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HarperCollins This novel is a real work of art! It tells the story of Griet, a young woman who becomes a servant in the household of the seventeenth century Dutch painter, Vermeer. Despite the opposition of his wife and other members of the household, she quickly becomes his assistant. He teaches Griet more about colour, space and form, nurturing her own innate artistic abilities. She begins to contribute and influence Vermeer's work. Between them develops a secret mutual passion, not only for each other but for the art work they create. Because of the intrigue and jealousy their relationship arouses, Griet is forced to leave the household and begin again. But she survives with her intergrity intact and triumphs even after Vermeer's death, when she finally has proof that her love had been reciprocated and treasured. This novel is a study about the wide spectrum of human emotions, contrasting passion with brutality, love with separation and loss, betrayal with compensation.
Price: EUR 9.90
Icon Books This brilliantly enjoyable, light-hearted take on Shakespeare blasts the cobwebs from the old myths of the bard and reveals the man and his plays for what they really are – modern, thrilling and uplifting drama. Actor and author, Ben Crystal, brings the sparkling dialogue and colourful characters of the world’s best known writer to life and provides the reader with a key to his plays that helps unlock the more ‘difficult’ parts and also reveals Shakespeare’s own voice amongst his poetry. Written in five fascinating ‘acts’, the book shows Shakespeare and his work to be both relevant and accessible. ‘Shakespeare on Toast’ is a wonderfully entertaining read for everyone, regardless if you are reading Shakespeare for the first time, find him occasionally troubling, think you know him inside-out, or have never read him at all, but always wanted to!
Price: EUR 12.40
Penguin Set in 17th century Puritan America, The Scarlet Letter tells of the adulterous relationship between Hester Prynne, a respectable married woman, and a priest called Dimmesdale. Through the public disgrace and ostracism of Hester and her illegitimate daughter, Pearl, Hawthorne comments on the harsh moral code of that time. He shows the tension inherent between the public and private self. Because Hester is not cowed into submisssion by her illicit affair, she emerges as the first true heroine of American fiction. The letter A for 'adulteress' that she is forced to wear on her bodice as punishment soon transforms itself into A for 'angel', as the townspeople become aware of her extraordinary character. Dimmesdale, on the other hand, through his betrayal, remains divided and limited by those rules. This short work is a masterpiece of imagination where truths are disclosed and examined about the human heart. Hawthorne reveals his own personal ambivalence about the place passion and individuality should have in any given society.
Price: EUR 3.50
Penguin Popular Classics "Might there not be charity in sin, to save this brother's life?" This complex play by Shakespeare looks at hypocrisy and the abuse of power. Claudio, a young Italian nobleman, is condemned to death for getting his mistress pregnant out of wedlock. His sister, the beautiful and chaste novice, Isabella, pleads with the Duke's austere deputy, Angelo, for brother's release. Angelo is overcome by sexual passion for Isabella and barters with her chastity for Claudio's release. Her very innocence and eloquence spellbinds him. This dark tragicomedy explores contrasting values and double standards. Shakespeare also examines the tension between desire and restraint, innocence and exploitation, balance and equivalance. But the play tends to dramatise incompatibilities, for example, the rigid letter of the law for Angelo, chastity for Isabella, life or death for Claudio, reponsibility or evasion, rather than seeking a middle way. More questions are posed than answered, possibly to stimulate the reader to find solutions her/himself.
First published in 1899, 'The Awakening' is a poignantly honest account of the conflict many women experience even today. Through the character of Edna Pontellier, a wealthy wife and mother of two children, Ms. Chopin has created a complex heroine who personifies many different types of awakening. Edna challenges the multitude of restrictions which are placed on the individual - men and women - by society's expectations and prohibitions. A feminist classic, this short novel uncovers the insidious exploitation of marriage and motherhood. Edna asserts that she would give money and life for her two children but would never sacrifice herself. Against the weight of social and family obligation, she learns to live her own life without guilt. She asserts her economic independence but this autonomy involves a re-evaluation of all her relationships and a gradual alienation from those most crucial to her. The culmination of the novel, however tragic, can be interpreted as Edna's final act of self-determination.
Price: EUR 6.50
On the outskirts of a small American town, a bus-load of young children is being held hostage. The hijackers are a shadowy, ruthless group determined to disable the secret government agency "Inner Delta". At the centre of the confrontation are three teenagers who each narrate their side of the story. Miro is the youngest of the terrorists, an orphan who has grown up in refugee and training camps. Kate is the bus driver caught in the nightmare. Ben is the general's son who is chosen to act as a go-between. As the terrorists' deadline looms closer, they will all have to make difficult choices, is death the only escape? This chilling novel is tautly written and its themes raise some uncomfortable questions.
Price: EUR 7.90
In an attempt to understand her life, Daisy Goodwill combs through her past starting from her momentous, unexpected birth on the kitchen floor in a stonemason's cottage to small town life in various quarry towns and ending in a hospital bed in Florida. Stone is a constant theme and the substance with which Daisy has come to associate herself, unextraordinary and constant. But in re-thinking her story, Daisy discovers a surprisingly deep and willful imagination that allows her to become witness to her life. She deftly summons the interior thoughts of family members and contemporaries and places them side by side with her own memories, shored up with photographs and letters. Daisy explores the many facets of our lives and why we choose to downplay some and give others meaning. Her seemingly ordinary journey through adolescence, two marriages, motherhood, widowhood becomes a history of 20th century North America itself and the role women play in it.
Nathan Walker, a 'sandhog', burrows under the East River alongside his fellow blacks and Italians, Irish and other immigrants in New York City. Digging the Holland Tunnel is their only work opportunity. Despite the danger, it is grasped in the spirit of the new world and a chance given. Nathan's love for his Irish wife in the virulently racist 20s and 30s, however, forces him even further to the margins of society. Seventy years later, Nathan's descendant 'Treefrog', is a homeless man eking out an existence in the same network of tunnels. He is so ashamed of his past and of a dark secret that he cannot remember his real name. In alternating chapters, the two men tell a family saga of ill-fated loves, social taboos, an unintended crime and of the circumstances that forced them underground. Both men straddle the world of their dreams- the inequality and reality of their circumstances- searching for moments of tenderness and redemption.
The Red Badge of Courage is the story of a boy, Henry Flemming, straight off the farm and into the battlefields of the American Civil War. A foot soldier, Henry gives an account of his first experience of war. Through Henry's eyes we see flashes of vivid and raw combat as he experiences it, shattering the lofty platitutes on manhood, heroism, and patriotism expounded by the Union Army. Accompanied by these photographic images of war, the reader follows Henry's struggle to abandon his preconceptions of courage when he flees the battlefield and then witnesses the gruesome death of a friend. War waging around him, Henry must separate what he once believed from what he experiences first hand and piece together from the rage and confusion a new role model of courage for himself. In doing so, he is forced into a true act of heroism.
Anna, a bright and curious young widow arrives in Egypt in the late 19th century and falls in love with an Egyptian. She bristles at British arrogance and lack of interest in Egyptian culture and politics. Decades later, a modern, young Egyptian woman finds Anna's letters and some keepsakes in a trunk and follows her great -grandmother's unusual story, while trying to answer her own questions of what it means to be Egyptian. She realises that Egypt's ties to its former colonisers create a legacy of education and openness which checks extremism, but, just like her turn of the century counterpart, finds western investments and influence extremely self-serving. This beautiful romance, set in the vibrant labyrinth of Cairo, also offers an intelligent look at the current political and social issues affecting many Egyptian women today.
Gilbert Joseph, an educated Jamaican, dreams of being more than a delivery boy for his mother's cake business. He signs up with the RAF during WWII, where he is forced to be driver. It is here that Gilbert begins to hear the first rumblings of independence for Jamaica. Hortense, a schoolteacher in Kingston, who wants nothing more than to be a good British citizen, marries him after the war and they move to London and board with Queenie Bligh. Queenie's husband is missing in the war in Rangoon and the neighbours are none too pleased with the boarders she has taken in. England is changing rapidly as thousands of immigrants from the crumbling Empire pour into the big cities. Conflict is rife. This original and moving novel handles the fall of colonialism, the prejudices and dashed idealism, with a light and insightful hand.
This is a semi-autobiographical novel about Chandran, a young Indian student, his final year of studies in history and his launch into the 'real' world. He encounters difficulties on his journey, both in choosing a career and in his encounter with love, which are heightened by the particular circumstances of pre-partition India. Narayan, with his beautifully clean prose, balanced with just the right measure of wit and irony, gives us insight into the complexities of Indian middle-class society in the 1930's, but also into a universal vision of youth, early love and grief, illuminating a common, shared humanity.
Price: EUR 11.90
In this Booker Prize winning novel, Arundhati Roy dazzles the reader with an English that is innovative and invigorated by Asian-Indian influences. Her wordplay jumps out of the pages like a brilliant jazz improvisation. The story revolves around the twins, Rahel and Estha, and their extended family. Set in Kerala, India, in the late 1960's, when communism clashed with the age-old caste system, a visit from the twins' English cousin brings on events that change their lives forever. The story is unravelled bit by bit, uncovering unmentionable family secrets which are shared by the twins. Roy reveals her keen insight into human nature in suspenseful, breathtaking prose and beautiful imagery.
Born into the back streets of the small Canadian town of West Hanratty, Ontario, Rose is involved in incessant conflict with her prudish, suspicious and sometimes vulgar step-mother, Flo. Rose is an awkward, pathetic creature, who, despite Flo's ridicule and ghastly warnings, manages to pull herself out of her stultifying home town and family situation to embark on a life of her own. We accompany her on her journey; growing up, winning a scholarship and moving to Toronto, getting married, divorced, as a single mother with a series of short-lived relationships and finally finding her equilibrium. This exhilarating collection of interweaving stories can be read like a novel, and Munro delights us with startling twists and transformation of characters. With deep psychological insight, the author reveals how difficult life in a Canadian small-town can be and the intense experiences involved in the struggle for independence and identity.
In this semi-autobiographical look at mother-daughter relationships, Kincaid looks back at her childhood in Antigua and the development of her identity in the light of cultural expectations. The result is an effective rendering of a girl's struggle to maintain her sense of individuality in her tightly knit family, in a country whose own sense of identity has been crushed by British colonisers. Eventually, Annie leaves the island for England, packs her own trunk, thus causing a transformative and symbolic break with her own culture. Kincaid's prose is a blend of European and Caribbean forms of expression, which uniquely expresses the division she feels having grown up in Antigua.
'Once Were Warriors' is Duff's harrowing vision of New Zealand's indigenous people, two hundred years after English invasion. In raw and compelling prose, he tells the story of Beth Heke, a Maori woman struggling to keep her family together in the midst of the squalour and violence of their poor housing conditions. She believes the Maoris would not have become impoverished lackeys, lacking self-esteem, had they stayed closer to their warrior roots. Instead, the men's lives consist of beer, gangs, fights and beating their wives. Beth finds strength by summoning her tribal heritage and teaching it to others. With this novel, Duff shows courage in attacking the view that assimilation is the first step out of poverty. Anyone interested in the problems of integrating cultures and the long-term effects of European colonialism on indigenous peoples will find this book insightful.
Achebe tells the tale of the rise and fall of Okonkwo, leader of the Igbo community, a Nigerian whose sense of manhood is closer to that of his warrior ancestors than of his fellow clansmen, many of whom have been converted to Christianity. But under his manly, fearless exterior lurks bewilderment, fear and anger at the breakdown of his society. Banished from his community for accidentally killing a clansman, he returns after seven years. Within the traditions of his culture, he has the hope of redemption, but since the arrival of missionaries and representatives of the colonial government, Igbo culture is completely disrupted and Okonkwo is lost in the chasm between the old ways and the new. Achebe refrains from depicting pre-colonial life as a kind of Eden and, in his relentlessly unsentimental rendering, portrays the simultaneous disintegration of Okonkwo and of his village.
Tambu, an adolescent living in colonial Rhodesia of the 1960's, believes her prayers have been answered when her wealthy British-educated uncle offers to sponsor her education. But the mission school carries a heavy price. Although she excels in her studies, she also discovers that oppression can take on many forms. While the patriarchal traditions of her own culture oppress women, the British colonial education takes native children away from their parents, both literally and figuratively. With courageous honesty and devastating understatement, Tsitsi Dangarembga focuses sharply on the dilemmas and contradictions of colonialism. She writes in a cool, sardonic prose, voicing a wisdom as deep as that of an ancient African priestess. She rejects all charlatans and shows that, if Africa is to survive, it must transform itself from the hearth outwards.
In this cleverly crafted historical novel, Keneally draws on historical facts and authentic journals, portraying an exiled people who are forced to face disturbing choices in harrowing circumstances, at the same time dealing with the fate of the aborigines. His deeply moving exploration of the psyche of Lieutenant Ralph Clark in the midst of the early years of the Post Jackson convicts' colony in Sydney, Australia is a starkly realistic rendering. Clark's tasks include producing an early 18th century play, 'The Recruiting Officer' with an all-convict cast for the upcoming visit of King George III. The production leads to many difficulties. We soon discover that the convicts are not all that different from the civil servants and military who run the colony, in that each is a prisoner of sorts, be it physical, emotional or spiritual.
Price: EUR 12.90
Black Swan At the tender age of eighteen, Nazneen's life is radically transformed. After an arranged marriage with a man twenty years older, she leaves her home village in Bangladesh and moves to a block of flats to London's East End. In this new world of fat, poor people, where even dogs are put on diets, Nazneen struggles to make some sense of her existence and obey her husband, a man of inflated importance and a stomach to match. Nazneen initially submits to her circumstances, raising a family and managing to suppress her demons of discontent. But then she becomes involved in the escalating racial and gang violence in the East End and must make a choice. With its richly detailed characters, 'Brick Lane' gives illuminating insight into the conflicts that arise when two differing cultural expectations collide.
Picador This extraordinary memoir of growing up on the wrong side of 1970's Manchester reads like a novel. Andrea's father drowns when she is five years old. From then on, her family struggles to survive in an oppressive atmosphere of grinding poverty and later explosive violence, doled out by an abusive stepfather. Ms Ashworth has a rare capacity to describe how she felt as a child and her deceptively simple writing is rich in vivid, clearly remembered detail. The author's keen intelligence and northern wit sparkle off the pages despite the darkness surrounding her, while her courage and endurance cannot but fill the reader with admiration. Inspiring!
Vintage Concrete Island is a very original and witty modern version of the Robinson Crusoe theme, also reminiscent of 'The Lord of the Flies'. On his way home from work, Robert Maitland, a thirty-five year old architect, has a minor car crash and finds himself stranded on a huge, wasteland traffic island in the middle of one of London's countless motorway intersections. His attempts to attract attention, in order to be rescued, fail. So he is trapped within a supposedly safe, high-tech civilization where rescue seems ironically out of reach. As well as facing the basic physical needs such as thirst, hunger and shelter, Maitland is also confronted with psychological challenges, especially, when he finds out that he is not alone
Vintage Eighteen year old orphan, Lois Farquar, and her family live at the 'Big House' in Danielstown, Ireland, a plantation belonging to the Anglo-Irish gentry. The family are in the ambiguous position of supporting the British, who dictate their interest and tradition, and also feeling sympathy and affection for the resisting Irish of the surrounding countryside. Strife rages around them but they encounter ambushes and burnings only from a distance, continuing to live leisurely lives of tennis-parties, dances and romance. In the midst of all this, Lois begins to make acute observations as she grows more aware of herself and those around her. Bowen's minutely observed and highly individual characters plus her brilliant descriptions of Anglo-Irish life at that time make for an absorbing and authentic read.
Hesperus Classics Young Lois Barclay has been recently orphaned, and at the wish of her mother is brought to her mother's brother and his family in Salem, Massachusetts. Herself charming, affectionate and honest, Lois is unwittingly plunged into the turmoil of history's most notorious witch hunt. The New England that she encounters has fallen prey to a host of fears, such as, that of the 'Evil One', witches and Indians. Everyone's perception seems so crippled by anxiety that Lois's attempts at friendship and kindness remain misunderstood. Even her Anglican upbringing is a source of mistrust and her attractiveness a potential curse. In this vivid and moving novella, Gaskell depicts a fictionalised account of one of the Salem witch trials of 1692, thereby highlighting the dangers of religious bigotry and sexual repression.
Vintage Classics This novel, set in Brighton in the 1930's, tells the story of the moral decline of Pinkie Brown, a seventeen year old gang-leader. After repeated gang clashes, Pinkie reveals his brutal and ruthless character by even killing one of his own gang members. When Ida, a life-embracing woman with a distinct sense of justice, wants this murder avenged, Pinkie's own fate is sealed. Greene's novel is not only a gripping thriller but also deals with the basic concepts of evil, despair and isolation in modern civilization. The writing vibrates with his uniquely realistic evocation of character and place.
Arrow Books This second collection of short stories shows how Hemingway is able to create, in a space of a few pages, scenes of absolute clarity and authenticity, bringing to life details one only sees through the eye of a gifted artist. Hemingway's men live without compromise. They are bullfighters, hired hands, hard drinkers, gangsters and gunmen. Each of their stories deals with a toughness unsoftened by a woman's hand. Painfully realistic, hard-edged, chiselled down to the bare bones, their stories give the reader an impassioned and often jarring entry into their individual lives; their feelings, and thoughts, their hopes and fears. A brilliant and disturbing read.
Vintage Classics For over a hundred years, the island of Pala has been the scene of an unique experiment in civilisation. Its inhabitants live in a society where western science has been brought together with eastern esoteric practices to create a paradise on earth. When cynical journalist Will Farnaby arrives on the island to search for information about its potential oil reserves, he quickly falls under its intoxicating spell. The need to complete his assignment becomes an increasingly intolerable but, somehow, inevitable burden he has to carry. In 'Island', through the ambivalent and complex character of Farnaby, Huxley expresses his own poignant pessimism that, in a world of increasing greed, competition, mass communication and fuel guzzling transportation, a co-operative peaceful community such as Pala's 'oasis of freedom and happiness' has probably little chance of survival.
Faber and Faber Ishiguro's Booker Prize-winning novel is a powerful study of a man who has given his life entirely over to duty as opposed to living it. Mr. Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, sets off on a journey to meet Miss Kenton, the Hall's former housekeeper. On his way, he muses over past times and when he sees her again after many years, finally realizes all the missed opportunities of what might have been. Steven's main aims in life are dignity and obedience, but his misunderstood concept of duty only generates tragedy and regret. By denying himself any personal feelings or true human contact, he loses the opportunity of emotional growth and, eventually, love. Ishiguro's elegant language and incredibly well-developed characters make this quiet and very intense work a true classic.
Red Herrings and White Elephants: The Origins of the Phrases we use Every Day, Metro The English language is full of phrases and sayings which native speakers take for granted. Students of our language often struggle with these eccentric modes of expression as they have no obvious connection within the context of a conversation. In his diverting book, Albert Jack explains some of our best known idioms and exposes their interesting origins. So if you have ever wondered why, for example, we say it 'rains cats and dogs', this book 'spills the beans'!
Penguin Popular Classics This celebrated work contains a sequence of highly detailed episodes depicting middle-class Catholic life in Dublin. The vexations of childhood, disappointments in adolescence and the excitement and mystery of sexual awakening are described in the opening stories with both realism and sensitivity. In Joyce's most famous story, 'The Dead', he presents a seemingly harmless Christmas gathering of friends and neighbours, but the underlying current of tension and despair in the story provokes the reader to look more closely to discover not only symbolic imagery but also a startlingly new way of writing which became Joyce's creative hallmark.
Penguin As he roams the US, Mexico, Morocco, Paris and London, Jack Kerouac records his life on the road as a lonesome traveller. Whether he is witnessing his first bull fight in Mexico, burying himself in the snow-capped mountains of North West America or meditating on the sunlit roof in Tangiers, Kerouac brings his unique style of writing to these breathtaking descriptions of very diverse and challenging human experiences. He also reveals his special brand of high-spirited philosophy which influenced a whole generation of youth culture during the late fifties and sixties, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Penguin This novel tells us about a day in the life of Adam Appleby, a postgraduate student of English, living in London. While he is trying to finish his thesis at the British Museum reading room, he is worried about his wife's possible fourth pregnancy. Lodge's exploration of the Catholic-sexual theme, i.e. the church's attitude to birth control as well as the idiosyncrasies of academic life result in a brilliant literary parody. Through a series of picaresque adventures, his protagonist's life keeps taking on the stylistic and thematic colouring of the fictional texts he is studying. Therefore, on a deeper level, each episode is echoing the work of an established modern novelist such as Kafka or Joyce. This book is great fun because it can be enjoyed and appreciated on all its multiple levels.
Hesperus Classics In her first published work, Katherine Mansfield, one of the pioneers of modern English literature, presents a dazzling collection of short sketches of German characters which she wrote shortly after she visited Germany as a young woman. She explores the world of the German middle classes, amused by their bourgeois prejudices and revolted by their bodily preoccupations. She focuses mainly on women: their pretensions, self-delusions and moments of despair or triumph, while her male characters seem to be either boors or dupes, capable only of either violence or an often senseless, slavish devotion to marriage and propagation. Each story is thoroughly modern in style and theme, showing her witty, unconventional outlook through a piercing, satirical eye.
Penguin When fifteen year old New Yorker Daisy is sent by her father to stay with relations in rural England, she can barely conceal her surprise at the independence enjoyed by her cousins in their rambling house full of livestock and eccentricities. Thirteen year old Edmond has an uncanny ability to read her mind and the two fall tumultuously in love. As a war breaks out, the countryside idyll is replaced by rationing, evacuation and a fight for survival. Rosoff has created an authentic voice which captures the sense, strength and pain of being young. This compelling and touching novel is an astute commentary on contemporary problems as well as a superb story of love and war.
Penguin 'Lovers and Madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends.' When a young woman flees Athens with her lover, she is pursued by both her betrothed and best friend. Unwittingly, all four find themselves in an enchanted forest where fairies and sprites take an overactive interest in their human affairs, dispensing magical love potions and casting mischievous spells. But all turns out well in the end, as during this enchanting comedy of errors, love is transformed, then misplaced and, ultimately, restored to its rightful owners!
Penguin Miss Jean Brodie is a schoolteacher with a difference. Proud, cultured, romantic, her ideas are progressive, even shocking for the 1930's. When she decides to transform a group of young, impressionable girls under her tutelage into the 'crème de la crème', no one can predict their future. Introduced into a world of adult games and intrigues, the Brodie set are honoured, even privileged, but in exchange for their undivided loyalty, they give up a certain innocence to gratify the whims of their teacher. This book is a fascinating study of the power and influence a teacher can wield over her students and, perhaps, of the lessons to be learned.
Penguin In this erudite, lucid and very entertaining essay published in 1929, Virginia Woolf explores the status of women in general and women writers in particular, concluding that it is crucial to her success as a writer to have a certain amount of money and a room of her own where she can write without disruption. Ms Woolf leads us through a quick history of women's writing, exploring the works of Jane Austen, George Elliot and the Bronte sisters, while also depicting the climate of male-dominated university life in England during her time. She argues that all great minds are androgynous, regardless of sex, and that one can only achieve one's creative potential if the individual's masculine and feminine traits are in balance. In this compelling and passionate piece, Ms. Woolf proves to be a pioneer of modern feminist criticism.
This brilliantly crafted, shocking account is narrated by 13-year-old Linda, who is being questioned by the police as a witness to the murder of a man who may have been her lover. In an indignant response to a social worker's unflattering report, she tells us her side of the story. She describes how, after the death of her father, she cared for first one, and then two brothers as her desperately incompetent mother took up with a succession of men, abandoned her for months to a senile widower, and then found a job working for a married businessman, Jack Green, who ultimately seduced Linda. Rejecting the social worker's contentions that she was raped, Linda claims to have felt only mild impatience the first time, and her childish pleasure in his gifts and toys is clear. Cole has written an unsettling character study of someone trying to construct a particular version of reality, and failing, because the "facts" tell a different story-a sad novel which touches on controversial themes.
In these nine elegant stories, Jhumpa Lahiri gives us brief and captivating glimpses into the ordinary lives of her protagonists, who range from immigrants and first generation Indians living in America, Indian-American tourists visiting India to Indians living in India. Lahiri lucidly captures the Indian as well as the American cultures and the cross-cultural tensions that arise between them. Whether set in Boston or Bengal, this collection of sublimely understated stories, spiced with subtle detail and humour, is a wonderful read for anyone interested in cultural conflicts, relationships and digging for meaning within a work.
Scholastic Jamie is a teenage girl from Sydney’s south west who lives two lives: at school and in the outside world she is ‘Jamie’, a bottle-blonde with an apparently Anglo-Aussie background; at home she is ‘Jamilah’ a Lebanese-Muslim who is proud of her cultural identity. Jamie struggles to maintain her two personas as the rules of her over-protective father collide with the normal adolescence she perceives other teenagers to have and which she so desires. This eye-opening novel articulates a Muslim teenager’s struggle with misconceptions about her beliefs and her frustration at being associated with negative stereotypes. This contemporary story is simply told, exposing prejudices without lecturing while remaining smart, funny and positive.
Ballantine Guy Montag enjoys his role as a fireman whose job it is to start fires and burn all the books he finds, until he meets a seventeen year old girl who tells him of a past when people were not afraid to think and books were appreciated. Then, people actually thought about and reflected on the meaning of ideas rather than watching flashing images on large metal screens as they do now. Montag meets her grandfather, Professor Faber, who introduces him to the meaning of books and their value for the human soul. He decides to join an underground group of people whose task is to preserve all the most important world literature by memorising it, chapter by chapter, until it is safe again to reintroduce books into circulation. Mr Bradbury has written a moving polemic about an 'insane' society with its quick, superficial, collective fixes that gives little space for meaning or individual thought and, in some aspects, bears an uncanny resemblance to our own.
Penguin Seventeen year old Sara wants to be a star. Not just pretty, not just popular, but spectacularly famous. She is a borderline anorexic, purposely hurts herself, often adopts different personalities, emits her own special perfumed smell, and sees ghosts, among other things. When pop idol Jonathon Heat takes her under his wing, she crosses into a world of lunacy and cosmetic surgery to reach her goals. An eerie Michael Jackson-esque figure, Heat lives on a fantastic estate with a private plastic surgery theatre and has undergone so many facial reconstructions that he is forced to cover his pieced-together face with a mask. After Sara moves into his compound, readers are led to believe that she will meet the same fate, or worse. This engrossing and genuinely chilling novel is also a brilliant satire on our image obsessed culture.
Penguin No-one ever rightly knows who Gatsby is. Some say he might be a German spy; others that he is related to one of Europe's royal families, but everyone enjoys his fabulous hospitality on Long Island where he gives the most amazing parties. Few people recognise their generous host; he seems a bright light but lacks depth. Gradually, we learn that the parties are to impress one particular woman, a socialite called Daisy, who Gatsby loved and lost and hopes to win again. As the story unfolds, this dream ceases to have any real substance as Daisy shows, herself, to be as artificial and shallow as the careless world in which she moves. Fitzgerald has written a poignant, symbolic love story about the American dream and its illusion. Gatsby naively believes in that dream as the 'green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us.. as we are borne back ceaselessly into the past' as he pays the ultimate price.
Price: EUR 3.95
Black Swan At St. Oswald’s, an old and long established boy’s grammar school in Northern England, a new year has begun. For the staff and boys at the school a wind of change is blowing through the corridors of learning, affecting all areas of paperwork, curriculum and information technology. Roy Straitley, Latin master, eccentric and a veteran of St. Oswald’s is reluctantly contemplating retirement because he abhors the loss of the older, more traditional educational values. But beneath the surface of petty rivalries among the staff bent on displacing each-other in the race for academic excellence, a darker more sinister undercurrent is stirring, concerning a carefully hidden old grudge which is about to erupt with startling ferocity. Joanne Harris brilliantly addresses such contentious themes such as gender crossing, privilege and class conflict in this sensitive and evocative novel about school life.
Penguin This heart warming novel tells the story of two ‘boys’: hip, thirty six year old Will Freeman and Marcus, the oldest twelve year old on the planet. Will is super cool and unattached; Marcus listens to Joni Mitchell and Mozart, looks after his depressed mum and has never owned a trendy piece of clothing in his life. He is also bullied at school. Can Will teach Marcus how to grow up cool and gain some friends? And can Marcus help Will just to grow up? An unlikely friendship develops between the two which gradually benefits them both in unexpected ways. Mr Hornby has written a brilliant satire on ‘boys’, the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’, told with great humour and insight into the plight of the ‘modern male’ species!
Vintage In the remote outback of Western Australia English anthropologist, Nicholas Keene and his wife, Stella, raise a curious, intelligent child called Perdita. Her childhood is far from ordinary with an abusive, distant father burying his nose in books and an unstable mother using Shakespeare’s plays as the backbone for Perdita’s home based education. Emotionally adrift, Perdita develops close ties with the local aborigines, in particular, the family servant, Mary. After the murder of Perdita’s father where Mary is inexplicably blamed for the crime, Perdita develops a debilitating stutter until she is able to articulate the truth behind her father’s violent and unexpected death. This beautifully written story is not just an exploration into the psyche of a sensitive, gifted child but also looks at the aborigines, themselves, and the trauma they suffered under the insensitive and often brutal British colonisation.
John Murray This coming of age story is narrated by Matilda, a fourteen year old girl growing up on an island in New Guinea. The island is caught up in conflict between the local population and the Niugini government but has been forgotten by the outside world. All the white people have fled except Mr Watts, a somewhat eccentric New Zealander who volunteers to teach in the local school despite having no teaching experience and only a battered copy of ‘Great Expectations’ to work with. But Mr Watts turns out to be a wonderful story teller and Matilda, like many of her classmates, is drawn to the escapism of imagining another world. When Matilda writes her beloved Mr Pip’s name on the beach, the invading soldiers find it, and believing him to be a real person, order the villagers to give him up. Lloyd Jones brings to life the transformative power of fiction in this ingenious, multi-layered novel which also explores the clash of Western and tribal cultures.
Pocket Books Two frail German octogenarians - Edith and Hans - meet sixty years after the final days of the Third Reich in 1945. Hitler’s bunker in Berlin was the last place Edith had wanted to be, particularly after the elegance of Berghof, but as Eva Braun’s secretary she had no choice. There she was forced to witness the last desperate hours in the bunker before and after Eva Braun and Hitler’s joint suicide. Now meeting again with Hans who had also witnessed those events from a different perspective, Edith is again forced to recapitulate the past, including her own brutal assault. She offers an unstinting analysis of Eva Braun’s character as well as those of Hitler and their closest entourage. Hans adds his own reflections, often much harsher and unforgiving. Mr Judd has written a remarkable exploration of those final hours as seen through the eyes of these two witnesses, but offers no worn out clichés. Instead, he presents a careful study of a personality and character structure which leads to a misuse of power in its ever increasing self deception and violence.
Flamingo Harriet and David long for a perfect marriage, home and children. When they meet, marry and find their dream home, four children - two boys and two girls, all perfect replicas of themselves - quickly follow. Their cosy family home becomes a welcoming beacon for friends and extended family members alike. But Harriet and David’s paradisal world slowly disintegrates when their fifth child, Ben, is conceived. Already in the womb, this baby is difficult and different, kicking inside Harriet’s stomach with a seemingly vicious vengeance. At birth, Ben looks more like an alien or a Neanderthal throwback. No one in the family can honestly love or accept his innate difference from them, including Harriet who does her best to discover the meaning behind his disruptive existence. Ms Lessing has written a chilling, moral fable about family life in its frequent tragic inability to embrace the odd, abnormal misfit and, also by association, those less perfect aspects of ourselves as viable human beings.
Headline Set in Edinburgh initially during the 1930's, the Lennox family are having problems with their youngest daughter, Esme. She is outspoken, unconventional and embarrasses them in polite society. She is also popular with the boys who like her attractive personality. Suddenly she vanishes without trace and no-one hears about her again until her great niece, Iris Lockhart, decades later comes to fetch her from a closed psychiatric unit. What could Esme have possibly done to warrant a lifetime of incarceration and how is it possible that a sane woman could be so completely eradicated from a family's history? Slowly Esme's tale tragic unfolds as one of intense sibling rivalry where her older, less attractive sister has subsumed Esme's life and identity as her own. This taut, brilliant novel depicts the fragile basis of human relationships where jealousy and deception rule revealing their final, devasting consequences.
This is a delightful tale about a story teller, the "Shah of Blah", who loses his skill, and the struggle against mysterious forces attempting to block the ocean of inspiration from which all stories are derived. Haroun Khalifa, the storyteller's son discovers he is the only one who can save the "Ocean of Notions" from total annihilation. After a squabble with the water genie "Iff", who has come to disconnect the story tap, Haroun manages to get a ride on the machine-hoopie "Butt" to Kahani, the second moon of the earth, where this ocean is situated. The rest of the story deals with how he succeeds in this endeavour and is rewarded with a "synthesised" happy ending courtesy of P2C2E (Processes Too Complicated To be Explained). Like Haroun, the reader learns just how precious, rare and powerful the human imagination is. As ever, Rushdie's characters speak with the peculiar dialects of Indianised English, evoking laughter, sparkling with wit and lots of wordplay. A masterpiece!
Tindal Street Press ‘What Was Lost’ begins as the story about a resourceful ten year old amateur detective, Kate Meaney, who spends her free time lurking around in Birmingham’s Green Oaks shopping centre in the early 1980’s. She jots down particulars in her notebook about suspicious people and events until one day she disappears. Twenty years later, her memory is re-evoked as a lost little girl with a notebook appears on Green Oaks shopping centre’s CCTV screens. Kurt, a security guard with a sleep disorder and Lisa, a disenchanted deputy manager at Your Music, follow her through the corridors behind the centre’s maze of shops. As their after-work friendship intensifies, their relationship also brings new losses and longings to life.
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Puffin Khalid, a fifteen-year-old Muslim boy from the outskirts of Manchester, likes seeing his friends, playing football and computer games. When his mother announces a trip to see relatives in Pakistan, Khalid looks forward to meeting his rebellious cousin Tariq. But soon after their arrival in Pakistan, Khalid is mistakenly picked up by the local authorities. He is subsequently taken to Guantanamo Bay and held without charge, where his hopes and dreams are crushed under the cruellest of circumstances. An innocent denied his freedom at a time when Western boys are finding theirs, Khalid tries and fails to understand what is happening to him and becomes a changed young man. Will he ever escape from the living nightmare of torture and abuse and see his family again? Anna Perera’s first novel for teenagers grabs you by the scruff of the neck and does not let go without challenging your preconceptions.
Penguin One of the finest recent novels published depicting the multi-faceted lives of Islamic women living in Turkey, ‘The Bastard of Istanbul’ captivates the reader with its sensitivity and descriptive brilliance. It tells the story of intertwining families: that of Armanousch, an Armenian American who returns to Turkey to reconnect with her roots and nineteen year old Asya, living with her extended all female family in Istanbul who loves Johnny Cash and the French Existentialists. The two families have a secret connection linking them into a violent event in their homeland’s history. Both personal and political, this humane and exuberant novel manages to bridge both aspects in the immediacy and strength of its predominantly all female characters, giving us a rare family saga that understands the value of both modernity and tradition.
Penguin In arguably one of Shakespeare’s most violent plays, ‘MacBeth’ examines the anatomy of fear in all its more lurid, psychological forms. At the beginning of the play, MacBeth meets three witches who predict that he will become King of Scotland. Flattered and unsettled by their prophecy, MacBeth soon realises he will have to kill the present, benign King Duncan to realise his destiny. But MacBeth is not a brutal murderer; unfortunately, however, his wife possesses the necessary ruthlessness to see the job done along with murdering anyone else, including children, who blocks their path. A play of war, witchcraft, ghosts and bloodshed, fully immersed in colourful Scottish history, ‘MacBeth’ also depicts the powerful effects of the individual conscience and the ultimate price paid for treachery and loss of innocent lives.
Penguin ‘If it were I who were to be always young and the picture to grow old I would give my soul for it.’ This wish uttered by Dorian Gray, an extremely beautiful young man as he gazes at his portrait, forms the basis of the plot of this brilliant and disturbing story of a spoilt hedonist who, Faust-like, is willing to sell his soul for his beauty. Oscar Wilde’s only novel is a classic and, even a hundred years after its publication, has not lost any of its relevance for our modern lives. It deals with the timeless conflicts of moral responsibility, questions of identity and the tension between art and life, body and soul and superficiality of appearance versus maturity. A highly recommended witty and thought-provoking read!
Scholastic In this brilliant, first instalment of Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy, we are introduced to a magical, parallel world where each person has a daemon which accompanies one through life. The story unfolds when a group of children go missing and Lyra, a spirited twelve year old, sets off to find them. She discovers an evil plot where the missing children are being separated from their daemons in a horrible experiment. By using an alethiometer, a golden compass which deciphers ancient symbols, Lyra is able to find the children and defeat her enemies. In her many adventures as she travels through the frozen North, she encounters armoured white polar bears and flying witch queens in her quest for the truth. In this imaginative, intelligent fantasy, Pullman addresses well- worn, thought-provoking themes, such as the connection between body and soul, authority and freedom to dissent, in a startlingly fresh way that stimulates the reader anew.
