Weather, Jenny Offil ( paperback Jan 2021)
£9.99
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
An obligatory note of hope, in a world going to hell. Lizzie Benson, a part-time librarian, is already overwhelmed with the crises of daily life when an old mentor offers her a job answering mail from the listeners of her apocalyptic podcast, Hell and High Water. Soon questions begin pouring in from left-wingers worried about climate change and right-wingers worried about the decline of Western civilization. Entering this polarized world, Lizzie is forced to consider who she is and what she can do to help: as a mother, as a wife, as a sister, and as a citizen of this doomed planet.
* Linda's note : the blurb for this book is not very encouraging! But it's actually full of hope, humour and just the absurdity of the everyday. I enjoyed it!
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The Irish Goodbye, Heather Aimee O'Neill ( hardback FEB26)
£16.99
Three adult sisters reunited at their childhood home must confront a shared tragedy in The Irish Goodbye – the devastatingly beautiful debut novel from Heather Aimee O'Neill. It’s been years since the three Ryan sisters were all home together at their family’s beloved house on Long Island. Two decades ago, their lives were upended by a tragic accident on their brother Topher’s boat that drove him to suicide.
Now, the Ryan women are back for Thanksgiving, but each carries a heavy secret. The eldest, Cait, is still holding guilt for the role no one knows she played in the boat accident, when she rekindles a flame with her high school crush, Topher’s best friend. Middle sister, Alice, has been thrown a curveball threatening her career and, potentially, her marriage.
And the youngest, Maggie, is finally taking the risk to bring the woman she loves home to her devoutly Catholic mother. When Cait invites a guest to Thanksgiving dinner, old tensions boil over and new truths surface. Far more than a family holiday will be ruined unless the sisters can find a way to forgive themselves – and each other.
Wild Dark Shore, Charlotte McConaghy ( paperback Nov 2025)
£9.99
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
LONGLISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE MEDAL
A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A storm gathering force.
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny weather-lashed island that is home to the world's largest seed bank. As Shearwater risks being lost to rising sea levels, the island's researchers have fled, and only the Salts remain. Until, during the worst storm in living memory, a stranger washes ashore.
The family nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, but it seems she isn't telling the whole truth about why she's there. And when Rowan stumbles upon sabotaged radios and a recently dug grave, she realises that she's not the only one on the island with a secret. A novel of breathtaking twists and dizzying beauty, Wild Dark Shore is about the impossible choices we make to protect the people we love.
On the Road, Jack Kerouac ( paperback 2018, first written 1951)
£9.99
Sal Paradise, a young innocent, joins his hero, the mystical traveller Dean Moriarty, on a breathless, exuberant ride back and forth across the United States. Their hedonistic search for release or fulfilment through drink, sex, drugs and jazz becomes an exploration of personal freedom, a test of the limits of the American dream.
A brilliant blend of fiction and autobiography, Jack Kerouac's exhilarating novel swings to the rhythms of 1950s underground America, racing towards the sunset with unforgettable exuberance, poignancy and autobiographical passion. One of the most influential and important novels of the 20th century, this is the book that launched the Beat Generation and remains the bible of that literary movement.
Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre ( paperback 2003)
£9.99
Won the Booker Prize in 2003!
The riotous adventures of fifteen-year-old Vernon Gregory Little' begins the blurb. You would be mistaken for believing the pages contain a merry, light-hearted tale of an adolescent boy's stereotypical adventures. In fact, DBC Pierre's debut proves a much subtler, darkly comic affair.
Although the reader does indeed get to witness the protagonist's passing into manhood, Pierre's style is far from the typical `romance of youth' story. Most striking throughout the book is the superb use of language, which happily grasps at the fact that modern day teenagers are not as eloquently spoken as yester generations may wish. Most pages contain a good dose of foul language, executed maturely for the most part.
The vernacular of central Texas, not just foul, is excellently represented. You are immediately thrown into trying to make sense of the strong southern accent Pierre so faithfully writes in; "I'll remind you that, stuss-tistically...", "Don't tell me you weren't close to the Meskin boy.". At first this a little hard to get to grips with, sounding the word out in your mind being the quickest way of grasping certain words or phrases. However by the end of first chapter Pierre has provided the reader with a firm vocabulary base and the faithful language truly adds to the depth and general roundedness of the inhabitants of Martirio, Texas.
We are introduced to the `barbecue sauce capital of central Texas' town by Vernon himself. A fifteen going on sixteen year old boy. The first person narrative stays true to the mind of an adolescent boy throughout the book, with persistent, imaginative off shoots from Vernon's hormone filled brain. Such tangents include all the typical things a young boy is concerned with; drugs, money, Taylor Figueroa's bikini `panties' and the `knife' of humiliation his mother has placed firmly in his back. Not so typical are the haunting memories of his deceased `Meskin' friend Jesus Navarro.
One Tuesday, tragedy strikes Martirio. Jesus Navarro shoots dead sixteen of his classmates before turning the gun on himself. When developments are made into the investigation in the form of an alleged second firearm linked to Vernon, his world spirals. The whole country seems ignorant of his innocence, from his mother and her overweight `Desperate Housewives' wannabe friends, to the sinister reporter who sees the young boy as his ladder to the top, Eulalio Ledesma.
The subsequent plot at first develops fairly slowly. The majority of the book consists of Vernon describing the life and characters of his hometown. Not until the final third of the pages does the story develop into some form of real excitement in Vernon's bid for Mexico and the life of a fugitive on the run. Tackling difficult issues as death, adolescence and depression, managing to layer it with a good helping of comedy is refreshing and makes for a read well worth a few hours of anybody's time.
