- Table View
- List View
Good Citizens Need Not Fear: 'Bright, funny, satirical and relevant' Margaret Atwood (from Twitter)
by Maria Reva'Bright, funny, satirical and relevant. . . . A new talent to watch!' MARGARET ATWOOD (via Twitter)'Bang-on brilliant' MIRIAM TOEWSThis brilliant and bitingly funny novel-in-stories, set in and around a single crumbling apartment building in Soviet-era Ukraine, heralds the arrival of a major new talent.'A comic triumph' GLOBE AND MAILA cast of unforgettable characters--citizens of the small industrial town of Kirovka--populate Maria Reva's ingeniously entwined tales that span the chaotic years leading up to and immediately following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. Weaving the strands of the narrative together is an unforgettable, chameleon-like young woman named Zaya: an orphan turned beauty-pageant crasher who survives the extraordinary circumstances of her childhood through a compelling combination of ferocity, intelligence, stubbornness and wit.Inspired by her own family's history, Reva's Good Citizens Need Not Fear takes us from paranoia to tenderness and back again, exploring what it is to be an individual amid the roiling forces of history.'Luminous' YANN MARTEL'Outstanding' ANTHONY DOERR'Maria Reva's enthralling debut of interlinked short stories achieves the double effect of timelessness and timeliness' KAPKA KASSABOVA, GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE DAY
The Friend: 'A funny, moving examination of love, grief, and the uniqueness of dogs' GRAHAM NORTON
by Sigrid NunezWINNER OF THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARDA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER'A true delight: I genuinely fear I won't read a better novel this year' FINANCIAL TIMES'Loved this. A funny, moving examination of love, grief, and the uniqueness of dogs' GRAHAM NORTON'Delicious' SUNDAY TIMES 100 BEST SUMMER READSWhen a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building.Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog's care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unravelling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them.'Very, very clever. Mature. Entertaining. Eminently readable and re-readable. Absolutely delightful' IRISH TIMES'I loved it . . . It's one of my favourite books and it moved me' WHOOPI GOLDBERGA New York Times Notable Book of 2018 * A Financial Times 2018 Best Book: Critics Pick * A Buzzfeed Best Book of 2018 * A Bustle Best Fiction Book of 2018 * An NPR Best Book of 2018 * Shortlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award
The Last of Her Kind
by Sigrid NunezThe paths of two women from different walks of life intersect amid counterculture of the 1960s in this haunting and provocative novel from the National Book Award-winning author of The Friend It is Columbia University, 1968. Ann Drayton and Georgette George meet as roommates on the first night. Ann is rich and radical; Georgette is leery and introverted, a child of the very poverty and strife her new friend finds so noble. The two are drawn together by their differences; two years later, after a violent fight, they part ways. When, in 1976, Ann is convicted of killing a New York cop, Georgette comes back to their shared history in search of an explanation. She finds a riddle of a life, shaped by influences more sinister and complex than any of the writ-large sixties movements. She realises, too, how much their early encounter has determined her own path and why, after all this time, as she tells us, 'I have never stopped thinking about her'.'A brilliant, dazzling, daring novel' Boston Globe'A subtle and profoundly moving novel about friendship, romantic idealism and shame' O, The Oprah Magazine'An unflinching examination of justice, race and political idealism that brings to mind Philip Roth's American Pastoral and the tenacious intelligence of Nadine Gordimer' New York Times
Shirley Hazzard: A Writing Life
by Brigitta OlubasThe authorised biography of Shirley Hazzard, one of the greatest writers in the English language, author of The Transit of Venus and winner of the National Book Award'Hazzard's marvellous, luminous writing I discovered only recently; now I don't know how I ever managed to get along without it' Sarah Waters Born and raised in Sydney Australia, Hazzard lived around the world: in Hong Kong; Wellington, New Zealand; New York; Naples and Capri and her writing -- cosmopolitan, richly intelligent, beautiful, questing -- reflects her life. Her body of work is small but the acclaim it attracts is immeasurable, from among others, Michael Cunningham, Zoe Heller, Ann Patchett, Anne Tyler, Lauren Goff, Hermione Lee, Joan Didion, Richard Ford, Colm Toibin. At sixteen, she was living in Hong Kong with her family and working for the British Combined Services. She later worked, another desk job, for the United Nations in New York and, briefly, in Naples. Italy -- Capri and Naples -- claimed her heart and after she was married -- she was introduced to the biographer, Francis Steegmuller by Muriel Spark -- they divided their time between Italy and America. Drawing on diaries, letters, interviews alongside a close reading of Hazzard's fiction -- Brigitta Olubas, herself Australian -- tells the story of a girl from the suburbs 'with a head full of poetry' who fell early under the spell of words and sought out first books and then people who loved books as her companions. In the process she transformed and indeed created her life. She became a woman of the world who felt injustice keenly, a deep and original thinker, who wrote some of the most beautiful fiction about love and longing, always with an eye to the ways we reveal ourselves to another. This, the definitive biography uncovers the truths and myths and about Shirley Hazzard's life and work, which come together at the point, as Brigitta Olubas observes: 'where the writer lives'.
This Hostel Life
by Melatu Uche OkorieSHORTLISTED FOR THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS SUNDAY INDEPENDENT NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR'A landmark book by an important new voice in Irish writing' EMILIE PINETHIS HOSTEL LIFE tells the stories of migrant women in a hidden Ireland.Queuing for basic supplies in an Irish direct provision hostel, a group of women squabble and mistrust each other, learning what they can of the world from conversations about reality television and Shakespeare. In another story, a student shares her work with a class only to be critiqued about her own lived experience, and a mother of young twins, living in Nigeria, is at risk of losing her newborns to ancient superstitious beliefs.An essay by Liam Thornton (UCD School of Law) is also included, explaining the Irish legal position in relation to asylum seekers and direct provision.'Fresh, devastating stories . . . Okorie writes with uncomfortable clarity about things we think we already know' LIA MILLS 'Melatu Uche Okorie has important things to say - and she does it quite brilliantly' RODDY DOYLE
This Hostel Life
by Melatu Uche OkorieSHORTLISTED FOR THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS SUNDAY INDEPENDENT NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR'A landmark book by an important new voice in Irish writing' EMILIE PINETHIS HOSTEL LIFE tells the stories of migrant women in a hidden Ireland.Queuing for basic supplies in an Irish direct provision hostel, a group of women squabble and mistrust each other, learning what they can of the world from conversations about reality television and Shakespeare. In another story, a student shares her work with a class only to be critiqued about her own lived experience, and a mother of young twins, living in Nigeria, is at risk of losing her newborns to ancient superstitious beliefs.An essay by Liam Thornton (UCD School of Law) is also included, explaining the Irish legal position in relation to asylum seekers and direct provision.'Fresh, devastating stories . . . Okorie writes with uncomfortable clarity about things we think we already know' LIA MILLS 'Melatu Uche Okorie has important things to say - and she does it quite brilliantly' RODDY DOYLE
The Veiled Kingdom
by Carmen Bin LadinOn September 11th 2001, Carmen Bin Ladin heard the news on the radio that the Twin Towers had been struck. She instinctively knew that her brother-in-law's name would be linked to these horrifying acts of terrorism, and her heart went out to the victims in America. She also knew that her life and the lives of her family would never be the same again. In 1974 Carmen, half Swiss and half Persian, married Yeslam Bin Ladin and found herself inside the complex and vast clan of Bin Laden, part of a society that at that point she neither knew nor understood. Carmen Bin Ladin's story takes us inside one of the most powerful, secretive and repressive kingdoms in the world.
The Street (Virago Modern Classics #788)
by Ann PetryWith a new introduction by TAYARI JONES, author of An American Marriage'This is a wonderful novel - the prose is clear, the plot is page-turning, the characters are utterly believable' CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE'Ann Petry's first novel, The Street, was a literary event in 1946, praised and translated around the world - the first book by a black woman to sell more than a million copies . . . Her work endures not merely because of the strength of its message but its artistry' NEW YORK TIMES'My favorite type of novel, literary with an astonishing plot . . . insightful, prescient and unputdownable' TAYARI JONESNew York City, 1940s. In a crumbling tenement in Harlem, Lutie Johnson is determined to build a new life for herself and her eight-year-old boy, Bub - a life that she can be proud of. Having left her unreliable husband, Lutie believes that with hard work and resolve, she can begin again; she has faith in the American dream. But in her struggle to earn money and raise her son amid the violence, poverty and racial dissonance of her surroundings, Lutie is soon trapped: she is a woman alone, 'too good-looking to be decent', with predators at every turn.
The Collected Stories of Shirley Hazzard
by Shirley HazzardCollected Stories includes both volumes of National Book Award-winning author Shirley Hazzard's short story collections - Cliffs of Fall and People in Glass Houses - alongside uncollected works and two previously unpublished stories. Twenty-eight works of short fiction in all, Shirley Hazzard's Collected Stories is a work of staggering breadth and talent. Taken together, Hazzard's short stories are masterworks in telescoping focus, 'at once surgical and symphonic' (New Yorker), ranging from quotidian struggles between beauty and pragmatism to satirical sendups of international bureaucracy, from the Italian countryside to suburban Connecticut. In an interview, Hazzard once said, 'The idea that somebody has expressed something, in a supreme way, that it can be expressed; this is, I think, an enormous feature of literature'. Her stories themselves are a supreme evocation of writing at its very best: probing, uncompromising and deeply felt.
Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close
by Aminatou Sow Ann FriedmanAn inspiring and entertaining testament to the power of friendship, from the hosts of the hit podcast Call Your Girlfriend'Deeply compelling' ROXANE GAY A New York Times bestsellerA close friendship is one of the most important relationships a human life can contain. But most people don't talk about what it takes to stay close for the long haul.Now two friends, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, tell the story of their messy and life-affirming Big Friendship in this honest and hilarious book. Through interviews with friends and experts, they also come to understand that their struggles are not unique. This book is a call to value your friendships in all of their complexity, to actively choose them and sometimes, fight for them. 'A deeply funny and immensely heartfelt look into what makes a friendship last despite time, distance, trials and major life changes' ELLE'An inspiration' ARIEL LEVY 'Wonderful' HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON'Thoughtful and highly readable' New York Times
Sankofa: 'A fantastic novel about a woman's search for her identity' SEFI ATTA
by Chibundu OnuzoA funny, gripping and surprising story of a mixed-race British woman who goes in search of the West African father she never knew, by award-winning author Chibundu Onuzo.'A fantastic novel about a woman's search for her personal, familial and national identity' SEFI ATTA'Utterly compelling' STYLISTAnna grew up in England with her white mother and knowing very little about her West African father. In middle age, after separating from her husband and with her daughter all grown up, she finds herself alone and wondering who she really is. Her mother's death leads her to find her father's student diaries, chronicling his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. She discovers that he eventually became the president - some would say the dictator - of Bamana in West Africa. And he is still alive. She decides to track him down and so begins a funny, painful, fascinating journey, and an exploration of race, identity and what we pass on to our children.'Slick pacing and unpredictable developments keep the reader alert right up to the novel's exhilarating ending' GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE DAY'Wonderful. Poignant and powerful and so timely and the beautiful ending had me in tears, reminding me to look within as well as without for my answers' STELLA DUFFY'A hugely compelling novel about identity and the stories we tell about ourselves' ANNA JAMES'A disarmingly moving, surprisingly hilarious and fascinating journey' STYLIST
The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames: A Foundling's Story
by Justine CowanA gripping memoir and revelatory investigation into the history of the Foundling Hospital and one girl who grew up in its care - the author's own mother.'Extraordinary ... A fascinating, moving book: part history of the Foundling Hospital and the development of child psychology, part Cowan's own story, and part that of Cowan's mother' LUCY SCHOLES, TELEGRAPH Growing up in a wealthy enclave outside San Francisco, Justine Cowan's life seems idyllic. But her mother's unpredictable temper drives Justine from home the moment she is old enough to escape. It is only after her mother dies that she finds herself pulling at the threads of a story half-told - her mother's upbringing in London's Foundling Hospital. Haunted by this secret history, Justine travels across the sea and deep into the past to discover the girl her mother once was.Here, with the vividness of a true storyteller, she pieces together her mother's childhood alongside the history of the Foundling Hospital: from its idealistic beginnings in the eighteenth century, how it influenced some of England's greatest creative minds - from Handel to Dickens, its shocking approach to childcare and how it survived the Blitz only to close after the Second World War.This was the environment that shaped a young girl then known as Dorothy Soames, who was left behind by a mother forced by stigma and shame to give up her child; who withstood years of physical and emotional abuse, dreaming ofescape as German bombers circled the skies, unaware all along that her own mother was fighting to get her back.'As a social history of the Foundling Hospital, this is a fascinating read' SUNDAY TIMES'Page-turning and profoundly moving' VIRGINIA NICHOLSON'A gripping true story' Christina Baker Kline, bestselling author of ORPHAN TRAIN'Breathtaking' Adrienne Brodeur, bestselling author of WILD GAME
The Times I Knew I Was Gay: A Graphic Memoir 'for everyone. Candid, authentic and utterly charming' Sarah Waters
by Eleanor Crewes'It's for everyone. Candid, authentic and utterly charming' Sarah Waters, author of Tipping the Velvet'Funny and super relatable' Alice Oseman, author of HeartstopperA tender and funny graphic memoir about identity, love and Willow from BuffyEllie always knew she was different. Contrary and creative, she wore black, obsessed over Willow in Buffy and somehow never really liked boys. As she grew, so did her fears and a deep sense of unbelonging. From her first communion to her first girlfriend via a swathe of self-denial, awkward encounters and everyday courage, Ellie's journey is told through tender and funny illustrations - a self-portrait sketched out from the heart.The Times I Knew I Was Gay reminds us that sexuality is not often determined by falling in love with others, but by coming to terms with oneself; that people must come out not just once but again and again. Full of vitality and love, it will ring true for anyone who took time to discover who they truly are.
The Narrows: A Novel (Virago Modern Classics #798)
by Ann PetryBY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE STREETWith a new introduction by Kaitlyn Greenidge, author of Libertie'Petry is the writer we have been waiting for, hers are the stories we need to fully illuminate the questions of our moment, while also offering a page-turning good time' Tayari Jones'Her work endures not only because it illuminates reality, but because it harnesses the power of fiction to supplant it' Parul Sehgal, New York TimesLink Williams is a handsome, brilliant Dartmouth graduate whose promise is unfulfilled; because of the lack of opportunities for a young Black man, he tends bar in his New England town. The routine of his life is interrupted when he intervenes to save a woman from a late-night attack. The thick fog rolls in from the river, and it is only when the couple enters a bar that the couple can see each other. And it is as if the if the oxygen has left the room: Camilo is a wealthy, white married heiress, who has crossed the town's racial divide to relieve the tedium of her life. Brought together by chance, Link and Camilo draw each other into furtive encounters that violate the rigid and uncompromising social codes of their times.
The Unpassing: A Novel
by Chia-Chia LinA major US debut novel in 2019Shortlisted for the Centre for Fiction First Novel PrizeA New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceIn Chia-Chia Lin's piercing debut novel, The Unpassing, we meet a Taiwanese immigrant family of six struggling to make ends meet on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska. The father, hardworking but beaten down, is employed as a plumber and contractor, while the loving, strong-willed, unpredictably emotional mother holds the house together. When ten-year-old Gavin contracts meningitis at school, he falls into a deep, nearly fatal coma. He wakes a week later to learn that his younger sister, Ruby, was infected too. She did not survive.Routine takes over for the grieving family, with the siblings caring for one another as they befriend the neighbouring children and explore the surrounding woods, while distance grows between the parents as each deals with the loss alone. When the father, increasingly guilt-ridden after Ruby's death, is sued over an improperly installed water well that gravely harms a little boy, the chaos that follows unearths what really happened to Ruby.With flowing prose that evokes the terrifying beauty of the Alaskan wilderness, Chia-Chia Lin explores the fallout from the loss of a child and a family's anguish playing out in a place that doesn't yet feel like home. Emotionally raw and subtly suspenseful, The Unpassing is a deeply felt family saga that dismisses the myth of the American dream for a harsher, but ultimately profound, reality.'A singularly vast and captivating novel, beautifully written in free-flowing prose that quietly disarms with its intermittent moments of poetic idiosyncrasy' New York Times Book Review 'A striking debut by an unforgettable new voice' Cosmopolitan
Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A True (as told to me) Story
by Bess Kalb**I HAVE NOT BEEN AS PROFOUNDLY MOVED BY A BOOK IN YEARS' JODI PICOULT****I LOVED THIS BOOK MORE THAN I CAN SAY**NIGELLA LAWSONA brilliantly original memoir of a grandmother speaking to her granddaughter from beyond the grave, telling the story of her life with hilarious candor and love.Bess Kalb has saved every voicemail message her grandmother - her best friend, her confidante - ever left her until the day she died.In this wildly imaginative memoir, Bobby Bell's voice is still in Bess's head. Stubborn, glamorous, larger than life, she gives Bess critical advice on everything and tells the history that made them both. Beginning with her mother's escape from the pogroms of Belarus in the 1880s to the rambunctiously cramped Brooklyn apartment where Bobby was born, it swings through her loving marriage, blazes over the rebellious youth of her daughter and finally - falls madly in love with her granddaughter, Bess. Nobody Will Tell You This But Me are the truths - full of devotion, killer instincts and hard-won experience - that Bess's grandmother tells even when they hurt - and even though she's gone.This unusual love story celebrates the bond of women across generations and the personalities that live on through grief and love. Told through documents, photographs, and verbatim dialogue, it's a memoir like none you've ever read before.
The Rachel Incident: 2023's most anticipated summer read - a hilarious, heartfelt story of unexpected love from the bestselling author
by Caroline O'Donoghue*2023's MOST ANTICIPATED SUMMER READ*'Funny, nostalgic, sexy ... it's everything I want in a summer book' MONICA HEISEY'You will love The Rachel Incident' GABRIELLE ZEVIN, author of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow'Funny, lovely, romantic, drenched in nostalgia' MARIAN KEYES___________________________________________ The Rachel Incident is an all-consuming love story. But it's not the one you're expecting. It's unconventional and messy. It's young and foolish. It's about losing and finding yourself. But it is always about love. When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr Byrne, her best friend James helps her devise a plan to seduce him. But what begins as a harmless crush soon pushes their friendship to its limits. Over the course of a year they will find their lives ever more entwined with the Byrnes' and be faced with impossible choices and a lie that can't be taken back...'Perfectly captures the intensity and high and lows of first love, and it's also very, very funny' RED MAGAZINE'Chaos at its finest' STYLIST ___________________________________________________________Early readers are falling in love with The Rachel Incident:'Her best book yet - this is going to be huge' READER REVIEW'A triumph of a novel' READER REVIEW'Extremely witty, charming and humorous' READER REVIEW'Perfection. I want to delete it from my brain so I can read it for the first time again' READER REVIEW'Delightfully addictive' READER REVIEW'Big-hearted, witty and expertly crafted' - SLOANE CROSLEY, author of Cult Classic 'Hilarious' - ANNIE LORD, author of Notes on Heartbreak 'Funny, poignant, heart-breaking' - BARBARA TRAPIDO, author of Brother of the More Famous Jack 'I really loved this book' - EMER MCLYSAGHT, author of Oh My God What a Complete Aisling 'Absorbing and funny and honest and horny' LIZZIE HUXLEY-JONES, author of Make You Mine This Christmas
Hag: Forgotten Folktales Retold
by Kirsty Logan Eimear McBride Natasha Carthew Imogen Hermes Gowar Mahsuda Snaith Daisy Johnson Emma Glass Naomi Booth Irenosen Okojie Liv Little'Engaging, modern fables with a feminist tang' Sunday TimesDARK, POTENT AND UNCANNY, HAG BURSTS WITH THE UNTOLD STORIES OF OUR ISLES, CAPTURED IN VOICES AS VARIED AS THEY ARE VIVID.Here are sisters fighting for the love of the same woman, a pregnant archaeologist unearthing impossible bones and lost children following you home. A panther runs through the forests of England and pixies prey upon violent men.From the islands of Scotland to the coast of Cornwall, the mountains of Galway to the depths of the Fens, these forgotten folktales howl, cackle and sing their way into the 21st century, wildly reimagined by some of the most exciting women writing in Britain and Ireland today. 'A thoroughly original package that has a hint of Angela Carter' The Times'Sharp writing and cleverly done' Spectator
Hag: Forgotten Folktales Retold
by Kirsty Logan Eimear McBride Natasha Carthew Imogen Hermes Gowar Mahsuda Snaith Daisy Johnson Emma Glass Naomi Booth Irenosen Okojie Liv Little'Engaging, modern fables with a feminist tang' Sunday TimesDARK, POTENT AND UNCANNY, HAG BURSTS WITH THE UNTOLD STORIES OF OUR ISLES, CAPTURED IN VOICES AS VARIED AS THEY ARE VIVID.Here are sisters fighting for the love of the same woman, a pregnant archaeologist unearthing impossible bones and lost children following you home. A panther runs through the forests of England and pixies prey upon violent men.From the islands of Scotland to the coast of Cornwall, the mountains of Galway to the depths of the Fens, these forgotten folktales howl, cackle and sing their way into the 21st century, wildly reimagined by some of the most exciting women writing in Britain and Ireland today. 'A thoroughly original package that has a hint of Angela Carter' The Times'Sharp writing and cleverly done' Spectator
What Are You Going Through: 'A total joy - and laugh-out-loud funny' DEBORAH MOGGACH
by Sigrid Nunez**THE BRAND-NEW NOVEL BY THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER** A woman visits a friend with terminal cancer. Brilliant, strong-willed and alone, the friend, facing death, makes a momentous request. Will she accompany her on a holiday where she will, without warning one day, take a lethal pill to end her life on her own terms?Shaken and grieving, she finds the strength to agree. What follows is an extraordinary story - profound, surprising and often funny - of a lifelong friendship given the ultimate challenge; to witness its end. Utterly of our moment and timeless, What Are You Going Through is a deeply moving affirmation of life in its current existential threat and in its ordinary tragedies - the loss, loneliness, and the love that yet survives.
Exhibit
by R. O. KwonFrom bestselling author R. O. Kwon, a powerful, blazing-hot novel about a woman caught between her desires and her life.'Haunting and powerful' Madeline Miller'Brisk, jolting, brilliant, beautiful, true' Andrew Sean Greer'I tore through this' Raven Leilani, author of Luster At a lavish party in the hills outside of San Francisco, Jin Han meets Lidija Jung and nothing will ever be the same for either woman. A brilliant young photographer, Jin is at a crossroads in her work, in her marriage to her college love Phillip, and in who she is and who she wants to be. Lidija is an alluring, injured world-class ballerina on hiatus from her ballet company under mysterious circumstances. Drawn to each other by their intense artistic drives, the two women talk all night. Cracked open, Jin finds herself telling Lidija about an old familial curse, breaking a lifelong promise. She's been told that if she doesn't keep the curse a secret, she risks losing everything; death and ruin could lie ahead. As Jin and Lidija become more entangled, they realize they share more than the ferocity of their ambition, and begin to explore hidden desires. Something is ignited in Jin: her art, her body, and her sense of self irrevocably changed. But can she avoid the specter of the curse? Urgent, bold, and deeply moving, this novel asks: how brightly can you burn before you light your life on fire?
Surrogate: 'An absolute belter of a page-turner' HEAT
by Susan Spindler'An absolute belter of a page-turner' HEAT'Kept me reading late into the night' DAILY MAIL'Clever and compelling. I loved it' JANE SHEMILTTHERE'S NOTHING LIKE A MOTHER'S LOVE...Ruth Furnival has built the life she always dreamed of: a stellar career in television, a lovely home, a lawyer husband and two grown-up daughters. But at 54, with an empty nest and the menopause behind her, she feels restless and dissatisfied.After multiple rounds of failed IVF, her elder daughter Lauren is told that the only way she and her husband can have a child of their own is through surrogacy. So when Ruth discovers that, with the right dose of hormones, she could carry their baby, they agree out of desperation.At first Ruth is buoyed by a new sense of purpose, but as her pregnancy progresses, long-buried events from the past resurface. Meanwhile Lauren can't contain her corrosive envy. Isolated and alone, Ruth starts to unravel and what began as an act of altruism turns into one of atonement - for which she's willing to risk everything.'A fantastic book club choice...well-researched and compelling' PRIMA'A gripping read on an under-discussed topic for fans of Apple Tree Yard' COSMOPOLITAN'A brilliantly structured, fast-paced and addictively compelling read. I loved the ending most of all' RACHEL JOYCE'Already tipped as one of the most gripping reads of the year' HELLO!'An absolute "up-all-night" compulsive read' KATE HAMER'A gripping exploration of femininity and motherhood' BEST'Moving and exciting and moral - immensely intelligent' TESSA HADLEY
Easy Beauty
by Chloé Cooper Jones'BOLD, HONEST AND SUPERBLY WELL-WRITTEN' ANDRÉ ACIMAN, AUTHOR OF CALL ME BY YOUR NAME'GRACEFUL AND SOUL-BARING' MELANIE REID, THE TIMES'WHAT A GIFT . . . HAS THE RIGOR AND PRECISION OF JOAN DIDION AND MAGGIE NELSON AND A FORTHRIGHT HUMOR AND NAKED TRUTH ALL OF ITS OWN.' SARAH RUHL, AUTHOR OF SMILEI am in a bar in Brooklyn listening to two men, my friends, discuss whether or not my life was worth living.So begins Chloé Cooper Jones's bold account of moving through the world in a body that looks different than most. Born with a rare congenital condition called sacral agenesis, she must contend not only with her own physical pain, but the emotional discomfort of others.It is only when she unexpectedly becomes a mother that she confronts the demand to live life fully, propelling her on a journey across the globe, reclaiming the spaces she'd been denied, and denied herself.From Roman sculptures to a Beyoncé concert, from a tennis tournament to the Cambodian Killing Fields, Jones interrogates the myths of beauty with spiky intelligence, aesthetic philosophy, love and humor, inviting us to find a new way of seeing.
Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up
by Selma BlairSelma Blair has played many archetypal roles: gullible ingenue in Cruel Intentions. Preppy ice queen in Legally Blonde. Fire-starter in Hellboy. Muse to Karl Lagerfeld. Face of Chanel. Cover model. Advocate for the multiple sclerosis community. But before all of that, Selma was known best for being one thing: a mean baby. In a memoir that is as wildly funny as it is emotionally shattering, Selma Blair tells the captivating story of growing up and finding her truth. The first story Selma Blair Beitner ever heard about herself is that she was a mean, mean baby. With her mouth pulled in a perpetual snarl and a head so furry it had to be rubbed to make way for her forehead, Selma spent years living up to her terrible reputation: biting her sisters, lying spontaneously, getting drunk from Passover wine at the age of seven, and behaving dramatically so that she would be the center of attention. Although Selma went on to become a celebrated Hollywood actress and model, she could never quite shake the periods of darkness that overtook her, the certainty that there was a great mystery at the heart of her life. She often felt like her arms might be on fire, a sensation not unlike electric shocks, and she secretly drank to escape. Over the course of this beautiful and, at times, shocking memoir, Selma lays bare her addiction to alcohol, her devotion to her brilliant and complicated mother, and the moments she flirted with death. There is brutal violence, passionate love, true friendship, the gift of motherhood and, finally, the simultaneous devastation and surprising salvation of a multiple sclerosis diagnosis. In a voice that is powerfully original, fiercely intelligent, and full of hard-won wisdom, Selma Blair's Mean Baby is a deeply human memoir and a true literary achievement.
Your Planet Needs You!: An everyday guide to saving the earth
by Bernadette Vallely Amy Charuy-Hughes Bethan Stewart JamesIf there was ever a time to stand up for your planet, for Mother Earth, this is the time. But what are the most pressing environmental issues affecting us today? And what actions can you, as an individual, take to combat them? If you want to know what you can do, then this is the book for you. Your Planet Needs You is the essential beginner's guide to understanding the environment and the threats to its wellbeing. From plastic waste to pesticides, food production and chemicals, global warming to species extinction, this book covers the topics that you need to know about.With practical and positive tips, this book will show how you can be part of the solution and help make a better world, whatever age you are.Includes sections on air pollution, environmental law, fast fashion and ethical living, as well as resources such as recommended reading and lists of groups and organisations that you can get involved with.