''My name is August.
I won''t describe to you what I look like.
Whatever you''re thinking, it''s probably worse.'' Ten-year-old August Pullman wants to be ordinary. He does ordinary things. He eats ice-cream. He plays on his Xbox. He feels ordinary - inside.
But Auggie is far from ordinary. Born with a terrible facial abnormality, he has been home-schooled by his parents his entire life, in an attempt to protect him from the cruelty of the outside world. Now, Auggie''s parents are sending him to a real school. Can he convince his new classmates that he''s just like them, underneath it all?
Narrated by Auggie and the people around him whose lives he touches, Wonder is a frank, funny, astonishingly moving debut to be read in one sitting, pass on to others, and remember long after the final page.
Fast, tense, thrilling - and timely: this will happen one day. Highly recommended' LEE CHILD 'A dazzling debut' Marcel Berlins, The Times THE TIMES THRILLER OF THE MONTH THE GLOBAL MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER PUBLISHED IN 15 LANGUAGES WORLDWIDE A 21ST-CENTURY HIGH-CONCEPT DISASTER THRILLER *************************************** Tomorrow will be too late.
A cold night in Milan, Piero Manzano wants to get home.
Then the traffic lights fail. Manzano is thrown from his Alfa as cars pile up. And not just on this street - every light in the city is dead.
Across Europe, controllers watch in disbelief as electricity grids collapse.
Plunged into darkness, people are freezing. Food and water supplies dry up. The death toll soars.
Former hacker and activist Manzano becomes a prime suspect. But he is also the only man capable of finding the real attackers.
Can he bring down a major terrorist network before it's too late?
************************ 'Part Dan Brown-style chase and part eco-thriller, this debut-a bestseller in Germany-will get people talking' - Booklist US
An exotic stranger opens a chocolate boutique in a French village at the beginning of Lent, the traditional season for self-denial, dividing the community and causing a conflict that escalates into a "Church not Chocolate" battle.
Nine year old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no-one to play with.
THE RUNAWAY SUNDAY TIMES NO.1 BESTSELLER AND THRILLER OF THE YEAR, NOW A MAJOR FILM STARRING EMILY BLUNT ''Really great suspense novel. Kept me up most of the night. The alcoholic narrator is dead perfect'' STEPHEN KING Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She''s even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. ''Jess and Jason'', she calls them. Their life - as she sees it - is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy. And then she sees something shocking. It''s only a minute until the train moves on, but it''s enough. Now everything''s changed. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she''s only watched from afar. Now they''ll see; she''s much more than just the girl on the train...
An unapologetic novel of ideas which is also wise, funny and paced like a thriller' Observer The magnificent new novel by bestselling award-winning Kate Atkinson In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past for ever.
Ten years later, now a producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat. A bill of reckoning is due, and she finally begins to realize that there is no action without consequence.
Transcription is a work of rare depth and texture, a bravura modern novel of extraordinary power, wit and empathy. It is a triumphant work of fiction from one of this country's most exceptional writers.
'How vehemently most novelists will wish to produce a masterpiece as good' Telegraph
A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK AUTUMN 2016 'Absolutely heart-breaking. One of the best books I've ever read' DINAH JEFFERIES, author of The Tea-Planter's Wife 'Compelling, elegant and insightful' Observer 'Beautifully wrought, tender, heartbreaking' Sunday Express 5/5 'Moving, fascinating' Times 'A tender and absorbing love story' Daily Mail 'Unsentimental and affecting' Sunday Times 'Exquisitely good' Metro 1911: Inside an asylum at the edge of the Yorkshire moors, where men and women are kept apart by high walls and barred windows, there is a ballroom vast and beautiful.
For one bright evening every week they come together and dance.
When John and Ella meet It is a dance that will change two lives forever.
Set over the heatwave summer of 1911, the end of the Edwardian era, THE BALLROOM is a historical love story. It tells a page-turning tale of dangerous obsession, of madness and sanity, and of who gets to decide which is which.
NEW UPDATED EDITION Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? Non! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French. Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? Non! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers. Did the French write "God Save the Queen"? Non! But that''s what they claim. Ten centuries'' worth of French historical ''facts'' bite the dust as Stephen Clarke looks at what has really been going on since 1066 ... Featuring new annoyances - both historical and recent - inflicted on the French, including Napoleon''s "banned" chamber pot, Louis XIV''s painful operation, Anglo-French jibes during the 2012 London Olympics, French niggles about William and Kate''s royal wedding, and much more ...
All Wingos share one heritage... shrimp fishing, poverty and the memory of a terrifying event - the source of Tom Wingo's self-hatred and his sister Savannah's despair. To save himself and Savannah, Tom confronts the past with the help of New York psychologist Susan Lowenstein. This work chronicles the family of Wingos of Colleton, South Carolina.
A young secretary forsakes Cleveland for San Francisco, tumbling headlong into a brave new world of laundromat Lotharios, cut throat debutantes, and Jockey Shorts dance contests. The saga that ensues is manic, romantic, and outrageous.
Whitbread Book of the Year, 1995. Ruby was born while her father was in the pub. Her mother, Bunty, had never wanted to marry him, and dreamt of being swept off to America by a romantic hero, but instead, was stuck in a flat with her three children. This is the family's story.
Wondering if Into the Water could be as good as The Girl on the Train? It's better. A triumph.' Clare Mackintosh, bestselling author of I Let You Go The addictive No. 1 psychological thriller from the author of The Girl on the Train, the runaway Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller and global phenomenon.
***** Just days before her sister plunged to her death, Jules ignored her call.
Now Nel is dead. They say she jumped. And Jules must return to her sister's house to care for her daughter, and to face the mystery of Nel's death.
But Jules is afraid. Of her long-buried memories, of the old Mill House, of this small town that is drowning in secrecy . . .
And of knowing that Nel would never have jumped.
***** 'Paula Hawkins does it again! Into the Water is a moody and chilling thriller that will have you madly turning the pages. A gripping, compulsive read!' Shari Lapena, bestselling author of The Couple Next Door 'Fans of Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train rejoice: her second novel Into the Water is even better. A brilliantly plotted and fast-paced juggernaut of a read that hurtles to a heart-stopping conclusion.' Good Housekeeping (Book of the Month) 'A twisting whodunnit that leaves you both gratified and surprised (also the best kind) . . . Not just a brilliant thriller but also a furious feminist howl . . .' Stylist 'Dark, gothic and twisty as a snake in the grass. I read it in one sitting.' Erin Kelly, author of He Said, She Said 'Into the Water is superb. Sinister layers, complex characters and a plot that'll keep you guessing.' Ali Land, author of Good Me, Bad Me
Merging family saga with a fluid sense of time and an extraordinarily vivid sense of history at its most human level. A dizzying and dazzling tour de force' Daily Mail WINNER OF THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD: the acclaimed number one bestselling novel.
What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?
During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath.
During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.
What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?
Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. With wit and compassion, Kate Atkinson finds warmth even in life's bleakest moments, and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Here she is at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves.
Self-published in France, and a subsequent bestseller, the hilarious story of a year in the life of a young Englishman abroad. Less quaint than 'A Year in Provence', less chocolatey than 'Chocolat', 'A Year in the Merde' will tell you how to get served by the grumpiest Parisian waiter; how to make the perfect vinaigrette every time; how to make amour - not war; and how not to buy a house in the French countyside.
**WINNER of the EU Prize for Literature** 'One of the most exciting and original Northern Irish writers of her generation' SUNDAY TIMES 'Gripping, affecting, surprising. I inhaled it' LISA MCINERNEY 'Captivating, intelligent and courageous' IRISH TIMES 'Spectacular. At once grittily real, wildly magical and insanely alluring - a siren-song of a novel. DONAL RYAN 'Jan Carson seems to have invented a new Belfast in this gripping, surprising, exhilarating novel. RODDY DOYLE 'A brilliant, wry novel, fizzing with energy.' BARNEY NORRIS Dr Jonathan Murray fears his new-born daughter is not as harmless as she seems.
Sammy Agnew is wrestling with his dark past, and fears the violence in his blood lurks in his son, too.
The city is in flames and the authorities are losing control. As matters fall into frenzy, and as the lines between fantasy and truth, right and wrong, begin to blur, who will these two fathers choose to protect?
Dark, propulsive and thrillingly original, this tale of fierce familial love and sacrifice fizzes with magic and wonder.
The Berry family are different. Love abounds - both healthy and incestuous. It is the overwhelming desire of the Berry father to run a hotel, which he does, with dubious success, in both a former girls' school in New Hampshire, and in Vienna. This is a conventional family saga.
Set among the apple orchards of rural Maine, it is a peverse world in which Homer Wells' odyssey begins. As the oldest unadopted offspring at St Cloud's orphanage, he learns about the skills which, one way or another, help young and not-so-young women, from Wilbur Larch, the orphanage's founder -- a man of rare compassion and an addiction to ether.
Ahead lay almost 2,200 miles of remote mountain wilderness filled with bears, moose, bobcats, rattlesnakes, poisonous plants, disease-bearing tics, the occasional chuckling murderer and - perhaps most alarming of all - people whose favourite pastime is discussing the relative merits of the external-frame backpack.
Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This book is a story of: a girl; an accordionist; some fanatical Germans; a Jewish fist fighter; and quite a lot of thievery.
Remembrance Day 1920: A wartime secret connects three women's lives: Hettie, whose brother won't speak; Evelyn, who still grieves for her lost lover; and Ada, who has never received an official letter about her sons' death, and is still waiting for him to come home. As the mystery that binds them begins to unravel, far away, in the fields of Northern France, the Unknown Soldier embarks on his journey home. The mood of the nation is turning towards the future - but can these three women ever let go of the past?
A lovely novel, delicately drawn, with characters that really linger in the mind and memory. A clever and compelling blend of realism and idealism - I got really swept up in it.' Laura Barnett, author of The Versions of Us You never forget the one that got away. But what if 'what could have been' is yet to come?
* Daniel was the first boy to make Alison a mix tape.
But that was years ago and Ali hasn't thought about him in a very long time. Even if she had, she might not have called him 'the one that got away'; after all, she'd been the one to run.
Then Dan's name pops up on her phone, with a link to a song from their shared past.
For two blissful minutes, Alison is no longer an adult in Adelaide with temperamental daughters; she is sixteen in Sheffield, dancing in her skin-tight jeans. She cannot help but respond in kind.
And so begins a new mix tape.
Ali and Dan exchange songs - some new, some old - across oceans and time zones, across a lifetime of different experiences, until one of them breaks the rules and sends a message that will change everything...
Because what if 'what could have been' is yet to come?
__________ PRAISE FOR MIX TAPE:
'Gorgeous novel about first love . . . guaranteed to make you think of your first love - and perhaps what might have been' Nina Pottell, Prima 'This grown-up love story is gorgeously written and romantic without being sentimental' Good Housekeeping 'Deftly written romantic novel' Red 'Touching, peppily nostalgic love story' Sainsbury's Magazine 'Funny, moving, relatable' Heat 'Fantastic, moving, beautiful novel' Daily Mail 'This tender tale of second chances...is a nostalgic delight' Sunday Mirror 'A brilliantly nostalgic story, with a great sound track' Best Magazine
After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson took the decision to move back to the USA. Before leaving his much-loved home in North Yorkshire, he took one last trip around the UK, and in this book, he turns an affectionate but laconic eye on his adopted country.
Bill Bryson's first travel book, The Lost Continent, was unanimously acclaimed as one of the funniest books in years. In Neither Here nor There he brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia. Fluent in, oh, at least one language, he retraces his travels as a student twenty years before.
Whether braving the homicidal motorists of Paris, being robbed by gypsies in Florence, attempting not to order tripe and eyeballs in a German restaurant or window-shopping in the sex shops of the Reeperbahn, Bryson takes in the sights, dissects the culture and illuminates each place and person with his hilariously caustic observations. He even goes to Liechtenstein.
