking psychological suspense about obsession and dangerous love. The new edition of Too Late from the TikTok phenomenon and #1 bestselling author of Verity.

Sloan will go through hell and back for those she loves. And she does so, every single day. Caught up with the alluring Asa Jackson, a notorious drug trafficker, Sloan has finally found a lifeline to cling to, even if it’s meant compromising her morals. She was in dire straits trying to pay for her brother’s care until she met Asa. But as Sloan became emotionally and economically reliant on him, he in turn developed a disturbing obsession with her – one that becomes increasingly dangerous every day.

When undercover DEA agent Carter enters the picture, Sloan’s surprised to feel an immediate attraction between them, despite knowing that if Asa finds out, he will kill him. And Asa has always been a step ahead of everyone in his life, including Sloan. No one has ever gotten in his way.

No one except Carter.

Together, Sloan and Carter must find a way out before it’s too late . . .

The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk

Zachary Cloudesley is gifted in a remarkable way. But not all gifts are a blessing…

Leadenhall Street, London, 1754.

Raised amongst the cogs and springs of his father’s workshop, Zachary Cloudesley has grown up surrounded by strange and enchanting clockwork automata. He is a happy child, beloved by his father Abel and the workmen who help bring his father’s creations to life.

He is also the bearer of an extraordinary gift; at the touch of a hand, Zachary can see into the hearts and minds of the people he meets.

But then a near-fatal accident will take Zachary away from the workshop and his family. His father will have to make a journey that he will never return from. And, years later, only Zachary can find out what happened.

A beautifully crafted historical mystery of love and hope, and the adventure of finding your place in the world.

This weekend sees the finals of the Wimbledon championships. Whether you’ll be glued to the TV or trying to avoid it, you don’t need to be a tennis fan to enjoy these great reads which all feature the game.

Sisters by Jeanette Winter

Celebrated picture book biographer Jeanette Winter shares the story of champion tennis players—and sisters—Venus and Serena Williams.

Before they were famous tennis stars, Venus and Serena Williams were sisters with big dreams growing up in Compton, California. In the early mornings, they head to the tennis courts, clean up debris, and practice.

They compete in their first tournament and they both win. From there, the girls’ trophy collection grows and grows. Despite adversity and health challenges, the sisters become two of the greatest tennis players of all time. This inspiring story of sisterhood, hard work, and determination is perfect for budding athletes or any young reader with a big dream.

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Carrie Soto is the greatest player the world has ever seen.

But six years after her last match, she watches a young British tennis player steal her world record – and Carrie knows she has to go back and reclaim her rightful place at the top.

Even if the world doesn’t believe in her.

Even if it almost breaks her.

This is a story about the cost of greatness and the burden of fame.

The fight for a place in history is about to begin . . 

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

The Delaney family love one another dearly – it’s just that sometimes they want to murder each other . . .

Joy Delaney and husband Stan have done well. Four wonderful grown-up children. A family business to envy. The golden years of retirement ahead of them.

So when Joy Delaney vanishes – no note, no calls, her bike missing – it’s natural that tongues will wag.

How did Stan scratch his face? And who was the stranger who entered and suddenly left their lives? What are they all hiding?

But for the Delaney children there is a much more terrifying question: did they ever know their parents at all?

The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey

Described by Billie Jean King as her ‘tennis bible’, Timothy Gallwey’s multi-million bestseller, including an introduction from acclaimed sports psychologist Geoff Beattie, has been a phenomenon for players of all abilities since it was first published in 1972.

Instead of concentrating on how to improve your technique, it starts from the understanding that ‘every game is composed of two parts, an outer game and an inner game’. The former is played against opponents on the court, but the latter is a battle within ourselves as we try and overcome self-doubt and anxiety. It is often won or lost before a ball has been hit.

Gallwey’s revolutionary approach, built on a foundation of Zen thinking and humanistic psychology, will teach you how to develop your concentration, work on your gamesmanship and help you break bad habits. You will also learn how to trust yourself on the court and how to maintain clarity of mind throughout the match, giving you a clear psychological advantage over your opponent.

Whether you are an amateur or a pro, The Inner Game of Tennis is essential reading for overcoming the self-doubt, nervousness, and lapses of concentration that can keep a player from winning. It is guaranteed to change the way you play tennis forever.

The Singles Game by Lauren Weisberger

From the global bestselling author of THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA: it’s a match made in hell.

Sweeping from Wimbledon to the Caribbean, from LA to mega yachts in the Med, The Singles Game is a brilliantly entertaining romp through a world where the stakes are high – and no-one plays by the rules.

When Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Silver makes a pact with the devil, infamously brutal tennis coach Todd Feltner, she finds herself catapulted into a world of stylists, private parties and secret dates with Hollywood royalty.

Under Todd it’s no more good-girl attitude: he wants warrior princess Charlie all the way. After all, no-one ever won by being nice.

Celebrity mags and gossip blogs go wild for Charlie, chasing scandal as she jets around the globe. But as the warrior princess’s star rises, both on and off the court, it comes at a high price. Is the real Charlie Silver still inside?

Knowing the Score by Judy Murray

Judy Murray provides the ultimate insight into life with her tennis champion sons Andy and Jamie.

What happens when you find you have exceptional children?
Do you panic? Put your head in the sand? Or risk everything and jump in head first?

As mother to tennis champions Jamie and Andy Murray, Scottish National Coach, coach of the Fed Cup, and general all-round can-do woman of wonder, Judy Murray is the ultimate role model for believing in yourself and reaching out to ambition. As a parent, coach, leader, she is an inspiration who has revolutionised British tennis.

From the soggy community courts of Dunblane to the white heat of Centre Court at Wimbledon, Judy Murray’s extraordinary memoir charts the challenges she has faced, from desperate finances and growing pains to entrenched sexism.

We all need a story of ‘yes we can’ to make us believe great things are possible. This is that story.

June was a very busy month at Parade’s End where we celebrated Independent Bookshop Week, welcomed Ben Aaronovitch to tell us about his new novella, Winter’s Gifts and launched our Kingston Writers Club. We still managed to read lots of books and here are our favourites.

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov

In Time Shelter, an enigmatic flâneur named Gaustine opens a ‘clinic for the past’ that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time.

As Gaustine’s assistant, the unnamed narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to scents and even afternoon light. But as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a ‘time shelter’, hoping to escape from the horrors of our present – a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present.

Intricately crafted, and eloquently translated by Angela Rodel, Time Shelter cements Georgi Gospodinov’s reputation as one of the indispensable writers of our times, a major voice in international literature.

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time.

At the heart of this glittering world is notorious Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within. For beneath the dazzle of Soho’s gaiety, there is a dark underbelly, a world in which it is all too easy to become lost.

With her unique Dickensian flair, Kate Atkinson brings together a glittering cast of characters in a truly mesmeric novel that captures the uncertainty and mutability of life; of a world in which nothing is quite as it seems.

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left without a trace when he was nine years old. He doesn’t know what happened to her-only that her books have been banned-and he resents that she cared more about her work than about him.

Then one day, Bird receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, and soon he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of heroic librarians, and finally to New York City, where he will finally learn the truth about what happened to his mother, and what the future holds for them both.

Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It’s about the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and the power of art to create change.

Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie

Maryam and Zahra.

In 1988 Karachi, two fourteen-year-old girls are a decade into their friendship, sharing in-jokes, secrets and a love for George Michael. As Pakistan’s dictatorship falls and a woman comes to power, the world suddenly seems full of possibilities. Elated by the change in the air, they make a snap decision at a party. That night, everything goes wrong, and the two girls are powerless to change the outcome.

Zahra and Maryam.

In present-day London, two influential women remain bound together by loyalties, disloyalties, and the memory of that night, which echoes through the present in unexpected ways. Now both have power; and both have very different ideas of how to wield it… Their friendship has always felt unbreakable; can it be undone by one decision?

The Dog of the North by Elizabeth McKenzie

Penny Rush has problems. Freshly divorced from her mobile knife-sharpener husband, she has returned home to Santa Barbara to deal with her grandfather, who is being moved into a retirement home by his cruel second wife. Her grandmother, meanwhile, has been found in possession of a sinister sounding weapon called ‘the scintilltor’ and something even worse in her woodshed. Penny’s parents have been missing in the Australian outback for many years now, and so Penny must deal with this spiralling family crisis alone.

Enter The Dog of The North. The Dog of the North is a borrowed van, replete with yellow gingham curtains, wood panelling, a futon, a pinata, clunky brakes and difficult steering. It is also Penny’s getaway car from a failed marriage, a family in crisis and an uncertain future. This darkly, dryly comic novel follows Penny as she sets out in The Dog to find a way through the curveballs life has thrown at her and in doing so, find a way back to herself.

Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb

Bess Kalb has saved every voicemail message her grandmother Bobby – her best friend, her confidante – ever left her until the day she died.

In this vivid memoir, Bobby’s voice is still in Bess’s head. Stubborn, glamorous, larger than life, she gives Bess advice on everything from lipsticks to life partners and tells the history that made them both.

These are the truths – full of devotion, killer instincts and hard-won wisdom – that grandmothers gift us even when they hurt, and even once they’re gone.

Victory City by Salman Rushdie

She will whisper an empire into existence – but all stories have a way of getting away from their creators..

In the wake of an insignificant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms in fourteenth-century southern India, a nine-year-old girl has a divine encounter that will change the course of history. After witnessing the death of her mother, the grief-stricken Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for a goddess, who tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city called Bisnaga – literally ‘victory city’ – the wonder of the world. Over the next two hundred and fifty years, Pampa Kampana’s life becomes deeply interwoven with Bisnaga’s as she attempts to make good on the task that the goddess set for her: to give women equal agency in a patriarchal world.

The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland

April 1944. Nineteen-year-old Rudolf Vrba and fellow inmate Fred Wetzler became two of the very first Jews to successfully escape Auschwitz. Evading the thousands of SS men hunting them, Vrba and Wetzler made the perilous journey on foot across Nazi-occupied Poland.

Their mission: to reveal to the world the truth of the Holocaust. Vrba’s unique testimony would save some 200,000 lives. But he kept on running – from his past, from his home country, his adopted country, even from his own name.

Now, at last, Rudolf Vrba’s heroism can be known.

Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North

Ten years ago, Harold Fry set off on his epic journey on foot to save a friend. But the story doesn’t end there.
Now his wife, Maureen, has her own pilgrimage to make.

Maureen Fry has settled into the quiet life she now shares with her husband Harold after his iconic walk across England. Now, ten years later, an unexpected message from the North disturbs her equilibrium again, and this time it is Maureen’s turn to make her own journey.

But Maureen is not like Harold. She struggles to bond with strangers, and the landscape she crosses has changed radically. She has little sense of what she’ll find at the end of the road. All she knows is that she must get there.

Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North is a deeply felt, lyrical and powerful novel, full of warmth and kindness, about love, loss, and how we come to terms with the past in order to understand ourselves and our lives a little better.

Sojourn by Amit Chaudhuri

An unnamed man arrives in Berlin as a visiting professor. It is a place fused with Western history and cultural fracture lines. He moves along its streets and pavements; through its department stores, museums and restaurants. He befriends Faqrul, an enigmatic exiled poet, and Birgit, a woman with whom he shares the vagaries of attraction. He tries to understand his white-haired cleaner. Berlin is a riddle-he becomes lost not only in the city but in its legacy.

Sealed off in his own solitude, and as his visiting professorship passes, the narrator awaits transformation and meaning. Ultimately, he starts to understand that the less sure he becomes of his place in the moment, the more he knows his way.

A Waiter in Paris by Edward Chisholm

A waiter’s job is to deceive you. They want you to believe in a luxurious calm because on the other side of that door… is hell.

Edward Chisholm’s spellbinding memoir of his time as a Parisian waiter takes you below the surface of one of the most iconic cities in the world and right into its glorious underbelly.

The waiter inhabits a world of inhuman hours, snatched sleep and dive bars; scraping by on coffee, bread and cigarettes, often under sadistic managers, with a wage so low you’re fighting your colleagues for tips.

It’s physically demanding, frequently humiliating and incredibly competitive. And with a cast of thieves, narcissists, ex-Legionnaires, paperless immigrants and drug dealers, it makes for a compelling and eye-opening read.

To celebrate the launch of Kingston Writers Club at Parade’s End, here’s a selection of books by much loved authors, written for the budding writers out there.

Bleaker House by Nell Stevens

How far would you travel to become a writer?
8000 miles from home
1085 calories a day
3 months to write the novel that would make her name

At least that was the plan. But when Nell Stevens travelled to Bleaker Island in the Falklands (official population: two) she didn’t count on the isolation getting to her . . .

Hilarious and heartbreaking, this is a book about loneliness and creativity. It is about discovering who you are when there’s no one else around. And it’s about what to do when a plan doesn’t work: ultimately Nell may have failed to write a novel, but she succeeded in becoming a writer.

Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction by Patricia Highsmith

Named by The Times as the all-time number one crime writer, Patricia Highsmith was an author who broke new ground and defied genre clichés with novels such as The Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train.

In the classic creative writing guide Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, Highsmith reveals her secrets for producing world-class crime and thriller.

From imaginative tips for generating ideas to useful ways of turning them into stunning stories.

On Writing by Stephen King

Part memoir, part masterclass by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have.

King’s advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999 – and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery.

Immensely helpful and illuminating to any aspiring writer, this special edition of Stephen King’s critically lauded, million-copy bestseller shares the experiences, habits, and convictions that have shaped him and his work.

Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads it – fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.

The Art of Fiction by David Lodge

In this entertaining and enlightening collection David Lodge considers the art of fiction under a wide range of headings, drawing on writers as diverse as Henry James, Martin Amis, Jane Austen and James Joyce.

Looking at ideas such as the Intrusive Author, Suspense, the Epistolary Novel, Magic Realism and Symbolism, and illustrating each topic with a passage taken from a classic or modern novel, David Lodge makes the richness and variety of British and American fiction accessible to the general reader.

He provides essential reading for students, aspiring writers and anyone who wants to understand how fiction works.

A Swim in a Pond in the Sea by George Saunders

For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.

In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.

In honour of those who came to the UK in the last century and brought with them a rich cultural heritage and helped to make Britain what it is today, we celebrate Windrush Day with 8 of our favourite Caribbean authors.

The Island of Forgetting – Jasmine Sealy

In this compelling debut, an unknowable legacy passes through generations of one family living on the beautiful island of Barbados.

There is Iapetus, a lonely soul haunted by the memory of his father; his son Atlas, dreaming of a life far removed from his reality; Atlas’s daughter Calypso, struggling to find her place in an unforgiving society; and her son Nautilus, grappling with various parts of a complex identity.

Each longs to escape their circumstances but find themselves trapped by a history found only in whispers and half-remembered fragments. And with every passing decade, another generation must contend with the same question: how can the things we don’t know define our futures?

Spanning fifty years, The Island of Forgetting is a powerful saga of family and hope that marks the arrival of a stunning new voice in literary fiction.

Patsy – Nicole Dennis-Benn

Patsy yearns to escape the beautiful but impoverished Jamaican town where she was raised for a new life in New York and the chance to start afresh. Above all, she hopes to be reunited with her oldest friend, Cicely, and to rekindle their young love. But spreading her wings will come at a price: she must leave her five-year-old daughter, Tru, behind. And Patsy is soon confronted by the stark reality of life as an undocumented migrant in a hostile city. 

Expertly evoking the jittery streets of New York and the languid rhythms and lilting patois of Jamaica, Patsy weaves between the lives of Patsy and Tru as mother and daughter ultimately find a way back to one another.

Daring, tender and profound, this is the story of one woman’s fight to discover her sense of self in a world that tries to define her, and of the lasting threads of love stretching across years and oceans.

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House – Cherie Jones

In Baxter’s Beach, Barbados, Lala’s grandmother Wilma tells the story of the one-armed sister, a cautionary tale about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers.

For Wilma, it’s the story of a wilful adventurer, who ignores the warnings of those around her, and suffers as a result.

When Lala grows up, she sees it offers hope – of life after losing a baby in the most terrible of circumstances and marrying the wrong man.

And Mira Whalen? It’s about keeping alive, trying to make sense of the fact that her husband has been murdered, and she didn’t get the chance to tell him that she loved him after all.

A powerful, intense story of three marriages, and of a beautiful island paradise where, beyond the white sand beaches and the wealthy tourists, lies poverty, menacing violence and the story of the sacrifices some women make to survive.

When We Were Birds – Ayanna Lloyd Banwo

Darwin is a down-on-his-luck gravedigger, newly arrived in the Trinidadian city of Port Angeles to seek his fortune, young and beautiful and lost. Estranged from his mother and the Rastafari faith she taught him, he is convinced that the father he never met may be waiting for him somewhere amid these bustling streets.

Meanwhile in an old house on a hill, where the city meets the rainforest, Yejide’s mother is dying. And she is leaving behind a legacy that now passes to Yejide: the power to talk to the dead. The women of Yejide’s family are human but also not – descended from corbeau, the black birds that fly east at sunset, taking with them the souls of the dead.

Darwin and Yejide both have something that the other needs. Their destinies are intertwined, and they will find one another in the sprawling, ancient cemetery at the heart of the island, where trouble is brewing…

Rich with magic and wisdom, When We Were Birds is an exuberant masterpiece that conjures and mesmerises on every line. Ayanna Lloyd Banwo weaves an unforgettable story of loss and renewal, darkness and light; a triumphant reckoning with a grief that runs back generations and a defiant, joyful affirmation of hope.

A House For Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul

Mr Biswas has been told since the day of his birth that misfortune will follow him – and so it has. Meaning only to avoid punishment, he causes the death of his father and the dissolution of his family.

Wanting simply to flirt with a beautiful woman, he ends up marrying her. But in spite of endless setbacks, Mr Biswas is determined to achieve independence, and so he begins the gruelling struggle to buy a home of his own. 

Heart-rending and darkly comic, V. S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas has been hailed as one of the twentieth century’s finest novels, a classic that evokes a man’s quest for autonomy against the backdrop of post-colonial Trinidad.

People Person – Candice Carty-Williams

If you could choose your family, you wouldn’t choose the Penningtons

Dimple, Nikisha, Danny, Lizzie and Prynce are half-siblings who don’t have much in common except abandonment issues. But when a catastrophic event forces them to reconnect with each other and with Cyril Pennington, the absent father they never really knew, things start to get complicated fast . . .

People Person is a propulsive story of heart, humour and homecoming, about the true nature of family and the complexities of belonging.

Black Cake – Charmaine Wilkerson

Eleanor Bennett won’t let her secrets die with her . . .

When Eleanor’s estranged children Benny and Byron reunite for her funeral, they receive an unexpected inheritance. First, a traditional Caribbean black cake, to remind them of their roots. Second, the story of a decades-old murder that shatters everything they thought they knew about their mother.

But as Benny and Byron unravel their family’s troubled past, will the truth push them further apart? Or will it reunite them and fulfil Eleanor’s final wish?

An extremely assured debut which pulls in threads and echoes from across the Caribbean diaspora to deliver a rich, complex and really satisfying novel.

Love After Love – Ingrid Persaud

Meet the Ramdin-Chetan family: forged through loneliness, broken by secrets, saved by love.

Irrepressible Betty Ramdin, her shy son Solo and their marvellous lodger, Mr Chetan, form an unconventional household. Happy in their differences, they build a home together. Home: the place keeping these three safe from an increasingly dangerous world – until the night when a glass of rum, a heart to heart and a terrible truth explodes the family unit, driving them apart.

Brave and brilliant, steeped in affection, Love After Love offers hope to anyone who has loved and lost and has yet to find their way back.

Sunday 18th June is Father’s Day and what better way to show the Dads in your life than a great book they can relax with. We have a great selection of fiction and non-fiction to suit everyone but here are a few of our personal favourites to make the perfect Father’s Day gift.

Beer & Veg: Combining Great Craft Beer with Vegetarian and Vegan Food

Beer and Veg has everything you need to enjoy great craft beer with vegetarian and vegan food, including the best suggestions for how to perfectly pair your beer to whatever dish you’re eating, as well as 70 recipes which use beer as an ingredient.

The introduction covers how to approach beer with vegetarian/vegan food; then there are tips and tricks on matching beer and food; how to cook with beer in veg/vegan dishes; an extended section of different beer styles and foods to enjoy with them; and then a selection of 70 great recipes using beer as an ingredient. The suggestions made in the book will cover beers from around the world, plus many common and popular dishes. The recipes are a mix of vegetarian and vegan, with vegan options available for most dishes. Having switched to a vegetarian diet himself in the last two years, author and award-winning beer writer Mark Dredge is the perfect person to help you merge the worlds of craft beer and plant-based food.

Fatherhood by Papa B: A Guide for Fathers, Father Figures and Fathers To Be

A relatable and game-changing guide for parents that redefines what it means to be a present-day father.

Father-of-three, motivational speaker and influencer Bodé Aboderin (AKA Papa B) is on a mission to show the world that Black fatherhood is not only compatible with ambition, but can inspire, nourish and amplify it too.

Papa B is using his natural flair for motivational speech to share the joyful and transformative journey of starting a family, including the challenges involved and the opportunities to grow along the way. In this passionate parenting book for dads, Bodé reflects on how his own upbringing, alongside stigmas about fatherhood, race, and masculinity, have impacted his experiences of being a father, whilst talking candidly about how to overcome the challenges commonly experienced by parents – from breaking generational cycles and adapting to modern-day family dynamics to communicating with your child and achieving a healthy work-life balance. Fatherhood by Papa B teaches all fathers everywhere to be empowered.

Great Whiskies: 500 of the Best from Around The World

Discover and explore every type of whisky, from the classic single and smooth blended malts of Scotland, to the lesser-known corn and rye whiskies appearing on the scene. Featuring 500 whiskies from 23 countries, Great Whiskies is the perfect guide to today’s global whisky market.

Are you in search of the Islay malt that offers the peatiest finish, or curious to know which Japanese blend combines notes of pineapple and oak? Each whisky-producing region has been covered by a specialist, with detailed tasting notes to help you choose your ideal tipple. Find out the stories behind long established whisky brands, such as Johnnie Walker, The Dalmore, or Oban, and surprise yourself with new, artisan distilleries taking the whisky world by storm. Take a guided tour along five whisky trails, covering the classic whisky-producing regions of Scotland, Japan, Kentucky, and more – complete with handy tips for distillery tours and accommodation to help you plan your ideal trip.

With essential tasting notes and distillery information about each of the 500+ whiskies, as well as 24 brand new whiskies exclusive to this edition, Great Whiskies is your comprehensive and accessible resource, all distilled into one travel-friendly pocket guide.

Who Are Ya? 92 Football Clubs and Why You Shouldn’t Support Them

Partly autobiographical, partly polemical, but mostly funny, Who Are Ya? is a snapshot of modern football, exploring the history of all 92 English Football League clubs .

During his time as a broadcaster, comedian and former Match of the Day presenter Kevin Day has spoken to thousands of football players, managers and most importantly fans from across the generations. He spent thousands of hours crossing the country on trains, planes, automobiles, coaches – and once a donkey called Lightning – watching football at all levels. This book is the result of that: a tale of being chased down a railway line at Cardiff, a story of meeting George Best, an account of a lady getting her first Hull City tattoo at the age of 80!Crisply funny and with a host of celebrity football fan contributors – including Stephen Fry, Jo Brand, Alfie Boe, Eddie Izzard, Gabby Logan, and Romesh Ranganathan – Who Are Ya? celebrates the joys and miseries of being a football supporter.

The Midlife Cyclist: The Road Map for the 40+ Rider

Renowned cycling biomechanics pioneer, Phil Cavell, explores the growing trend of middle-aged and older cyclists seeking to achieve high-level performance.

Using contributions from leading coaches, ex-professionals and pro-team doctors, he produces the ultimate manifesto for mature riders who want to stay healthy, avoid injury – and maximise their achievement levels.

Time’s arrow traditionally plots an incremental path into declining strength and speed for all of us. But we are different to every other generation of cyclists in human history. An ever-growing number of us are determined to scale the highest peaks of elite physical fitness into middle-age and beyond. Can the emerging medical and scientific research help us achieve the holy triumvirate of speed and health with age?

The Midlife Cyclist offers a gold standard road-map for the mature cyclist who aims to train, perform and even race at the highest possible level.

Man of Iron: Thomas Telford and the Building of Britain

Thomas Telford’s name is familiar; his story less so. Born in 1757 in the Scottish Borders, his father died in his infancy, plunging the family into poverty. Telford’s life soared to span almost eight decades of gloriously obsessive, prodigiously productive energy. Few people have done more to shape our nation.

A stonemason turned architect turned engineer, Telford invented the modern road, built churches, harbours, canals, docks, the famously vertiginous Pontcysyllte aqueduct in Wales and the dramatic Menai Bridge. His constructions were the greatest in Europe for a thousand years, and – astonishingly – almost everything he ever built remains in use today.

Intimate, expansive and drawing on contemporary accounts, Man of Iron is the first full modern biography of Telford. It is a book of roads and landscapes, waterways and bridges, but above all, of how one man transformed himself into the greatest engineer Britain has ever produced.

A Heart Full of Headstones: The New John Rebus Thriller

John Rebus stands accused: the once legendary detective is on trial, facing the rest of his life behind bars.

How does a hero turn villain?
Or have times changed, and the rules with them?

Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke tackles Edinburgh’s most explosive case in years, as a corrupt cop harbouring huge secrets goes missing.

But is her loyalty to the police or the public? And who can she trust when nobody is truly innocent – including her former mentor Rebus – and a killer walks among them?

As the time comes to choose sides, it becomes clear: after a lifetime of lies, the truth will break your heart…