Discover More Reads
Discover more reads about different people in different circumstances and from all around the world.
African Continent
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Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Set in Nigeria during the 1960s, this novel contains three main characters who get swept up in the violence during these turbulent years. It is about Africa, about the end of colonialism, about class and race, and the ways in which love can complicate these things. | Chimamanda's official site [https://www.chimamanda.com/welcome/] |
| The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah | "The story you have asked me to tell begins not with the ignominious ugliness of Lloyd's death but on a long-ago day in April when the sun seared my blistered face and I was nine years old and my father and mother sold me to a strange man. I say my father and my mother, but really it was just my mother". Memory, the narrator of 'The Book of Memory', is an albino woman languishing in Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison in Harare, Zimbabwe, where she has been convicted of murder. As part of her appeal her lawyer insists that she write down what happened as she remembers it. The death penalty is a mandatory sentence for murder, and Memory is, both literally and metaphorically, writing for her life. |
BBC World Book Club discussion of The book of memory [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csyx6h] |
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Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe | Things Fall Apart tells the story of Okonkwo, an important man in the Igbo tribe in the days when white men were first on the scene. Okonkwo becomes exiled from his tribe, as a result of his pride and his fears, with tragic consequences. |
Goodreads: Things Fall Apart [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37781.Things_Fall_Apart] British Council: Chinua Achebe [https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/chinua-achebe] |
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Infinite Riches by Ben Okri | Azaro is a spirit-child who has decided to live in the land of the living. Two dangerous spirits are trying to reclaim him as he lives through turbulent times in Nigeria whilst the country prepares for independence. |
Ben Okri's website [https://benokri.co.uk/books/infinite-riches/] Goodreads: Infinite Riches [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101095.Infinite_Riches] |
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Crossbones by Nuruddin Farah | A dozen years after his last visit, Jeebleh returns to his beloved Mogadiscio to see old friends. He is accompanied by his son-in-law, Malik, a journalist intent on covering the region's ongoing turmoil. |
Book details on Penguin Random House website [http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/309653/crossbones-by-nuruddin-farah/9780143122531/readers-guide/] Goodreads: Crossbones [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11157352-crossbones] |
| The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba | When William Kamkwamba was just 14 years old his parents told him that he must leave school and come and work on the family farm as they could no longer afford the $80 a year tuition fees. This is the story of his refusal to give up on learning and reading. |
TED Talk: William Kamkwamba [https://www.ted.com/speakers/william_kamkwamba] |
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The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna | Adrian Lockheart is a psychologist escaping his life in England. Arriving in Freetown in the wake of civil war, he struggles with the heat and with the secrets the country hides. The Memory of Love is a tale of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, addressing the indelible effects of the past on our lives. |
The Memory of Love discussion on BBC4 Bookclub [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00081wx] |
For further inspiration discover past winners and shortlisted titles from the Caine Prize for African Writing: Caine Prize website [https://www.caineprize.com]
Black Lives Matter
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee | Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the thirties. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man's struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much. To Kill a Mockingbird is a coming-of-age story, an anti-racist novel, a historical drama of the Great Depression and a sublime example of the Southern writing tradition |
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Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire by Akala Natives is not available in e-format due to restriction rights of the publisher |
From the first time he was stopped and searched as a child, to the day he realised his mum was white, to his first encounters with racist teachers - race and class have shaped Akala's life and outlook. In this book he takes his own experiences and widens them out to look at the social, historical, and political factors that have left us where we are today. Covering everything from the police, education, and identity to politics, sexual objectification and the far right, 'Natives' will speak directly to British denial and squeamishness when it comes to confronting issues of race and class that are at the heart of the legacy of Britain's racialised empire. |
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Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge |
In February 2014, Reni Eddo-Lodge wrote about her frustration with the way discussions of race and racism in Britain were constantly being led by those who weren't affected by it. She posted the piece on her blog, and gave it the title: 'Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race'. Her powerful, passionate words hit a nerve. The post went viral, and comments flooded in from others desperate to speak up about their own, similar experiences. Galvanised by this response, she decided to dig into the source of these feelings; this clear hunger for an open discussion. The result is a searing, illuminating, absolutely necessary exploration of what it is to be a person of colour in Britain today. |
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The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shukla |
We're told that we live in a multicultural melting pot - that we're post-racial. Yet, studies show that throughout the UK, people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups are much more likely to live in poverty than white British people (Institute of Race Relations). It's a hard time to be an immigrant, or the child of one, or even the grandchild of one. 'The Good Immigrant' brings together twenty emerging British BAME writers, poets, journalists, and artists to confront this issue. In these essays about race and immigration, they paint a picture of what it means to be 'other' in a country that wants you, doesn't want you, doesn't accept you, needs you for its equality monitoring forms and would prefer you if you won a major reality show competition. |
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White Fragility: Why it’s so Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo |
Anger. Fear. Guilt. Denial. Silence. These are the ways in which ordinary white people react when it is pointed out to them that they have done or said something that has - unintentionally - caused racial offence or hurt. After, all, a racist is the worst thing a person can be, right? But these reactions only serve to silence people of colour, who cannot give honest feedback to 'liberal' white people lest they provoke a dangerous emotional reaction. Robin DiAngelo coined the term 'White Fragility' in 2011 to describe this process and is here to show us how it serves to uphold the system of white supremacy. |
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People Like Us by Hashi Mohamed |
Hashi Mohamed came to Britain aged nine, a refugee from the Somali civil war. He attended some of Britain's worst schools and was raised exclusively on state benefits. Yet today he is a successful barrister, with an Oxford degree and a CV that includes appearances on the BBC. In People Like Us, Hashi explores what his own experience can tell us about social mobility in Britain today. Far from showing that anything is possible, he concludes his story is far from typical: our country is still riven with deep divisions that block children from deprived backgrounds from accessing the advantages that are handed to others from birth. |
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Black Lives Matter - further reading
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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Diversify by June Sarpong |
How do we set aside race, colour, creed, class, age, religion, sexual orientation, physicality and all of our perceived differences? Is it truly possible to live without prejudice? And why should we want to? |
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How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi |
In this rousing and deeply empathetic book, Ibram X. Kendi, founding director of the Antiracism Research and Policy Center, shows that when it comes to racism, neutrality is not an option: until we become part of the solution, we can only be part of the problem. |
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Don’t Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri |
This book is about why black hair matters and how it can be viewed as a blueprint for decolonisation. Over a series of wry, informed essays, Emma Dabiri takes us from pre-colonial Africa, through the Harlem Renaissance, Black Power and on to today's Natural Hair Movement, the Cultural Appropriation Wars and beyond. We look everything from hair capitalists like Madam C.J. Walker in the early 1900s to the rise of Shea Moisture today, from women's solidarity and friendship to 'black people time', forgotten African scholars and the dubious provenance of Kim Kardashian's braids. |
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The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander |
Once in a great while a book comes along that radically changes our understanding of a crucial political issue and helps to fuel a social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Lawyer and activist Michelle Alexander offers a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status, denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights movement. Challenging the notion that the election of Barack Obama signalled a new era of colourblindness in the United States, The New Jim Crow reveals how racial discrimination was not ended but merely redesigned. By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of colour, the American criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, relegating millions to a permanent second-class status even as it formally adheres to the principle of colourblindness. |
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They Can’t Kill Us All by Wesley Lowery |
In over a year of on-the-ground reportage, Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery travelled across the US to uncover life inside the most heavily policed, if otherwise neglected, corners of America today. |
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Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde |
The woman's place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep. The revolutionary writings of Audre Lorde gave voice to those 'outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women'. Uncompromising, angry and yet full of hope, this collection of her essential prose - essays, speeches, letters, interviews - explores race, sexuality, poetry, friendship, the erotic, and the need for female solidarity, and includes her landmark piece 'The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House'. |
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White Girls by Hilton Als |
'Also has a serious claim to be regarded as the next James Baldwin' Observer |
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I'm Still Here by Austin Channing Brown |
In a time when nearly all institutions (schools, churches, universities, businesses) claim to value "diversity" in their mission statements, I'm Still Here is a powerful account of how and why our actions so often fall short of our words. Austin writes in breathtaking detail about her journey to self-worth and the pitfalls that kill our attempts at racial justice, in stories that bear witness to the complexity of America's social fabric--from Black Cleveland neighbourhoods to private schools in the middle-class suburbs, from prison walls to the boardrooms at majority-white organisations. |
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Brit(ish) by Afua Hirsch |
You're British. Your parents are British. You were raised in Britain. Your partner, your children and most of your friends are British. So why do people keep asking you where you are from? 'Brit(ish)' is about a search for identity. It is about the everyday racism that plagues British society. It is about our awkward, troubled relationship with our history. It is about why liberal attempts to be 'colour-blind' have caused more problems than they have solved. It is about why we continue to avoid talking about race. |
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Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga |
David Olusoga's Black and British is a rich and revealing exploration of the extraordinarily long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa. Drawing on new genetic and genealogical research, original records, expert testimony and contemporary interviews, Black and British reaches back to Roman Britain, the medieval imagination and Shakespeare's Othello. Unflinching, confronting taboos and revealing hitherto unknown scandals, Olusoga describes how black and white Britons have been intimately entwined for centuries. |
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Sulwe by Lupita Nyong’o and Vashti Harrison - for ages 4+ |
Sulwe's skin is the colour of midnight. She's darker than everyone in her family, and everyone at school. All she wants is to be beautiful and bright, like her mother and sister. Then a magical journey through the night sky opens her eyes and changes everything. In this stunning debut picture book, Lupita Nyong'o creates a whimsical and heartwarming story to inspire children to see their own unique beauty. |
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Daddy do my hair: Kechi’s Hair Goes Every Which Way by Tola Okogwu and Naomi Wright – for ages 4+ |
Who will win in the epic battle between dad and hair ? Kechi’s hair is big, thick and loud - and that's just the way she likes it. Mummy’s away and it's up to Daddy to get Kechi and her hair ready for school. There's just one problem - he's never done it before. Fun and hilarity ensue as Daddy tries to tame Kechi’s's swirly-springy, fluffy-puffy, squishy-squashy, candyfloss curls. |
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High Rise Mystery by Sharna Jackson – for ages 9+ |
The detective duo everyone is dying to meet. Summer in London is hot, the hottest on record, and there's been a murder in THE TRI: the high-rise home to resident know-it-alls, Nik and Norva. Who better to solve the case? Armed with curiosity, home-turf knowledge and unlimited time - until the end of the summer holidays anyway. |
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The Faraway Truth by Janae Marks – for ages 9+ |
Zoe Washington never met her father, who was sent to prison right before she was born. When she receives a letter from him on her twelfth birthday, it's a huge surprise. Zoe's mum always told her that Marcus was a liar, a monster, but he sounds nice. Zoe starts to investigate the crime - and the deeper she digs, the more she doubts the conviction. Is her father innocent? Or is he a liar? Zoe is determined to find out. |
Janae Marks talk about one of her other fantastic books From the Desk of Zoe Washington [https://youtu.be/6S42sB9B3tU] |
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The Crossover by Kwame Alexander - for ages 11+ |
Twelve-year-old Josh and his twin Jordan have basketball in their blood. They're kings of the court, star players for their school team. Their father used to be a champion player and they each want nothing more than to follow in his footsteps. Both on and off the court, there is conflict and hardship which will test Josh's bond with his brother. |
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A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe – for ages 13+ |
A powerful, haunting, contemporary debut that steps seamlessly from the horrors of people-trafficking to the magic of African folklore, by an award-winning Ghanaian-British filmmaker. Sante was a baby when she was washed ashore in a sea-chest laden with treasure. It seems she is the sole survivor of the tragic sinking of a ship carrying migrants and refugees. Her people. Fourteen years on she's a member of Mama Rose's unique and dazzling circus. But, from their watery grave, the unquiet dead are calling Sante to avenge them. |
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Fantastic Fiction in Translation
To celebrate the Positive Images Festival, we have put together a list of thirteen fantastic titles of translated fiction. There are links to interviews, reviews and promotions and some of the titles have been listed for the International Man Booker Prize. The rising popularity in translated fiction shows we remain a country keen to look and learn beyond our shores.
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami (translated from Japanese) |
The much-anticipated new novel from the internationally acclaimed, bestselling author of 1Q84 and Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, Killing Commendatore is an epic tour de force of love and loneliness, war and art - as well as a loving homage to The Great Gatsby - and a stunning work of imagination from one of our greatest writers. |
Murakami's official website [https://www.harukimurakami.com/]
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The Chestnut Man by Soren Sveistrup (translated from Danish) |
On a blistery autumn morning Rosa Hartung returns to her job as Minister for Social Affairs, a year after the dramatic disappearance of her 12-year-old daughter. Linus Berger, a mentally disturbed young man, confessed to her killing, but claims he can't remember where he buried her dismembered corpse. That same day Rosa returns to Parliament, a young mother is found murdered at her home in the suburbs of Copenhagen - she's been tortured, and one hand has been cut off. Detectives Thulin and Hess, sent to investigate the crime, arrive to find a figure made of chestnut hanging from a nearby playhouse. When yet another woman is murdered, and another chestnut figure is found, Thulin and Hess begin to suspect that there's a connection between the previously closed Hartung case and the new recent victims. |
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The Absolution by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (translated from Icelandic) |
The police found out about the crime the way everyone does: on Snapchat. The video shows the terrified victim begging for forgiveness. When her body is found, it is marked with a number 2. Detective Huldar joins the investigation, bringing child psychologist Freyja on board to help question the murdered teenager's friends. Soon, they uncover that Stella was far from the angel people claim - but, even so, who could have hated her enough to kill? Then another teenager goes missing, and more clips are sent. Freyja and Huldar can agree on two things at least: the truth is far from simple. And the killer is not done yet.
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The Reunion by Guillaume Musso (translated from French) |
French Riviera, Winter 1992. On a freezing night, as her high school campus is engulfed by a snowstorm, 19-year-old Vinca Rockwell runs away with Alexis, her philosophy teacher. No one will ever see them again. French Riviera, Spring 2017. Formerly inseparable, Thomas, Maxime and Fanny - Vinca's best friends - have not spoken in twenty-five years. But when they receive an invitation to their school's anniversary reunion, they know they must go back one final time. Because there is a body buried in that building - and they're the ones who put it there. |
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Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (translated from Japanese) |
Keiko has never really fitted in. At school and university people find her odd and her family worries she'll never be normal. To appease them, Keiko takes a job at a newly opened convenience store. Here, she finds peace and purpose in the simple, daily tasks and routine interactions. She is, she comes to understand, happiest as a convenience store worker. But in Keiko's social circle it just won't do for an unmarried woman to spend all her time stacking shelves and re-ordering green tea. |
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The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe (translated from Spanish) |
Available in e-book. Fourteen-year-old Dita is one of the many imprisoned by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Taken, along with her mother and father, from the Terezin ghetto in Prague, Dita is adjusting to the constant terror that is life in the camp. When Jewish leader Freddy Hirsch asks Dita to take charge of the eight precious volumes the prisoners have managed to smuggle past the guards, she agrees. And so Dita becomes the secret librarian of Auschwitz,responsible for the safekeeping of the small collection of titles, as well as the 'living books' - prisoners of Auschwitz who know certain books so well, they too can be borrowed' to educate the children in the camp. But books are extremely dangerous. They make people think. And nowhere are they more dangerous than in Block 31 of Auschwitz, the children's block, where the slightest transgression can result in execution, no matter how young the transgressor. |
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Zuleikha by Guzel Yakhina (translated from Russian) |
In a small Tatar village, a woman named Zuleikha watches as her husband is murdered by communists. Zuleikha herself is sent into exile, enduring a horrendous train journey to a remote spot on the Angara River in Siberia. Conditions in the camp are tough, and many of her group do not survive the first difficult winter. As she gets to know her companions - including a rather dotty doctor, an artist who paints on the sly, and Ignatov, her husband's killer - Zuleikha begins to build a new life that is far removed from the one she left behind. |
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By Night the Mountain Burns by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel (translated from Spanish) |
Shortlisted for the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. By Night The Mountain Burns recounts the narrator’s childhood on a remote island off the West African coast, living with his mysterious grandfather, several mothers and no fathers. We learn of a dark chapter in the island’s history: a bush fire destroys the crops, then hundreds perish in a cholera outbreak. |
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The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (translated from Dutch) |
Jas lives with her devout farming family in the rural Netherlands. One winter's day, her older brother joins an ice skating trip; resentful at being left alone, she makes a perverse plea to God; he never returns. As grief overwhelms the farm, Jas succumbs to a vortex of increasingly disturbing fantasies, watching her family disintegrate into a darkness that threatens to derail them all. |
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Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann (translated from German) |
He's a trickster, a player, a jester. His handshake's like a pact with the devil, his smile like a crack in the clouds; he's watching you now and he's gone when you turn. Tyll Ulenspiegel is here! In a village like every other village in Germany, a scrawny boy balances on a rope between two trees. He's practising. He practises by the mill, by the blacksmiths; he practises in the forest at night, where the Cold Woman whispers and goblins roam. When he comes out, he will never be the same. Tyll will escape the ordinary villages. In the mines he will defy death. On the battlefield he will run faster than cannonballs. In the courts he will trick the heads of state. As a travelling entertainer, his journey will take him across the land and into the heart of a never-ending war. |
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Serotonin by Michel Houellebecq (translated from French) |
Dissatisfied and discontent, Florent-Claude Labrouste begrudgingly works as an engineer for the Ministry of Agriculture, and is in a self-imposed dysfunctional relationship with a younger woman. When he discovers her ongoing infidelity, he decides to abandon his life in Paris and return to the Normandy countryside of his youth. There he contemplates lost loves and past happiness as he struggles to embed himself in a world that no longer holds any joy for him. His only relief comes in the form of a pill - white, oval, small. Captorix is a new brand of anti-depressant, recently released for public consumption, which works by altering the brain's release of serotonin. With social unrest intensifying around him, and his own depression deepening, Florent-Claude turns to this new medication in the hope that he will find something to live for. |
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Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila (translated from French) |
Lucien, a professional writer, fleeing the exactions and the censorship, finds refuge in the city thanks to Requiem, a friend. Requiem lives mainly on theft and on swindle while Lucien only thinks of writing and living honestly. Around them gravitate gangsters and young girls, retired or runaway men, profit-seeking tourists and federal agents of a non-existent state. 'Tram 83' plunges the reader into the atmosphere of a gold rush as cynical as it is comic and colourfully exotic. |
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Disoriental by Negar Djavadi (translated from French) |
Kimia Sadr fled Iran at the age of 10 in the company of her mother and sisters to join her father in France. Now 25 and facing the future she has built for herself as well as the prospect of a new generation, Kimia is inundated by her own memories and the stories of her ancestors, which come to her in unstoppable, uncontainable waves. In the waiting room of a Parisian fertility clinic, generations of flamboyant Sadrs return to her, including her formidable great-grandfather Montazemolmolk, with his harem of 52 wives. |
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A Good Day For Climbing Trees by Jaco Jacobs Translator: Kobus Geldenhuys (from Afrikaans) | Sometimes, in the blink of an eye, you do something that changes your life forever. Like climbing into a tree with a strange girl. Marnus is tired of feeling invisible, living in the shadow of his two brothers. His older brother is good at breaking swimming records and girls' hearts. His younger brother is already a crafty entrepreneur who has tricked him into doing the dishes all summer. But when a girl called Leila ends up on their doorstep one morning asking him to sign a petition, it's the start of an unexpected adventure. And finally, Marnus gets the chance to be noticed. |
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Great British Crime â our âdeadâ good books for 2020
As the nights draw in, the days get shorter and the leaves begin to fall, why not check out our top crime reads to keep you company on those long dark nights?
From Manchester to Cambridge, Wales to Northern Ireland, British crime writers have found inspiration up and down the country in both the rolling green countryside and the rough, tough streets of the capital city. So if you’re looking for a good book to help immerse yourself in different locations in good ol’ Blighty, then you need look no further.
With these gripping crime and thriller reads you can pay a visit to Brighton with Dorothy Koomson, explore the darker side of Yorkshire with Tim Weaver and escape to Wales with Claire Douglas!
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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The Brighton Mermaid by Dorothy Koomson
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Brighton Beach, 1993 Teenagers Nell and Jude find the body of a young woman and when no one comes to claim her, she becomes known as the Brighton Mermaid. Nell is still struggling to move on when, three weeks later, Jude disappears. Twenty-five years on, Nell is forced to quit her job to find out who the Brighton Mermaid really was – and what happened to her best friend that summer. But as Nell edges closer to the truth, dangerous things start to happen. Someone seems to be watching her every move, and soon she starts to wonder who in her life she can actually trust… |
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Wild Fire by Ann Cleeves e-book and e-audiobook |
Shetland: Welcoming. Wild. Remote. Drawn in by the reputation of the islands, a new English family move to the area, eager to give their autistic son a better life. But when a young nanny’s body is found hanging in the barn of their home, rumours of her affair with the husband begin to spread like wild fire. With suspicion raining down on the family, DI Jimmy Perez is called in to investigate. For him it will mean returning to the islands of his on-off lover and boss Willow Reeves, who will run the case. Perez is already facing the most disturbing investigation of his career, when Willow drops a bombshell that will change his life forever. Is he ready for what is to come? |
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No One Home by Tim Weaver e-book |
Yorkshire Nine neighbours gather for a dinner party. But by the next morning, they had disappeared without a trace. |
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Spare Room by Dreda Say Mitchell e-book |
Beautiful double room to let to single person. |
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A Spot of Folly by Ruth Rendell e-book and e-audiobook |
Ruth Rendell was an acknowledged master of psychological suspense: these are ten (and a quarter) of her most chillingly compelling short stories, collected here together for the first time. In these tales, a businessman boasts about cheating on his wife, only to find the tables turned. A beautiful country rectory reverberates to the echo of a historical murder. A compulsive liar acts on impulse, only to be lead inexorably to disaster. And a wealthy man finds there is more to his wife's kidnapping than meets the eye. Atmospheric, gripping and never predictable, this is Ruth Rendell at her inimitable best. |
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Open Grave by A.M. Peacock e-book |
In the British city of Newcastle, a pair of bodies leads a police detective into a dark place… DCI Jack Lambert is no stranger to inner demons, having struggled with his own since the admission about his sexuality. But when two bodies are discovered entwined in an open grave, Lambert must put his personal worries aside and work the case. Then, when a local thug turns up dead on the banks of the River Tyne, the DCI’s criminal past comes back to haunt him. Meanwhile, a local celebrity singer claims that she is being stalked. Could there be a link to the killings? As the bodies start to pile up, Lambert and his colleagues realize the motive lies in the past and the killer is taunting them—but they may not be able to catch the murderer before one of their own ends up in an open grave. |
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The 39 Steps by John Buchan e-book and e-audiobook |
London Recently returned from South Africa, adventurer Richard Hannay is bored with life, but after a chance encounter with an American who informs him of an assassination plot and is then promptly murdered in Hannay's London flat, he becomes the obvious suspect and is forced to go on the run. He heads north to his native Scotland, fleeing the police and his enemies. Hannay must keep his wits about him if he is to warn the government before all is too late. |
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The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths e-audiobook |
Norfolk Winner of the 2016 CWA Dagger in the Library award. A child's bones are discovered on the windswept Norfolk marshes. Believing them to be ancient, the police call in Dr Ruth Galloway, forensic archaeologist. But this is no prehistoric grave. It seems a cold missing person case has now become a murder investigation. A must-read for all crime fiction fans, particularly readers of Val McDermid and Ann Cleeves. |
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The Catch by T.M. Logan e-book and e-audiobook |
She says he's perfect. I know he's lying . . . |
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The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah e-book |
London The new Hercule Poirot novel – another brilliant murder mystery that can only be solved by the eponymous Belgian detective and his ‘little grey cells’. Hercule Poirot's quiet supper in a London coffee house is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered. She is terrified, but begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer. Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done. Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at the fashionable Bloxham Hotel have been murdered, a cufflink placed in each one’s mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman? While Poirot struggles to put together the bizarre pieces of the puzzle, the murderer prepares another hotel bedroom for a fourth victim… |
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Darkness Rising by A.A. Dhand e-book (Quick Read) |
Bradford Detective Inspector Harry Virdee has a lot on his plate. His team is facing government cuts, tensions are building between Bradford’s two rival drugs gangs and his wife Saima is due to give birth any day now. So when bodies start turning up in the old industrial district, the pressure is on to get the case wrapped up as quickly as possible, or risk a full-scale gang war. But the man behind the murders is ruthless and pushy. And things are getting personal. Harry must think fast and bend the rules if he wants to keep his city, and his family, safe . . . |
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Case Histories by Kate Atkinson e-book and e-audiobook |
Cambridge Cambridge is sweltering, during an unusually hot summer. To Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, the world consists of one accounting sheet - Lost on the left, Found on the right - and the two never seem to balance. Surrounded by death, intrigue and misfortune, his own life haunted by a family tragedy, Jackson attempts to unravel three disparate case histories and begins to realise that in spite of apparent diversity, everything is connected... |
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A Place of Execution by Val McDermid e-book |
Peak District In the Peak District village of Scardale, thirteen-year-old girls didn’t just run away. So when Alison Carter vanished in the winter of ’63, everyone knew it was a murder. Catherine Heathcote remembers the case well. A child herself when Alison vanished, decades on she still recalls the sense of fear as parents kept their children close, terrified of strangers. Now a journalist, she persuades DI George Bennett to speak of the hunt for Alison, the tantalizing leads and harrowing dead ends. But when a fresh lead emerges, Bennett tries to stop the story – plunging Catherine into a world of buried secrets and revelations. |
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The Sleepwalker by Joseph Knox e-book |
Manchester ‘He said he didn’t remember killing them…’As a series of rolling blackouts plunge the city into darkness, Detective Aidan Waits sits on an abandoned hospital ward, watching a mass murderer slowly die. Transferred from his usual night shift duties and onto protective custody, he has just one job… To extract the location of Martin Wick’s final victim before the notorious mass murderer passes away. Wick has spent over a decade in prison, in near-total silence, having confessed to an unspeakable crime that shocked the nation and earned him the nickname of The Sleepwalker. But when a daring premeditated attack leaves one police officer dead and another one fighting for his life, Wick’s whispered last words will send Waits on a journey into the heart of darkness…Manipulated by a reticent psychopath from his past, and under investigation from his new partner, Detective Constable Naomi Black, Waits realises too late that a remorseless contract killer is at work. Can Aidan Waits solve his last case before fleeing justice? |
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Do Not Disturb by Claire Douglas e-book |
Wales After what happened in London, Kirsty needs a fresh start with her family. But then their first guest arrives. Why has she chosen now to walk back into Kirsty's life? |
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Rain Dogs by Adrian McKinty e-book |
Northern Ireland It's just the same things over and again for Sean Duffy. Riot duty. Heartbreak. Cases he can solve but never get to court. But what detective gets two locked room mysteries in one career? |
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Islamic world
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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The Architect’s Apprentice by Elif Shafak | When Jahan travels to 16th-century Istanbul as a stowaway carrying the gift of a white elephant for the sultan, little does he know the journey on which he is about to embark. Whispers in the palace gardens and secret journeys through Istanbul lead Jahan to Mihrimah, the beautiful Princess. Still under her spell, he is promoted from simple Mahut to apprentice of the Grand Master Architect, Sinan - when his fortunes take a mysterious change. |
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The Shadow of the Crescent Moon by Fatima Bhutto |
Fatima Bhutto's debut novel begins and ends one rain swept Friday morning in Mir Ali, a small town in Pakistan's Tribal Areas close to the Afghan border. Three brothers meet for breakfast. Soon after, the eldest, recently returned from America, hails a taxi to the local mosque. The second, a doctor, goes to check in at his hospital. His troubled wife does not join the family that morning. No one knows where Mina goes these days. And the youngest, the idealist, leaves for town on a motorbike. Seated behind him is a beautiful, fragile girl whose life and thoughts are overwhelmed by the war that has enveloped the place of her birth. Three hours later their day will end in devastating circumstances. |
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The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini | 1970s Afghanistan: 12-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what will happen to Hassan that afternoon, an event that is to shatter their lives. |
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The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid | At a café table in Lahore, a Pakistani man converses with a stranger. As dusk deepens to dark, he begins the tale that has brought him to this fateful meeting. |
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Bird Summons by Leila Aboulela | Salma, happily married, tries every day to fit into life in Britain. When her first love contacts her, she is tempted to risk it all and return to Egypt. Moni gave up a career in banking to care for her disabled son, but now her husband wants to move to Saudi Arabia - where she fears her son's condition will worsen. Iman feels burdened by her beauty. In her twenties and already in her third marriage, she is treated like a pet and longs for freedom. On a road trip to the Scottish Highlands, the women are visited by the Hoopoe, a sacred bird whose fables from Muslim and Celtic literature compel them to question the balance between faith and femininity, love, loyalty and sacrifice. |
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My Country by Kassem Eid | Kassem Eid grew up in the small town of Moadamiya on the outskirts of Damascus. He excelled at school, and had a natural gift for languages. But it didn't take long for Kassem to realise that he was treated differently at school because of his family's resistance to the brutal government regime. When the 2011 Arab Spring protests in Syria were met with extreme violence, it was yet another blow - and as Kassem reached young adulthood, life in Syria became intolerable. Then, on the 21st of August 2013, Kassem nearly died in a gas attack that killed hundreds of civilians. Later that day, he would pick up a gun and join the Free Syrian Army as they fought government forces. |
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The Geometry of God by Uzma Aslam Khan | The palaeontologist Zahoor tries to do his research while General Zia is launching a campaign to Islamize knowledge. In the Punjab salt Range, Zahoor's granddaughter Amal finds proof of the dog-whale, Pakicetus, the oldest known primitive whale. |
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Daughter of the Tigris by Muhsin Al-Ramli | Follow-up to 'The President's Gardens'. On the sixth day of Ramadan, in a land without bananas, Qisma leaves for Baghdad with her husband-to-be to find the body of her father. But in the bloodiest year of a bloody war, how will she find one body among thousands? For Tariq, this is more than just a marriage of convenience: the beautiful, urbane Qisma must be his, body and soul. But can a sheikh steeped in genteel tradition share a tranquil bed with a modern Iraqi woman? The President has been deposed, and the garden of Iraq is full of presidents who will stop at nothing to take his place. Qisma is afraid - afraid for her son, afraid that it is only a matter of time before her father's murderers come for her. The only way to survive is to take a slice of Iraq for herself. But ambition is the most dangerous drug of all, and it could just seal Qisma's fate. | |
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My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk | The Sultan secretly commissions a great book: a celebration of his life and the Ottoman Empire, to be illuminated by the best artists of the day - in the European manner. |
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The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan |
A complex and provocative story of loss, redemption, and the cost of justice that will linger with readers long after turning the final page. Despite their many differences, Detective Rachel Getty trusts her boss, Esa Khattak, implicitly. But she's still uneasy at Khattak's tight-lipped secrecy when he asks her to look into Christopher Drayton's death. Drayton's apparently accidental fall from a cliff doesn't seem to warrant a police investigation, particularly not from Rachel and Khattak's team, which handles minority-sensitive cases. But when she learns that Drayton may have been living under an assumed name, Rachel begins to understand why Khattak is tip-toeing around this case. It soon comes to light that Drayton may have been a war criminal with ties to the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. If that's true, any number of people might have had reason to help Drayton to his death, and a murder investigation could have far-reaching ripples throughout the community. But as Rachel and Khattak dig deeper into the life and death of Christopher Drayton, every question seems to lead only to more questions, with no easy answers. Had the specters of Srebrenica returned to haunt Drayton at the end, or had he been keeping secrets of an entirely different nature? Or, after all, did a man just fall to his death from the Bluffs? In her spellbinding debut, Ausma Zehanat Khan has written a complex and provocative story of loss, redemption, and the cost of justice that will linger with readers long after turning the final page. |
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Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin |
A modern-day Muslim Pride and Prejudice for a new generation of love. Ayesha Shamsi has a lot going on. Her dreams of being a poet have been set aside for a teaching job so she can pay off her debts to her wealthy uncle. She lives with her boisterous Muslim family and is always being reminded that her flighty younger cousin, Hafsa, is close to rejecting her one hundredth marriage proposal. Though Ayesha is lonely, she doesn't want an arranged marriage. Then she meets Khalid, who is just as smart and handsome as he is conservative and judgmental. She is irritatingly attracted to someone who looks down on her choices and who dresses like he belongs in the seventh century. When a surprise engagement is announced between Khalid and Hafsa, Ayesha is torn between how she feels about the straightforward Khalid and the unsettling new gossip she hears about his family. Looking into the rumours, she finds she has to deal with not only what she discovers about Khalid, but also the truth she realizes about herself. |
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Daughters of Smoke and Fire by Ava Homa | Set in Iran, this extraordinary debut novel takes readers into the everyday lives of the Kurds. Leila dreams of making films to bring the suppressed stories of her people onto the global stage, but obstacles keep piling up. Leila's younger brother Chia, influenced by their father's past torture, imprisonment and his deep-seated desire for justice begins to engage with social and political affairs. But his activism grows increasingly risky and one day he disappears in Tehran. Seeking answers about her brother's whereabouts, Leila fears the worst and begins a campaign to save him. But when she publishes Chia's writings online, she finds herself in grave danger as well. |
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The Family Tree by Sairish Hussain | Amjad never imagined he'd be a single father. But, when tragedy strikes, he must step up for his two children - while his world falls apart. Saahil dreams of providing for his dad and little sister. But his life is about to take an unexpected turn. The baby of the family, Zahra, is shielded from the worst the world has to offer. But, as she grows up, she wonders if she can rely on anyone but herself. There's no such thing as an easy journey. But when life sends the family in different directions, will they take their own paths - or find their way back to each other? |
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Planet Omar: Accidental Trouble Magnet by Zanib Mian |
My parents decided it would be a good idea to move house AND move me to a new school at the same time. As if I didn't have a hard enough time staying out of trouble at home, now I've also got to try and make new friends. What's worse, the class bully seems to think I'm the perfect target and has made it his mission to send me back to Pakistan. But I've never even been to Pakistan! And my cousin told me the pizza there is YUCK. The only good thing is that Eid's just around the corner which means a feast of all my favourite food (YAY) and presents (DOUBLE YAY). I'm really hoping I can stay in Mum and Dad's good books long enough to get loads. |
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My Grandma and Me by Mina Javaherbin | In this big universe full of many moons, I have travelled and seen many wonders, but I have never loved anything or anyone the way I love my grandma. While Mina is growing up in Iran, the centre of her world is her grandmother. Whether visiting friends next door, going to the mosque for midnight prayers during Ramadan, or taking an imaginary trip around the planets, Mina and her grandma are never far apart. At once deeply personal and utterly universal, this story is a love letter of the rarest sort: the kind that shares a bit of its warmth with every reader. |
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Men's health
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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The Man I Think I Know by Mike Gayle |
Whatever their friends and teachers might have expected, neither Danny nor James is currently running the country. Depressed and unemployed, Danny is facing an ultimatum from his girlfriend Maya: if he doesn't get out and get a job, she's leaving. It was an accident that changed James's life and now he is looked after affectionately by his parents. But his sister Martha believes that the role of full-time carers is destroying their lives - and infantilising her brother. She suggests that James should go into a respite home while her parents take a break. The respite home, as it turns out, where Danny has just got a job. What is the path that has brought these two people to this unexpected place, and where will it take them next? |
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White Rabbit, Red Wolf by Tom Pollock |
17-year-old Pete Blankman is a maths prodigy. He also suffers from severe panic attacks. Afraid of everything, he finds solace in the orderly and logical world of mathematics and in the love of his family: his scientist mum and his tough twin sister Bel, as well as Ingrid, his only friend. However, when his mother is found stabbed before an award ceremony and his sister is nowhere to be found, Pete is dragged into a world of espionage and violence where state and family secrets intertwine. | ||
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Mr Doubler Begins Again by Seni Glaister |
Baked, mashed, boiled or fried, Mr Doubler knows his potatoes. But the same can't be said for people. Since he lost his wife, he's been on his own at Mirth Farm - and that suits Doubler just fine. Crowds are for other people; the only company he needs are his potato plants and his housekeeper, Mrs Millwood, who visits every day. Until the day she doesn't. With Mrs Millwood missing, Doubler's routine is plunged into chaos - and, more alone than ever, he begins to worry that he might have lost his way. But could the kindness of strangers be enough to bring him down the hill? |
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Tomorrow by Damian Dibben |
'Tomorrow' tells the story of a 217-year-old dog and his search for his lost master. His adventures take him through the London Frost Fair, the strange court of King Charles I, the wars of the Spanish succession, Versailles, the golden age of Amsterdam, 19th century Venice and the Battle of Waterloo. As he journeys through Europe, he befriends both animals and humans, falls in love (only once), marvels at the human ability to make music, despairs at their capacity for war and gains insight into both the strength and frailties of the human spirit. |
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We Germans by Alexander Starritt |
When a young British man asks his German grandfather what it was like to fight on the wrong side of the war, the question is initially met with irritation and silence. But after the old man's death, a long letter to his grandson is found among his things. That letter is this book. In it, he relates the experiences of an unlikely few days on the Eastern Front - at a moment when he knows not only that Germany is going to lose the war, but that it deserves to. He writes about his everyday experience amid horror, confusion and great bravery, and he asks himself what responsibility he bears for the circumstances he found himself in. As he tries to find an answer he can live with, we hear from his grandson what kind of man he became in the seventy years after the war. | New York Times review [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/21/books/review/we-germans-alexander-starritt.html] |
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon |
The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears' house. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog.'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger's, a form of autism. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down. |
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Man Vs. Child: One Dad’s Guide to the Weirdness of Parenting by Doug Moe |
Balancing relatable humor with heartfelt advice, Man vs Child will appeal to any dad looking for both laughs and real guidance from a man who has had and survived these experiences himself. |
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Anxiety for Beginners by Eleanor Morgan |
Anxiety for Beginners offers a vivid insight into the often crippling impact of anxiety disorders, a condition that is frequently invisible, shrouded in shame and misunderstood. It serves as a guide for those who live with anxiety disorders and those who live with them by proxy. | |
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Lose Weight and Get Fit by Tom Kerridge |
As a Michelin-starred chef with personal experience of dieting, Tom Kerridge knows that cooking good food is the first step on the road to both weight-loss and better performance. In 'Lose Weight & Get Fit' he shows how you can eat well, shed the pounds and kick-start a more active lifestyle. |
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Jolly Lad by John Doran |
Jolly Lad is a memoir about the recovery from alcoholism, habitual drug use and mental illness. It is also about the healing power of music, how memory defines us, the redemption offered by fatherhood and what it means to be working class. | |
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Happiness by Design by Paul Dolan |
As a Professor of Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics, Paul Dolan conducts original research into the measurement of happiness and its causes and consequences, including the effects of our behaviour. In this book, he shows that being happier requires us to actively re-design our immediate environment.
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Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker |
Sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life, health and longevity. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when it is absent. Compared to the other basic drives in life - eating, drinking and reproducing - the purpose of sleep remained elusive. In this book, Matthew Walker charts 20 years of cutting-edge research, looking at creatures from across the animal kingdom to find the answers that will transform our appreciation of sleep and reverse our neglect. |
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- https://uk.movember.com/ [https://uk.movember.com/]
- https://prostatecanceruk.org/about-us/movember [https://prostatecanceruk.org/about-us/movember]
Our advent winter staff reads
Have you wondered what our staff have been reading? We have put together a list of books that we have enjoyed across a range of themes and genres. You may find some great present ideas too!
If you would like to chat about books or discover titles others have been reading, we have a dedicated Online Readers Group [https://www.facebook.com/groups/CoventryLibrariesOnlineReadersGroup/]
The Reading Agency [https://readingagency.org.uk/books/] offer lots of information on their website if you are looking for your next read.
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins | I really enjoyed this book by Sara Collins. It’s an interesting historical novel set in the early 1800s about the life of Frannie who has been convicted of murder. The majority of the story is made up of the letter that Frannie writes from her prison cell to her lawyer, based around her life in Jamaica, becoming a maid in London and the emotional story that unfolds. The book is very moving at times and deals with the discrimination, hardship and horror faced by Frannie and other slaves in the plantations at the hands of the plantation owners. A great debut read from Sara and a worthy winner of the Costa First Novel Award 2019, for fans of Andrea Levy. |
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Us Three by Ruth Jones |
I loved Ruth’s first novel, ‘Never greener’ so I couldn't wait to read this, although I wondered if it could be as good. It certainly didn't disappoint, it tells the story of the lives of three girls, a friendship made when they were school age and how it progresses over the years, there are some really sad parts but it's a real feel-good read. |
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How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee | Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020, this is a very well written heart-rending story about survival and endurance in Japanese occupied Singapore, during the Second World War. The story centres around two characters in two different times, both telling their own moving stories. I knew little about Singapore’s history and this gave me an insight into this period. A really good debut book, I’d like to read more by this author. |
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The Testaments by Margaret Atwood | The Booker Prize winning sequel to the dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, set 15 years later in the Republic of Gilead. I did wonder if the sequel could match up to The Handmaid’s Tale but it really does. It takes the reader in another direction revolving around the Aunts in Gilead and continuing their story with some twists and turns on its journey. Atwood is a great writer and manages to challenge her readers to think about how they would act, behave and live in such a society. This is a must-read novel that leaves you thinking! |
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The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes |
Warm and powerful novel with something for everyone - romance, history, poetry and mystery. Set in 1930s Depression-era America, Alice moves to in an isolated Kentucky coal mining community with her new husband. Feeling lonely, she defies the customs of the time and volunteers with a fledgling Packhorse Library. Alice joins other pioneering women who keep the flame of reading going - riding out through all terrains and weather to bring hope, help and knowledge with their bundles of books. The importance of friends, love, communities and books in hard and changing times! |
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The Catch by T.M Logan | I loved this, a great psychological thriller from this author. What do you do when your daughter introduces you to her new partner and they're getting married quickly and you just don’t like this person. The lengths that Ed goes to when trying to find out what's wrong are amazing, quite a surprise ending too. Now I can't wait for the next title to come out in 2021! |
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The Cat and the City by Nick Bradley | I loved this. A collection of (at first glance) stand-alone short stories. But incredibly cleverly woven together using a calico cat as a golden thread. Each story is a gem of description of the city of Tokyo, the Japanese culture and language. But at their heart, they are stories of families: close, estranged, new or old to which we can all relate. Not only that, each story is written in the style of the person who happens to be relating that tale. An elderly person, a child, a yakusa, or a poet, and all totally believable. You don’t have to be a lover of cats to read and enjoy it, you just need to be a lover of stories, and open to the magical world of a vibrant city and its inhabitants. |
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Our Dark Secret by Jenny Quintana | I loved this, a story about two families, friendships and also manages to be a thriller too. I really couldn’t imagine how it was going to end, but couldn’t put it down – its easily a read in one go book. |
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The Goodbye Man by Jeffery Deaver | In pursuit of two young men accused of terrible hate crimes, Colter Shaw stumbles upon a clue to another mystery. In an effort to save the life of a young woman - and possibly others - he travels to the wilderness of Washington State to investigate a mysterious organisation. Is it a community that consoles the bereaved? Or a dangerous cult under the sway of a captivating leader? As he peels back the layers of truth, Shaw finds that some people will stop at nothing to keep their secrets hidden. From the very first page, this story has you wanting to keep turning the pages to unravel the story! |
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All Among the Barley by Melissa Harrison |
Set over the course of a Summer in Suffolk just before the war, this book is a warm, captivating depiction of rurality and family. 14-year-old Edie is in awe of London reporter Connie who is visiting to record the rural traditions of the area. With her modern ideas and political opinions, Connie doesn't go down as well with everyone in the quiet hamlet that is still recovering from the horrors of the Great War. This is a real coming-of-age tale as we see Evie's struggles, but I found the best part to be the evocative descriptions of landscape.
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Mama Panaya’s Pancakes by Mary and Rich Chamberlin (A Village Tale from Kenya) |
A brilliant book with fond memories of Kenya. Colourful and simple illustrations, with caring and sharing theme. One of my favourites to read to my grandchildren. Very entertaining.
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Date with Death by Julia Chapman | There's been a suicide in the quiet Yorkshire village of Bruncliffe although local detective (and ex-police officer) Samson O'Brien is not entirely convinced it was a suicide. When he begins investigating, he uncovers a trail of death leading to the door of the Dales Dating Agency and its owner Delilah Metcalfe. Are Delilah's speed dating events actually a date with death? I heartily recommend this amusing cosy crime novel. Samson and Delilah are great characters as is Tolpuddle the Weimaraner who often steals a scene. I'm happy to report that this is the first in the Dales Detective series so there are plenty more dastardly deeds in the Dales to come! |
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The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis | A chance for me to combine my last, and possibly favourite, trip abroad to Rome, exploring the Forum, with my love of a cosy crime series I can get hooked on, knowing there are many more books to enjoy. Set in Rome, in 70AD, Lindsey Davis makes the everyday Roman citizen feel very familiar. |
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V for Vendetta by Alan Moore |
A graphic novel by one of the best British writers of the genre, the story and images drew me in as they work so well together in this story of a dark future, with more than echoes of the ever-current struggles for a fairer society. |
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The Five by Hallie Rubenhold |
This book tells the story of the lives of the 5 victims of Jack the Ripper. It is an interesting read for anyone who has a love for Victorian times and history in general. What makes this a standout read is the fact that the 5 victims get their voice at last and we learn all about them. A heartfelt story of the struggles of life in Victorian times. |
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Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery | A classic story for any age about the adventures of an orphan girl called Anne who goes to live with two middle-aged siblings. The only thing is they were expecting a boy to do jobs for them and got a girl instead. They learn to love the girl and the story takes us on all the adventures she has. A nice feelgood book with some ups and downs. |
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Dark Matter by Michelle Paver |
A ghost story set in the Arctic winter in the late 1930s. Jack takes part in an arctic expedition and gradually his companions are forced to leave their base camp, leaving Jack alone. |
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On Chapel Sands by Laura Cumming |
A true-life child abduction and the repercussions felt by the whole family. A moving memoir of the author's mother's abduction aged three and the search for her true identity. |
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| 10 Minutes and 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak | A gripping novel about domestic violence, love and friendship. It is a bleak and brutal book but strangely life-affirming with a wonderful mix of characters. |
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The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa | A dystopian novel about an island where things disappear and are forgotten: hats, ribbons and other everyday objects but where will it end? A compelling read translated from Japanese reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984. |
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Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo |
An intriguing story of 12 mainly black, British women through history and how their lives are entwined. An unusual writing style does not detract from the moving portrayal of very different women. |
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The Puritan Princess by Miranda Malins | This book tells a fascinating story about the Cromwell family. From the minor gentry, the Cromwells became almost royalty after Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector after the civil war. The story follows his youngest daughter Frances as she struggles to find her own identity and love dealing with tragedy and the downfall of her family. An interesting slant on an interesting and significant historical period from a point of view you rarely hear. |
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Raven Black by Ann Cleeves | A great wintery murder story set in the Shetlands; the first in a fantastic series of books featuring Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez. |
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Little Women by Louisa May Alcott | A classic story with a heartfelt scene set at Christmas where they all treasure their small gifts. It will still make you cry. |
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LGBTQ+ Pride
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman |
Andre Aciman's Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. Each is unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, when, during the restless summer weeks, unrelenting currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion and test the charged ground between them. Recklessly, the two verge toward the one thing both fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. It is an instant classic and one of the great love stories of our time. |
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Disobedience by Naomi Alderman | Now a major motion picture starring Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams. In a cramped synagogue in north-west London, the eminent elderly rabbi passes away. On the other side of the Atlantic, his estranged daughter, Ronit, hears of her father's death and returns to London for the funeral. She has not returned home in 15 years. Ronit looks forward to a week or two of revisiting old friends, perhaps settling old scores. But she finds the community she grew up in a more confusing place than she'd anticipated. Particularly when she is unexpectedly reunited with Esti, her childhood sweetheart, who has taken a very different path in life ... Disobedience is a hugely enjoyable and warm-hearted portrayal of characters caught between two worlds, and a wise exploration of sexuality, tolerance and faith. |
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The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne |
Cyril Avery is not a real Avery - or at least that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamorous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from - and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more. |
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Murmur by Will Eaves | Murmur is an original imagining of how the mathematician Alan Turing may have responded to the punishment imposed on him by the state - chemical castration - following his conviction for gross indecency. Alan Turing was more than just a member of the team that cracked the wartime Enigma code using a machine akin to an early computer, impressive though this achievement may be. He was a mathematician and theoretical biologist who pioneered ideas on artificial intelligence. |
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Double Booked by Lily Lindon |
Georgina is a sensible 26-year-old with a routine: 1) schedule dates with long-term boyfriend, 2) teach piano to inept children, and 3) repeat until dead. Perfect. But when one night she deviates from her usual timetable and sees the indie lesbian pop band Phase, Georgina realises: 1) she longs to play her own music again, 2) she wants to be just like them, and 3) their drummer is really hot. Scared of losing her happy straight life, but feeling a new sense of belonging in the gay scene, she does what any rational person would do: she splits herself in two. She'll be Gina by day, George by night. It's going to take painstaking scheduling, a versatile wardrobe, and an ambiguous haircut, but maybe Georgina really can have both? |
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A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske |
Young baronet Robin Blyth thought he was taking up a minor governmental post. However, he's actually been appointed parliamentary liaison to a secret magical society. If it weren't for this administrative error, he'd never have discovered the incredible magic underlying his world. Cursed by mysterious attackers and plagued by visions, Robin becomes determined to drag answers from his missing predecessor - but he'll need the help of Edwin Courcey, his hostile magical-society counterpart. Unwillingly thrown together, Robin and Edwin will discover a plot that threatens every magician in the British Isles. |
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She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan |
In a famine-stricken village on a dusty plain, a seer shows two children their fates. For a family's eighth-born son, there's greatness. For the second daughter, nothing. In 1345, China lies restless under harsh Mongol rule. And when a bandit raid wipes out their home, the two children must somehow survive. Zhu Chongba despairs and gives in. But the girl resolves to overcome her destiny. So she takes her dead brother's identity and begins her journey. Can Zhu escape what's written in the stars, as rebellion sweeps the land? Or can she claim her brother's greatness - and rise as high as she can dream? |
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The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid Available in e-book and e-audiobook |
Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. But she is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career. Summoned to Evelyn's luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn's story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique's own in tragic and irreversible ways. |
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On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong | Brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original - poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. This book is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. |
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The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Available in e-audiobook |
The Picture of Dorian Gray is Oscar Wilde's classic story of a young man whose beauty prompts a painter to paint a life-like portrait of him. However, all is not what it seems...Dorian expresses the desire to sell his soul, to ensure that the picture, rather than he, will age and fade. A must-read for children and adults alike! The novel is a social satire as well as a key explorer of Victorian norms. We are made to observe human emotions like love, jealousy, hate and the forces of evil and good. Oscar Wilde propagates his 'art for art's sake' theory, even as he weaves a narrative around a beautiful young man (Dorian Gray) and his friends (Lord Henry and Basil). The book is a classic in the true sense of the word, as it appeals to the universal instincts of Man. |
- Full LGBTQ+ collection for adults, young people and children [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/libraries-1/reading/9]
Libraries and Information Service
Address: Central LibrarySmithford Way
Coventry
CV1 1FY
Reality bites: sharp edged fiction
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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The Quiet at the End of the World by Lauren James |
How far would you go to save those you love? Lowrie and Shen are the youngest people on the planet after a virus caused global infertility. Closeted in a pocket of London and doted upon by a small, ageing community, the pair spend their days mudlarking and looking for treasure - until a secret is uncovered that threatens not only their family but humanity's entire existence. Now Lowrie and Shen face an impossible choice: in the quiet at the end of the world, they must decide what to sacrifice to save the whole human race. |
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Meat Market by Juno Dawson |
Jana Novak's history sounds like a classic model cliche: tall and gangly, she's uncomfortable with her androgynous looks until she's unexpectedly scouted and catapulted to superstardom. But the fashion industry is as grimy as it is glamorous. And there are unexpected predators at every turn. Jana is an ordinary girl from a south London estate, lifted to unimaginable heights. But the further you rise, the more devastating your fall. |
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On the Come Up by Angie Thomas |
'On The Come Up' is the second novel from Angie Thomas, number one New York Times bestselling author of 'The Hate U Give'. Here, she returns to the world of Garden Heights in a story about an aspiring teen rapper and what happens when you get everything you thought you wanted. |
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The Burning by Laura Bates |
Fire is like a rumour. You might think you've extinguished it but one creeping, red tendril, one single wisp of smoke is enough to let it leap back into life again. Especially if someone is watching, waiting to fan the flames. New school. Tick. New town. Tick. New surname. Tick. Social media profiles? Erased. There's nothing to trace Anna back to her old life. Nothing to link her to the 'incident'. At least that's what she thinks - until the whispers start up again. As time begins to run out on her secrets, Anna finds herself irresistibly drawn to the tale of Maggie, a local girl accused of witchcraft centuries earlier. A girl whose story has terrifying parallels to Anna's own. |
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The Places I've Cried in Public by Holly Bourne |
Amelie loved Reese. And she thought he loved her. But she's starting to realise love isn't supposed to hurt like this. So now she's retracing their story and untangling what happened by revisiting all the places he made her cry. Because if she works out what went wrong, perhaps she can finally learn to get over him. |
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The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta |
A boy comes to terms with his identity as a mixed-race gay teen - then at university he finds his wings as a drag artist, The Black Flamingo. A bold story about the power of embracing your uniqueness. Sometimes, we need to take charge, to stand up wearing pink feathers - to show ourselves to the world in bold colour. 'I masquerade in makeup and feathers and I am applauded.' |
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Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay |
When Jay Reguero hears of his cousin Jun’s death, everything changes. Although years have passed since they were last in contact, the stories about Jun just don’t fit with the boy Jay knew. Hoping to uncover the truth, Jay travels to Jun’s home in the Philippines - but the shocking realities of life there lead to even more questions. Can Jay find the answers he seeks? |
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Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus |
Ellery's never been to Echo Ridge, but she's heard all about it. It's where her aunt went missing at age sixteen, never to return. Where a Homecoming Queen's murder five years ago made national news. And where Ellery now has to live with a grandmother she barely knows, after her failed-actress mother lands in rehab. No one knows what happened to either girl, and Ellery's family is still haunted by their loss. Malcolm grew up in the shadow of the Homecoming Queen's death. His older brother was the prime suspect and left Echo Ridge in disgrace. His mother's remarriage vaulted her and Malcolm into Echo Ridge's upper crust, but their new status grows shaky when mysterious threats around town hint that a killer plans to strike again. No one has forgotten Malcolm's brother - and nobody trusts him when he suddenly returns to town. |
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Bearmouth by Liz Hyder |
Newt has been working in Bearmouth mine from a very young age. There is a routine and acceptance to all that happens - that is, until Devlin arrives. Newt fears any unrest will bring heightened oppression from the Master and his overseers, and simply isn't prepared for any more hardship. Life is hard enough, and there isn't any choice about that. Or is there? |
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Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed |
Jamie Goldberg is cool with volunteering for his local state candidate - as long as he’s behind the scenes. There’s no way he’d ever knock on doors to ask people for their votes, until he meets Maya. Maya Rehman’s having the worst Ramadan ever. Her best friend is too busy to hang out, her summer trip is cancelled, her parents are separating and now her mother thinks the solution to her problems is political canvassing - with some awkward guy she hardly knows ... Going door to door isn’t exactly glamorous, but maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world. After all, the polls are getting closer - and so are Maya and Jamie. Mastering local activism is one thing. Navigating the cross-cultural crush of the century is another thing entirely. |
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Eight Pieces of Silva by Patrice Lawrence |
Becks is into girls but didn't come out because she was never in. She lives with her mum, stepdad and 18-year-old Silva, her stepdad's daughter. Becks and Silva are opposites, but bond over their mutual obsession with K-pop. When Becks' mum and stepdad go on honeymoon to Japan, Becks and Silva are left alone. Except, Silva disappears. Becks ventures into the forbidden territory of Silva's room and finds the first of eight clues that help her discover her sister's secret life. Meanwhile, Silva is on a journey. A journey to make someone love her. He says he doesn't, but he's just joking. All she has to do is persuade him otherwise. |
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Noughts + Crosses by Malorie Blackman |
Sephy is a Cross: dark-skinned and beautiful, she lives a life of privilege and power. But she's lonely, and burns with injustice at the world she sees around her. Callum is a nought: pale-skinned and poor, he's considered to be less than nothing - a blanker, there to serve Crosses - but he dreams of a better life. They've been friends since they were children, and they both know that's as far as it can ever go. Noughts and Crosses are fated to be bitter enemies - love is out of the question. Then - in spite of a world that is fiercely against them - these star-crossed lovers choose each other. But this is love story that will lead both of them into terrible danger - and which will have shocking repercussions for generations to come. |
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Wonder by R.J. Palacio |
My name is August. I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.' Auggie wants to be an ordinary 10-year-old. He does ordinary things - eating ice cream, playing on his Xbox. He feels ordinary - inside. But ordinary kids don't make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. Ordinary kids aren't stared at wherever they go. Born with a terrible facial abnormality, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents his whole life. Now, for the first time, he's being sent to a real school. All he wants is to be accepted. But can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, underneath it all? |
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Retired and reckless
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout | Olive Kitteridge might be described by some as a battle axe or as brilliantly pushy, by others as the kindest person they had ever met. Olive herself has always been certain that she is 100% correct about everything - although, lately, her certitude has been shaken. This indomitable character appears at the centre of these narratives that comprise Olive Kitteridge. In each of them, we watch Olive, a retired schoolteacher, as she struggles to make sense of the changes in her life and the lives of those around her - always with brutal honesty, if sometimes painfully. Olive will make you laugh, nod in recognition, as well as wince in pain or shed a tear or two. We meet her stoic husband, bound to her in a marriage both broken and strong, and her own son, tyrannised by Olive's overbearing sensitivities. The reader comes away, amazed by this author's ability to conjure this formidable heroine and her deep humanity that infiltrates every page. |
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Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon | 84-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat at Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly. As she waits to be rescued, she considers the charming new resident who looks exactly like a man she once knew – a man who died sixty years ago. His arrival has stirred distant memories she and Elsie thought they’d laid to rest. Lying prone in the front room, Florence wonders if a terrible secret from her past is about to come to light … | |
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The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules by Catherine Ingleman–Sundberg |
The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules is an incredibly quirky, humorous and warm-hearted story about growing old disgracefully - and breaking all the rules along the way! 79-year-old Martha Andersson dreams of escaping her care home and robbing a bank. She has no intention of spending the rest of her days in an armchair and is determined to fund her way to a much more exciting lifestyle. Along with her four oldest friends - otherwise known as the League of Pensioners - Martha decides to rebel against all of the rules imposed upon them. Together, they cause uproar with their antics protesting against early bedtimes and plasticky meals. |
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A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler |
It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon ...’ This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she and Red fell in love that summer’s day in 1959. The whole family on the porch, half-listening as their mother tells the same tale they have heard so many times before |
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I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron |
If there is any solace in growing older, it is that you will find yourself guffawing in hysterical recognition at the situations Nora Ephron describes, from the impossibility of trying to remember people's names at parties,to struggling with the new technology. You will find yourself rolling off the sofa snorting with laughter as she recalls with her signature clarity and wisdom everything she hasn't (yet) forgotten, including what it feels like to produce a flop - and you will swallow down a lump in your throat at the poignancy of her insights into the pain of losing friends, and the guilt of separation and divorce. One thing is for sure, there is nobody else who can put her finger so very precisely, so beguilingly, with so much wisdom and with so much wit, on what we all struggle with as we journey into our later years. |
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Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou |
Broken Glass is a Congolese riff on European classics from the most notable Francophone African writer of his generation. |
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Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller |
An extraordinary debut, featuring a memorable hero, Norwegian by Night is the last adventure of a man still trying to come to terms with the tragedies of his life. Compelling and sophisticated, it is both a chase through the woods thriller and an emotionally haunting novel about ageing and regret. |
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A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler |
A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler is a tender book about finding dignity and beauty in solitude. An exquisite novel about a simple life, it has already demonstrated its power to move thousands of readers with a message of solace and truth. It looks at the moments, big and small, that make us what we are. | |
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Nora Webster by Colm Toibin |
It is the 1960s and Nora Webster is living with her two young sons in a small town on the east coast of Ireland. The love of her life, Maurice, has just died so she must work out how to forge a new life for herself. As Nora returns to memories of the happiness of her early marriage, something more painful begins to intrude: memories of her own mother and what brought about the terrifying distance between them. |
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The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch |
When Charles Arrowby retires from his glittering career in the London theatre, he buys a remote house on the rocks by the sea. He hopes to escape from his tumultuous love affairs but unexpectedly bumps into his childhood sweetheart and sets his heart on destroying her marriage. His equilibrium is further disturbed when his friends all decide to come and keep him company and Charles finds his seaside idyll severely threatened by his past. |
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The Salt Path by Raynor Winn |
In one devastating week, Raynor and her husband Moth lost their home of 20 years, just as a terminal diagnosis took away their future together. With nowhere else to go, they decided to walk the South West Coast Path: a 630-mile sea-swept trail from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall. This ancient, wind-battered landscape strips them of every comfort they had previously known. With very little money for food or shelter, Raynor and Moth carry everything on their backs and wild camp on beaches and clifftops. But slowly, with every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, the walk sets them on a remarkable journey. |
Raynor Winn reads an extract from The Salt Path [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHronYRPYFs] |
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The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce | When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else's life. |
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Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man by Joseph Heller |
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST, AS AN OLD MAN follows Pota's efforts to settle on a subject for his final work. In his search, Heller - through Pota - pays homage to his favourite authors and discusses the problems that have plagued so many writers whose later works failed to live up to the successes of their first: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, Jack London, Joseph Conrad, to name but a few. It is a rare and enthralling look into the artist's search for creativity, a search that comes at a point in life when impotence - both sexual and spiritual - has become a frustrating fact. Joseph Heller must have known that this would be his final novel; it stands as a fitting testament to the life and works of a leading light in modern literature. |
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When All is Said by Anne Griffin |
At the bar of a grand hotel in a small Irish town sits 84-year-old Maurice Hannigan. He's alone, as usual -though tonight is anything but. Pull up a stool and charge your glass, because Maurice is finally ready to tell his story. |
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Older People’s day is celebrated annually in October. It is a day recognised by the UN as an opportunity to celebrate and appreciate contributions and achievements of older people.
Windrush day
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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The Windrush Betrayal by Amelia Gentleman |
Paulette Wilson had always assumed she was British. She had spent most of her life in London working as a cook; she even worked in the House of Commons' canteen. How could someone who had lived in England since being a primary school pupil suddenly be classified as an illegal immigrant? It was only through Amelia Gentleman's tenacious investigative and campaigning journalism that it emerged that thousands were in Paulette's position. What united them was that they had all arrived in the UK from the Commonwealth as children in the 1950s and 1960s. In 'The Windrush Betrayal', Gentleman tells the story of the scandal and exposes deeply disturbing truths about modern Britain. |
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Homecoming by Colin Grant |
When Colin Grant was growing up in Luton in the 1960s, he learned not to ask his Jamaican parents why they had emigrated to Britain. 'We're here because we're here', his father would say, 'You have some place else to go?'. But now, seventy years after the arrival of ships such as the Windrush, this generation of pioneers are ready to tell their stories. 'Homecoming' draws on over a hundred first-hand interviews, archival recordings and memoirs by the women and men who came to Britain from the West Indies between the late 1940s and the early 1960s. |
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Familiar Stranger by Stuart Hall |
Stuart Hall grew up in a middle-class family in 1930s Jamaica, still then a British colony. He found himself caught between two worlds: the stiflingly respectable middle class in Kingston, who, in their habits and ambitions, measured themselves against the white planter elite; and working-class and peasant Jamaica, neglected and grindingly poor, though rich in culture, music and history. But as colonial rule was challenged, things began to change in Kingston and across the world. When, in 1951, a scholarship took him across the Atlantic to Oxford University, Hall encountered other Caribbean writers and thinkers, from Sam Selvon and George Lamming to V.S. Naipaul. He also forged friendships with the likes of Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson, with whom he worked in the formidable political movement, the New Left. |
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Windrush Songs by James Berry |
Contains poems which aim to give voice to the people who came on the first ships from the Caribbean, whose journeys held strange echoes of earlier sea voyages which brought ancestors from Africa to the slave plantations. This book explores different reasons his fellow travellers had for leaving the Caribbean when they rushed to get on the boat. |
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This Lovely City by Louise Hare |
The drinks are flowing. The music is playing. But the party can't last. With the Blitz over and London reeling from war, jazz musician Lawrie Matthews has answered England's call for help. Fresh off the Empire Windrush, he's taken a tiny room in south London lodgings, and has fallen in love with the girl next door. Touring Soho's music halls by night, pacing the streets as a postman by day, Lawrie has poured his heart into his new home - and it's alive with possibility. Until, one morning, he makes a terrible discovery. As the local community rallies, fingers of blame are pointed at those who had recently been welcomed with open arms. And, before long, the newest arrivals become the prime suspects in a tragedy which threatens to tear the city apart. |
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Small Island by Andrea Levy |
Returning to England after the war Gilbert Joseph is treated very differently now that he is no longer in an RAF uniform. Joined by his wife Hortense, he rekindles a friendship with Queenie who takes in Jamaican lodgers. Can their dreams of a better life in England overcome the prejudice they face? |
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The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon |
At Waterloo Station, hopeful new arrivals from the West Indies step off the boat train, ready to start afresh in 1950s London. There, homesick Moses Aloetta, who has already lived in the city for years, meets Henry 'Sir Galahad' Oliver and shows him the ropes. In this strange, cold and foggy city where the natives can be less than friendly at the sight of a black face, has Galahad met his Waterloo? But the irrepressible newcomer cannot be cast down. He and all the other lonely new Londoners - from shiftless Cap to Tolroy, whose family has descended on him from Jamaica - must try to create a new life for themselves. As pessimistic 'old veteran' Moses watches their attempts, they gradually learn to survive and come to love the heady excitements of London. |
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Voices of the Windrush Generation by David Matthews |
With over 20 first-hand accounts from men, women, and children of Windrush, this work sheds light on the true impact of one of the most disastrous and damaging scandals in recent memory, and gives a platform to those most affected - those whose voices have yet to be truly heard. Their stories provide intimate, personal and moving perspective on what it means to be black in Britain today, and the heartache the 'hostile environment policy' our government has created has meant for those who have called this country home for half a century and more. |
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Mother Country edited by Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff |
Britain was known as the Mother Country: a home away from home; a place that you would be welcomed with open arms; a land where you were free to build a new life. 70 years on, this remarkable book explores the reality of the Windrush experience. It is an honest, eye-opening, funny, moving and ultimately inspiring celebration of the lives of both ordinary and extraordinary people. |
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Books that help children stay safe, calm, connected and hopeful
Tell us what you think of the books on this list and suggest great books you would like to share: contact us libraries247@coventry.gov.uk [mailto:libraries247@coventry.gov.uk]
Why We Stay Home [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/downloads/file/34539/why_we_stay_home] by Samantha Harris and Devon Scott
Staying Home [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/downloads/file/34540/staying_home] by Sally Nicholls and Viviane Schwarz
My Hero is You [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/downloads/file/34541/my_hero_is_you] by Helen Patuck
Coronavirus [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/downloads/file/34542/coronavirus] by Elizabeth Jenner, Kate Wilson and Nia Roberts
Beating the Virus [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/downloads/file/34543/beating_the_virus] illustrated by Lucy Bergonzi
Scottish stories
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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Outlander by Diana Gabaldon |
Claire Randall is leading a double life. She has a husband in one century - and a lover in another. |
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Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks |
War raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. The Idirans fought for their faith, The Culture for its moral right to exist. There could be no surrender. |
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The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley | EVERYONE’S INVITED. EVERYONE’S A SUSPECT. In a remote hunting lodge, deep in the Scottish wilderness, old friends gather for New Year. The beautiful one. The golden couple. The volatile one. The new parents. The quiet one. The city boy. The outsider. The victim. Not an accident – a murder among friends. |
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Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee |
India, 1921. Haunted by his memories of the Great War, Captain Sam Wyndham is battling a serious addiction to opium that he must keep secret from his superiors in the Calcutta police force. When Sam is summoned to investigate a grisly murder, he is stunned at the sight of the body: he’s seen this before. Last night, in a drug addled haze, he stumbled across a corpse with the same ritualistic injuries. It seems like there’s a deranged killer on the loose. Unfortunately for Sam, the corpse was in an opium den and revealing his presence there could cost him his career. With the aid of his quick-witted Indian Sergeant, Surrender-not Banerjee, Sam must try to solve the two murders, all the while keeping his personal demons secret, before somebody else turns up dead. Set against the backdrop of the fervent fight for Indian independence, and rich with the atmosphere of 1920s Calcutta, Smoke and Ashes is the brilliant new historical mystery in this award-winning series. |
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Imagine a Country: Ideas for a Better Future by Val McDermid & Jo Sharp |
The first step on the road to change is to imagine possibility. This title offers visions of a new future from an astonishing array of Scottish voices, from comedians to economists, writers to musicians. Edited, curated and introduced by bestselling author Val McDermid and geographer Jo Sharp, it is a collection of ideas, dreams and ambitions, aiming to inspire change, hope and imagination. |
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Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart | It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life. She dreams of greater things: a house with its own front door and a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect, but false, teeth). But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest. Shuggie is different. Fastidious and fussy, he shares his mother's sense of snobbish propriety. The miners' children pick on him and adults condemn him as no' right. But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place. |
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The Quaker by Liam McIlvanney |
In the chilling new crime novel from award-winning author Liam McIlvanney, a serial killer stalks the streets of Glasgow and DI McCormack follows a trail of devastating secrets to uncover the truth. A city torn apart. Glasgow, 1969. In the grip of the worst winter for years, the city is brought to its knees by a killer whose name fills the streets with fear: the Quaker. He takes his next victim – the third woman from the same nightclub – and dumps her in the street like rubbish. A detective with everything to prove. The police are left chasing a ghost, with no new leads and no hope of catching their prey. DI McCormack, a talented young detective from the Highlands, is ordered to join the investigation. But his arrival is met with anger from a group of officers on the brink of despair. Soon he learns just how difficult life can be for an outsider. A killer who hunts in the shadows. When another woman is found murdered in a tenement flat, it’s clear the case is by no means over. From ruined backstreets to the dark heart of Glasgow, McCormack follows a trail of secrets that will change the city – and his life – forever… |
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The Elsewhere Emporium by Ross MacKenzie |
The Nowhere Emporium has been stolen. The shop from nowhere has vanished without a trace. Will it ever reappear? As they search for the lost Emporium, Daniel and Ellie encounter magical bookshops, deserted islands in the dead of night, and an array of magicians (both dead and alive). Meanwhile a dangerous force is attacking the Emporium from the inside, waiting for a chance to break free. |
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- Recommended by Visit Scotland [https://www.visitscotland.com/things-to-do/attractions/arts-culture/scottish-literature]
Celebrating diverse Chinese writing
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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The Wall of Storms by Ken Liu |
Dara is united under the Emperor Ragin, once known as Kuni Garu, the bandit king. There has been peace for six years, but the Dandelion Throne rests on bloody foundations - Kuni's betrayal of his friend, Mata Zyndu, the Hegemon. The Hegemon's rule was brutal and unbending - but he died well, creating a legend that haunts the new emperor, no matter what good he strives to do. Where war once forged unbreakable bonds between Kuni's inner circle, peace now gnaws at their loyalties. Where ancient wisdoms once held sway, a brilliant scholar promises a philosophical revolution. And from the far north, over the horizon, comes a terrible new threat. |
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Vagabonds by Jingfang Hao |
A century ago, the Martian colonies rebelled against the rule of Earth. Having declared an independent Martian Republic, the two planets evolved along separate trajectories, becoming two incompatible worlds vastly different in their scale, economy, socio-political system, and mostly importantly of all, ideals. Inhabitants of the two planets have come to view each other with suspicion and even hatred. Five years ago, with the apparent goal of reconciliation, the Martian government sent a group of students to Earth to study humanity's home planet and act as goodwill ambassadors from the Red Planet. Now the students have returned to Mars, accompanied by a group of prominent Earth delegates, to see if the two worlds can learn to co-exist in peace and friendship. Almost immediately, negotiations break down and old enmities erupt. |
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Becoming Madame Mao by Anchee Min |
From the young, unwanted daughter of a concubine, defiant in her refusal to have her feet bound, to the wayward, beautiful actress on the stages of Shanghai, to the ruthless, charismatic partner of the great revolutionary leader, Mao Zedong, Anchee Min moves seamlessly from the intimately personal to the broad sweep of world history in this fascinating portrait of an extraordinary woman driven by ambition, betrayal and a desperate need to be loved. Finely nuanced and always ambiguous, Min penetrates the myth surrounding Madame Mao with passion and sensitivity to pain a surprising picture of one of history's most vilified women. Rich with compressed drama and all the lyrical poetry of great opera, Becoming Madame Mao is a startling and moving achievement. |
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Where Reasons End by Yiyun Li |
A woman's teenage son takes his own life. It is incomprehensible. The woman is a writer, and so she attempts to comprehend her grief in the space she knows best: on the page, as an imagined conversation with the child she has lost. He is as sharp and funny and serious in death as he was in life itself, and he will speak back to her, unable to offer explanation or solace, but not yet, not quite, gone. 'Where Reasons End' is an extraordinary portrait of parenthood, in all its painful contradictions of joy, humour and sorrow, and of what it is to lose a child. |
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Death’s End by Cixin Liu | Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge. With human science advancing daily and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it seems that the two civilizations will soon be able to co-exist peacefully as equals without the terrible threat of mutually assured annihilation. But the peace has also made humanity complacent. Cheng Xin, an aerospace engineer from the early 21st century, awakens from hibernation in this new age. She brings with her knowledge of a long-forgotten program dating from the beginning of the Trisolar Crisis, and her very presence may upset the delicate balance between two worlds. Will humanity reach for the stars or die in its cradle? |
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Number One Chinese Restaurant by Lillian Li |
The popular Beijing Duck House in Rockville, Maryland, has been serving devoted regulars for decades, but behind the staff's professional smiles simmer tensions, heartaches and grudges from decades of bustling restaurant life. Owner Jimmy Han has ambitions for a new high-end fusion place, hoping to eclipse his late father's homely establishment. Jimmy's older brother, Johnny, is more concerned with restoring the dignity of the family name than his faltering relationship with his own teenage daughter, Annie. Nan and Ah-Jack, longtime Duck House employees, yearn to turn their 30-year friendship into something more, while Nan's son, Pat, struggles to stay out of trouble. When disaster strikes and Pat and Annie find themselves in a dangerous game that means tragedy for the Duck House, their families must finally confront the conflicts and loyalties simmering beneath the red and gold lanterns. |
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Sarong Party Girls by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan |
Just before her twenty-seventh birthday, Jazzy hatches a plan. Before the year is out, she and her best girlfriends will all have spectacular weddings to rich ang moh - Western expat - husbands, with Chanel babies to follow. As Jazzy - razor-sharp and vulgar, yet vulnerable - fervently pursues her quest to find a white husband, the contentious gender politics and class tensions thrumming beneath the shiny exterior of Singapore's glamorous nightclubs are revealed. Desperate to move up in Asia's financial and international capital, will Jazzy and her friends succeed? Vividly told in Singlish - colourful Singaporean English with its distinctive cadence and slang - Sarong Party Girls brilliantly captures the unique voice of a young, striving woman caught between worlds. With remarkable vibrancy and empathy, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan brings not only Jazzy, but her city of Singapore, to dazzling, dizzying life. |
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Flèche by Mary Jean Chan |
Much like the fencer who must constantly read and respond to her opponent's tactics during a fencing bout, this debut collection by Mary Jean Chan deftly examines relationships at once conflictual and tender. Flèche (the French word for 'arrow') is an offensive technique commonly used in épée, a competitive sport of the poet's teenage and young adult years. This cross-linguistic pun presents the queer, non-white body as both vulnerable ('flesh') and weaponised ('flèche') in public and private spaces. Themes of multilingualism, queerness, post-colonialism, psychoanalysis and cultural history emerge by means of an imagined personal, maternal and national biography, spoken by a polyphony of female voices. The result is a series of poems that are urgent and hard-hitting as Chan keeps her readers on their toes, dazzling and devastating them by turn. |
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The Day the Sun Died by Yan Lianke |
One dusk in early June, in a town deep in the Balou mountains, 14-year-old Li Niannian notices that something strange is going on. As the residents would usually be settling down for the night, instead they start appearing in the streets and fields. There are people everywhere. Li Niannian watches, mystified. But then he realises the people are dreamwalking, carrying on with their daily business as if the sun hadn't already gone down. And before too long, as more and more people succumb, in the black of night all hell breaks loose. Set over the course of one night, 'The Day the Sun Died' pits chaos and darkness against the sunny optimism of the 'Chinese dream' promoted by President Xi Jinping. We are thrown into the middle of an increasingly strange and troubling waking nightmare as Li Niannian and his father struggle to save the town and persuade the beneficent sun to rise again. |
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My Enemy's Cherry Tree by Wang Ting-Kuo |
A man who has come from nothing, from poverty and loss, finds himself a beautiful wife, his dream love. When she vanishes without a trace, he sets up a small cafeÌ in her favourite spot on the edge of the South China Sea, hoping she'll return. Instead, he is confronted by the man he suspects may be responsible for everything he has suffered. |
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Rejection Proof: How to Beat Fear and Become Invincible by Jia Jiang |
Jia Jiang came to the United States from China with the dream of being the next Bill Gates. But despite early success in the corporate world, his first attempt to pursue his entrepreneurial dream ended in rejection. Jia was crushed, and spiralled into a period of deep depression. He realised that his fear of rejection was a bigger obstacle than any single rejection would ever be, and he needed to find a way to cope with being told no without letting it destroy him. Thus was born his '100 days of rejection' experiment, during which he willfully sought rejection on a daily basis. Jia learned that even the most preposterous wish may be granted if you ask in the right way, and shares the secret of successful asking, how to pick targets, and how to tell when an initial no can be converted into something positive. |
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Wild Swans by Jung Chang |
Few books have had such an impact as Wild Swans: a popular bestseller and a critically acclaimed history of China that opened up the country to the world. |
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Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah |
They discriminate against her and make her feel unwanted, yet she yearns and continuously strives for her parents' love. Her stepmother is vindictive and cruel and her father dismissive. Jung-ling grows up to be an academic child, with a natural ability for writing. Only her aunt and grandfather offer her any love and kindness. The story is of survival in the light of the mental and physical cruelty of her stepmother and the disloyalty of her siblings. Jung-ling blossoms in spite of everything and the story ends as her father agrees to let her study in England. |
Welsh stories
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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Broken Ghost by Niall Griffiths |
A Welsh community is drawn together and blown apart by a strange vision in the mountains: the huge spectre of a woman floating over a ridge. The people who live here in these mountains already have their own demons - drink, drugs, domestic violence, psychoses - but each character has a different experience of this strange apparition, a different reaction, and for some it will change everything. Is it a collective hallucination? A meteorological phenomenon? Whatever it is, they all saw something, early one morning on the shores of a mountain lake, something that will awaken in them powers and passions and, perhaps, a possibility of healing these broken people in a broken country. |
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Never Greener by Ruth Jones |
Available in e-book Ruth Jones makes her debut with a witty and wise story of life's second chances and the dangers of taking them. With her trademark warmth, humanity and heart, she shows us the dangers of looking for something better, and forgetting that the best might not be in our past or yet to come - but right where we are now. |
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The Infinite by Patience Agbabi |
Available in e-audiobook We fight crime across time. Leaplings, children born on the 29th of February, are very rare. Rarer still are Leaplings with The Gift - the ability to leap through time. Elle has The Gift, but she's never used it. Until now. On her 12th birthday, Elle and her best friend Big Ben travel to the Time Squad Centre in 2048. Elle has received a mysterious warning from the future. Other Leaplings are disappearing in time - and not everyone at the centre can be trusted. Soon Elle's adventure becomes more than a race through time. It's a race against time. She must fight to save the world as she knows it - before it ceases to exist. |
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The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters |
There came the splash of water and the rub of heels as Mrs Barber stepped into the tub. After that there was a silence, broken only by the occasional echoey plink of drips from the tap. Frances had been picturing her lodgers in purely mercenary terms - as something like two great waddling shillings. But this, she thought, was what it really meant to have paying guests: this odd, unintimate proximity, this rather peeled-back moment, where the only thing between herself and a naked Mrs Barber was a few feet of kitchen and a thin scullery door. An image sprang into her head: that round flesh, crimsoning in the heat. |
An interview with Sarah Waters, author of The Paying Guests [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gduzWfGxnE] |
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The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies |
This novel traces a perilous wartime romance as it explores the bonds of love and duty that hold us to family, country, and ultimately, our fellow man. |
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Thinking Again by Jan Morris |
Available in e-book Necrophilia is not one of my failings, but I do like graveyards and memorial stones and such... Following the publication In My Mind's Eye, her acclaimed first volume of diaries, a Radio 4 Book of the Week in 2018, Jan Morris continued to write her daily musings. From her home in the North West of Wales, the author of classics such as Venice and Trieste cast her eye over modern life in all its stupidity and glory. From her daily thousand paces to the ongoing troubles of Brexit, from her enduring love for America to the wonders of the natural world, and from the vagaries and ailments of old age to the beauty of youth, she once again displays her determined belief in embracing life and creativity - all kindness and marmalade. |
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Last Tango in Aberystwyth by Malcolm Pryce |
Available in e-book To Dean Morgan who taught at the Faculty of Undertaking, it was just a place to get course materials. But both worlds collide when the Dean checks into the notorious bed and breakfast ghetto and mistakenly receives a suitcase intended for a ruthless druid assassin. Soon he is running for his life, lost in a dark labyrinth of druid speakeasies and toffee apple dens, where every spinning wheel tells the story of a broken heart, and where the Dean's own heart is hopelessly in thrall to a porn star known as Judy Juice. |
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Resistance by Owen Sheers |
In an imagined alternative 1944, Sarah Lewis, a 26-year-old farmer's wife, wakes to find her husband has gone. She is not alone, as all the other women in the Welsh border valley of Olchon wake to discover their husbands have also disappeared. |
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The Man from St Petersburg by Ken Follett |
Available in e-book and e-audiobook The Man From St Petersburg is a dark tale of family secrets and political consequences. Ken Follett's masterful storytelling brings to life the danger of a world on the brink of war. It is just before the outbreak of World War I and Britain must enlist the aid of Russia. Czar Nicholas's nephew is to visit London for secret naval talks with Lord Walden, who has lived in Russia and has a Russian wife, Lydia. But there are other people who are interested in the arrival of Prince Alexei: the Waldens' only daughter, Charlotte - willful, idealistic, and with an awakening social conscience; Basil Thompson, head of the Special Branch; and, above all, Feliks Kschessinky, the ruthless Russian anarchist. No one could have foretold that Lydia should recognize Feliks, or that she might put her own daughter's life at risk for his sake. As the secret negotiations progress, the destinies of these characters become ineluctably enmeshed. And as Europe prepares for the catastrophe of war, the final private tragedy which will shatter the complacency of the Waldens is acted out. |
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According to YES by Dawn French |
The Foreign Land of the Very Wealthy - otherwise known as Manhattan's Upper East Side - has its own rigid code of behaviour. So when an unconventional thirty-eight-year-old primary school teacher from England bounces into their inflexible lives with a secret sorrow and a heart as big as the city, nobody realises she hasn't read the rule book. And for the Wilder-Bingham family, whose lives begin to unravel thread by thread, the consequences are explosive. |
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Do Not Disturb by Claire Douglas |
Could your dream home be your worst nightmare? After what happened in London, Kirsty needs a fresh start with her family. And running a guesthouse in the Welsh mountains sounds idyllic. But then their first guest arrives. Selena is the last person Kirsty wants to see. It's seventeen years since she tore everything apart. Why has she chosen now to walk back into Kirsty's life? Is Selena running from something too? Or is there an even darker reason for her visit? Because Kirsty knows that once you invite trouble into your home, it can be murder getting rid of it. |
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Twelve of the best books set in Wales [https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/literary/books-in-wales-cymru-poetry-landscape].
The best Welsh books of the decade [https://www.walesartsreview.org/the-best-welsh-books-of-the-decade/].
Feel good books celebrating resilient women
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and Other Lies by Scarlett Curtis |
A collection of writing from extraordinary women, from Hollywood actresses to teenage activists, each telling the story of their personal relationship with feminism, this book explores what it means to be a woman from every point of view. Often funny, sometimes surprising, and always inspiring, this book aims to bridge the gap between the feminist hashtag and the scholarly text by giving women the space to explain how they actually feel about feminism. This book contains strong language and some adult content. |
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The Truths we Hold: an American Journey by Kamala Harris |
From Vice President Kamala Harris, one of America's most inspiring political leaders, a book about the core truths that unite us, and the long struggle to discern what those truths are and how best to act upon them, in her own life and across the life of our country. |
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Women and Leadership by Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala |
Women make up less than 10 per cent of national leaders, and behind this lies a pattern of unequal access to power. In conversation with some of the world's most powerful and interesting women, Women and Leadership explores gender bias and asks why there aren't more women in leadership roles? Using current research as a starting point, Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala form questions and hypotheses, then test them on the lived experiences of women leaders such as Jacinda Ardern, Hillary Clinton, Christine Lagarde, Michelle Bachelet and Theresa May. |
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Dr Wangari Maathai Plants a Forest: Rebel Girls |
From the world of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls comes a historical novel based on the life of Dr. Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist and environmentalist from Kenya. Then Wangari grows up and goes away to school, and things start changing at home. Farmers chop down the trees. Landslides bury the stream. The soil becomes overworked and dry, and nothing will grow. People go hungry. After all her studies, Dr. Wangari Maathai realizes there is a simple solution to these problems: plant a forest full of trees. |
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The Book of Awesome Women by Becca Anderson |
Rebels, trailblazers, and visionaries who shaped our history...and our future! |
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Skint Estate: notes from the poverty line by Cash Carraway |
Cash Carraway is a single mum living in temporary accommodation. She's been moved around the system since she left home at 16. She's also been called a stain on society. And she's caught in a poverty trap. 'Skint Estate' is the hard-hitting debut memoir about impoverishment, loneliness and violence - set against a grim landscape of sink estates, police cells, refuges and peepshows. Told frankly, but with a swaggerous eye roll and a smirk, Cash delves into the reality of family estrangement, mental illness, alcoholism and domestic violence in working-class Britain today. |
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Somebody I Used to Know by Wendy Mitchell |
In this phenomenal memoir - the first of its kind - Wendy grapples with questions most of us have never had to consider. What do you value when loss of memory reframes what you have, how you have lived and what you stand to lose? What happens when you can no longer recognise your own daughters or even, on the foggiest of days, yourself? Philosophical, intensely personal and ultimately hopeful, "Somebody I Used to Know" gets to the very heart of what it means to be human. It is both a heartrending tribute to the woman Wendy used to be and a brave affirmation of the woman dementia has seen her become. |
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Call me Red: a Shepherd’s Journey by Hannah Jackson |
In this uplifting and inspirational memoir, Hannah shares how she broke the stereotypes of her 'townie' beginnings, took risks and faced up to the challenges of being a young woman in a male-dominated industry, and followed her heart to become the Red Shepherdess. But behind the beautiful landscape, talented sheepdogs and eye-catching red hair was a steep learning curve. The physically and mentally demanding conditions she faced as she chased her dreams to build her own Cumbrian farm taught Hannah the values that hold true, including community, leadership, patience and resilience. | None |
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On This Day She: putting women back in history, one day at a time by Tania Hershman, Ailsa Holland, and Jo Bell |
From Beyoncé to Doria Shafik, Queen Elizabeth I to Lillian Bilocca, On This Day She sets out to redress this imbalance and give voice to both those already deemed female icons, alongside others whom the history books have failed to include: the good, the bad and everything in between - this is a record of human existence at its most authentic. |
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Fears to Fierce by Brita Fernandez Schmidt |
Brita Fernandez Schmidt has spent 25 years championing women's rights across the world, nurturing her own fierce and inspiring others to do the same. Through a combination of guidance, storytelling and practical tools, her rallying call in Fears to Fierce will inspire you to realise your purpose and potential, ignite your fierce and create the life you have been dreaming of. |
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She Speaks: women speeches that changed the world from Pankhurst to Thunberg – Yvette Cooper |
Looking at lists of the greatest speeches of all time, you might think that powerful oratory is the preserve of men. But the truth is very different - countless brave and bold women have used their voices to inspire change, transform lives and radically alter history. |
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Wuhan Diary: dispatches from a quarantined city by Fang Fang |
A fascinating eyewitness account of events as they unfold, Wuhan Diary captures the challenges of daily life and the changing moods and emotions of being quarantined without reliable information. Fang Fang finds solace in small domestic comforts and is inspired by the courage of friends, health professionals and volunteers, as well as the resilience and perseverance of Wuhan's nine million residents.
But, by claiming the writer´s duty to record she also speaks out against social injustice, abuse of power, and other problems which impeded the response to the epidemic and gets herself embroiled in online controversies because of it. |
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How to be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis |
On a pilgrimage to 'Wuthering Heights' with her best friend, Samantha Ellis found herself arguing about which heroine she liked best: Jane Eyre or Cathy Earnshaw. She was all for wild, free, passionate Cathy, but her friend found Cathy, a snob who betrays Heathcliff for Edgar - while Jane makes her own way. And that's when she realised that she'd been trying to be Cathy when she should have been trying to be Jane. So, she decided to look again at all the heroines she'd loved through her life, from her earliest obsessions with the Little Mermaid and Anne of Green Gables; and then on to Scarlett O'Hara, Sylvia Plath, the Dolls (of the Valley); and later Riders, Buffy, Flora Poste from 'Cold Comfort Farm' and many, many more. |
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Irish stories and Irish authors
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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The Green Road by Anne Enright | The children of Rosaleen Madigan leave the west of Ireland for lives they never could have imagined in Dublin, New York and various third-world towns. In her early old age their difficult, wonderful mother announces that she's decided to sell the house and divide the proceeds. Her adult children come back for one last Christmas, with the feeling that their childhoods are being erased, their personal history bought and sold. |
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Don’t Touch my Hair by Emma Dabiri |
Available in e-book and e-audiobook
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Rory and Ita by Roddy Doyle |
Available in e-book
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The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue |
Available in e-book
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Dracula by Bram Stoker |
Available in e-audiobook
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Normal People by Sally Rooney |
Available in e-book
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Brooklyn by Colm Toibin | In a small town in the south-east of Ireland in the 1950s, Eilis Lacey is among many of her generation who cannot find work at home. So when she is offered a job in America, she leaves her family to start a new life in Brooklyn. | |
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Postscript by Cecelia Ahern |
Available in e-book
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A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy |
Available in e-audiobook
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The Wych Elm by Tana French |
Available in e-book
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The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne |
Cyril Avery is not a real Avery - or at least that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl |
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Our Little Cruelties by Liz Nugent |
Available in e-book
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Books about England and the English
All the books are available to read for free online [http://www.coventry.gov.uk/ebooks] and in libraries [http://www.coventry.gov.uk/librarycatalogue].
Tell us what you think of the books on this list and suggest great books you would like to share: contact us libraries247@coventry.gov.uk [mailto:libraries247@coventry.gov.uk]
| Book Cover | Book Title and Author | Book Introduction | Websites for More Information |
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This Green and Pleasant Land by Ayisha Malik |
Available in e-book and e-audiobook Accountant Bilal Hasham and his journalist wife Mariam plod along contentedly in the sleepy, chocolate box English village they've lived in for ten years. Then Bilal is summoned to his mother's bedside in Birmingham. Mrs Sakeena Hasham knows she is not long for this world. She has a final request. Instead of whispering her prayers in her dying moments, she instructs her son: you must go home to your village, and you must build a Mosque. Mariam is horrified. The villagers are outraged. How can a grieving Bilal choose between honouring his beloved mum's last wish and preserving everything held dear in the village he calls home? But it turns out home means different things to different people. |
Ayisha talks about the book [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSB2T4FpnqA] |
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The Time Travellers Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer |
We think of Queen Elizabeth I as 'Gloriana': the most powerful English woman in history. But what was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What would you eat? What would you wear? |
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Who Owns England? by Guy Shrubsole |
Available in e-audiobook Who owns England? Behind this simple question lies this country's oldest and darkest secret. This is the history of how England's elite came to own our land - from aristocrats and the church to businessmen and corporations - and an inspiring manifesto for how we can take control back. |
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Middlemarch by George Eliot |
Available in e-book and e-audiobook Dorothea is bright, beautiful and rebellious. Lydgate is the ambitious new doctor in town. Both of them long to make a positive difference in the world. But their stories do not proceed as expected and both they, and the other inhabitants of Middlemarch, must struggle to reconcile themselves to their fates and find their places in the world. Middlemarch contains all of life: the rich and the poor, the conventional and the radical, literature and science, politics and romance, but above all it gives us a vision of what lies within the human heart, the roar on the other side of silence. |
George Eliot Fellowship [https://www.georgeeliot.org/] |
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Adventures on the High Teas by Stuart Maconie |
Everyone talks about Middle England. Sometimes they mean something bad and sometimes they mean something good. But just where and what is Middle England? Stuart Maconie didn't know either, so he packed his Thermos and sandwiches and set off to find out. |
Stuart Maconie reads from his book [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwPNU4Z2IuA] |
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Three Great English Victories by Bernard Cornwell |
Available in e-book Harlequin 1342. The English, led by Edward III, are laying waste to the French countryside. The archers, the common men, are England’s secret weapon. The French know them as Harlequins. Thomas Hookton is one of these archers. But he is also on a personal mission: to avenge his father’s death and retrieve a stolen relic. Thomas begins a quest that will lead him to finally where the two armies face each other at Crecy. 1356 The Hundred Years War rages on and the bloodiest battles are yet to be fought. Across France, towns stand alert to danger. The English army is invading again and the French are hunting them down. Thomas of Hookton, an English archer, is under orders to seek out a lost sword, said to grant certain victory. As the outnumbered English army becomes trapped near the town of Poitiers, Thomas, his men and his sworn enemies will meet in one great and bloody battle. Azincourt Azincourt, fought on 25 October 1415, on St Crispin's Day, is one of the best known battles of all time. This is the breathtaking story of this momentous battle and its aftermath. From the varying viewpoints of nobles, peasants, archers, and horsemen, Azincourt skilfully brings to life the hours of relentless fighting, the desperation of an army crippled by disease and the exceptional bravery of the English soldiers. |
Bernard Cornwell website [http://www.bernardcornwell.net/] |
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Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah |
Available in e-book Life is not safe for Alem. His father is Ethiopian, his mother Eritrean. Their countries are at war, and Alem is welcome in neither place. |
The Guardian book review [https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/nov/23/refugee-boy-benjamin-zephaniah-review] |
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The Grim Smile of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett |
Available in e-book British author Arnold Bennett returns to his native stomping grounds -- the Potteries district of England's West Midlands region -- with this collection of insightful, darkly witty stories about the denizens of the fictionalized "Five Towns." From love gone wrong to mischief and misadventure, these sharply drawn tales run the gamut. |
Arnold Bennett society [https://www.arnoldbennettsociety.org.uk/] |
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Middle England by Jonathan Coe |
Available in e-audiobook Set in the Midlands and London over the last eight years, Jonathan Coe follows a brilliantly vivid cast of characters through a time of immense change and disruption in Britain. There are the early married years of Sophie and Ian who disagree about the future of Britain and, possibly, the future of their relationship; Sophie's grandfather whose final act is to send a postal vote for the European referendum; Doug, the political commentator, whose young daughter despairs of his lack of political nous and Doug's Remaining Tory politician partner who is savaged by the crazed trolls of Twitter. And within all these lives is the story of England itself: a story of nostalgia and irony; of friendship and rage, humour and intense bewilderment. |
Jonathan Coe talks about his book [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMN1tsMy9xI] |
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The Five by Hallie Rubenhold |
Available in e-book and e-audiobook Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates, they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped people-traffickers. |
Hallie tells us about her book [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-IAn0rLqKQ] Review by the Guardian [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/13/the-five-by-hallie-rubenhold-review-the-untold-lives-of-the-rippers-victims] |
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Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson |
Available in e-book With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson—the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent—brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries. |
Highlights from Bill Bryson’s book [https://jorgesette.com/2019/03/18/bragging-about-english-highlights-from-bill-brysons-the-mother-tongue/] |
British Science Week
Join us in celebrating British Science Week
Get involved at www.britishscienceweek.org [http://www.britishscienceweek.org]
This year’s theme is Growth
All the books are available to read for free online [http://www.coventry.gov.uk/ebooks] and in libraries [http://www.coventry.gov.uk/librarycatalogue].
Tell us what you think of the books on this list and suggest great books you would like to share: contact us libraries247@coventry.gov.uk [mailto:libraries247@coventry.gov.uk]
Check out these great titles
Adult booklist
- A Life on Our Planet by David Attenborough
- Human Universe by Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen
- Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life by Dr Helen Czerski
- Vaxxers by Sarah Gilbert
- Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar
- The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee
- What if?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
- To Be a Machine by Mark O’Connell
- Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini
- Headstrong by Rachel Swaby
Children's booklist
- Agents of the Wild series of books by Jennifer Bell and Alice V Lickens
- Once Upon a Star: a Poetic Journey Through Space by James Carter
- Grow: Secrets of Our DNA by Nicola Davies
- Agent Asha: Mission Shark Bytes by Sophie Deen
- Space Oddity by Christopher Edge
- The Plesiosaur’s Neck by Jonathan Emmett and Dr Adam Smith
- Lightning Mary by Anthea Simmons
- Nano: the Spectacular Science of the Very (Very) Small by Jess Wade
Green book list for children and young adults
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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Last Tree in the City by Peter Carnavas |
For ages 3+ Edward's city is a place of concrete and cars, a world without colour. Every day, Edward takes himself to a part of the city that is not like the city at all - the last tree in the city. He is happy there, until one day, the tree is gone. Edward (and his duck) eventually figure out a unique way to make the city more beautiful than it ever was before. |
Listen to the story [https://youtu.be/FsP12TaNxXY]. |
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Cyril the Lonely Cloud by Tim Hopgood |
For ages 3+ This beautiful and poignant story of a cloud called Cyril conveys positive messages about the life and colour that water brings to our world. |
Watch Tim drawing Frankie from one of his other stories [https://youtu.be/xOGPB1rzX90]. |
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The Wonders of Nature by Ben Hoare, Angela Rizza and Daniel Long |
For ages 7+ This compendium of amazing animals, plants, rocks and minerals, and microorganisms will wow children and many adults, too. With 100 remarkable items from the natural world, from orchids to opals and lichens to lizards, everyone will find something to be captivated by. |
Find out more about illustrator Angela Rizza in her studio [https://youtu.be/yifI0KQSp4w]. |
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Hope Jones Saves the World by Josh Lacey |
For ages 7+ Hope Jones' New Year's resolution is to give up plastic, and she's inspiring others to do the same with her website hopejonessavestheworld.com. When she realises her local supermarket seems to stock more unnecessary plastic than food, she makes it her mission to do something about it. She may be just one ten-year-old with a homemade banner, but with enough determination, maybe Hope Jones really can save the world. |
Listen to Josh read from one of his other Hope Jones books [https://youtu.be/sER6DR-IwuM]. |
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Greta’s Story by Valentina Camerini |
For ages 9+ Greta Thunberg is the Swedish schoolgirl who dared to stand up to global inaction on climate change. What began as one girl's personal plea for environmental responsibility has now become a worldwide movement, with millions of followers also demanding changes to the ways in which we exploit our planet's natural resources. This book shares Greta's life-affirming story, showing how we can all join her and help to change the world. |
Find out more about how Greta became famous [https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/47467038]. |
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October, October by Katya Balen | .
For ages 9+ October and her dad live in the woods. They know the trees and the rocks and the lake and stars like best friends. They live in the woods and they are wild. And that's the way it is. Until the year October turns eleven. That's the year October rescues a baby owl. It's the year Dad falls out of the biggest tree in their woods. The year the woman who calls herself October's mother comes back. The year everything changes. This book is a feast for the senses, filled with the woodsmoke smell of crisp autumn mornings and the sound of wellies squelching in river mud. And, as October fights to find the space to be wild in the whirling chaos of the world beyond the woods, it is also a feast for the soul. |
Hear Katya talk about her books [https://youtu.be/nzk_LIxemOs]. |
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Green Rising by Lauren James |
For young adults Gabrielle is a climate-change activist who shoots to fame when she becomes the first teenager to display a supernatural ability to grow plants from her skin. Hester is the millionaire daughter of an oil tycoon and the face of the family business. Theo comes from a long line of fishermen, but his parents are struggling to make ends meet. On the face of it, the three have very little in common. Yet when Hester and Theo join Gabrielle and legions of other teenagers around the world in developing the strange new 'Greenfingers' power, it becomes clear that to use their ability for good, they'll need to learn to work together. |
See Lauren talk about Green Rising [https://youtu.be/JZrx9YpguxU]. |