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|author=Frederic Beigbeder Jon Fosse and Frank Wynne Damion Searls (translator)|title=A Life Without EndVaim

|genre=Literary Fiction, Science Fiction, General Fiction|summary=I looked at the calendar the other week, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this year – I know, yet another one. It won't be one of the major numbers, but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizon'All was strange''. And then a few of the big 0-numbers, and if all goes well, I'll be an OBE. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if that's This haunting phrase encapsulates the extent pervading sense of my mid-life crisisotherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he might be said to be living one. Determined to find out how to prolong life a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with the assistant to the first geneticist he interviews, Jatgeir and they end up with a childEline, which is at least a way two of continuing the life of his genes, and a motive to keep on goingprotagonists caught in its melancholic current. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|isbn=16428606701804271829

|author= Maryse CondéClaire-Louise Bennett|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and IvanaBig Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We live Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a post- world: post-colonialismkiss, post-modernismusually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, post truth. The list goes onbecomes evidence of love lost. There are numerous works that utilise When the prefix post- in their categorisation, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condé. In her new novelnarrator cries out internally, ''The Wondrous come over here and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivanakiss me,'', Condé writes with fervour about the scars left by colonialism on the countries it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to which it latched itselfconfirm her emotional numbness. Ivan and Ivana are twins born in GuadeloupeThe imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, a French overseas department. They grow up with intense and passionate feelings for each other. As they grow up and move overseasher ex-partner, the ravages of a post-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequencesghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=16428606971804271934

|author= Ukamaka OlisakweHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightLili is Crying|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The new First published in 1953 in French, this novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe is a look at timeless text which wrenches the trauma hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and heartache of being a woman in 1980s Nigeria. The title is ''Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Right''. Ogadinma is sentences from their proper position on the eponymous heroine of the story.. We are with her in every scene page and it is her narrative voice that leads the storypositions them elsewhere, disjointed, although Olisakwe writes in third persontruncated. This provides a sense of detachment for the reader and highlights Like the isolation lives of Ogadinma. She is exiled from her father's home and sent to Lagos where she is married to an older man named Tobe. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escapecharacters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=19116481601804271675

|author=Elliot ReedJonathan Buckley|title=A Key to Treehouse LivingOne Boat

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=This ''One Boat'' is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the reader into a contemplative realm of philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, Teresa. Set against the story evocative backdrop of a young boysmall coastal Greek town, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle this work masterfully captures the magic of its setting and its power to provoke profound introspection. Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the reason she has visited it after the death of his mother and his father's abandonmentboth her parents. HoweverPrompted by her mourning, it isn't told in the usual her narrative way. Insteadvoice is meditative and deeply self-aware, inviting the book reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is made up of glossary entries, written by William, as a way book that not only requires but inspires depth of describing certain eventsthought, situations since its narrative structure is fragmentary and emotions. It runs alphabetically, starting with ABSENCE, then moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDER. As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what ironically relies on earth?!' but I soon grew used to the style, and was instead caught up in William's storyanalepsis for its propulsion.|isbn=19115454181804271764

|author= Karina Sainz Borgo and Elizabeth Bryer (translator)Eowyn Ivey|title= It Would Be Night in CaracasBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating= 43.5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= ''It Would Be Night in CaracasBlack Woods Blue Sky'' illuminates tells the everyday horrors story of modern day Venezuela. It begins with Birdie, the death young mother of Adelaida Falcontoddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. Described as a ''wild card's mother and chronicles Adelaida's coming , she feels stuck in her day-to terms with her new solitude in this world -day life, and her attempts yearns to escape it. Danger stalks cross the shadows Wolverine river andlive on the North Fork to fulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by nature. When she meets Arthur Nielson, in a society where the establishment is crumblingstrange, taciturn and solitary man, who can you turn says he has a cabin over there, she feels called to? go - and bring Emaleen with her. Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever.|isbn=00629368671472279042}}

{{Frontpage|author=Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=White Nights|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.|isbn=0241619785}}{{Frontpage|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingauthor="15"James Baldwin<!-- Caroline Scott -->|title=Giovanni's Room|rating=4.5|-genre=Literary Fiction | stylesummary="width: 10%''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|isbn=0141186356}}{{Frontpage|author=Alba de Cespedes |title=Forbidden Notebook|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the most intimate and revealing ways.|isbn=1782278222}}{{Frontpage|author=Ottessa Moshfegh|title=My Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=At best, this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; vertical-alignat worst, it is the cynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: top; text-align: center;"in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation.|isbn=1784707422}}{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We'll Never Know[[image:1471186393|rating=4.jpg5|genre=Literary Fiction|linksummary=http://wwwTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence.amazonSo Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.co.uk/dp/1471186393/ref|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=nosimCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke?tag=thebookbag-21]]And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.

The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.| styleisbn="vertical0356516075}}{{Frontpage|author= Kay Chronister|title= Desert Creatures|rating= 4|genre= Dystopian Fiction|summary= With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-align: top; textapocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-align: left;"apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|isbn=1803364998}}{{frontpage|isbn=1803363002|author= Eric LaRocca|title= The Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=5|genre=Horror|summary=[[Photographer Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the end of the Lost by Caroline Scott]]story, beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''

[[image:4Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after.5starSet against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.jpg|linkisbn=Category:{0861546490}}{{Frontpage|author= Michael Grothaus|title=Beautiful Shining People|rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction=4|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:genre= Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]summary= ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it.''

May 1921. Edie receives a photograph through ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the postquestion of identity and acceptance. There is no letter or note with Of what itmeans to be human. There Of what is real and what is nothing written on artificial, and whether the back development of the photographtechnology is exciting or frightening. It is a picture |isbn=191458564X}}{{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Saint|title=Atalanta|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''I was as worthy as any one of her husbandthem. I would get on board that ship, Francis. Francis has been missing for four yearsI vowed. Technically, he has been "missingI would take my place, believed killed" but that is not something that a young widow can believejust in the name of the goddess. She hangs on It was for the word sake of my name, too. Atalanta'missing', 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:1526614960Princess.jpg|link=http://wwwWarrior.amazonLover.coHero.uk/dp/1526614960/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]

{{Frontpage| styleisbn="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"0989715337|title=Papa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating=4|genre=[[The Dutch House by Ann Patchett]]==Literary Fiction|summary=''Some frogs had gotten into the well.''

[[image:5star''Walter stood waist-deep in the fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the strange noise of the buckets as he filled them.''

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 of the portraits of the former owners whose oil paintings still hang on the walls. It's a strange family dynamic: Cyril Conroy How is distant and the closest Danny seems to come to him is when he goes out with him on a Saturday collecting rents from properties the family owns. 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. [[for an opening? 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 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 form 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 interconnected short stories goes 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 succinct and her life begins laconic to unravel, fast. From that very moment, her life is flooded with magic, loss, expectation wistful and particularlymusing, 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:2turning on a sixpence.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, even though it is [[:Category:Andy Mulligan|the And 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 upMarco North, the tale of a middle-aged man who knows too much about train travel having his life turned around in has 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 was a woman who, on the face wonderful turn of itphrase, 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 starts as he means 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.amazongo on.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]]FrontpageIt strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside the walls of a theme park. Our agent to see how bad it 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 at the bat of an eyelid. But this book is about so much more than the 1870s USA, 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 with rocks in their pockets to keep them on the ground to counter the anti-gravity, and where, 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 him and it… [[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Kan -->|-| styleauthor="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Daisy Hildyard[[image:1911115847.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1911115847/ref=nosim?tagtitle=thebookbag-21]] Emergency| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Nights of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan]]==rating=4 [[image:4star.jpg|linkgenre=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]]  | stylesummary="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Resurrection summary 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 Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. They left with thirteen famous paintings by Rembrandt, Degas and Vermeer. The frames remain empty to this day: whilst there might have been rumours about the whereabouts of the paintings, even promises that the case was about to be solved, the paintings are still missing. Yancey Williams has a theory, which he delaborates on in his novel book doesn''The Resurrection of Jesus'', and whilst his suspects might seem unlikely, who's t come close 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 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 explaining what is done with art find themselves swept up into a scandal. Emmeline, a wayward young student, Julius, an anxious middle-aged art expert, and Rachmann, a mysterious art dealer, live in the politically turbulent Weimar Berlin, and soon find themselves whipped up into excitement over the surprise discovery of thirty-two previously unknown paintings by Vincent Van Gogh. 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-delusionpremise. [[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... [[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]]isbn===1913097811[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]