Reading Groups Collection
Instructions for a Heatwave | In the Country of Men | Jamaica Inn | The Last Concubine | The Last Runaway | Lasting Damage | Little Dorrit | London Calling | Lost and Found | The Madonnas of Leningrad | Mansfield Park | The Map of Love | Measuring the World | Back to the List
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell
It's
July 1976 and London is in the grip of a heatwave. It hasn't rained for months, the gardens are filled with
aphids, water comes from a standpipe, and Robert Riordan tells his wife Gretta that he's going round the corner to
buy a newspaper. He doesn't come back. The search for Robert brings Gretta's children - two estranged sisters and
a brother on the brink of divorce - back home, each with different ideas as to where their father may have gone.
None of them suspects that their mother might have an explanation that even now she cannot share.
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In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar
On
a white-hot day in Tripoli, Libya, in the summer of 1979, nine-year-old Suleiman
is shopping in the market square with his mother. His father is away on business
- but Suleiman is sure he has just seen him, standing across the street in a
pair of dark glasses. But why isn't he waving? And why doesn't he come over when
he knows Suleiman's mother is falling apart?
Whispers and fears intensify around Suleiman: his best friend's father
disappears and is next seen being interrogated on state television; a man parks
his car outside the house every day and asks strange questions; and his mother
frantically burns his father's books. As Suleiman begins to wonder if his father
has disappeared for good, it feels as if the walls of his home will break with
the secrets that are being held within.
'Exquisite, so full of essential truths: the more you read the more you feel
the childhood described in it is yours'
Nadeem Aslam
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Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier
Her mother's dying request tales Mary Yellan on a sad
journey across the bleak moor land of Cornwall to reach Jamaica Inn, the home of
her Aunt Patience. With the coachman's warning echoing in her memory, Mary
arrives at a dismal place to find Patience a changed woman, cowering from her
overbearing husband, Joss Merlyn.
Affected by the inn's brooding power, Mary is thwarted in
her intention to reform her aunt, and unwillingly drawn into the dark deeds of
Joss and his accomplices. And, as she struggles with events beyond her control,
Mary is further thrown by her feelings for a man she dare not trust...
'A true classic.'
Amazon.com
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The Last Concubine by Lesley Downer
Japan,
1865: the women's palace in the great city of Edo. A sprawling complex,
bristling with intrigue and erotic rivalries, the palace is home to three
thousand women and only one man - the young shogun. Sachi, a beautiful
fifteen-year-old, is chosen to be his concubine.
But Japan is changing, and as civil war erupts, Sachi leaves the palace and
flees for her life. Rescued by a rebel warrior, she finds unknown feelings
stirring within her; but this is a world in which private passions have no place
and there is not even a word for 'love'.
Before she dare dream of a life with him, Sachi must uncover the secret of her
own origins - a secret that encompasses a wrong so terrible that it threatens to
destroy her...
'Thoroughly researched, this beautifully descriptive historical saga offers a
fascinating insight into the culture of imperial Japan, and will have you hooked
from the first page - wonderful'
My Weekly
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The Last Runaway by Tracey Chevalier
Honor Bright
is a sheltered Quaker who has rarely
ventured out of 1850s Dorset when she impulsively emigrates to America. Opposed to the slavery that defines and
divides the country, she finds her principles tested to the limit when a runaway slave appears at the farm of her
new family. In this tough, unsentimental place, where whisky bottles sit alongside quilts, Honor befriends two
spirited women who will teach her how to turn ideas into actions.
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Lasting Damage by Sophie Hannah
It's 1.15 a.m. Connie Bowskill should be asleep. Instead, she's logging on to a
property website in search of a particular house: 11 Bentley Grove, Cambridge.
She knows it's for sale, there's an estate agent's board in the front garden.
Soon Connie is clicking on the 'Virtual Tour' button, keen to see the inside of 11 Bentley Grove and put her mind at rest once and for all. She finds herself looking at a scene from a nightmare: in the living room, in the middle of the carpet, a woman lies face down in a huge pool of blood. In shock, Connie wakes her husband Kit. But when Kit sits down at the computer, he sees no dead body, only a pristine beige carpet in a perfectly ordinary room...
'When it comes to ingenious plots that twist and turn like a fairground rollercoaster, few writers can match Sophie Hannah.' - The Daily Express
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Liars and Saints by Maile Meloy
Yvette Santerre
had met the photographer on the beach as her children played. He had offered to
take their picture for her husband, away at war. When he arrived at her house
with his camera, the last thing she had expected was that he would try to kiss
her. But his kiss will haunt her family for generations.
Epic in its sweep, intimate in its insight and understanding, Liars and Saints
follows the Santerres through half a century. Each must find their own place not
only within the family but also in an ever-changing world.
'That rare and wondrous thing - a literary novel you don't want to put down.'
Helen Fielding
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Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
Little
Amy Dorrit grows up in the Marshalsea debtors' jail, looking after her father
who has been an inmate there for many years. During the day she goes to work as
a seamstress for a strange old lady, Mrs Clennam. When Mrs Clennam's son Arthur
returns from abroad and enters Amy's life, her family's fortunes change beyond
belief. Soon Amy is plunged into a world of high society, guilty secrets,
mysterious villains and financial scandal. But will she ever truly escape the
shadow of the prison walls - and find the love that eludes her?
'A masterpiece among masterpieces'
George Bernard Shaw
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London Calling by Sara Sheridan
When
eighteen-year-old debutante Rose Bellamy Gore goes missing in a seedy Soho jazz club, the prime suspect is a
young sax player, Lindon Claremont. He hightails it to Brighton to seek the help of his childhood friend Vesta, who
works with ex-Secret Service backroom girl Mirabelle Bevan. When Lindon is taken into custody, the two women dive
into London's underworld of smoky night clubs, fast cars and lethal cocktails to establish the truth.
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Lost and Found by Tom Winter
Two ordinary lives.
One extraordinary story. It's hard for Carol to admit her failings. Unhappy in her marriage
and with a teenage daughter who will barely converse with her, she feels trapped. So she puts pen to paper; well,
it seems less daunting than airing her thoughts aloud. She isn't expecting anyone to read her letters, so she
doesn't address them. Instead, she marks them with a smiley face and pops them in the post box. Albert's
retirement day at Royal Mail looms and he's given one final task: organise the 'lost letters' that have been piling
up in a room behind the sorting machine. Among the letters addressed to Santa, he arrives at one with a smiley face
drawn in place of an address. Albert opens the letter, unaware that in doing so his world will never be the same
again.
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The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
In
the autumn of 1914, Marina, a guide at Leningrad's Hermitage Museum, takes down
the museum's masterpieces for safekeeping. As she does so, she commits the
exquisite visions of angels and madonnas to memory, brush stroke by brush
stroke. While bombs fall on the city, she builds a Hermitage in her mind - a
place to escape to amidst the horror.
In modern day America, the ravages of age are eroding Marina's grip on everyday
life. She cannot hold on to fresh memories - her adult children's lives, the
approaching wedding of her grandchild - but her distant past in Leningrad
returns in vivid snapshots, rising unbidden to the surface of her mind...
'An unforgettable story of love, survival and the power of imagination. The
rare kind of book that you want to keep but you have to share.'
Isabel Allende
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Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Taken
from the poverty of her parents' home, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich
cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with only her
cousin Edmund as an ally. When Fanny's uncle is absent in Antigua, Mary Crawford
and her brother Henry arrive in the neighbourhood, bringing with them London
glamour and a reckless taste for flirtation. As her female cousins vie for
Henry's attention, and even Edmund falls for Mary's dazzling charms, only Fanny
remains doubtful about the Crawford's influence and finds herself more isolated
than ever.
A Subtle examination of social position and moral integrity, Mansfield Park is
one of Jane Austen's most profound works.
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The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif
In 1900 Lady Anna Winterbourne travels to an Egypt under
British occupation. There she falls in love with Sharif al-Baroudi, an Egyptian
patriot utterly committed to the cause of his country's freedom. A hundred years
later, Isabel Parkman, an American divorcee and a descendant of Anna and Sharif,
goes to Egypt, taking with her and old family trunk. The notebooks and journals
she finds in the trunk will reveal her ancestors' lives and will profoundly
affect her own.
'Soueif has a talent for blending the personal and
political and getting under the skin of each one of her characters.'
Independent on Sunday
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Page last updated: 21st March 2014