On honeymoon in Venice in 1928, Viktor and Liesel Landauer face a new world when they meet brilliant architect Rainer van Abt. Soon, on a hillside near a provincial Czech town, the Landauer house with its celebrated Glass Room will become a modernist masterpiece of travertine floors and onyx walls, filled with light and optimism. But as Viktor is Jewish, when Nazi troops arrive, the family must flee. The house slips from hand to hand, Nazi to Soviet and finally to the Czechoslovak state. It becomes a laboratory, a shelter from the storm of war and a place where the broken and the ruined find some kind of comfort until, with the collapse of Communism, the Landauers can finally return to where their story began.
The Betrayal
Helen Dunmore
Leningrad in 1952: a city recovering from war, where Anna, a nursery school teacher, and Andrei, a young hospital doctor, are forging a life together. They try hard to avoid coming to the attention of the authorities, but even so their private happiness is precarious. Stalin is in power and the Ministry for State Security has new targets in its sights. When Andrei has to treat the seriously ill child of a senior secret police officer, Volkov, he finds himself and his family caught in an impossible game of life and death - for in a land ruled by whispers and watchfulness, betrayal can come from those closest to you.
The Year of the Flood
Margaret Atwood
The sun brightens in the east, reddening the blue-grey haze that marks the distant ocean. The vultures roosting on the hydro poles fan out their wings to dry them. The air smells faintly of burning. The Waterless Flood - a man-made plague - has ended the world. But two young women have survived: Ren, a young dancer trapped where she worked, in an upmarket sex club (the cleanest dirty girls in town); and Toby, who watches and waits from her rooftop garden. Is anyone else out there? This is a parallel story to Oryx and Crake.
Monster
Andrew Daddo and Bruce Whatley
A delightful picture book for preschoolers. Some monsters are scary - with pointy teeth and snuffly grunts - and they stink. You’d never invite them to sleep over! But there are other monsters that are cute and full of surprises.
Black Diamond
Martin Walker
France’s Perigord region is the home of the black truffle, and at five thousand euros a kilo, the exquisite Black Diamond is a treasured local asset. When reports come in that this unique delicacy is being adulterated with a cheaper Chinese version, Chief of Police Captain Bruno Courreges is asked to investigate the scam. But matters take a much darker turn when a horrific murder occurs, and Bruno has his work cut out to find the connection between present crimes and long-buried ones that are linked to France’s troubled colonial past.
So French
Dany Chouet
If you remember Cleopatra’s at Blackheath, the renouned restaurant and guest house, you’ll know who Dany is. After Cleopatra’s, Dany returned to her roots in the Dordogne, where the gorgeous surrounds are matched only by the finest kind of French country cooking. And this book is a beautiful combination of food and photography of a magnificent part of France.
