How Much of These Hills is Gold, by C Pam Zhang (paperback, April 2021)
£8.99
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2020
The boldest debut of the year . . .
In the twilight of the Gold Rush, two siblings cross a landscape with a gun in their hands and the body of their father on their backs . .
Ba dies in the night, Ma is already gone. Lucy and Sam, twelve and eleven, are suddenly alone and on the run.
With their father's body on their backs, they roam an unforgiving landscape dotted with giant buffalo bones and tiger paw prints, searching for a place to give him a proper burial. How Much of These Hills is Gold is a sweeping adventure tale, an unforgettable sibling story and a remarkable novel about a family bound and divided by its memories. 'The 19th-century American West is the setting for C Pam Zhang's impressive debut.
Linda's note : it's raw, visceral and heartbreaking, a Sebastian Barry novel set in the American West but with an extra helping of destructive humanity. Very impressive for a debut.
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The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer ( Paperback, May 2019)
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“Wonderfully dense and wise, a page turner that succeeds at both character and ideas. It felt true to life “( Chimimanda Adichie)
Meg Wolitzer is a prize winning author, a New Yorker and a regular on the US bestseller lists. Her other works include The Wife, The Interestings and The Ten Year Nap. Her great strength is her acutely observed, individual characters.
A novel about ambition, women, friendship and finding your place in the world..
Paperback from May 2019.
The Mars Room, by Rachel Kushner ( paperback)
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SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018
From the author of internationally acclaimed The Flamethrowers - a fearless and heartbreaking novel about love, friendship and incarceration. Romy Hall is starting two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women's Correctional Facility. Her crime? The killing of her stalker.
Inside awaits a world where women must hustle and fight for the bare essentials. Outside: the San Francisco of her youth. The Mars Room strip club where she was once a dancer.
Her seven-year-old son, Jackson. As Romy forms friendships over liquor brewed in socks and stories shared through sewage pipes her future seems to unfurl in one long, unwavering line - until news from beyond the prison bars forces Romy to try and outrun her destiny.
Milkman, by Anna Burns
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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.
Everything Under by Daisy Johnson ( paperback, 2019)
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Longlisted for the 2018 Booker Prize.
A debut novel, a story of family and identity.
Gretel grew up on an isolated canal boat, hasn’t seen her mother since she was sixteen and now with a phone call from a hospital, she is thrown back to the memories of language and landscape.
A gender fluid retelling of Oedipus Rex. Available as paperback from February 2019
Try this if you like Iris Murdoch, Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter..
