The Song Collector - Natasha Solomons

Fox, as the celebrated composer Harry Fox-Talbot is known, wants to be left in peace. His beloved wife has died, he's unable to write a note of music, and no, he does not want to take up some blasted hobby.

Then one day he discovers that his troublesome four-year-old grandson is a piano prodigy. The music returns and Fox is compelled to re-engage with life - and, ultimately, to confront an old family rift.

Decades earlier, Fox and his brothers return to Hartgrove Hall after the war, determined to save their once grand home from ruin. But on the last night of 1946, the arrival of beautiful wartime singer Edie Rose tangles the threads of love and duty, which leads to a shattering betrayal.

With poignancy, lyricism and humour, Natasha Solomons tells a captivating tale of passion and music, of roots, ancient songs and nostalgia for the old ways, of the ties that bind us to family and home and the ones we are prepared to sever. Here is the story of a man who discovers joy and creative renewal in the aftermath of grief and learns that it is never too late to seek forgiveness.

Run Racist Run: Journeys Into The Heart Of Racism - Eusebius MacKaiser

Can we sometimes assume a racist motive? · Is there place for anger in dialogue on racism? · Can liberals be racist? · Should black people help white people understand racism? · Is white wealth because of racism, or hard work and good genes? · Should coloured people just call themselves black? In Run Racist Run, Eusebius McKaiser explores the non-bloody aspects of contemporary South African racism. While vigorous public debates about racism rage on, McKaiser tackles questions about the true and complete nature of racism with the rigour and honesty we have come to expect from his writing. In a year when South African students have protested against colonialism’s continued presence on university campuses, when acts of racism continue to erupt in social spaces, when brutal racism is witnessed in the United States and elsewhere, it’s clear that we urgently need to journey into the heart of racism. McKaiser takes that journey in this new collection – raising new questions about race and racism, and offering original, provocative meditations on these themes.

H is for Hawk - Helen Macdonald

H is for Hawk tells Macdonald's story of the year she spent training a goshawk in the wake of her father's death. Her father, Alisdair Macdonald, was a respected photojournalist who died suddenly of a heart attack in 2007. Having been a falconer for many years, she purchased a young goshawk to help her through the grieving process.

The Quality of Silence - Rosamund Lupton

On 24 November Yasmin and her ten-year-old daughter Ruby set off on a journey across Northern Alaska. They’re searching for Ruby’s father, missing in the arctic wilderness.

More isolated with each frozen mile they cover, they travel deeper into an endless night. And Ruby, deaf since birth, must brave the darkness where sight cannot guide her.

She won’t abandon her father. But winter has tightened its grip, and there is somebody out there who wants to stop them.

Somebody tracking them through the dark.

The Heart Goes Last - Margaret Atwood

Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. Job loss has forced them to live in their car, leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They desperately need to turn their situation around—and fast. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to their prayers. No one is unemployed and everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in . . . for six months out of the year. On alternating months, residents of Consilience must leave their homes and function as inmates in the Positron prison system. Once their month of service in the prison is completed, they can return to their "civilian" homes.
At first, this doesn't seem like too much of a sacrifice to make in order to have a roof over one's head and food to eat. But when Charmaine becomes romantically involved with the man who lives in their house during the months when she and Stan are in the prison, a series of troubling events unfolds, putting Stan's life in danger. With each passing day, Positron looks less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled.