CHRISTMAS BOOKCASE

Staff Recommended Reading

December 2015

Full details can be found on

www.millhill.org.uk

The Sleeper Emily Barr Design for a Life: How Behaviour Develops

Patrick Bateson and Paul Martin

Anyone Here Been Raped & Speaks English? Edward Behr A Short Gentleman Jon Canter A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding Jackie Copleton Le Boucher De Kpota M.M.Diabate

Two Brothers Ben Elton We are Completely Besides Ourselves Karen Joy Fowler Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles Margaret George The Miracle of Mindfulness Thich Nhat Hanh Dictator Robert Harris. Road to Rouen Ben Hatch The Girl on the Train Paula Hawkins Elizabeth is Missing Emma Healey The Wolf of The Plains Conn Iggulden The Churchill Factor Boris Johnson The Invention of Wings Sue Monk Kidd Severed- A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found Frances Larson As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning Laurie Lee Ghettoside Jill Leovy Picnic at Hanging Rock Joan Lindsay An Intelligent Person's Guide to Education Tony Little H is For Hawk Helen McDonald Listen to the Moon Michael Morpurgo Song of Solomon Toni Morrison Beloved Toni Morrison Kafka on the Shore Haruki Murakami The Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage Haruki Murakami The Rain Tree Mirabel Osler Death by Video Game Simon Parkin (Un)arranged Marriage Bali Rai Stalin’s General Geoffrey Roberts Shantaram Gregory David Roberts Season of Migration to The North Taveb Salih Riotous Assembly Tom Sharpe We Need to Talk About Kevin Lionel Shriver The Jungle Upton Sinclair A Light Between Oceans M.L.Stedman Once There was a War John Steinbeck A Spool of Blue Thread Anne Tyler The House in France Gully Wells Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? Jeanette Winterson The Easter Parade Richard Yates

The Sleeper Emily Barr Synopsis: Lara Finch is living a lie. Everyone thinks she has a happy life in Cornwall,

married to the devoted Sam, but in fact she is desperately bored. When she is offered a

new job that involves commuting to London by sleeper train, she meets Guy and starts an

illicit affair. But then Lara vanishes from the night train without a trace. Only her friend

Iris disbelieves the official version of events, and sets out to find her. For Iris, it is the

start of a voyage that will take her further than she's ever travelled and on to a trail of old crimes and

dark secrets. For Lara, it is the end of a journey that started a long time ago. A journey she must finish,

before it destroys her...

Recommended By:- Sarah Sofroniou

This novel first attracted me because the story begins on the sleeper train between London Paddington

and Cornwall, a route I often take. It's a mystery that revolves around the sudden disappearance of the

main character and which unfolds slowly. It keeps you guessing right up to the last page.

A real page turner, this book is hard to put down and is a great read for the holidays.

Design for a Life: How Behaviour Develops

Patrick Bateson and Paul Martin Synopsis: How and why does each of us grow up to be the person we are? What role do

genes play in shaping our behaviour and personalities? Are our characters fixed, or can we

change as adults? How does early experience affect our sexual preferences?

Design for a Life explains the science of behavioural development - the biological and

psychological processes that build a unique adult from a fertilised egg. Instead of the

conventional opposition between nature (genes) and nurture (environment), Design for a Life offers a

new approach that synthesises biology and psychology. It explores the developmental cooking

processes that give rise to individuals, and considers in turn how these processes have evolved. Recommended By:- Sam Baldock

This highly readable popular science book successfully connects developmental biology and

developmental psychology, outlining lots of neat experiments to evidence the authors’ arguments.

People can still get confused by the idea of ‘nature versus nurture’ this explains how most components

of human behaviour are a consequence of the environment ‘cooking’ the ‘raw ingredients’ of the

genome. Each chapter is short but packed with interesting examples that you’ll find yourself wanting to

share with others. You’ll finish the book looking at yourself in a completely different way!

Anyone Here Been Raped & Speaks English? Edward Behr

Synopsis: An account of Edward Behr's time in China and South East Asia during the

60s and 70s.

Recommended By:- Andrew Homer

This contains some of the memoirs of a great foreign correspondent in Africa and SE Asia. A

fascinating glimpse into the turmoil of the 50s, 60s and 70s. The title is apparently what some

newspaper reporter shouted across an airport terminal…

A Short Gentleman Jon Canter

Synopsis: How did Robert Purcell, distinguished barrister and perfect specimen of

the British Establishment, end up in prison? An intellectual giant but an emotional

pygmy, Robert is a man struggling to come to terms with the forces that have brought

him down, from the wife who wanted him to change, to the ex-girlfriend who came back

to haunt him and the childhood bully who turned into an adult bully. Despite everything,

Robert remains the same magnificently self-righteous man he always was, utterly resistant to therapy,

change and the emotional demands of the opposite sex.

Recommended By:- Debbie Sharp-Thurgood

Beautifully written and you can really empathise with the main character and see how your childhood

experiences shape your character. It is written with humour but is a really horrendous true story.

A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding Jackie Copleton Synopsis: When a badly scarred man knocks on the door of Amaterasu Takahashi’s

retirement home and says that he is her grandson, she doesn’t believe him. But if you’ve

become adept at lying, can you tell when someone is speaking the truth? Amaterasu

knows her grandson and her daughter died the day the Americans dropped the atomic

bomb on Nagasaki; she searched for them amongst the ruins of her devastated city and

has spent years burying her memories of that brutal summer. So this man is either a miracle or a cruel

trick. The stranger forces Amaterasu to revisit her past; the hurt and humiliation of her early life, the

intoxication of a first romance, the fierceness of a mother’s love. For years she has held on to the idea

that she did what she had to do to protect her family… but now nothing seems so certain.

We can’t rewrite history, but can we create a new future? Set against the dramatic backdrop of

Nagasaki before and after the bomb, A Dictionary Of Mutual Understanding is about regret,

forgiveness and the exquisite pain of love.

Recommended By:- Elizabeth Grainger

This book of Historical fiction set in Japan, is thought provoking although very sad. It tells of a

grandmother’s guilt and how she blames herself for the death of her daughter, when the Americans

dropped the Atomic bomb over Nagasaki. I liked the fact that every chapter begins with a Japanese

word and an explanation of the meaning.

Recommended By:- Tricia Newsome

This is a great read as it gave me a first time view (or glimpse) of Japanese culture. I now have so

much more knowledge and therefore respect for a whole new way of looking at life and how valuable it

is. It awakens the reader to the horror of a nuclear bomb and the lasting effects after decades of grief.

(It is about a Nagasaki family killed and torn apart by the nuclear bomb and the story is now told by

the grandmother who survives).

Le Boucher De Kpota M.M.Diabate Synopsis:

Recommended By:- Andrew Homer

A picture of village life in French West Africa. Utterly pretentious of me to put it in given there is, as

far as I know, no translation in Ingerlish. He also wrote‘Le Coiffeur de Kouta’. Incroyable.

Two Brothers Ben Elton Synopsis: A deeply poignant novel set in Berlin between 1920 and 1945

Recommended By: Stephanie Isaacs

A sensitively written engaging story that has twists and turns.

We Are Completely Besides Ourselves Karen Joy Fowler Synopsis: Rosemary's young, just at college, and she's decided not to tell anyone a

thing about her family. So we're not going to tell you too much either: you'll have to find

out for yourselves, what it is that makes her unhappy family unlike any other. Rosemary is

now an only child, but she used to have a sister the same age as her, and an older brother.

Both are now gone - vanished from her life. There's something unique about Rosemary's

sister, Fern. And it was this decision, made by her parents, to give Rosemary a sister like

no other, that began all of Rosemary's trouble. So now she's telling her story: full of hilarious asides

and brilliantly spiky lines, it's a looping narrative that begins towards the end, and then goes back to the

beginning. Twice. It's funny, clever, intimate, honest, analytical and swirling with ideas that will come

back to bite you. We hope you enjoy it, and if, when you're telling a friend about it, you do decide to

spill the beans about Fern - it's pretty hard to resist - don't worry. One of the few studies Rosemary

doesn't quote says that spoilers actually enhance reading.

Recommended By:- Orpita Logan

I can’t give a description as it will give the twist away. It was my favourite read over this summer!

Recommended By:- Stephanie Isaacs

It's funny, clever, intimate, honest, analytical and swirling with ideas that will come back to bite you.

Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles Margaret George Synopsis: Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles is the story of a woman born to rule

a nation – and the glorious pageant of love and tragedy that followed in her wake.

Mary's beauty inspired poetry – yet her birth-right engendered hideous treachery and

terrible, bloody murder. This novel is Margaret George's magnificent recreation of the

life of one of history's greatest legends. A woman accused of murdering her husband to

marry her lover. A woman who became Queen six days after her birth in 1542 – only to

be beheaded forty years later on the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I . . .

Recommended By:- Julie Devitt

Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles is the story of a woman born to rule a nation – and the glorious

pageant of love and tragedy that followed in her wake. Mary’s beauty inspired poetry – yet her birth-

right generated hideous treachery and terrible, blood murder. An historical novel of exceptional

quality Margaret George spent more than five years researching and writing Mary Queen of Scotland

and the Isles. An epic novel, which I thoroughly enjoyed. This book is highly recommended.

The Miracle of Mindfulness Thich Nhat Hanh Synopsis: In this beautifully written book, Buddhist monk and Nobel Peace Prize

nominee Thich Nhat Hanh explains how to acquire the skills of mindfulness. Once we have

these skills, we can slow our lives down and discover how to live in the moment - even

simple acts like washing the dishes or drinking a cup of tea may be transformed into acts of

meditation. Thich Nhat Hanh's gentle anecdotes and practical exercises help us to arrive at

greater self-understanding and peacefulness, whether we are beginners or advanced students.

Irrespective of our particular religious beliefs, we can begin to reap the immense benefits that

meditation has been scientifically proven to offer. We can all learn how to be mindful and experience

the miracle of mindfulness for ourselves.

Recommended By:- Tricia Newsome

I am moved to read more of his work; it’s easy to follow and gives a deep understanding of how to live

every moment to the full. I am inspired by this amazing philosophy and way of being. It has changed

my life and I keep buying more copies of this book for friends and family. Perhaps a bit of me wishes I

had known about it a long time ago.

Dictator Robert Harris

Synopsis: There was a time when Cicero held Caesar’s life in the palm of his hand.

But now Caesar is the dominant figure and Cicero’s life is in ruins. Exiled, separated from

his wife and children, his possessions confiscated, his life constantly in danger, Cicero is

tormented by the knowledge that he has sacrificed power for the sake of his principles.

His comeback requires wit, skill and courage – and for a brief and glorious period, the

legendary orator is once more the supreme senator in Rome. But politics is never static and no

statesman, however cunning, can safeguard against the ambition and corruption of others.

Recommended By:- Steve Plummer

The final part of the trilogy about Cicero.

Road to Rouen Ben Hatch Synopsis: Ben Hatch is on the road again. Commissioned to write a guidebook about France

(despite not speaking any French) he sets off with visions of relaxing chateaux and

refined dining. Ten thousand miles later his family's been attacked by a donkey, had a

run-in with a death-cult and, after a near drowning and a calamitous wedding experience

involving a British spy, his own marriage is in jeopardy. A combination of obsessions

about mosquitoes, French gravel and vegetable theme parks mean it's a bumpy ride as

Ben takes a stand against tyrannical French pool attendants, finds himself running with the bulls in

Pamplona and almost starring in a snuff movie after a near fatal decision to climb into a millionaire's

Chevrolet Blazer. Funny and poignant, Road to Rouen asks important questions about life, marriage

and whether it's ever acceptable to tape baguette to your children's legs to smuggle lunch into

Disneyland Paris. Recommended by Elizabeth Grainger

After reading last year’s recommendation called Are We Nearly There Yet, I thought I would try Ben

Hatch’s follow up book called Road to Rouen. This time he takes his wife and young children on a

journey through France, very amusing in places, you can just picture the situations he describes.

The Girl on the Train Paula Hawkins Synopsis: 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…

Recommended by Sara Martinez Reminiscent of ‘Gone Girl’ and ‘Before I go to Sleep’, this novel (soon to be a blockbuster by

DreamWorks) takes the concept of the unreliable narrator to the next level: the narrator’s an

alcoholic! With her personal and professional life a mess, the narrator takes us on her journey of

solving a murder that she has witnessed from a train carriage. A great summer read, this page-turner

will keep you guessing until the last chapter.

Elizabeth is Missing Emma Healey Synopsis: Maud is forgetful. She makes a cup of tea and doesn't remember to drink it.

She goes to the shops and forgets why she went. Sometimes her home is unrecognizable -

or her daughter Helen seems a total stranger. But there's one thing Maud is sure of: her

friend Elizabeth is missing. The note in her pocket tells her so. And no matter who tells

her to stop going on about it, to leave it alone, to shut up, Maud will get to the bottom of

it. Because somewhere in Maud's damaged mind lies the answer to an unsolved seventy-year-old

mystery. One everyone has forgotten about. Everyone, except Maud . . .

Recommended by Sara Martinez Told from the perspective of an elderly woman suffering from dementia, this novel is original and

touching in the way that it is narrated. Reminding me of my own dear grandmother’s experience with

memory loss, the text sensitively positions us to feel empathy for those individuals in society who suffer

from this condition. The parallel narrative of the narrator’s sister’s disappearance in the 1940s in

cleverly interwoven into the present-day storyline of attempting to solve the mystery surrounding why

the narrator’s friend, Elizabeth, is missing (a tough job when you can’t rely on your memory!).

Overall, the novel is an incredibly moving and engaging read.

The Wolf of the Plains Conn Iggulden Synopsis: This is the first book in the bestselling Conqueror series featuring Genghis

Khan and his descendants. Temujin, the second son of the khan of the Wolves tribe, was

only eleven when his father died in an ambush. His family were thrown out of the tribe and

left alone, without food or shelter, to starve to death on the harsh Mongolian plains. It was a

rough introduction to his life, to a sudden adult world, but Temujin survived, learning to

combat natural and human threats. A man, a small family, without a tribe was always at risk but he

gathered other outsiders to him, creating a new tribal identity. It was during some of his worst times

that the image of uniting the warring tribes and bringing the silver people together came to him. He will

become the khan of the sea of grass, Genghis.

Recommended By:- Richard Warden

This novel is the first in a series of historical novels and is very readable. It gives a chilling

understanding of the life of Genghis Khan and his successors in the 13th

century, as he establishes the

Mongol nation and battles with the Chin Dynasty. The books enable us to comprehend the brutality

that has existed in history, as well as helping us to empathise with the dilemmas of leadership and

human survival in the harshest conditions. Having read the first book in the series, I was hooked on the

rest, even though they are necessarily bloodthirsty in parts. Beware!A history website says this:

‘Between 1206 and his death in 1227, the Mongol leader Genghis Khan conquered nearly 12 million

square miles of territory—more than any individual in history. Along the way, he cut a ruthless path

through Asia and Europe but he also modernised Mongolian culture, embraced religious freedom and

helped open contact between East and West.

The Churchill Factor Boris Johnson Synopsis: ‘The point of the Churchill Factor is that one man can make all the

difference. 'On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of Winston Churchill's death, and

written in conjunction with the Churchill Estate, Boris Johnson explores what makes up

the 'Churchill Factor' - the singular brilliance of one of the most important leaders of the

twentieth century. Taking on the myths and misconceptions along with the outsized

reality, he portrays - with characteristic wit and passion - a man of multiple contradictions, contagious

bravery, breath-taking eloquence, matchless strategizing, and deep humanity. Fearless on the

battlefield, Churchill had to be ordered by the King to stay out of action on D-Day; he embraced large-

scale strategic bombing, yet hated the destruction of war and scorned politicians who had not

experienced its horrors. He was a celebrated journalist, a great orator and won the Nobel Prize for

Literature. He was famous for his ability to combine wining and dining with many late nights of crucial

wartime decision-making. His open-mindedness made him a pioneer in health care, education, and

social welfare, though he remained incorrigibly politically incorrect. Most of all, as Boris Johnson says,

'Churchill is the resounding human rebuttal to all who think history is the story of vast and impersonal

economic forces'. The Churchill Factor is a book to be enjoyed not only by anyone interested in

history: it is essential reading for anyone who wants to know what makes a great leader.

Recommended by Adam Morton

A fascinating and wonderfully readable book which, without shying away from his blunders, powerfully

argues the case for Churchill‘s status as a truly great statesman. Whatever you may think of Boris, the

man can write.

The Invention of Wings Sue Monk Kidd Synopsis: Sarah Grimké is the middle daughter. The one her mother calls difficult and

her father calls remarkable. On Sarah's eleventh birthday, Hetty 'Handful' Grimké is taken

from the slave quarters she shares with her mother, wrapped in lavender ribbons, and

presented to Sarah as a gift. Sarah knows what she does next will unleash a world of trouble.

She also knows that she cannot accept. And so, indeed, the trouble begins ... A powerful,

sweeping novel, inspired by real events, and set in the American Deep South in the

nineteenth century, The Invention Of Wings evokes a world of shocking contrasts, of beauty and

ugliness, of righteous people living daily with cruelty they fail to recognise; and celebrates the power

of friendship.

Recommended By:- Elizabeth Grainger

I have an interest in books about the American Deep South and Slavery and this book based on

historical fact about two abolitionist sisters did not disappoint me. On her eleventh birthday Sarah

became a mistress, of a slave who was given to her as a birthday present. Given her firm anti- slavery

views, it is interesting to see what unfolds.

Severed- A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found

Frances Larson Synopsis: Our history is littered with heads. Over the centuries, they have decorated

our churches, festooned our city walls and filled our museums; they have been props for

artists and specimens for laboratory scientists, trophies for soldiers and items of barter.

Today, as videos of decapitations circulate online and cryonicists promise that our heads

may one day live on without our bodies, the severed head is as contentious and

compelling as ever. From shrunken heads to trophies of war; from memento mori to Damien Hirst's

With Dead Head; from grave-robbing phrenologists to enterprising scientists, Larson explores the

bizarre, often gruesome and confounding history of the severed head. Its story is our story.

Recommended By:- Jane Sweeney

It is a very interesting and thought provoking read.

As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning Laurie Lee Synopsis: As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning is a beautiful and moving follow-

up to Laurie Lee's acclaimed Cider with Rosie

Abandoning the Cotswolds village that raised him, the young Laurie Lee walks to London.

There he makes a living labouring and playing the violin. But, deciding to travel further

afield and knowing only the Spanish phrase for 'Will you please give me a glass of water?', he heads

for Spain. With just a blanket to sleep under and his trusty violin, he spends a year crossing Spain, from

Vigo in the north to the southern coast. Only the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War puts an end to his

extraordinary peregrinations . . .Laurie Lee has written some of the best-loved travel books in the

English language. Born in Stroud, Gloucestershire, in 1914, he was educated at Slad village school and

Stroud Central School. At the age of nineteen he walked to London and then travelled on foot through

Spain, where he was trapped by the outbreak of the Civil War. He later returned by crossing the

Pyrenees, as he recounted in A Moment of War. In 1950 he married Catherine Polge and they had one

daughter.

Recommended By:- Richard Searby

This work is autobiographical, charting Lee’s departure as a 19 year old from his family home in

Gloucestershire in 1934. He was off on that most romantic but often hard of journeys – to make his

fortune. Initially Lee heads to London (via Southampton as he had never seen the sea!). He works

briefly on a building site but leaves soon after for Spain. With only a small bindle and his violin on his

back he lands on the Basque coast and then walks the length of the country, ending up on the

Andalucian coast near Malaga. The story charts his many adventures on the way, including being

attacked by a pack of wild dogs as he sleeps rough on a mountainside, encounters with various dodgy

characters and his rescue by the British Royal Navy after civil war breaks out in 1936. Lee keeps body

and soul together by playing his fiddle in streets and marketplaces, and it proves also to be a way to

meet so many of the local people and to make some fleeting friendships.

Although this is a novel it is highly poetic in style, a lyrical and lucid picture of a beauty and violence

of Spain in the 1930s. Later Lee returned to Spain to fight on the side of the Republicans in the civil

war, and this experience is captured in ‘A Moment of War’. George Orwell’s ‘Homage to Catalonia’ ,

which describes that author’s time fighting against Franco’s fascist forces as a mercenary, is worth

reading alongside Lee’s works as so much of Spanish life at this time is then set in its context.

Ghettoside Jill Leovy Synopsis: On a warm spring evening in South Los Angeles, a young man is shot and

killed on a sidewalk minutes away from his home, one of the thousands of black Americans

murdered that year. His assailant runs down the street, jumps into an SUV, and vanishes,

hoping to join the scores of killers in American cities who are never arrested for their

crimes. But as soon as the case is assigned to Detective John Skaggs, the odds shift.

Here is the kaleidoscopic story of the quintessential, but mostly ignored, American

murder—a “ghettoside” killing, one young black man slaying another—and a brilliant and driven cadre

of detectives whose creed is to pursue justice for forgotten victims at all costs. Ghettoside is a fast-

paced narrative of a devastating crime, an intimate portrait of detectives and a community bonded in

tragedy, and a surprising new lens into the great subject of why murder happens in our cities—and how

the epidemic of killings might yet be stopped. Recommended By:- Alex Frazer

It’s a factual account of a homicide investigation in Los Angeles and an exploration of why young

black men are disproportionately likely to be the victims of unsolved murders in the USA.

Picnic at Hanging Rock Joan Lindsay Synopsis: It was a cloudless summer day in the year nineteen hundred. Everyone at

Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock.

After lunch, a group of three of the girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun,

pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of Hanging Rock. Further, higher, till at last

they disappeared. They never returned.

Recommended By:- Elizabeth Grainger

Was this fact or fiction! Whatever you want to believe, although this story is actually fiction, you could

believe that it was a true account of a Picnic at Hanging Rock. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.

An Intelligent Person's Guide to Education Tony Little Synopsis: Tony Little is The Head Master of Eton. One of the most progressive and

imaginative people in British education today he has hitherto kept a low profile. This

book, published to coincide with his retirement, sets out his educational fundamentals.

There is a crisis in the British education system. Year on year GCSE and A Level pupils

post better exam results, with more students achieving top grades. Yet business leaders

and employers complain bitterly that our schools are not producing people fit for

purpose. Far from being locked in an ivory tower, a bastion of privilege, Mr Little has used his time as

a teacher and headmaster to get to grips with fundamental questions concerning education. He wants to

produce people fit to work in the modern world. How do children absorb information? What kind of

people does society need? What is education for? Not only is the author one of the great reforming

headmasters of our time but he has planted Academies in the East end of London, founded a state

boarding school near Windsor and yet is a passionate advocate of single sex schools.

This book is not a text book for colleges of education - it is a book to enlighten the teaching profession

and just as much for anxious parents. The book is simply arranged under topics such as authority,

expectations, progress, self-confidence, sex, crises and creativity.

Tony Little thinks it is time to ask some fundamental questions, and to make brave decisions about how

we make our schools and our schoolchildren fit for purpose.

Recommended By:- Lindsey Farrant

Calmly understated, yet often uncomfortably sharp and always perceptive, Little takes aim assessment

strait jackets, helicopter parenting and school’ cultural impoverishment. ’An intelligent person’ Guide

to Education’ is entertaining, humble and thought-provoking with a streak of common-sense and

humanity at its core.

H is for Hawk Helen McDonald Synopsis: As a child, Helen Macdonald was determined to become a falconer, learning

the arcane terminology and reading all the classic books. Years later, when her father died

and she was struck deeply by grief, she became obsessed with the idea of training her own

goshawk. She bought Mabel for £800 on a Scottish quayside and took her home to

Cambridge, ready to embark on the long, strange business of trying to train this wildest of

animals. H is for Hawk is an unflinchingly honest account of Macdonald's struggle with grief during

the difficult process of the hawk's taming and her own untaming. This is a book about memory, nature

and nation, and how it might be possible to reconcile death with life and love.

Recommended By:- Katie Seecharan

I loved this book because it explores the relationship between people and birds and how that

relationship can be therapeutic for people going through difficult times in their lives. It is a beautiful

story for non- bird lovers and bird lovers alike.

Listen to the Moon Michael Morpurgo Synopsis: Alfie and his fisherman father find a girl on an uninhabited island in the

Scillies – injured, thirsty, lost… and with absolutely no memory of who she is, or how she

came to be there. She can say only one word: Lucy. Where has she come from? Is she a

mermaid, the victim of a German U-boat, or even – as some islanders suggest – a German

spy…? Only one thing is for sure: she loves music and moonlight, and it is when she

listens to the gramophone that the glimmers of the girl she once was begin to appear. WW1 is raging,

suspicion and fear are growing, and Alfie and Lucy are ever more under threat. But as we begin to see

the story of Merry, a girl boarding a great ship for a perilous journey across the ocean, another melody

enters the great symphony – and the music begins to resolve… A beautiful tour de force of family,

love, war and forgiveness, this is a major new novel from the author of Private Peaceful – in which

what was once lost may sometimes be found, washed up again on the shore…

Reecommended By:- Kate Thompson

I’ve just read Listen to the moon by Michael Morpurgo. Of course it is a children’s book, but it is over

400 pages so presumably aimed at older teenagers. It tells the story of a girl who survives the sinking

of the ‘Lusitania’ in 1915 and who is subsequently rescued by a German Uboat crew who leave her on

one of the Scilly Islands. Unfortunately, the island is uninhabited but she is finally rescued and housed

by a local family. The trauma robs her of her voice, which only returns right at the end of the book. I

thought it was a gripping story and certainly adults will enjoy it.

Song of Solomon Toni Morrison

Synopsis: Song of Solomon is a work of outstanding beauty and power, whose

story covers the years from the 1930's to the 1960's in America. At its centre is Macon

Dead Jr, the son of a wealthy black property owner, who has been brought up to revere

the white world. Macon learns about the tyranny of white society from his friend Guitar,

though he is more concerned to escape the tyranny of his father. So while Guitar joins a

terrorist group of poor blacks, Macon goes home to the South, lured by tales of buried

family treasure. His journey leads to the discovery of something more valuable than gold, his past. Yet

the truth about his origins and his true self is not fully revealed to Macon until he and Guitar meet once

again in powerful, and deadly confrontation.

Beloved Toni Morrison Synopsis: It is the mid-1800s and as slavery looks to be coming to an end, Sethe is

haunted by the violent trauma it wrought on her former enslaved life at Sweet Home,

Kentucky. Her dead baby daughter, whose tombstone bears the single word, Beloved,

returns as a spectre to punish her mother, but also to elicit her love. Told with heart-

stopping clarity, melding horror and beauty, Beloved is Toni Morrison’s enduring

masterpiece. Recommended By:- Sujata Biswas

Both books are an intriguing insight in to black American culture, both past and present. They include

references to historical fact, interwoven with the suspense of fictional writing.

Kafka on The Shore Haruki Murakami Synopsis: Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his

father's dark rophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered

from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned

upside down. As their parallel odysseys unravel, cats converse with people; fish

tumble from the sky; a ghost-like pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a

forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since World War II. There is a savage

killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle - one of many which combine to create an

elegant and dreamlike masterpiece.

Recommended By:- Will Hughes-Caley

Murakami’s descriptions of the surroundings and the event really help to weave a realistic image and I

got absorbed into the book.

The Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Haruki Murakami Synopsis: Tsukuru Tazaki had four best friends at school. By chance all of their

names contained a colour. The two boys were called Akamatsu, meaning ‘red pine’, and

Oumi, ‘blue sea’, while the girls’ names were Shirane, ‘white root’, and Kurono, ‘black

field’. Tazaki was the only last name with no colour in it. One day Tsukuru Tazaki’s

friends announced that they didn't want to see him, or talk to him, ever again. Since that

day Tsukuru has been floating through life, unable to form intimate connections with anyone. But then

he meets Sara, who tells him that the time has come to find out what happened all those years ago.

Recommended By:- Sara Martinez

This is typical Murakami: weird and wonderful and hugely engaging. The plot centres around Tsukuru

who must re-visit difficult memories from the past to try and find peace with why his tightly-knit

friendship group in high-school callously rejected him without warning in early adulthood. The

emotional and psychological scars from being ostracised from the friends he loved so dearly shape

Tsukur’s troubled identity later in life. He is unable to form meaningful relationships and struggles

largely with the idea of ‘living’. When a love-interest Sara (great name for a character!), forces him to

deal with his inner demons, Tsukuru takes us on a pilgrimage when he must confront painful ghosts

form the past.

The Rain Tree Mirabel Osler Synopsis: A host of vividly caught characters are here: Mirabel's extrovert, free-

spirited mother Phyllis; Aylmer Vallance, who with extraordinary love letters would

rescue her mother from a twilight life; Stella Bowen, Phyllis's lifelong friend and fellow

student under Ezra Pound, their introduction to the London literati, notably Ford Madox

Ford. Throughout Mirabel's childhood, it was Stella who would be the one fast colour

amid her mercurial mother's love affairs. Turning closer to the present - to new friendships, the paring

away of previous assumptions and conventions and the serendipities of chance acquaintance - we

encounter Michael, Mirabel's late husband, who's barbaric public-school childhood contrasted so

dramatically with Mirabel's own, affectionate and carefree; whose repressed father so adored roses;

their childhood meeting; their delight in their children and beloved Shropshire garden, a character in its

own right, full of the joy of the unexpected.

Recommended By:- Debbie Sharpe-Thurgood

I love the language and poetry in this book.

Death By Video Game Simon Parkin S ynopsis: “Whether it's Space Invaders, Candy Crush Saga or Grand Theft Auto, video

games draw us in and don't let go. In Taiwan, a spate of deaths at gaming cafés is raising a

question: why is it that some of us are playing games beyond the limits of our physical

wellbeing? Death by Video Game uncovers the real stories behind our video game

obsession. Along the way, award-winning journalist Simon Parkin meets the players and

game developers at the frontline of virtual extremism, including the New York surgeon attempting to

break the Donkey Kong world record; The Minecraft player three years into an epic journey towards

the edge of the game's vast virtual world and the German hacker who risked prison to discover the

secrets behind Half-Life 2. Investigating the impact of video games on our lives, Death by Video

Game will change the way we think about our virtual playgrounds.”

Recommended By Callum Watterstone

Don’t let the clickbait title fool you. This book offers a fascinating insight into how people interact with

videogames which will be of interest to both avid gamers and complete technophobes. As the medium

has developed the word game seems less and less appropriate considering what can be accomplished

in it.

(Un)arranged Marriage Bali Rai Synopsis: Manny Wants To Be A Footballer. Or A Pop Star. Or Write A Bestseller.

He Doesn't Want To Get Married... 'Harry and Ranjit were waiting for me - waiting to

take me to Derby, to a wedding. My wedding. A wedding that I hadn't asked for, that I

didn't want. To a girl who I didn't know... If they had bothered to open their eyes, they

would have seen me: seventeen, angry, upset but determined - determined to do my own thing, to

choose my own path in life...' Set partly in the UK and partly in the Punjab region of India, this is a

fresh, bitingly perceptive and totally up-to-the-minute look at one young man's fight to free himself

from family expectations and to be himself, free to dance to his own tune.

Recommended By Tricia Newsome

This book raises the subject of an arranged marriage for an ordinary boy, of Indian origin, growing up

in England. The language is common and very accessible but accented. The story draws you in and

shocks, saddens and makes you laugh. This is still an issue for many young people and helps us

outsiders to understand the clichés and debates about arranged marriage. Hope others will enjoy it

too.

Stalin’s General Geoffrey Roberts

Synopsis: Marshal Georgy Zhukov is one of military history's legendary names. He

played a decisive role in the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk that brought

down the Nazi regime. He was the first of the Allied generals to enter Berlin and it was

he who took the German surrender. He led the huge victory parade in Red Square,

riding a white horse, and in doing so, dangerously provoking Stalin's envy. His post-

war career was equally eventful - Zhukov found himself sacked and banished twice,

and wrongfully accused of disloyalty. However, he remains one of the most decorated

officers in the history of both Russia and the Soviet Union. Since his death in 1974, Zhukov has

increasingly been seen as the indispensable military leader of the Second World War, surpassing

Eisenhower, Patton, Montgomery and MacArthur in his military brilliance and ferocity. Making use of

hundreds of documents from Russian military archives, as well as unpublished versions of Zhukov's

memoirs, Geoffrey Roberts fashions a remarkably intimate portrait of a man whose personality was as

fascinating as it was contradictory. Tough, decisive, strong-willed and brutal as a soldier, in his private

life he was charming and gentle. Zhukov's relations with Stalin's other generals were often prickly and

fraught with rivalry, but he was the only one among them to stand up to the Soviet dictator. Piercing

the hyperbole of the Zhukov personality cult, Roberts debunks many of the myths that have sprung up

around Zhukov's life, to deliver fresh insights into the marshal's relations with Stalin, Khrushchev and

Eisenhower. A highly regarded historian of Soviet Russia, Roberts has fashioned the definitive

biography of this seminal 20th-century figure. Recommended by Andrew Homer An excellent read about one of WW2’s finest military tacticians. Fell out somewhat with Uncle Joe…as

did many others.

Santaram Gregory David Roberts Synopsis: A novel of high adventure, great storytelling and moral purpose, based on

an extraordinary true story of eight years in the Bombay underworld. In the early 80s,

Gregory David Roberts, an armed robber and heroin addict, escaped from an Australian

prison to India, where he lived in a Bombay slum. There, he established a free health

clinic and also joined the mafia, working as a money launderer, forger and street soldier.

He found time to learn Hindi and Marathi, fall in love, and spend time being worked over

in an Indian jail. Then, in case anyone thought he was slacking, he acted in Bollywood and fought with

the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan . . . Amazingly, Roberts wrote Shantaram three times after prison

guards trashed the first two versions. It's a profound tribute to his willpower . . .

Recommended by Gavin Saint

I read Shantaram in Tamil Nadu by Gregory David Roberts. It his own account about escaping prison,

living in Bombay's slums, acting in Bollywood, being part of the Bombay underworld, fighting for the

Mujahedeen and writing this book in an Indian prison. Unbelievably it is based on his own true story.

Season of Migration to the North Taveb Salih

Synopsis: When a young man returns to his village in the Sudan after many years of

studying in the Europe, he finds that among the familiar faces there is now a stranger- the

enigmatic Mustafa Sa’eed. As the two become friends Mustafa tells the young man the

disturbing story of his own life in London after the First World War. Lionized by society

and desired by women as an exotic novelty, Mustafa was driven to take brutal revenge on

the decadent west, and was in turn destroyed by it. Now the terrible legacy of his actions

has now come to haunt the small village at the bend in the Nile. The story of a man undone by a culture

that in part created him Season of Migration to the North is a powerful and evocative examination of

Colonisation in two vastly different worlds.

Recommended by Andrew Homer

An accurate telling of the internal conflicts faced by Sudanese migrants returning to their motherland.

Riotous Assembly Tom Sharpe

Synopsis: When Miss Hazelstone of Jacaranda Park kills her Zulu cook in a sensational

crime passionel, the gallant members of the South African police force are soon on the

scene: Kommandant van Heerden, whose secret longing for the heart of an English

gentleman leads to the most memorable transplant operation yet recorded; Luitenant

Verkramp of the Security Branch, ever active in the pursuit of Communist cells; Konstabel

Els, with his propensity for shooting first and not thinking later - and also for forcing

himself upon African women in a manner legally reserved for male members of their own race.

In the course of the strange events which follow, we encounter some very esoteric perversions when

the Kommandant is held captive in Miss Hazelstone's remarkable rubber room; and some even more

amazing perversions of justice when Miss Hazelstone's brother, the Bishop of Barotseland, is sentenced

to be hanged on the ancient gallows in the local prison. Not a 'political' novel in any previously

imagined sense, Riotous Assembly provided a completely fresh approach to the South African scene -

an approach startling in its deadpan savagery and yet also outrageously funny.

Recommended by Andrew Homer

Hilarious, and so true of apartheid-era South Africa. Led to the author being deported. Reminded me

so much of the Afrikaaners who had (almost unbelievably) migrated to Kenya in the period

immediately after Kenyan independence from the UK in 1963.

We need to talk about Kevin Lionel Shriver

Synopsis: Eva never really wanted to be a mother; certainly not the mother of the

unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker

and a teacher who tried to befriend him. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to

terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood and Kevin's horrific rampage in a series of

startlingly direct correspondences with her absent husband, Franklyn. Uneasy with the sacrifices and

social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may

be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.

Recommended By:- Angela Hedger

It is about a fictional school massacre and is written from the perspective of the killer's mother, Eva

Khatchadourian, and documents her attempt to come to terms with her son Kevin and the murders he

committed.

The Jungle Upton Sinclair S ynopsis: Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, is a work of fiction describing the lives of

immigrants working in Chicago's meatpacking industry.

Recommended by Andrew Homer The meat-packing trade in the early 20th century in Chicago. Brutal and brilliant.

A Light Between Oceans M.L.Stedman S ynopsis A boat washes up on the shore of a remote lighthouse keeper's island. It holds a

dead man - and a crying baby. The only two islanders, Tom and his wife Izzy, are about to

make a devastating decision. They break the rules and follow their hearts. What happens

next will break yours .

Recommended by Stephanie Isaacs

M. L. Stedman’s mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel’s

decision to keep this “gift from God,” a baby they discover alive in a boat that has washed up against

the lighthouse Isabel and her husband live in. We are swept into a story about extraordinarily

compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where

justice for one person is another’s tragic loss. A wonderful novel!

Once There Was a War John Steinbeck

S ynopsis: A collection of some of the finest correspondence from the Second World

War, courtesy of one of America's most distinguished authors, the Penguin Modern

Classics edition of John Steinbeck's Once There Was a War includes the author's original

introduction. 'Do you know it, do you remember it, the drives, the attitudes, the terrors and,

yes, the joys?' Thus Steinbeck introduces his collection of poignant and hard-hitting

dispatches for the New York Herald Tribune when the Second World War was at its height.

He begins in England, recounting the courage of the bomber crews, the tragic air-raids and the

strangeness of the British, before being sent to Africa and joining a special operations unit off the coast

of Italy. Eating, drinking talking and fighting alongside the soldiers, Steinbeck's empathy for the

common man is always in evidence in these pieces, and he never fails to evoke the human side of an

inhuman war.

Recommended by Andrew Homer

A brilliant war correspondent’s diary by one of the greatest of 20th century American writers. Never

mind the F Scott Fitzgerald rubbish studied in schools. Try any of Steinbeck’s work.

A Spool of Blue Thread Anne Tyler

S ynopsis: ‘It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon…’

This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she and Red fell in love

that summer’s day in 1959. The whole family on the porch, half-listening as their mother

tells the same tale they have heard so many times before. From that porch we spool back

through the generations, witnessing the events, secrets and unguarded moments that have come to

define the family. From Red’s father and mother, newly arrived in Baltimore in the 1920s, to Abby and

Red’s grandchildren carrying the family legacy boisterously into the twenty-first century – four

generations of Whitshanks, their lives unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly worn Baltimore

house that has always been their home…

Recommended By:- Daniel Bingham

An absorbing and often irrepressibly comic portrait of a family across several generations. Tyler

makes the ordinary extraordinary. A streak of melancholy runs through much of her work. Tyler is

arguably America’s greatest living writer and this is one of her very finest.

The House in France Gully Wells

Synopsis: In 2009, six years after her mother's death, Gully Wells returns to La

Migoua, the house in Provence which belonged to her mother - the glamorous, funny,

unpredictable and furiously rude American journalist, Dee Wells. Surrounded by the

clutter of decades, Gully is taken back to her childhood, to her mother, her adored

stepfather - the celebrated, brilliant, womanising Oxford philosopher, A. J. Ayer - and to

the rich, sensual memories that the house evokes. Gully's beautiful, rebellious mother Dee fled Boston

when she was seventeen to join the Canadian Army, where she became a Sergeant Major. She married,

had Gully, divorced and moved to London where she would meet, and fall madly in love with, the icon

of logical positivism, Ayer, who she would later persuade to marry her. There they lived in an

extraordinary, liberated and intellectual world, with friends and acquaintances including Bobby

Kennedy, Mary Quant, Iris Murdoch, Jonathan Miller, George Melly and Bertrand Russell. In the

turbulent and vibrant milieu of sixties London, Gully develops from a cautious only child to a studious

teenager. She has a childhood infatuation with the aristocratic homosexual Michael Pitt-Rivers, loses

her virginity to a Provençal hairdresser and wins a scholarship to St Hilda's at Oxford, where she

blossoms, studies French history under Theodore Zeldin, and falls in love with fellow student, Martin

Amis. But as the affair ends, Gully moves on, explores love and travel, eventually settling down in

New York. La Migoua, perched on a hill above Bandol, halfway between Toulon and Marseilles, is

inextricably woven into Gully's existence. Unsentimental and gloriously witty, The House in France is

a vivid and moving love letter to a beloved mother, and a celebration of family, of growing up and of

the spirit of a cherished house.

Recommended By:- Debbie Sharpe-Thurgood

This book completely transports you to other lands. You can almost smell the smells and taste the

tastes. I love the language and poetry in this book.

Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? Jeanette Winterson Synopsis: In 1985 Jeanette Winterson's first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,

was published. It was Jeanette's version of the story of a terraced house in Accrington, an

adopted child, and the thwarted giantess Mrs Winterson. It was a cover story, a painful

past written over and repainted. It was a story of survival. This book is that story's the

silent twin. It is full of hurt and humour and a fierce love of life. It is about the pursuit of

happiness, about lessons in love, the search for a mother and a journey into madness and out again. It is

generous, honest and true.

Recommended By:- Debbie Sharpe-Thurgood

The Easter Parade Richard Yates Synopsis: Even as little girls, Sarah and Emily are very different from each other.

Emily looks up to her wiser and more stable older sister and is jealous of her relationship

with their absent father, and later her seemingly golden marriage. The path she chooses for

herself is less safe and conventional and her love affairs never really satisfy her. Although

the bond between them endures, gradually the distance between the two women grows,

until a tragic event throws their relationship into focus one last time.

Recommended By:- Emily Kaplan

Set in mid-century New York, this well-paced and insightful novel explores the relationship between

two sisters - Laura and Emily. As quietly subversive as the better known Revolutionary Road, The

Easter Parade raises questions about marriage, motherhood and the role of the childless woman in

society. Its controlled yet powerful prose makes for a compelling and, ultimately, shocking read.

Thank you to all members of staff who contributed to this reading list.

Season’s Greetings To You All

Mrs Elizabeth A. Grainger, Librarian, Piper Library