Milkman, by Anna Burns ( paperback 2019)

£9.99

Longlisted for the 2018 Booker Prize.

Anna Burns is originally from Belfast but is now based in England.

Milkman is “ a story of hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is the story of inaction with enormous consequences “

Powerful, stream of consciousness prose that feels exhausting but gets under your skin as an astute account of Northern Ireland’s social landscape, and ultimately delivers humour, and insight -it's quite brilliant. 

 

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Stay With Me, by Ayobami Adebayo ( paperback, 2018)

£9.99

Previous BPS Book Club choice

An emotional read, a story of one woman in Nigeria and her extended family, where personal tragedy unfolds against the backdrop of turbulent 1980’s Nigeria.

Yejide is hoping for a miracle, for a child. It is all her husband wants, all her mother-in-law wants, and she has tried everything. But when her relatives insist upon a new wife, it is too much for Yejide to bear.

Unravelling against the social and political turbulence of 1980s Nigeria, Stay With Me is a story of the fragility of married love, the undoing of family, the power of grief, and the all-consuming bonds of motherhood. It is a tale about the desperate attempts we make to save ourselves, and those we love, from heartbreak.

Very readable, her prose is a pleasure but packs a tremendous punch.

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100 Poems, by Seamus Heaney (hardback and paperback available)

£18.99

An intimate curated set of poems from throughout Heaney’s life, chosen by his family. 

Seamus Heaney had the idea to form a personal selection of poems from across the entire arc of his writing life, small yet comprehensive enough to serve as an introduction for all comers. He never managed to do this himself, and no other edition exists which has such a broad range, drawing from first to last of his prize-winning collections. But now, finally, the project has been returned to, resulting in an intimate gathering of poems chosen and introduced by the Heaney family, curated some time after Heaney's death in 2013.

In 100 Poems, readers will enjoy the most loved and celebrated poems, as well as discovering new favourites. It is a singular and welcoming anthology, reaching out far and wide, now and for years to come.

Essential for the fan, or those discovering him for the first time.

 


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Flying Tips for Flightless Birds, by Kelly McCaughrain (paperback)

£7.99

Twins Finch and Birdie Franconi are stars of the flying trapeze. But when Birdie suffers a terrifying accident, Finch must team up with the geeky new kid, Hector Hazzard, to form an all-boys double act and save the family circus school

Recently shortlisted for the Great Reads Award, this debut YA novel is funny, warm hearted and encouraging for anyone who feels they just don’t fit ‘the mould’.

 

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The Watch House, by Bernie McGill (paperback)

£9.99

 THE WATCH HOUSE by Bernie McGill is the story of the modern world arriving on Rathlin, a remote Irish island, at the very end of the nineteenth century, with dramatic consequences for a young woman named Nuala. As the twentieth century dawns on the island of Rathlin, a place ravaged by storms and haunted by past tragedies, Nuala Byrne is faced with a difficult decision. Abandoned by her family for the new world, she receives a proposal from the island's aging tailor.

For the price of a roof over her head, she accepts. Meanwhile the island is alive with gossip about the strangers who have arrived from the mainland, armed with mysterious equipment which can reportedly steal a person's words and transmit them through thin air. When Nuala is sent to cook for these men - engineers, who have been sent to Rathlin by Marconi to conduct experiments in the use of wireless telegraphy - she encounters an Italian named Gabriel, who offers her the chance to equip herself with new skills and knowledge.

As her friendship with Gabriel opens up horizons beyond the rocky and treacherous cliffs of her island home, Nuala begins to realise that her deal with the tailor was a bargain she should never have struck.

One of our bestselling novels. Vividly imagined and with a page turning suspense. A great read - Linda 

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Milkman, by Anna Burns (paperback, 2018)

£9.99

The Booker prize winning book of 2018, now available as paperback. 

 

In an unnamed city, where to be interesting is dangerous, an eighteen-year-old woman has attracted the unwanted and unavoidable attention of a powerful and frightening older man, 'Milkman'. In this community, where suggestions quickly become fact, where gossip and hearsay can lead to terrible consequences, what can she do to stop a rumour once it has started? Milkman is persistent, the word is spreading, and she is no longer in control . .

. Winner of the International Dublin Literary Award 2020 and the Man Booker Prize 2018Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, the Women's Prize for Fiction, and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction

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I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou ( pb)

£9.99

In this first volume of her six books of autobiography, Maya Angelou beautifully evokes her childhood with her grandmother in the American south of the 1930s. She learns the power of the white folks at the other end of town and suffers the terrible trauma of rape by her mother's lover.

'I write about being a Black American woman, however, I am always talking about what it's like to be a human being. This is how we are, what makes us laugh, and this is how we fall and how we somehow, amazingly, stand up again' Maya Angelou
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This Is Happiness, by Niall Williams ( paperback 2020)

£9.99

A new novel from the wonderful Niall Williams ( History of the Rain, Four Letters of Love).

One of my favourite books of 2020 - Linda 


Change is coming to Faha, a small Irish parish unaltered in a thousand years. For one thing, the rain is stopping. Nobody remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard is a condition of living.

But now - just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of the electricity - the rain clouds are lifting. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling in the unexpected sunshine when Christy makes his first entrance into Faha, bringing secrets for which he needs to atone. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.

As the people of Faha anticipate the endlessly procrastinated advent of the electricity, and Noel navigates his own coming-of-age and his fallings in and out of love, Christy's past gradually comes to light, casting a new glow on a small world. Harking back to a simpler time, This Is Happiness is a tender portrait of a community - its idiosyncrasies and traditions, its paradoxes and kindnesses, its failures and triumphs - and a coming-of-age tale like no other. Luminous and lyrical, yet anchored by roots running deep into the earthy and everyday, it is about the power of stories: their invisible currents that run through all we do, writing and rewriting us, and the transforming light that they throw onto our world.

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The Space We're In, Katya Balen (paperback 2020)

£7.99

Frank is ten. He likes cottage pie and football and cracking codes.

Max is five. He eats only Quavers and some colours are too bright for him and if he has to wear a new T-shirt he melts down down down. Sometimes Frank wishes Mum could still do huge paintings of stars and asteroids like she used to, but since Max was born she just doesn't have time. When tragedy hits Frank and Max's lives like a comet, can Frank piece together a universe in which he and Max aren't light years apart? 

If you liked Wonder, or Marley and Me, this debut author will move and inspire you. 

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American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins ( paperback 2021)

£9.99

Vivid and utterly compelling, AMERICAN DIRT is the first novel to explore the humanity in the experience of attempting to illegally cross the US-Mexico border. Described as 'impossible to put down' (Saturday Review) and 'essential reading' (Tracy Chevalier), it is one of my books of 2020.

Yesterday, Lydia had a bookshop.

Yesterday, Lydia was married to a journalist. Yesterday, she was with everyone she loved most in the world. Today, her eight-year-old son Luca is all she has left.

For him, she will carry a machete strapped to her leg. For him, she will leap onto the roof of a high speed train. For him, she will find the strength to keep running.

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Valentine, Elizabeth Wetmore (paperback 2021)

£9.99

 

A top ten New York Times bestseller. With the haunting emotional power of American Dirt and the atmospheric suspense of Where the Crawdads Sing: a compulsive debut novel that explores the aftershock of a brutal crime on the women of a small Texas oil town. This is a powerful read and an amazing first novel - Linda 

like a grimmer, newer version of To Kill A Mockingbird ... It sounds bleak, and it is, but there is beauty, too; in the landscape, in the spirit of some of the people and most of all in Wetmore's wonderful writing' Wendy Holden

Mary Rose Whitehead isn't looking for trouble - but when it shows up at her front door, she finds she can't turn away. Corinne Shepherd, newly widowed, wants nothing more than to mind her own business, and for everyone else to mind theirs. But when the town she has spent years rebelling against closes ranks she realises she is going to have to take a side.

Debra Ann is motherless and lonely and in need of a friend. But in a place like Odessa, Texas, choosing who to trust can be a dangerous game. Gloria Ramirez, fourteen years old and out of her depth, survives the brutality of one man only to face the indifference and prejudices of many.

When justice is as slippery as oil, and kindness becomes a hazardous act, sometimes courage is all we have to keep us alive.

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The Art of the Glimpse (hardback, October 2020)

£25.00

An anthology of the very best Irish short stories, selected by Sinead Gleeson, author of Constellations. There have been many anthologies of the short story as it developed in Ireland, but never a collection like this. The Art of the Glimpse is a radical revision of the canon of the Irish story, uniting classic works with neglected writers and marginalised voices - women, LGBT writers, Traveller folk-tales, lost 19th-century voices and the first wave of 'new Irish' writers from elsewhere now making a life in Ireland.

Beautifully bound, with ribbon marker.

The collection paints a tremendous spectrum of experience: the story of a prank come good by Bram Stoker; Sally Rooney on the love languages of the new generation; Donal Ryan on the pains of ageing; Edna O'Brien on political entanglements; James Joyce on losing a loved one; and the internal monologue of a coma sufferer by Marian Keyes. List of contributing authors: Samuel Beckett, Sally Rooney, Melatu Uche Okirie, William Trevor, Marian Keyes, Kevin Barry, Edna O'Brien, Claire-Louise Bennett, Sheridan Le Fanu, Danielle McLaughlin, Mairtin O Cathain, Frances Molloy, Blindboy Boatclub, Elizabeth Bowen, Frank O'Connor, Chiamaka Emyi-Amadi, John McGahern, Anne Enright, Mike McCormack, Maeve Brennan, Oein de Bhairduin, Eimear McBride, Sean O Faolain, Cathy Sweeney.

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Gift From the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

£9.99

One of our consistently best selling little books in the shop. A lovely gift for new mums, or new retirees. 

'Quietly powerful and a great help. Glorious' Emma Thompson

'Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves.' Holidaying by the sea, and taking inspiration from the shells she finds on the seashore, Anne Morrow Lindbergh meditates on youth and age, love and marriage, peace, solitude and contentment. First published in 1955 and an instant bestseller, Gift from the Sea's insights - into aspects of the modern world that threaten to overwhelm us, the complications of technology, the ever multiplying commitments that take us from our families - are as relevant today as they ever were, perhaps even more so.

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The Gifts of Reading, edited by Robert Macfarlane ( now in paperback only)

£9.99

With contributions by: William Boyd, Candice Carty-Williams, Imtiaz Dharker, Roddy Doyle, Pico Iyer, Robert Macfarlane, Andy Miller, Jackie Morris, Jan Morris, Sisonke Msimang, Dina Nayeri, Chigozie Obioma, Michael Ondaatje, David Pilling, Max Porter, Philip Pullman, Alice Pung, Jancis Robinson, S.F.Said, Madeleine Thien, Salley Vickers, John Wood and Markus Zusak


'You will see books taking flight in flocks, migrating around the world, landing in people's hearts and changing them for a day or a year or a lifetime. 'You will see books sparking wonder or anger; throwing open windows into other languages, other cultures, other minds; causing people to fall in love or to fight for what is right. 'And more than anything, over and over again, you will see books and words being given, received and read - and in turn prompting further generosity.'

Published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of global literacy non-profit, Room to Read, The Gifts of Reading forms inspiring, unforgettable, irresistible proof of the power and necessity of books and reading.

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Valentine, Elizabeth Wetmore ( paperback March 2021)

£8.99

A top ten New York Times bestseller :  a compulsive debut novel that explores the aftershock of a brutal crime on the women of a small Texas oil town. 'The very definition of a stunning debut' Ann Patchett 'Brilliant, sharp, tightly wound, and devastating' Elizabeth Gilbert 

It's February 1976, and Odessa, Texas, stands on the cusp of the next great oil boom.

While the town's men embrace the coming prosperity, its women intimately know and fear the violence that always seems to follow. When a fourteen-year-old girl shows up at Mary Rose Whitehead's door, bleeding and desperate for shelter, she has to make a choice. To choose to aim her rifle at the man pursuing Gloria Ramirez.

To choose to acknowledge that the town she calls home is small-minded and brutal and built for those who have the money to control it. To choose to see the damage men do and hold her nerve. When justice is as slippery as oil, and kindness becomes a hazardous act, sometimes the courage to choose is all we have to keep us alive.

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Snowflake, Louise Nealon ( Paperback April 2022)

£9.99

Tender, laugh-out-loud funny, and deeply moving' Louise O'Neill, author of After the Silence

Eighteen-year-old Debbie White lives on a dairy farm with her mother, Maeve, and her uncle, Billy. Billy sleeps out in a caravan in the garden with a bottle of whiskey and the stars overhead for company. Maeve spends her days recording her dreams, which she believes to be prophecies.

This world is Debbie's normal, but she is about to step into life as a student at Trinity College in Dublin. As she navigates between sophisticated new friends and the family bubble, things begin to unravel. Maeve's eccentricity tilts into something darker, while Billy's drinking gets worse.

Debbie struggles to cope with the weirdest, most difficult parts of herself, her family and her small life. But the fierce love of the White family is never in doubt, and Debbie discovers that even the oddest of families are places of safety. A startling, honest, laugh and cry novel about growing up and leaving home, only to find that you've taken it with you, Snowflake is a novel for a generation, and for everyone who's taken those first, terrifying steps towards adulthood.

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Present Moment,Wonderful Moment : Thich Nhat Hanh ( paperback Aug 2021)

£12.99

Thich Nhat Hanh's work has proven to be the antidote to our modern pain and sorrows' Ocean Vuong

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor. Beloved Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh offers 79 meditations to help you through your daily routines in a peaceful and mindful way.

This beautifully illustrated book shares a simple verse with an enlightening commentary that will give you the space and heart to live each day in a connected and calm way. 'The monk who taught the world mindfulness' Time

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Pax, by Sara Pennypacker ( paperback 2017)

£7.99

The moving story of the extraordinary friendship between a boy and his fox and their epic journey to be reunited. Beautifully illustrated by multi-award winner, Jon Klassen. Now available in Paperback! Pax was only a kit when his family was killed and he was rescued by 'his boy', Peter.

Now the country is at war and when his father enlists, Peter has no choice but to move in with his grandfather. Far worse than leaving home is the fact that he has to leave Pax behind. But before Peter spends even one night under his grandfather's roof he sneaks out into the night, determined to find his beloved friend.

This is the story of Peter, Pax, and their journeys back to each other as war rampages throughout the country. A profound and moving story with stunning illustrations by award-winning illustrator, Jon Klassen, 'Pax' is destined to become a classic in the vein of 'Charlotte's Web' and 'Watership Down'. One of our BPS favourites.
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Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan ( Paperback Dec 2022)

£8.99

 

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church.

The perfect novella, cannot recommend this highly enough! Linda 

 

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize - WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE AND THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR

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Pony, RJ Palaccio ( paperback Jan 2023

£7.99

The highly anticipated, unforgettable new story from the internationally bestselling, multi-award-winning author of WONDER. 'Thrillingly told . .

.. A beautiful, funny, heart-twisting wonder of a book . .

When Silas Bird wakes in the dead of night, he watches powerlessly as three strangers take his father away. Silas is left shaken, scared and alone, except for the presence of his companion, Mittenwool .. . who happens to be a friendly ghost.

But then a mysterious pony shows up at his door, and Silas knows what he has to do. So begins a perilous journey to find his father - a journey that will connect him with his past, his future, and the unknowable world around him. PONY is destined to become a future classic.

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Sing Unburied Sing, Jesmyn Ward ( paperback 2018)

£9.99

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2017

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2017 ( and mine!)

Blazing with power, grief and tenderness' Financial Times

An intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle, Sing, Unburied, Sing examines the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power - and limitations - of family bonds. Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. His mother, Leonie, is in constant conflict with herself and those around her.

She is black and her children's father is white. Embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances, she wants to be a better mother, but can't put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use. When the children's father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary.

At Parchman, there is another boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love. Rich with Ward's distinctive, lyrical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first century America.

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How to Fly : (in Ten Thousand Easy Lessons), Barbara Kingsolver ( pb, Aug 2021)

£10.99

This edition gathers together Barbara Kingsolver's vibrant and various poems, revealing an intimate side to her creative practice as yet unseen. Almost resembling a Collected or Selected Poems, the book is divided into thematically linked sections: a series of 'How to' poems that smartly balance tongue-in-cheek guides with revelatory wisdom; a complicated family pilgrimage to Italy; cherished childhood memories; the perils and pleasures of being a [female] writer; elegies to lost loved ones; and elegies to the planet. Sharing the natural fluidity and compassionate humanity of her prose, How to Fly will both delight Kingsolver's devoted readership and welcome a host of new readers to her luminous poetry.
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Small Pleasures Clare Chambers ( paperback)

£8.99

Chambers' eye for undemonstrative details achieves a Larkin-esque lucidity' Guardian'

An almost flawlessly written tale of genuine, grown-up romantic anguish' The Sunday Times 1957, the suburbs of South East London.

Jean Swinney is a journalist on a local paper, trapped in a life of duty and disappointment from which there is no likelihood of escape. When a young woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. As the investigation turns her quiet life inside out, Jean is suddenly given an unexpected chance at friendship, love and - possibly - happiness.

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Love Marriage, Monica Ali ( paperback 2 Feb 2023)

£9.99

TWO CULTURES. TWO FAMILIES. TWO PEOPLE.

The new novel from the bestselling, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of BRICK LANE

Yasmin Ghorami has a lot to be grateful for: a loving family, a fledgling career in medicine, and a charming, handsome fiancee, fellow doctor Joe Sangster. But as the wedding day draws closer and Yasmin's parents get to know Joe's firebrand feminist mother, both families must confront the unravelling of long-held secrets, lies and betrayals. As Yasmin dismantles her own assumptions about the people she holds most dear, she's also forced to ask herself what she really wants in a relationship and what a 'love marriage' actually means.

Love Marriage is a story about who we are and how we love in today's Britain - with all the complications and contradictions of life, desire, marriage and family. What starts as a captivating social comedy develops into a heart-breaking and gripping story of two cultures, two families and two people trying to understand one another. 'Ali's wit and insight illuminate the complications of modern love in Britain today.

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Betty, Tiffany McDaniel ( paperback)

£8.99



So begins the story of Betty Carpenter.

Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a white mother and a Cherokee father, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings: the world they inhabit in the rural town of Breathed, Ohio, is one of poverty and loss, of lush landscapes and blazing stars.

Despite the hardships she encounters, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters and her father's brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all to which she bears witness - the horrors of her family's past and present - Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write.

Despite the beauty of the landscape and the poetry of the language, this is not an easy read. Sexual abuse features, and heart breaking descriptions. But powerful writing. 

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These Days, Lucy Caldwell (paperback March 2023 )

£8.99

The new novel from the Winner of the BBC National Short Story Award 2021.

Two sisters, four nights, one city. April, 1941. Belfast has escaped the worst of the war - so far.

Over the next two months, it's going to be destroyed from above, so that people will say, in horror, My God, Belfast is finished. Many won't make it through, and no one who does will remain unchanged. Following the lives of sisters Emma and Audrey - one engaged to be married, the other in a secret relationship with another woman - as they try to survive the horrors of the four nights of bombing which were the Belfast Blitz, These Days is a timeless and heart-breaking novel about living under duress, about family, and about how we try to stay true to ourselves.

WINNER OF THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION

WINNER OF THE E. M. FORSTER AWARD

AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4s BOOK AT BEDTIME

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The Swallows' Flight, Hilary McKay ( paperback April 2022)

£7.99

From the Costa Award-winning author Hilary McKay, comes a moving World War II story of family and friendship on opposite sides of a devastating conflict. The Swallows' Flight is the stunning companion novel to The Skylarks' War. 'It's not necessary to have read The Skylarks' War (though many beloved characters make reappearances) to be instantly and joyfully lost in this evocative, moving novel, showing McKay at the very top of her game.' - Imogen Russell-Williams, The Guardian' Funny, poignant, wise and emotional.

Full of achingly real characters (and also an excellent dog) . . . I absolutely love Hilary McKay's writing.
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The Quiet Whispers Never Stop, Olivia Fitzsimons ( paperback March 2023)

£8.99

In 1982, Nuala Malin struggles to stay connected, to her husband, to motherhood, to the smallness of her life in the belly of a place that is built on hate and stagnation. Her daughter Sam and baby son PJ keep her tethered to this life she doesn't want. She finds unexpected refuge with a seventeen-year-old boy, but this relationship is only temporary, a sticking plaster on a festering wound.

It cannot last and when her chance to leave Northern Ireland comes, Nuala takes it. In 1994, Sam Malin plans escape. She longs for a life outside her dysfunctional family, far away from the North and all its troubles, free from her quiet brooding father Patsy, who never talks about her mother, Nuala; a woman Sam barely knew, who abandoned them twelve years ago.

She finds solace in music, drugs and her best friend Becca, but most of all in an illicit relationship with a jagged, magnetic older man. 

 I found this coming of age story powerful, toxic and very very readable - loved the imaginative voice and thoughts of Sam - Linda, BPS

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Once Upon An Alphabet, Oliver Jeffers (hardback)

£20.00

A flagship publication, gloriously bringing the alphabet to life in irresistible Oliver Jeffers style! The letters of our alphabet work tirelessly to make words that in turn make stories, but what if there was a story FOR each of the letters instead? Turn the pages of this exquisite book to find out... Here you will discover twenty-six short stories introducing a host of new characters (plus the occasional familiar face). From Edmund the astronaut with his awkward fear of heights, via the dynamic new investigative duo of the Owl and the Octopus, through to the Zeppelin that just might get Edmund a little bit closer to where he needs to be, this book is packed with funny, thrilling, perilous and above all entertaining tales inspired by every letter in the alphabet.

An adventure to follow from A to Z, or a treasure trove to dip in and out of, Once Upon an Alphabet is a work of exhilarating originality from artist Oliver Jeffers, the creator of much-loved modern classics such as Lost and Found and The Incredible Book Eating Boy.
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The End of The World is A Cul De Sac, Louise Kennedy ( paperback May 2022)

£8.99

A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

The secrets people kept, the lies they told. In these visceral, stunningly crafted stories, people are effortlessly cruel to one another, and the natural world is a primitive salve.

Here, women are domestically trapped by predatorial men, Ireland's folklore and politics loom large, and poverty - material, emotional, sexual - seeps through every crack. A wife is abandoned by her new husband in a ghost estate, with blood on her hands; a young woman is tormented by visions of the man murdered by her brother during the Troubles; a pregnant mother fears the worst as her husband grows illegal cannabis with the help of a vulnerable teenage girl; a woman struggles to forgive herself after an abortion threatens to destroy her marriage. Announcing a major new voice in literary fiction for the twenty-first century, these sharp shocks of stories offer flashes of beauty, and even humour, amidst the harshest of truths.

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Marriage Portrait, Maggie O’Farrell ( paperback JULY 2023)

£9.99

Marriage was her destiny. Now she must survive it. The breathtaking new novel from the bestselling author of Hamnet, winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020. 

The Marriage Portrait is a dazzling evocation of the Italian Renaissance in all its beauty and brutality.

Winter, 1561. Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara, is taken on an unexpected visit to a country villa by her husband, Alfonso. As they sit down to dinner it occurs to Lucrezia that Alfonso has a sinister purpose in bringing her here.

He intends to kill her. Lucrezia is sixteen years old, and has led a sheltered life locked away inside Florence's grandest palazzo. Here, in this remote villa, she is entirely at the mercy of her increasingly erratic husband.

What is Lucrezia to do with this sudden knowledge? What chance does she have against Alfonso, ruler of a province, and a trained soldier? How can she ensure her survival. The Marriage Portrait is an unforgettable reimagining of the life of a young woman whose proximity to power places her in mortal danger.

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Letters to Change the World, edited by Travis Elborough (paperback)

£14.99

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed' Martin Luther King, Jr. In an era where our liberties are often under threat, Letters to Change the World sends reminders from history that standing up for - and voicing - our personal and political beliefs is not merely a human right but our duty, if we want to make change happen. Featuring Emmeline Pankhurst rallying her suffragettes, George Orwell's warning against totalitarianism, Nelson Mandela's consoling his children from prison, Time's Up condemning abuses of power, and much more, this collection will inspire you to stand up and speak up - now, for what really matters.

'Remarkable, timely ... At a time of political uncertainty, the collection demonstrates the importance of speaking truth to power' Guardian
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The Half Known Life, Pico Iyer ( paperback Jan 2024)

£10.99

The Half Known Life : Finding Paradise in a Divided World

STANFORDS BOOK OF THE MONTH - JANUARY 2023'Nothing less than a guided tour of the human soul' Elizabeth Gilbert

One of our most perceptive travel writers embarks on an exploration of the world's holiest places and where we might find paradise on Earth. It's so easy, I thought, to place Paradise in the past or the future - anywhere but here. After half a century of travel, from Ethiopia to Tibet, from Belfast to Jerusalem, Pico Iyer asks himself what kind of paradise can ever be found in a world of unceasing conflict.

In a spectacular journey, both inward and outward, Iyer roams from crowded mosques in Iran to a film studio in North Korea, from a holy mountain in Japan to the sometimes spooky emptiness of the Australian outback. At every stop, he makes connections with unexpected strangers - mystics and taxi drivers and fellow travellers - and draws on his own memories, of time spent in a Benedictine monastery high above the Pacific, of regular travels with the Dalai Lama, of hearing his late mother speak of sunlit moments in pre-Partition India. By the end, he has upended many of our expectations and dared to suggest that we can find paradise right in the heart of our angry, confused and divided world.

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We Don’t Know Ourselves- Fintan O’Toole ( paperback March 2023)

£12.00

Finally into paperback, this is a seminal discussion book for anyone interested in the past and future of Ireland. 

 We Don't Know Ourselves is a very personal vision of recent Irish history from the year of O'Toole's birth, 1958, down to the present. Ireland has changed almost out of recognition during those decades, and Fintan O'Toole's life coincides with that arc of transformation. The book is a brilliant interweaving of memories (though this is emphatically not a memoir) and engrossing social and historical narrative.

This was the era of Eamon de Valera, Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey and John Charles McQuaid, of sectarian civil war in the North and the Pope's triumphant visit in 1979, but also of those who began to speak out against the ruling consensus - feminists, advocates for the rights of children, gay men and women coming out of the shadows. We Don't Know Ourselves is an essential book for anyone who wishes to understand modern Ireland.

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Trespasses, Louise Kennedy ( paperback March 2023)

£8.99

One by one, she undid each event, each decision, each choice. If Davy had remembered to put on a coat. If Seamie McGeown had not found himself alone on a dark street.

If Michael Agnew had not walked through the door of the pub on a quiet night in February in his white shirt. There is nothing special about the day Cushla meets Michael, a married man from Belfast, in the pub owned by her family. But here, love is never far from violence, and this encounter will change both of their lives forever.

As people get up each morning and go to work, school, church or the pub, the daily news rolls in of another car bomb exploded, another man beaten, killed or left for dead. In the class Cushla teaches, the vocabulary of seven-year-old children now includes phrases like 'petrol bomb' and 'rubber bullets'. And as she is forced to tread lines she never thought she would cross, tensions in the town are escalating, threatening to destroy all she is working to hold together.

Tender and shocking, Trespasses is an unforgettable debut of people trying to live ordinary lives in extraordinary times. 
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Winter Soldier, or Piano Tuner, Daniel Mason ( paperbacks)

£9.99

 

Daniel Mason is a doctor by trade, but writes in his spare time. His stories are reminiscent of William Boyd, often including travel, historical context and a gripping tale. Very enjoyable and well written, one of our favourites.

 

The Piano Tuner

One misty London afternoon in 1886, piano tuner Edgar Drake receives an unusual request from the War Office: he must leave his quiet life and travel to the jungles of Burma to repair a rare grand piano owned by an enigmatic army surgeon.

So begins an extraordinary journey across Europe, the Red Sea, India and onwards, accompanied by an enchanting yet elusive woman. Edgar is at first captivated, then unnerved, as he begins to question the true motive behind his summons and whether he will return home unchanged to the wife who awaits him. .

 

The WInter Soldier 

Lucius is a twenty-two-year-old medical student when World War I explodes across Europe. Enraptured by romantic tales of battlefield surgery, he enlists, only to find himself posted to a remote field-hospital ravaged by typhus. Supplies have all but run out, the other doctors have fled, and only a single nurse remains, from whom he must learn a brutal, makeshift medicine.

Then one day, an unconscious soldier is brought in from the snow, his uniform stuffed with strange drawings. He seems beyond rescue, until Lucius makes a fateful decision that will change the course of his life. From the gilded ballrooms of Imperial Vienna to the frozen forests of the Eastern Front, The Winter Soldier is the story of finding love in the sweeping tides of history, and of the mistakes we make and the precious opportunities to atone.

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The Edible Flower, Erin Bunting and Jo Facer ( hardback March 2023)

£30.00

On a seven-acre small holding in rural Northern Ireland, organic gardener Jo Facer and head chef Erin Bunting run fork-to-fork supper club, organic small-holding and fledgling cooking and growing school, The Edible Flower. In their first cookbook, learn to grow and cook edible flowers with Jo and Erin's delicious recipes inspired by the seasonal produce they grow in their kitchen garden and the wild food they forage from their local shores and hedgerows. Feast, celebrate and bring people together with over 50 recipes for small plates, mains, desserts, baking, snacks and drinks, at once fresh and flavourful and absolutely stunning to serve.

Recipes include: Ribboned Courgette & Avocado Salad with Poppy Seeds & Calendula, Pot Marigold Soda Bread,Lilac Panna Cotta with Strawberries,Rice with Lemon Verbena, Cardamom & Edible Flower Petals,Marigold Petal Pasta,Courgette Flower Tacos,Carnation and Blackberry Cooler,Slow Roast Lamb with Lavender, Lemon & Apricots, Blackberry & Sweet Geranium Tart,Vietnamese Summer Rolls with Violas,Aubergine Katsu Curry with Pickled Magnoliaand many more ...
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Close To Home, Michael Magee ( hardback April 2023 / pre-order paperback April 2024)

£14.99


Luminous and devastating, a portrait of modern masculinity as shaped by class, by trauma, and by silence, but also by the courage to love and to survive Sean's brother Anthony is a hard man. When they were kids their ma did her best to keep him out of trouble but you can't say anything to Anto. Sean was supposed to be different.
He was supposed to leave and never come back. But Sean does come back. Arriving home after university, he finds Anthony's drinking is worse than ever.

Meanwhile the jobs in Belfast have vanished, Sean's degree isn't worth the paper it's written on and no one will give him the time of day. One night he loses control and assaults a stranger at a party, and everything is tipped into chaos. Close to Home witnesses the aftermath of that night, as Sean attempts to make sense of who he has become, and to reckon with the relationships that have shaped him, for better and worse.

Drawing from his own experiences, Michael Magee examines the forces which keep young working class men in harm's way, in a debut novel which shines with intelligence and humanity on every page. Close to Home is an extraordinary work of fiction about deciding what kind of a man you want to be and finding your place in the scarred city you call home.
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Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver ( paperback May 2023)

£9.99

Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise. In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends.

'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster care. For Demon, born on the wrong side of luck, the affection and safety he craves is as remote as the ocean he dreams of seeing one day. The wonder is in how far he's willing to travel to try and get there.

Suffused with truth, anger and compassion, Demon Copperhead is an epic tale of love, loss and everything in between.

 

Barbara Kingsolver is an astounding writer (The Poisonwood Bible, Flight Behaviour, The Lacuna) and this contemporary retelling of David Copperfield is both a tribute to Dickens and an insightful reworking. 

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Skander And The Phantom Rider, AF Steadman ( paperback 1 Feb 2024)

£7.99

Don't miss this second book in the international bestselling SKANDAR series, an unmissable adventure for readers age 9 to 99 and fans of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson and Eragon. The Island shall have its revenge .

. . Skandar Smith has achieved his dream to train as a unicorn rider.

But as Skandar and his friends enter their second year at the Eyrie, a new threat arises. Immortal wild unicorns are somehow being killed, a prophecy warns of terrible danger, and elemental destruction begins to ravage the Island. Meanwhile, Skandar's sister, Kenna, longs to join him - and Skandar is determined to help her, no matter what.

As the storm gathers, can Skandar discover how to stop the Island tearing itself apart - before it's too late for them all? Get ready for more action, unforgettable characters, and mesmerizing world building.

Pacy, enthralling and epic, a gripping read.' - Louie Stowell, author of Loki and Otherland 'A dazzling feat of imagination. I loved every breathless moment of it!' - Cat Doyle, author of The Storm Keeper's Island and co-author of Twin Crowns'The best book I've ever read.' - Patrick, age 10'My book of the year.

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