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Recommendations
Book Club Favourites #34
by Brandon King
Looking for inspiration for your book club? Take a look at our recommended titles, perfect for reading groups!
Find more book club recommendations.
And Away..., by Bob Mortimer
Here is the long-awaited first autobiography by national treasure Bob Mortimer. Bob Mortimer's life was trundling along happily until suddenly in 2015 he was diagnosed with a heart condition that required immediate surgery and forced him to cancel an upcoming tour. The episode unnerved him, but forced him to reflect on his life so far. This is the framework for this hilarious and moving memoir.
The Reunion, by Polly Phillips
Emily Toller has tried to forget her time at university and the events that led to her suddenly leaving under a cloud. She has done everything she can to forget the shame and the trauma - and the people involved. She has tried to focus on the life she has built with her children and husband, Nick. But events like that can't just be forgotten. Not without someone answering for what they've done. When an invitation arrives to a University reunion, everything clicks into place. Emily has a plan. Because if you can't forget - why not get revenge?
Magpie Lane, by Lucy Atkins
When the eight-year-old daughter of an Oxford College Master vanishes in the middle of the night, police turn to the Scottish nanny, Dee, for answers. As Dee looks back over her time in the Master's Lodging - an eerie and ancient house - a picture of a high achieving but dysfunctional family emerges: Nick, the fiercely intelligent and powerful father; his beautiful Danish wife Mariah, pregnant with their child; and the lost little girl, Felicity, almost mute, seeing ghosts, grieving her dead mother. But is Dee telling the whole story? Is her growing friendship with the eccentric house historian, Linklater, any cause for concern? And most of all, why was Felicity silent?
Unsettled Ground, by Claire Fuller
Twins Jeanie and Julius have always been different from other people. At 51 years old, they still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation and poverty. Inside the walls of their old cottage they make music, and in the garden they grow (and sometimes kill) everything they need for sustenance. But when Dot dies suddenly, threats to their livelihood start raining down. Jeanie and Julius would do anything to preserve their small sanctuary against the perils of the outside world, even as their mother's secrets begin to unravel, putting everything they thought they knew about their lives at stake.
The Giver of Stars, by Jojo Moyes
England, late 1930s, and Alice Wright - restless, stifled - makes an impulsive decision to marry wealthy American Bennett van Cleve and leave her home and family behind. But stuffy, disapproving Baileyville, Kentucky, where her husband favours work over his wife, and is dominated by his overbearing father, is not the adventure - or the escape - that she hoped for. That is, until she meets Margery O'Hare - daughter of a notorious felon and a troublesome woman the town wishes to forget. Margery's on a mission to spread the wonder of books and reading to the poor and lost - and she needs Alice's help. Trekking alone under big open skies, through wild mountain forests, Alice, Margery and their fellow sisters of the trail discover freedom, friendship - and a life to call their own.
The Devil You Know, by Gwen Adshead
In The Devil You Know, Dr. Gwen Adshead reminds us that before destroying another life, those reviled as 'monsters' at Broadmoor were ordinary people with whom we shared, and continue to share, common ground. In fact, we are more alike than we are different.
The Book of Form & Emptiness, by Ruth Ozeki
After the tragic death of his father, thirteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house and sound variously pleasant, angry or sad. Then his mother develops a hoarding problem, and the voices grow more clamorous. When ignoring them doesn't work, Benny seeks refuge in the silence of a large public library. There he meets a mesmerising street artist with a smug pet ferret; a homeless philosopher-poet who encourages him to find his own voice amongst the many; and his very own Book, who narrates Benny's life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter.
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No One is Talking About This, by Patricia Lockwood
A woman known for her viral social media posts travels the world speaking to her adoring fans, her entire existence overwhelmed by the Internet - or what she terms 'the portal'. Are we in hell? the people of the portal ask themselves. Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die? Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: 'Something has gone wrong,' and 'How soon can you get here?' As real life and its stakes collide with the increasing absurdity of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.
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The Hiding Place, by Simon Lelic
It was only a game. No one was meant to get hurt. It's time to play hide and seek again. DI Fleet is up against some of the most powerful people in the country as he attempts to discover the truth about what happened on the day of the game.
Cunning Women, by Elizabeth Lee
1620s, Lancashire. Away from the village lies a small hamlet, abandoned since the Plague, where only one family dwell amongst its ruins. Young Sarah Haworth, her mother, brother and little sister Annie are a family of outcasts by day and the recipients of visitors by night. They are cunning folk, the villagers will always need them, quick with a healing balm or more, should your needs require. They can keep secrets too, because no one would believe them anyway. When Sarah spies a young man taming a wild horse, she risks being caught to watch him calm the animal. And when Daniel sees Sarah he does not just see a strange, dirty thing, he sees her for who she really is, a strong creature about to come into her own. But can something as fragile as love blossom between these two in such a place as this?
Common Ground, by Naomi Ishiguro
Did you ever have a friend who made you see the world differently? Stan did, and his name was Charlie. They crossed paths by chance one day, cycling on Goshawk Common. Fearless, clever, older, Charlie was everything Stan - bullied and adrift after his father's death - wanted to be. Charlie taught Stan to ask questions, to stand on his own two feet. But could their friendship endure in a world that offered these two boys such different prospects? When the two meet again, as adults, the tables have turned, and while Stan is revelling in all the city has to offer, Charlie is the one struggling. But will Stan be there for the man who once showed him the meaning of loyalty? This book includes a new short story and exclusive author interview.
Keep Her Sweet, by Helen Fitzgerald
Desperate to enjoy their empty nest, Penny and Andeep downsize to the countryside, to forage, upcycle and fall in love again, only to be joined by their two twenty-something daughters, Asha and Camille. Living on top of each other in a tiny house, with no way to make money, tensions simmer, and as Penny and Andeep focus increasingly on themselves, the girls become isolated, argumentative and violent. When Asha injures Camille, a family therapist is called in, but she shrugs off the escalating violence between the sisters as a classic case of sibling rivalry - and the stress of the family move. But this is not sibling rivalry. The sisters are in far too deep for that. This is a murder, just waiting to happen.
Tidelands, by Philippa Gregory
Midsummer's Eve, 1648, and England is in the grip of civil war between renegade King and rebellious Parliament. Alinor, a descendant of wise women, crushed by poverty and superstition, waits in the graveyard under the full moon for a ghost who will declare her free from her abusive husband. Instead she meets James, a young man on the run, and shows him the secret ways across the treacherous marsh, not knowing that she is leading disaster into the heart of her life. Suspected of possessing dark secrets in superstitious times, Alinor's ambition and determination mark her out from her neighbours. This is the time of witch-mania, and Alinor, a woman without a husband, skilled with herbs, suddenly enriched, arouses envy in her rivals and fear among the villagers, who are ready to take lethal action into their own hands.
People Like Her, by Ellery Lloyd
People like Emmy Jackson. They always have. Especially online, where she is Instagram sensation Mamabare, famous for always telling the unvarnished truth about modern parenthood. But Emmy isn't as honest as she'd like the fans to believe. She may think she has her followers fooled, but someone out there knows the truth and plans to make her pay. Because people like her have no idea what pain careless words can cause. Because people like her need to learn what it feels like to lose everything.