A Column of Fire - Ken Follett

Young Ned Willard is coming home to Kingsbridge at Christmas as A Column of Fire opens. The year 1558 will turn Ned’s life upside-down and change Europe for ever.

The ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral look down on a city torn by religious hatred. High principles clash bloodily with friendship, loyalty and love. Ned finds himself on the opposite side from the girl he longs to marry, Margery Fitzgerald.

When Elizabeth Tudor becomes queen, all Europe turns against England. The shrewd, determined young monarch sets up the country’s first secret service, to give her early warning of assassination plots, rebellions and invasion plans.

Waiting in Paris is the alluring, headstrong Mary Queen of Scots, part of a brutally ambitious French family. Proclaimed the rightful ruler of England, she has her own supporters scheming to get rid of Elizabeth.

Ned Willard hunts the slippery, enigmatic Jean Langlais, not knowing that the false name hides a childhood classmate who knows him all too well.

Over a turbulent half-century, the love between Ned and Margery seems doomed, as extremism sparks violence from Edinburgh to Geneva. Elizabeth clings precariously to her throne and her principles, protected by a small, dedicated group of resourceful spies and courageous secret agents.

The real enemies, then as now, are not the rival religions. The true battle pitches those who believe in tolerance and compromise against the tyrants who would impose their ideas on everyone else—no matter what the cost.

The Prison Bookclub - Ann Walmsley

When Ann Walmsley was asked to take part in a book club in a men’s prison, she was initially anxious: after a violent mugging a few years before, could she really cope being surrounded by violent criminals? Luckily, curiosity got the better of her, and she signed up for eighteen months of meetings with heavily tattooed inmates, talking about books ranging from The Grapes of Wrath to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. But this wasn’t your typical book club – there was no wine and cheese, plush furniture or superficial chat about recent holidays. Classic works of fiction and non-fiction became springboards for frank discussions about loss, anger, redemption and loneliness, and for the men a prized oasis in which to regain a sense of humanity.

In this heart-warming example of the rehabilitative power of reading, follow Graham the biker, Frank the gunman, Ben and Dread the drug dealers, and the robber duo Gaston and Peter as they share ideas and reveal their life stories. The Prison Book Club is unlike anything you’ve read before.

The World without Us - Mireille Juchau

It has been six months since Tess Müller stopped speaking. Her silence is baffling to her parents, her teachers and her younger sister Meg, but the more urgent mystery for both girls is where their mother, Evangeline, goes each day, pushing an empty pram and returning home wet, muddy and dishevelled.

Their father, Stefan, struggling with his own losses, tends to his apiary and tries to understand why his bees are disappearing. But after he discovers a car wreck and human remains on their farm, old secrets emerge to threaten the fragile family.

One day Tess's teacher Jim encounters Evangeline by the wild Repentance River. Jim is in flight from his own troubles in Sydney, and Evangeline, raised in a mountain commune and bearing the scars of the fire that destroyed it, is a puzzle he longs to solve.

As the rainforest trees are felled and the lakes fill with run-off from the expanding mines, Tess watches the landscape of her family undergo shifts of its own. A storm is coming and the Müllers are in its path.

Sometimes we must confront what has been lost so that we can know the solace of being found.

The World Without Us is a beautifully told story of secrets and survival, family and community, loss and renewal.

Four Seasons in Rome - Anthony Doerr

On the same day that his wife gave birth to twins, Anthony Doerr received the Rome Prize, an award that gave him a year-long stipend and studio in Rome…

‘Four Seasons in Rome’ charts the repercussions of that day, describing Doerr's varied adventures in one of the most enchanting cities in the world, and the first year of parenthood. He reads Pliny, Dante, and Keats – the chroniclers of Rome who came before him – and visits the piazzas, temples, and ancient cisterns they describe. He attends the vigil of a dying Pope John Paul II and takes his twins to the Pantheon in December to wait for snow to fall through the oculus. He and his family are embraced by the butchers, grocers, and bakers of the neighbourhood, whose clamour of stories and idiosyncratic child-rearing advice is as compelling as the city itself.

This intimate and revelatory book is a celebration of Rome, a wondrous look at new parenthood and a fascinating account of the alchemy of writers.

A History of Running Away - Paula McGrath

In 1982 Jasmine wants to box, but in 1980s Ireland boxing is illegal for girls.

In 2012 a gynaecologist agonises about a job offer which would mean escape from the increasingly fraught atmosphere of her Dublin hospital. But what about her mother, stuck in a nursing home?

And in Maryland Ali, whose mother has recently died, hooks up with a biker gang to escape from grandparents she didn't know she had.

Gradually revealing the unexpected connections between the three women, A History of Running Away is a brilliantly written novel about running away, growing up and finding out who you are.

Kwezi - Redi Tlhabi

Sunday Times:

Author Redi Tlhabi said she wrote her account of the life of President Jacob Zuma’s rape accuser Fezekile Kuzwayo because the country needed to start reflecting on power relations in our society.

Tlhabi was speaking at the official launch of her book Khwezi: The Remarkable Story of Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo in Johannesburg on Wednesday evening.

Speaking to radio talk show host and author Eusebius McKaizer, Tlhabi was asked how she felt as a citizen following the rape trial.

"If we cared, not about the outcome of the case, if we cared about our moral DNA as a nation. If we cared about what we represent, what we stand for, such a flawed person would not have been our president. It is a reflection of us,” Tlhabi said.

Tlhabi also said she wrote the book because “we need to start reflecting on power relations in our society, whether from gender, the economy and whatever”.

Kuzwayo, who was HIV-positive, accused Zuma of raping her at his home in Johannesburg in 2005.

Zuma denied this, saying the sex was consensual and he was found not guilty in 2006.

Kuzwayo went into exile following the trial as there were threats against her. She returned to the country last year and passed away.

Tlhabi said Zuma was given so many moments in court to acknowledge -- even as he held on to his innocence -- that it was not the right thing to do, there was an abuse of power.

“He was asked about his various positions in society and the authority that he brings to any space that he occupies. He was asked that by the prosecutor Charin de Beer.

“His answer was -- to the question: ‘Do you acknowledge you hold more power’. His answer was: ‘I don’t work with her, we don’t work in the same space’. That is being frivolous about something that is important,” Tlhabi said.

Tlhabi said her analysis of the record of proceedings in the rape case made her physically ill.

She said there was an application by the defence in the rape trial to allow questioning of certain cases in Kuzwayo’s life where she was accused of demonstrating the habit of falsely accusing men of rape.“There was an application. It was granted. But my understanding was that it was meant to be specific to certain cases, but her entire sexual history was laid bare,” Tlhabi said.


She said Kuzwayo was even questioned about instances where she said she was involved with that person.

“What was the purpose of quizzing her about the men and women she chose to be with.”

Tlhabi said she imagined herself as Kuzwayo sitting in the courtroom being asked about every relationship that she had ever had.

“I imagined sitting there listening to [Zuma’s advocate] Kemp J Kemp [SC] pouring scorn on psychology and the relationship between trauma and our actions and reactions.”