Village School


Miss Read - 1955
    This is the English village of Fairacre: a handful of thatch-roofed cottages, a church, the school, the promise of fair weather, friendly faces, and good cheer -- at least most of the time. Here everyone knows everyone else's business, and the villagers like each other anyway (even Miss Pringle, the irascible, gloomy cleaner of Fairacre School). With a wise heart and a discerning eye, Miss Read guides us through one crisp, glistening autumn in her village and introduces us to a cast of unforgettable characters and a world of drama, romance, and humor, all within a stone's throw of the school. By the time winter comes, you'll be nestled snugly into the warmth and wit of Fairacre and won't want to leave.

The Fifty-First State


Lisa Borders - 2013
    As they learn their family's history, Josh and Hallie will invite disaster into their lives, and will learn, together, to navigate its currents, keeping further losses at bay.Lisa Borders is the author of Cloud Cuckoo Land, winner of the Fred Bonnie Award for Best First Novel and fiction honors in the Massachusetts Book Awards.

The Children's Book


A.S. Byatt - 2009
    As these lives—of adults and children alike—unfold, lies are revealed, hearts are broken, and the damaging truth about the Wellwoods slowly emerges. But their personal struggles, their hidden desires, will soon be eclipsed by far greater forces, as the tides turn across Europe and a golden era comes to an end.Taking us from the cliff-lined shores of England to Paris, Munich, and the trenches of the Somme, The Children’s Book is a deeply affecting story of a singular family, played out against the great, rippling tides of the day. It is a masterly literary achievement by one of our most essential writers.

The Temple is Not My Father


Rasana Atreya - 2014
     From the author of 'Tell A Thousand Lies,' which was shortlisted for the 2012 Tibor Jones South Asia award. UK's Glam magazine calls 'Tell A Thousand Lies' on of their 'five favourite tales from India.' If you like Rohinton Mistry or Shilpi Somaya Gowda,you might like this short story of 40 pages.

The Invisible Hero


Elizabeth Fensham - 2011
    He’s used to being the loner, the odd one out, the boy who lives with his nan. So when Philip’s class is given a school assignment to write about heroes and villains, the project causes conflict in the classroom as everyone weighs in on the debate. For the first time, Philip has the opportunity to shine in school - but can he convince the class that being different is not necessarily a bad thing and that heroes have many disguises?

The Dust That Falls from Dreams


Louis de Bernières - 2015
    But their days of childhood innocence and adventure are destined to be followed by the apocalypse that will overwhelm their world as they come to adulthood.For Rosie, the path ahead is full of challenges: torn between her love for two young men, her sense of duty and her will to live her life to the full, she has to navigate her way through extraordinary times. Can she, and her sisters, build new lives out of the opportunities and devastations that follow the Great War?Louis de Bernières’ magnificent and moving novel follows the lives of an unforgettable cast of characters as the Edwardian age disintegrates into the Great War, and they strike out to seek what happiness can be salvaged from the ruins of the old world.

The Stranger's Child


Alan Hollinghurst - 2011
    George is enthralled by Cecil, and soon his sixteen-year-old sister, Daphne, is equally besotted by him and the stories he tells about Corley Court, the country estate he is heir to. But what Cecil writes in Daphne's autograph album will change their and their families' lives forever: a poem that, after Cecil is killed in the Great War and his reputation burnished, will become a touchstone for a generation, a work recited by every schoolchild in England. Over time, a tragic love story is spun, even as other secrets lie buried - until, decades later, an ambitious biographer threatens to unearth them.Rich with Hollinghurst's signature gifts - haunting sensuality, delicious wit and exquisite lyricism - The Stranger's Child is a tour de force: a masterly novel about the lingering power of desire, how the heart creates its own history, and how legends are made.

The Tree Bears Witness (Birbal, #2)


Sharath Komarraju - 2017
    With his honour and reputation at stake, Akbar asks his trusted advisor Birbal to solve the mystery. The murder has taken place in a garden, at a spot between two mango trees, and the two guards who are eyewitnesses have conflicting versions of what could have happened. Was it suicide? Was it Akbar himself who ordered the killing or was it the Rajputs who accompanied Sujjamal, his uncles and cousin, who are guilty?Set in a period that has been described as the golden age of the Mughals, the novel draws us into the royal court of Agra, abuzz with political intrigue, personal enmities and hidden rivalries, where everyone is a suspect until proven otherwise.

The Leaving of Liverpool


Maureen Lee - 2007
    Their beloved mother has died and the girls have suffered shocking abuse at the hands of their father. They head to Liverpool where they will board a ship to New York. But the smallest, cruellest twist of fate conspires to separate the girls just as the boat is about to sail, leaving Mollie stranded in Liverpool and Annemarie at the mercy of strangers in America. The subsequent paths of their lives could not be more different. Annemarie discovers her future and her fortune, while Mollie, devastated by guilt and grief at the loss of her sister, eventually carves out a new life in Liverpool. Then the Second World War looms - with surprising consequences for the two sisters...

Road Ends


Mary Lawson - 2013
    He was thinking about the lynx. The way it had looked at him, acknowledging his existence, then passing out of his life like smoke. . . It was the first thing—the only thing—that had managed, if only for a moment, to displace from his mind the image of the child. He had carried that image with him for a year now, and it had been a weight so great that sometimes he could hardly stand. Mary Lawson’s beloved novels, Crow Lake and The Other Side of the Bridge, have delighted legions of readers around the world. The fictional, northern Ontario town of Struan, buried in the winter snows, is the vivid backdrop to her breathtaking new novel.  Roads End brings us a family unravelling in the aftermath of tragedy: Edward Cartwright, struggling to escape the legacy of a violent past; Emily, his wife, cloistered in her room with yet another new baby, increasingly unaware of events outside the bedroom door; Tom, their eldest son, twenty-five years old but home again, unable to come to terms with the death of a friend; and capable, formidable Megan, the sole daughter in a household of eight sons, who for years held the family together but has finally broken free and gone to England, to try to make a life of her own.  Roads End is Mary Lawson at her best. In this masterful, enthralling, tender novel, which ranges from the Ontario silver rush of the early 1900s to swinging London in the 1960s, she gently reveals the intricacies and anguish of family life, the push and pull of responsibility and individual desire, the way we can face tragedy, and in time, hope to start again.

Beyond a Misty Shore


Lyn Andrews - 2011
    For sisters Sophie and Maria, though, the upheaval is just beginning. For they have no choice but to leave their beloved home on the Isle of Man. It is a huge wrench for eighteen-year-old Maria, who can't forget Hans Bonhoeffer, a young Austrian, interned on the island during the war. For widowed Sophie, Liverpool offers a new beginning with her daughter Bella. She has no room for distractions - until she falls in love with Frank Ryan, a man married to a woman who, although she doesn't love him, has no intention of letting him go. Without the men they love, will the sisters ever find happiness?

Just Good Friends


Penny Hancock - 1999
    Max is a little jealous of Carlos and Carlos's wife is certainly not happy to see Stephany. It becomes clear that there is more between Stephany and Carlos than just friendship and the tension rises between the two couples. As Max discovers more about Stephany's past, he begins to wonder if he really knows her at all.

James Clavell Library: Gai-Jin, Tai-Pan, Noble House, & Shogun


James Clavell - 1983
    

Ireland


Frank Delaney - 2004
    The last practitioner of an honored, centuries-old tradition, the Seanchai enthralls his assembled audience for three evenings running with narratives of foolish kings and fabled saints, of enduring accomplishments and selfless acts -- until he is banished from the household for blasphemy and moves on. But these three incomparable nights have changed young Ronan forever, setting him on the course he will follow for years to come -- as he pursues the elusive, itinerant storyteller . . . and the magical tales that are no less than the glorious saga of his tenacious, troubled, and extraordinary isle.

Emotionally Weird


Kate Atkinson - 2000
    Nora, at first, recounts nothing that Effie really wants to hear--like who her real father was. Effie tells various versions of her life at college, where in fact she lives in a lethargic relationship with Bob, a student who never goes to lectures, seldom gets out of bed, and to whom Klingons are as real as Spaniards and Germans.But as mother and daughter spin their tales, strange things are happening around them. Is Effie being followed? Is someone killing the old people? And where is the mysterious yellow dog?In a brilliant comic narrative which explores the nonsensical power of language and meaning, Kate Atkinson has created another magical masterpiece.