Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011 Flaubert's Parrot deals with Flaubert, parrots, bears and railways; with our sense of the past and our sense of abroad; with France and England, life and art, sex and death, George Sand and Louise Colet, aesthetics and redcurrant jam; and with its enigmatic narrator, a retired English doctor, whose life and secrets are slowly revealed.A compelling weave of fiction and imaginatively ordered fact, Flaubert's Parrot is by turns moving and entertaining, witty and scholarly, and a tour de force of seductive originality

    He is a former MP, unseated by the expenses scandal, who is now spending time abroad to recover from a major illness. The other purpose of his stay is to write his memoirs in order to demonstrate that he was unfairly pilloried for 'a minor accounting error', having valiantly served his country for 30 years. He settles into his new surroundings but soon it becomes clear that all is not as it seems. For a start Bobby seems to have no memory of the immediate past. Each time he sits down to continue his memoirs he finds only a blank page. Every morning as he comes downstairs the same scene replays itself in front of him: a young woman and her son pass him on the stairs. And what has become of his wife?

    I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmont to bach's Mass in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach." Prentice McHoan has returned to the bosom of his complex but enduring Scottish family. Full of questions about the McHoan past, present and future, he is also deeply preoccupied: mainly with death, sex, drink, God and illegal substances...

    

    James Jarrett looked like what he was - a Highland aristocrat - the Laird of Clan Jarrett. Part devil, part angel, he came to Georgia to take the wife who would help him found a New World Clan Jarrett, a great southern dynasty. He knew what he wanted and he fought for it with a skill and daring and courage that was almost madness.Many women loved James Jarrett. There was Maebelle, a pretty Scottish girl of seventee whose love led her to disgrace. There was Sue Merrick, an English aristocrat, who thought James a monster, who hated and loathed him - and who was powerless for her love for him. And in Savannah, there was Mary Knox, fragile and fair, whose sweet face was like a cry in the bitter blackness of James' heart and whose brutish brothers swore eternal revenge on James. And there was Simone Duclos, whom James bought at a slave auction, who had the trimmed down fineness of a thoroughbred and suffered despair and social ostracism to be near him.Two sons bore James Jarrett's proud name, but it was the youngest, Jarl, whose life was influenced by the dark secrets hidden behind the silent facades of James Jarrett's Georgian mansion. It was Jarl who, as 1776 and the War for Independence drew near, at last learned to hate his own father. Once again, in Jarrett's Jad, Frank Yerby brings to life the color and atmosphere of the American South in the glorious days of its beginning. This is a story charged with blood and fire, with white hot passions and animosities, with strife and warfare and the clash of army against army, family against family, and father against son.

    Worry for a young girl in the Congo who rides the rapids to earn a crust of bread; and spy on Norse gods battling each other for survival in modern Manhattan. In her first short-story collection since Jigs & Reels, let Joanne Harris ensnare and delight you with the variety and inventiveness of her storytelling.

    He’s giving thanks that his eight-year-old son, Braden, will finally have a procedure on his heart that will cure him of the same life-threatening condition that took Patrick’s wife several years earlier. But when Patrick suddenly loses his job teaching drama at a New York City high school, his already desperate financial situation becomes dire. Rebecca Brody, a social worker, shows up at his door with a judge’s order for him to appear before the city’s family court to determine if Patrick is financially fit, and Patrick realizes he is in danger of losing his son. Patrick knows that he must somehow make it through the holiday season to a new job waiting for him in the new year. He also knows that Ted Cake, his former father-in-law, blames Patrick so much for the death of his daughter that he, a rich and disagreeable man, is the one pushing the city to call the custody hearing and give the boy over to him. Now Patrick has only three weeks before Christmas to somehow make enough money to pay his bills, present himself to the family court as a fit father, and keep Braden in his life. It’s when Patrick sees a charming beggar on the subway dressed up as a crazy alien that he gets an idea. In true Dickensian holiday spirit, Patrick makes use of his old acting skills and his love of A Christmas Carol and takes to the streets in the guise of the Ghost of Christmas Present. Making a midtown corner his performing stage, he begins to touch and change the lives of all those who come his way, including Rebecca Brody and the bitter and heartbroken Ted Cake. *** The train stopped at a station where the signs read Thirty-fourth Street. The doors opened and Patrick waited for the commuters to disembark before he got off. He walked to the stairs as the morning light from the street shone and the sounds of Broadway bounced down into the station in echoing waves. He caught sight of himself in the plastic window of the token booth, where the transit workers shook their heads at his appearance. Perhaps he had gone too far with the costume. Perhaps he had gone too far thinking he should even attempt this madness. Perhaps what was worst of all was thinking he could save the semblance of a life that he could carve for himself with Braden. Maybe Braden would be better off without him in his daily life. Maybe . . . Patrick shook off the thought as the noise of Broadway waited for him above. He drew in a breath and exhaled. “Into the breach, dear friends.” He began to climb the stairs.

    She opens the door to see a teenage girl standing in the shadow beyond the porch light—and in an instant she knows who it is. Daisy, the daughter she gave up as a baby. Daisy steps forward, as she says tearfully “I’m sorry I didn’t call first. But something happened. And I really needed… you.”Seventeen years before, knowing she couldn’t possibly give her beautiful little girl Daisy the future she deserved, Mia made the hardest decision of her life—to give her up. And Suzanne seemed the perfect adoptive mother: calm, stable, and full of love for the daughter she’d always dreamed of having. The two mothers promised to keep communication open, so Daisy could have Mia’s love and support along with Suzanne’s. But as the years passed, Mia moved away, and their visits happened less. Now Daisy is almost a stranger to Mia—angry, closed and broken—nothing like the tiny girl she once couldn’t bear to say goodbye to.But now Daisy has arrived on Mia’s doorstep, and she says she has a terrible secret. One she can never tell Suzanne. And she believes the only person who can help her is Mia. Her birth mother.Mia, however, has secrets of her own. Ones she is afraid to let Daisy or anyone else know. And while Suzanne desperately seeks a way to bring her child home, can Mia overcome her past to help the girl they both call their daughter in her darkest hour before it’s too late? Totally gripping emotional women’s fiction from the author guaranteed to make readers cry. Kate Hewitt’s story will grab you by the heartstrings and never let you go. Perfect for fans of Jodi Picoult, Diane Chamberlain and Jojo Moyes.

    Fifty years later her niece inherited the house with no knowledge of it beyond her indelible childhood memories, and no experience at all of living in the country.Mary Lindsay is a born and bred Londoner who has enjoyed her city life-a prestigious job, and friends with whom she takes in the city pleasures of theatre, art and…As a retired businesswoman living in a rural house inherited from her aunt finds consolation for a failed romance with a married blind man by learning more about her aunt and herself.

    How long would this religion take to spread across the globe and even be perceived as a threat to Christianity, Judaism and Islam? In the age of the Internet, certainly less than 2000 years.Set in 1970s London and present-day Marrakech, Etc Etc Amen is a conspiracy thriller and a murder mystery in which people make gods out of men and gods out of thin air, and the destructive power of both religious faith and obsessive love has fatal consequences.'It's a wonderful book! I am even more awestruck the second time around.. Very few novelists get it right when they use Rock as the context for a novel. Howard Male got it right.' Tony Visconti, record producer (David Bowie, Morrissey, U2)'A highly original, artfully constructed and deliciously ironic tale.' Mick Brown (author of 'The Spiritual Tourist' and 'The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector') 'A finely crafted novel that seems destined to become a cult book about a cult.' Peter Culshaw (author of Clandestino: In Search of Manu Chao)'I really enjoyed Etc Etc Amen. At last a novel about a musician that didn't make me want to punch the author.' Jim Bob (Carter USM and author of Storage Stories)

    Will she follow her own will, or make the hard choice to submit her life to Christ's leadership? Now available with a contemporary new look, Not My Will is a classic story of love, loss, and surrender, with more than 500,000 copies sold.

    In his first novel since The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Chabon presents a hilarious and heartbreaking work—the story of the friendship between the "wonder boys"—Grady, an aging writer who has lost his way, and Crabtree, whose relentless debauchery is capsizing his career.

    At the centre of the novel are three women, each with a secret to hide: Constance MacKenzie, the original desperate housewife; her daughter Allison, whose dreams are stifled by small-town small-mindedness; and Selena Cross, her gypsy-eyed friend from the wrong side of the tracks.

    This extraordinarily sensitive and insightful portrait of religious life centers on Philippa Talbot, a highly successful professional woman who leaves her life among the London elite to join a cloistered Benedictine community.

    Roxanna Slade is this woman. Roxanna begins her story on her twentieth birthday -- a day that introduces her to the harsh realities of adulthood and changes the course of her life forever. From this day on, Roxanna is quick to share with the reader the intimate details of ninety years of life in North Carolina. Her beguiling tale is one that boldly reflects the high and low moments in the development of the modern South and the nation as well as the inner strength of a woman possessed of a piercingly clear vision, forthright hungers and immense vitality.