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FICTION BEST SELLERS
‘The country we were driving through was flat as an iron and bone dry. The sky was big, blue and empty, except for a flaming ball of sun, low in the sky. It had tracked us all day like a satellite and it looked about ready to explode.’ Jesse has sworn to protect his sister, Rachel, no matter what. It’s a promise that cannot be broken. A promise made in blood. But, when it comes down to life or death, how can he find the courage to keep it? Set on the back roads of Australia, Blood is a boy’s odyssey through a broken down adult world.
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Circle Critics Award for fiction in the US and longlisted for the Orange Prize. Jennifer Egan’s spelling binding novel circles the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varies as New York, San Francisco, Naples and Africa.
The Sense of an Ending
Julian Barnes
Winner of the Man Booker Prize [2011]. Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they navigated the girl drought of gawky adolescence together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they swore to stay friends forever. Until Adrian’s life took a turn into tragedy, and all of them, especially Tony, moved on and did their best to forget. Now Tony is in middle age. He’s had a career and a marriage, a calm divorce. He gets along nicely, he thinks, with his one child, a daughter, and even with his ex-wife. He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer’s letter is about to prove. The unexpected bequest conveyed by that letter leads Tony on a dogged search through a past suddenly turned murky. And how do you carry on, contentedly, when events conspire to upset all your vaunted truths?
When God Was a Rabbit
Sarah Winman
When God was a Rabbit is an exciting debut from an extraordinary new voice in fiction. Spanning four decades, from 1968 onwards, this is the story of a fabulous but flawed family and the slew of ordinary and extraordinary incidents that shape their everyday lives. It is a story about childhood and growing up, loss of innocence, eccentricity, familial ties and friendships, love and life. Stripped down to its bare bones, it’s about the unbreakable bond between a brother and sister.
Cat’s Table
Michael Ondaatje
In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy boards a huge liner bound for England - a ‘castle that was to cross the sea’. At mealtimes, he is placed at the lowly ‘Cat’s Table’ with an eccentric group of grown-ups and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, the boys become involved in the worlds and stories of the adults around them, tumbling from one adventure and delicious discovery to another, ‘bursting all over the place like freed mercury’. And at night, the boys spy on a shackled prisoner - his crime and fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt them forever.
As the narrative moves from the decks and holds of the ship and the boy’s adult years, it tells a spellbinding story about the difference between the magical openness of childhood and the burdens of earned understanding - about a life-long journey that began unexpectedly with a spectacular sea voyage, when all on board were ‘free of the realities of the earth’.
The Help
Kathryn Stockett
Enter a vanished and unjust world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren’t trusted not to steal the silver… There’s Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son’s tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue; and white Miss Skeeter, home from College, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared. Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny. No one would believe they’d be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another. Each is in a search of a truth. And together they have an extraordinary story to tell…
NON-FICTION BEST SELLERS
Saltwater People of Broken Bay
John Ogden
Saltwater People of the Broken Bays tells the history of Sydney’s northern beaches, the birthplace of Australian beach culture. The story begins with a surprising revelation that the Aboriginal clans who lived along this coast, the first Saltwater People, were adept at fishing and swimming, and at home in the surf. The in-depth look at the culture of the Saltwater People shows that they not only enjoyed the surf centuries before the Europeans ‘discovered’ swimming and surfing, but also lived a highly sustainable lifestyle. This book creates awareness of environmental issues along these beaches, and also campaigns for a site of recognition for the first people and for ways of preserving threatened Aboriginal art sites.
Steve Jobs
Walter Isaacson
From bestselling author Walter Isaacson comes the landmark biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. In Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography, Isaacson provides an extraordinary account of Jobs’ professional and personal life. Drawn from three years of exclusive and unprecedented interviews Isaacson has conducted with Jobs as well as extensive interviews with Jobs’ family members, key colleagues from Apple and its competitors, Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography is the definitive portrait of the greatest innovator of his generation.
The Hare with Amber Eyes
Edmund de Waal
The history of a family through 264 objects - set against a turbulent century - from an acclaimed writer and potter. 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox: potter Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in the Tokyo apartment of his great uncle Iggie. Later, when Edmund inherited the ‘netsuke’, they unlocked a story far larger than he could ever have imagined. In this stunningly original memoir, Edmund de Waal travels the world to stand in the great buildings his forebears once inhabited. He traces the network of a remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century and tells the story of a unique collection.
At Home
Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson was struck one day by the thought that we devote a lot more time to studying the battles and wars of history than to considering what history really consists of: centuries of people quietly going about their daily business - eating, sleeping and merely endeavouring to get more comfortable. And that most of the key discoveries for humankind can be found in the very fabric of the houses in which we live.This inspired him to start a journey around his own house, an old rectory in Norfolk, wandering from room to room considering how the ordinary things in life came to be. Along the way he did a prodigious amount of research on the history of anything and everything, from architecture to electricity, from food preservation to epidemics, from the spice trade to the Eiffel Tower, from crinolines to toilets; and on the brilliant, creative and often eccentric minds behind them. And he discovered that, although there may seem to be nothing as unremarkable as our domestic lives, there is a huge amount of history, interest and excitement - and even a little danger - lurking in the corners of every home.
Paris
Janelle McCulloch
It’s hard not to be smitten by Paris. The city of love and light is one of the most enchanting in the world, but it also has a tendency to keep its best spots well hidden. After spending the last 20 years exploring the city, journalist and photographer Janelle McCulloch has discovered all of Paris’ secret gems and shares them in this beautiful guide. From the stylish boutiques on Champs-Elysees to the irresistible cafes, tea salons and patisseries that make up the fabric of the city, you will find everything you need to know to have a true insider’s experience of Paris.
Paris begins with an atmospheric guide to the arrondissements, each with their distinct personality, like the sophisticate 1st with its magnificent architecture and perfectly clipped trees, or the hipster 3rd with its avant garde artisans and cool cafes. Janelle leads you on a wander through each area, taking in architectural and design features and discovering secret side streets, tucked-away gardens and beautiful neighbourhood squares.
In the second half of the book Janelle shares her very favourite places to visit in Paris, with over 150 reviews of the most incredible and unusual shops, museums, markets, cafes and food stores. There’s Laduree, the city’s prettiest patisserie, or the stylish Calligrane, a store that elevates paper into a work of art, along with a whole raft of amazing ateliers, inspiring bookstores, secret design museums, stylish clothing boutiques and even fantastical shops filled with taxidermied animals.
Boomerang
Michael Lewis
Having made the U.S. financial crisis comprehensible for us all in The Big Short, Michael Lewis realised that he hadn’t begun to get grips with the full story. How exactly had it come to hit the rest of the world in the face too? Just how broke are we really? Boomerang is a tragi-comic romp across Europe. The cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects of their characters they could not normally afford to indulge. Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a piñata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack. The Irish wanted to stop being Irish. The Germans wanted to be even more German. Michael Lewis’s investigation of bubbles across Europe is brilliantly, sadly hilarious. He also turns a merciless eye on America: on California, the epicentre of world consumption, where we see that a final reckoning awaits the most avaricious of nations too.
CHILDREN’S BEST SELLERS
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever
Jeff Kinney
Greg Heffley is in big trouble. School property has been damaged, and Greg is the prime suspect. But the crazy thing is, he’s innocent. Or at least sort of. The authorities are closing in, but when a surprise blizzard hits, the Heffley family is trapped indoors. Greg knows that when the snow melts he’s going to have to face the music, but could any punishment be worse than being stuck inside with your family for the holidays?
Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
Reality TV meets Lord of the Flies. Every year, twelve boys and twelve girls are chosen to take part in the Hunger Games. Watched by the entire nation, this is action-packed reality TV at its most exciting - and most dangerous. Katniss Everdeen has grown up struggling to save the people close to her. Now she faces the biggest challenge of all - the fight for her life. Winning will make you famous. Losing means certain death.
Hunger Games 2: Catching Fire
Suzanne Collins
Against all odds Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and its harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have secured, for themselves and their families, a life of safety and plenty. They will live in fancy houses in Victory Village, their families will never be hungry again, and the cruel games are behind them. But there are rumours of rebellion among the other districts, and to Katniss’s horror, Katniss and Peeta are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. The Capitol will not be fooled again. Suzanne Collins continues the amazing story of Katniss Everdeen in this second novel of the phenomenal Hunger Games trilogy.
Hunger Games 3: Mockingjay
Suzanne Collins
Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she’s made it out of the bloody arena alive, she’s still not safe. The Capitol is angry. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what’s worse, President Snow has made it clear that no-one else is safe either. Not Katniss’s family, not her friends, not the people of District 12.
Brisingr
Christopher Paolini
Book three. Following the colossal battle against the Empire’s warriors, Eragon and Saphira narrowly escaped with their lives. But more awaits the Rider and his dragon, as Eragon finds himself bound by promises he may not be able to keep, including his oath to cousin Roran to help rescue his beloved Katrina. When unrest claims the rebels and danger strikes, Eragon must make choices that take him across the Empire and beyond, choices that may lead to unimagined sacrifice. Conflict, action, adventure and one devastating death await readers as Eragon battles on behalf of the Varden while Galbatorix ruthlessly attempts to crush and twist him to his own purposes. Can he become a leader who can unite the rebel forces and defeat the King?
