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|author=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)Jennifer Saint|title=A Life Without EndElektra

|genre=Literary Fiction, Science Fiction, General Fiction|summary=I looked at 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the calendar story of three women who live in the other weekheavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. Cassandra, Clytemnestra, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this year – I know, yet another one. It won't be one Elektra are all bit players in the story of the major numbers, but Trojan War. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the time when I silent women have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on most compelling stories and the horizonmost extreme furies. And then a few of the big 0|isbn=1913097854}}{{Frontpage|isbn=8409290103|title=If Only|author=Matthew Tree|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-numbersbroker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and if all goes well, I'll be an OBEthereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if that's Patrick sent the extent money regularly and a correspondence - of my midsorts -life crisis, I guess I have sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to be happysay than Patrick. Our author here doesn It wasn't use that exact phraseLowry senior didn't care for his son, but it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be said a danger to be living onehis wife and other children. Determined The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to find out how to prolong life for as long as he wants get the young man on his way.}}{{Frontpage|author=Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=Red is My Heart|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is, black and white and red. Yes, he would like has an artistic collaborator on this piece, and I think it's possible to see 400 – he hops right into bed with say not one page lacks the assistant influence of some striking visual ideas.|isbn=1913547183}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B098FFFBH9|title=Snowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the way in which human beings exploit the first geneticist he interviewsanimal world. She gets a great deal of support from her family: father Pip Harrison, and they end up with a childlecturer at Imperial College, which is at least a way of continuing the life of his genesLondon, mother Kate and a motive to keep on goingher twin, Nick. But how can he get to not flick Kate runs the family business, a toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, which is where we'final way outll meet Rachel' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|isbn=1642860670s main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.

|author= Maryse CondéYancey Williams|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life Crosshairs of Ivan and Ivanathe Devil|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We live Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in a postyears and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - world: postor imprisoned, from Eddie's point of view -colonialismin room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, post-modernismwith only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, post truthfor palatable company. The list goes on. There are numerous works that utilise the prefix postNothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock- in their categorisation-trade of writing though, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condé. In her new novelhere, for his readers, are his wanderings through his life''s work.|isbn=0986031658}} {{Frontpage|isbn=0008421714|title=Mrs March|author=Virginia Feito|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The Wondrous and Tragic Life problem began just after the publication of Ivan and IvanaGeorge March'', Condé writes with fervour about the scars left by colonialism s most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the countries last page) seemed to which either be reading it latched itselfor had already done so. Ivan and Ivana are twins born in Guadeloupe Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the bread, ''but isn't this the first time he's based a French overseas departmentcharacter on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'her mannerisms''. They grow up with intense and passionate feelings Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for each other. As they grow up and move overseas, the ravages fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - ''a post-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequencesweak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch.|isbn=1642860697''

|authorisbn= Ukamaka OlisakweB005FM76AA|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightThe Duke's Children|author=Anthony Trollope|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The new novel story opens to probably the worst news of all: Lady Glencora Palliser is dead. Her husband, Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke of Omnium, is nearly paralysed by Ukamaka Olisakwe is a look grief and struggling - at the trauma and heartache of same time - to adjust to no longer being a woman prime minister, or even in 1980s Nigeriaoffice. The title He seeks to protect and guide his three adult children, which is easier said than done when none of them wishes to ''Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Rightbe''guided. Ogadinma is the eponymous heroine of the story.. We Silverbridge (his elder son, actually called Plantagenet, but always known by his title) and Gerald are with her in every scene destined to be sent down from Oxford and Cambridge respectively and it is her narrative voice that leads the storyto run up gambling debts, although Olisakwe writes occasionally in third personeye-watering sums. This provides Lady Helen has fallen in love with - and wishes to marry - Frank Tregear, the penniless son of a sense of detachment for poor squire, which the reader and highlights the isolation Duke cannot countenance, not least because he sees echos of Ogadinmawhat might have happened when he married Lady Glencora. She is exiled from her father He's home and sent about to Lagos where she is married to an older man named Tobelearn that parents do not always get their way. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escape.|isbn=1911648160

|authorisbn=Elliot ReedB004O37B6A|title=A Key to Treehouse LivingThe Prime Minister|author=Anthony Trollope

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=This Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke of Omnium, is the story prime minister of a young boycoalition government but he's privately enraged at the seemingly unstoppable rise of Ferdinand Lopez. Lopex is exotic - some describe him as Jewish, others as Portuguese but the truth is that no one knows and Lopez is not going to explain. The ladies of society, even Palliser's own wife, William TyceLady Glencora, who are supporters but after Lopez makes an advantageous marriage Palliser is being raised by his uncle after placed in the death position of having to support his mother and wife's actions when Lopez loses a by-election. The Duke's payment of Lopez' election expenses in an attempt to stem gossip about his fatherwife will come back to haunt him.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B00474HVX4|title=Phineas Redux|author=Anthony Trollope|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It's abandonmentsome time since we heard from [[Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope|Phineas Finn]]. Having succeeded in parliament and achieved a paying position he fell out with those who provided his income and returned to Ireland where he married Mary, his childhood sweetheart. He was fortunate to get a job in Cork (or Dublin - recollections may vary) and seemed settled into a life of domesticity. To bring Finn back, Trollope had to kill off poor Mary and Phineas emerges in London as a childless widower with a legacy from an aunt who died at just the right time to allow the move to be possible.}}{{Frontpage|author=Jessie Greengrass|title=The High House|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Charles Darwin taught that all living matter evolved to pass on its genetic material with the implied belief that your progeny will then pass on theirs. However, that train of thought is slowly seems to have fallen out of favour. Today's young generation are discovering that their parents and their parents' parents did not seem to think that far ahead. Or they did think that far ahead and thought "it isn's not my problem" or "there's nothing I can do". Raising a child and living in a world on the precipice of catastrophe is what drives ''The High House'' by Jessie Greengrass. This is not a science-fiction novel. This is our reality. This is the life our children and their children will have to live.|isbn=1800750072}}{{Frontpage|author=Charlie Carroll|title=The Lip|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''Melody Janie Rowe'' even the name is evocative of…probably of whatever we want it to be, and maybe that's the point. To me the name sings of English folk music, but even in my use of that word English, I know I'm putting an emmet take on things. And Melody Janie Rowe is anti-emmet. |isbn=1529334179}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B003UH99X4|title=The Eustace Diamonds|author=Anthony Trollope|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It was generally thought that Sir Florian Eustace had come to regret his marriage but he didn't told live long enough for this to become a problem. After his death, his wife, Lizzie - still only in her late teens - was in possession of a very valuable diamond necklace and was determined that she would not hand it over to her husband's executors. She was adamant that Sir Florian had given it to her absolutely, although the precise circumstances of the usual narrative waygiving varied from telling to telling. Lady Eustace was not a woman to whom truth meant a great deal. All that was important to her now, she maintained, was her son. And, of course, her diamonds.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B003L7TDMU|title=Phineas Finn|author=Anthony Trollope|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Phineas Finn is the son of Dr Malachi Finn, a successful doctor in Killaloe in County Clare, who sent his son to London to train as a lawyer. InsteadPhineas's interest is more in making influential friends than in becoming a lawyer and one of them, Barrington Erle, suggests that he runs for Parliament in the book forthcoming election. His father is made not entirely in favour of this as members are not remunerated and it would be up to him to provide financial support for his son as well as funding his election. One of glossary entriesthe doctor's patients is Lord Tulla who controls the borough of Loughshane and by this stroke of luck Finn is, eventually, written elected by Williama small margin.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B003A6W0FO|title=Can You Forgive Her?|author=Anthony Trollope|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=On the surface ''Can You Forgive Her?'' looks deceptively simple: it's the story of one woman and two men who are vying with each other for her love. Alice Vavasor was originally engaged to her cousin, George Vavasor but she broke off that engagement and later became engaged to John Grey. When we first meet Alice she's on an extended tour of the continent with George Vavasor and his sister Kate. It's obvious that there's still a great deal of chemistry between John and Alice - and Kate is all for encouraging the relationship as it would tie Alice to her. George wants Alice but it's a matter of ''amour propre'' rather than love: he has little consideration for anyone other than himself and the original engagement had fallen through because of his infidelity and deceitfulness. This thread is the story of a very complicated love affair and a woman who lacks confidence in her own judgement. You might not like Alice to start with but you will warm to her.}}{{Frontpage|author=Lucy Holland|title=Sistersong|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Sistersong is part of a genre I particularly enjoy, the modern retelling of folk and fairy tales. These stories, for most of us, are a way cornerstone of describing certain eventschildhood and I relish seeing them retold with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective. If handled well these retellings give new life and new meaning to stories that are now becoming increasingly narrow and outdated, situations fleshing out characters, examining relationships and emotionsre-evaluating the role of women. It runs alphabeticallySistersong is a perfect example of a modern retelling done well, starting the plot is handled with ABSENCEcare, keeping its archaic historical feel but allowing the characters to come to life, then moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDERfeel real and human, most importantly they feel relatable in a modern world whilst still feeling appropriate for the pre-Saxon age they live in. As This is a masterpiece of storytelling and I began was captivated from beginning to read end.|isbn=1529039037}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B002SQCYWQ|title=The Complete Barchester Chronicles|author=Anthony Trollope|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=When I told my daughter that I did find myself thinking didn't know what to listen to now that I'd finished [[The Complete Novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion by Jane Austen|The Complete Novels of Jane Austen]] for the second time on earth?!the trot she had the perfect answer: The Barchester Chronicles and they were in my inbox in a matter of minutes. They're not ''quite'' as well known as the Austen books but they're an excellent follow on.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B077K6BQFD|title=The Complete Novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion |author=Jane Austen|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Yes - that's over eighty-one hours of listening for the purchase of one audio book. All six major novels are read by conmedienne Alison Larkin and they' re presented in the order in which they were published.}}{{Frontpage|author=Andrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (translator)|title=If You Kept a Record of Sins|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This was an incredibly readable novella, but one that left me a little conflicted. We start as our hero arrives at Bucharest airport, and before we even know his gender or the nature of the person he's addressing in his second person monologue of a narration, we see him picked up by his mother's chauffeur, and carted off to do all the necessary introductions before said mother is buried the following day. The mother was a businesswoman, who clearly left northern Italy and settled in Romania with her (night-time and business) partner, and feelings of abandonment are still strong. And so we flit from current (well, this came out in the original Italian in 2007, so moderately current) Bucharest, to the lad's childhood, and see just what he has to tell her as a private farewell address.|isbn=1939810965}}{{Frontpage|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=Kokoschka's Doll|rating=2.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Well, this looked very much like a book I soon grew used could love from the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the stylemiddle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and was instead caught up so on. It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in Williamwartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too. But you's storyve seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|isbn=19115454181529402697

|authorisbn= Karina Sainz Borgo and Elizabeth Bryer (translator)0571362672|title= It Would Be Night in CaracasSnow|author=John Banville|rating= 45|genre= Literary Fiction Crime (Historical)|summary= ''It Would Be Night in CaracasWell, at least you'' illuminates the everyday horrors of modern day Venezuelare a Wexford man. It begins with the death of Adelaida Falcon's mother and chronicles Adelaida's coming to terms with her new solitude in this world and her attempts to escape it. Danger stalks the shadows and, in a society where the establishment is crumbling, who can you turn to? |isbn=0062936867}}

{|class-"wikitable" cellpadding="15"<!-- Caroline Scott -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1471186393.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1471186393/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Photographer of the Lost by Caroline Scott]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] May 1921. Edie receives a photograph through the post. There is no letter or note with it. There is nothing written on the back of the photograph. It is a picture of her husband, Francis. Francis has been missing for four years. Technically, So said Colonel Osborne when he has been "missing, believed killed" but that is not something that a young widow can believe. She hangs on the word welcomed DI St John (pronounced 'missingSinjun', disbelieving the word killed. [[Photographer of the Lost by Caroline Scott|Full Review]] <!-- Ann Patchett -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1526614960.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1526614960/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Dutch ) Strafford to Ballyglass House by Ann Patchett]]=== [[image:5starjust before Christmas 1957.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] When we first meet Danny and his elder sister, Maeve Conroy, they're both living at The Dutch House with their parents and under the gaze Osborne was master of the portraits of the former owners whose oil paintings still hang on the walls. It's a strange family dynamic: Cyril Conroy is distant Keelmore Hounds and the closest Danny seems to come to him is when he goes out had done something memorable with him on a Saturday collecting rents from properties the family ownsInniskilling Dragoons at Dunkirk. Elna Conroy is loving, but absent increasingly often until the point comes when the children are told that she will not be returning. In other circumstances this might have affected Maeve and Danny deeply, but their primary relationship is with each other. It's a bond which only death will break. [[The Dutch House by Ann Patchett|Full Review]] <!-- Tove Jansson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0954899520.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0954899520/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Winter Book by Tove Jansson]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of the simplicity, naivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she niceties had a feeling for the natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the world might be. [[A Winter Book by Tove Jansson|Full Review]] <!-- Jansson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0954221710.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0954221710/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Summer Book by Tove Jansson]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[Literary Fiction]] Tove Jansson's short novel about Summer is several worlds away from the Moomintrolls she is most famous for outside her native Scandinavia. Book yourself an afternoon this Summer, and take yourself and The Summer Book somewhere quiet, preferably within sight and sound of the sea, settle back and prepare to be transported. [[The Summer Book by Tove Jansson|Full Review]] <!-- Sedgwick -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1788542347.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1788542347/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] This is a deep, interesting read unlike any book I've read in quite some time. The novel's story follows a young man named Ash in the process of joining a community of sick people in the curiously named town of Snowflake, Arizona. These people are sick, but it's not a sickness you've heard of. Instead, they're environmentally ill – affected by household chemicals and fabrics, pesticides, static electricity, and radiation – and their only ''cure'' is to stay in the town away from the real world. Though it's about a real place, the people in it are fictional. It really is a place apart, quite literally cut off from the outside world – people are even required to decontaminate themselves thoroughly before becoming fully integrated. [[Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick|Full Review]] <!-- Hewitt -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1509896465.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1509896465/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] ''The Nightjar'' is an unusual and exciting story. Alice Wyndham lives a normal life in London until she finds a box on her doorstep one morning and her life begins to unravel, fast. From that very moment, her life is flooded with magic, loss, expectation and particularly, betrayal. As everything around her shifts, all that she knows, all that she thinks she knows, must change. Who can she trust? Who must she trust? Who will she trust? More importantly, can she even trust herself? [[The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt|Full Review]] <!-- Mulligan -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1784742716.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784742716/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan]]=== [[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] I came to this book thinking I knew just what to expect, established even though it is [[:Category:Andy Mulligan|the author's]] debut in the adult novel market (hence the more mature name – he used to be an Andy). I thought it simple to sum up, the tale of a middle-aged man who knows too much about train travel having his life turned around in the most pleasant way. I hadn't opened it when I'd shelved it alongside [[:Category:Chris Cleave|Chris Cleave]], and [[:Category:David Nicholls|David Nicholls]]. I expected some whimsy, some warmth and some affirmative loveliness. More fool me. [[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan|Full Review]] <!-- Anstruther -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1784631647.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784631647/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Enid Campbell there was a woman who, Catholic priest dead on the face library floor with some precious bits of it, had everything. Leading the life of an aristocrat – full of inherited wealth and splendour, glamourous locales and high expectations. Only Enid's life has been plagued by mental illness – undiagnosed, untreated and threatening both Enid and those close to her. After losing custody of her children, Enid sells her son to her sister for £500 – but is this an act of greed, or an act of desperation? Exploring the true story of her own grandmother, Eleanor Anstruther has found the perfect subject for an explosive, moving and beautifully well written debut. [[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther|Full Review]] <!-- Laguna -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:191070962X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/191070962X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Choke by Sofie Laguna]]=== [[image:2star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] There's a dull, dispiriting pang of disappointment that comes when you try something everyone else loves and find out that you're really not into it. Coffee. Ice skating. A new Netflix series. Books are like that, but doubly so. [[The Choke by Sofie Laguna|Full Review]] <!-- Varenne -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0857058738.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0857058738/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] It strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside the walls of a theme parkhis anatomy missing. Our agent to see how bad it Strafford was here is Pete Ferguson, who bristles at the indignity of white man against Native 'Indian', who spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo hunt, and who hates the way man – and woman, of course – can turn against fellow man from Roslea at the bat of an eyelid. But this book is about so much more than the 1870s USA, Bunclody and the attendant problems with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocide. He finds himself trying to find this book's version of Utopia, namely the Equator, where everything is upside down, people walk on their heads along with rocks in their pockets to keep them on the ground to counter the antihis good-but-gravity, and whereshabby suit, who knows, things might actually be better. But that equator is a long way away – and there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between marked him and it… [[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Kan -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1911115847.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1911115847/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Nights of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Literary Fiction| Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] ''Nights of the Creaking Bed'' is a collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the lives and lusts of an assortment of characters living in and around Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria, in this collection, is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the shadows and people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with a vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories to achieve a glimmer of hope. [[Nights of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan|Full Review]] <!-- Yancey Williams -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0986031690.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0986031690/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Resurrection out as of Jesus by Yancey Williams]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] In March 1990 two police officers entered BostonOsborne's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. They left with thirteen famous paintings by Rembrandt, Degas class and Vermeerobviously Protestant. The frames remain empty to this day: whilst there might have been rumours about the whereabouts of the paintings, even promises that the case dead priest was about to be solved, the paintings are still missing. Yancey Williams has a theory, which he delaborates on in his novel ''The Resurrection of Jesus'', and whilst his suspects might seem unlikelyFather Tom Lawless from Scallanstown, who's to say that he's wrong? Forget the assertions that it was down to the Mafia and meet Jésus Ángel Escobar and Hiram Johnny Walker Quicksilver. [[The Resurrection of Jesus by Yancey Williams|Full Review]] <!-- Clark -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:034901082X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/034901082X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[In The Full Light of despite the Sun by Clare Clark]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] In 1930's Berlin, three people obsessed with art find themselves swept up into a scandal. Emmeline, a wayward young student, Julius, an anxious middledifferent religions -aged art expert, and Rachmann, a mysterious art dealer, live was in the politically turbulent Weimar Berlin, and soon find themselves whipped up into excitement over the surprise discovery habit of thirty-two previously unknown paintings by Vincent Van Goghspending time at Ballyglass House. Based on a true story and unfolding through the subsequent rise of Hitler and the Nazis, the discovery of the art allows these characters to explore authenticity, vanity and self-delusion. [[In The Full Light of the Sun by Clare Clark|Full Review]] <!-- Kazan -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0749024801.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0749022132/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Phoenix of Florence by Philip Kazan]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Deep in the Tuscan countryside of fifteenth century Italy, Onoria survives a massacre that destroys her family and home. Alone in the forest, she meets a band of soldiers who, believing her to be a boy train and develop her – and the determined Onoria becomes a mercenary – desperate to avoid any situation in which she may feel vulnerable again. Along the way, she meets ex-soldier Celavini, whose journey to Florence sees him investigating two brutal murders. As he digs further and uncovers links to his own family history, Celavini must revisit the past he shares with Onoria, in the hope that they can lay the ghosts of their shared history to rest, before it's too late His horse was stabled there... [[The Phoenix of Florence by Philip Kazan|Full Review]] <!-- Kennedy -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1786331691.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786331691/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Great Wide Open by Douglas Kennedy]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Douglas Kennedy's ''The Great Wide Open'' has been described as epic by just about everyone, and it often feels as though that was the intention. Though the novel often feels like a pastiche of the great American novel – epic in scope, preoccupied with matters of money and literature, fixated with New York – it often feels more like Kennedy is trying to reverse-engineer the concept altogether. Initially, the novel presents itself as an intimate study of family drama, in the latter half of the novel it smoothly turns to examining the turn of American society since the 70s, and the rapid rise of the hyper-capitalist neoliberal values that have dominated the west since the election of Ronald Reagan. Though it takes place over a twenty-year period between the 70s and the 90s, it notably always keeps one an eye on the present day (Trump, of course, makes an inevitable and slightly incongruous cameo) such that what happens links subtly into current affairs without ever explicitly referencing them. [[The Great Wide Open by Douglas Kennedy|Full Review]]