England, 1930s. Christopher Banks has become the country's most celebrated detective, his cases the talk of London society. Yet one unsolved crime has always haunted him: the mysterious disappearance of his parents, in old Shanghai, when he was a small boy. Moving between London and Shanghai of the inter-war years, When We Were Orphans is a remarkable story of memory, intrigue and the need to return.
Sixteen-year-old Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Russell Pickett’s son, Davis.
Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.
In his long-awaited return, John Green, the acclaimed, award-winning author of Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, shares Aza’s story with shattering, unflinching clarity in this brilliant novel of love, resilience, and the power of lifelong friendship.
Bennie needs to buy a ring – and not just any old ring for his Alexa. But eish, the money . . . Then a woman’s body is found and she becomes Bennie and Vaughn’s problem when she turns out to be a foreigner: Alicia Lewis, an art expert on the trail of an old painting. When Lithpel Davids finds the name Billy de Palma in Alicia’s laptop, Vaughn knows they’re in for it. 'Cause he knows Billy, and Billy is bad, bad news . . .
http://www.humanrousseau.com/Books/20171
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood is the compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime story of a young man’s coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed—from one of the comedy world’s brightest new voices and The Daily Show host Trevor Noah. Now available at the following retailers.
Annie's mother is a serial killer.
The only way she can make it stop is to hand her in to the police.
But out of sight is not out of mind.
As her mother's trial looms, the secrets of her past won't let Annie sleep, even with a new foster family and name - Milly.
A fresh start. Now, surely, she can be whoever she wants to be.
But Milly's mother is a serial killer. And blood is thicker than water.
Good me, bad me.
She is, after all, her mother's daughter...
It is 1993 when the faithful couple of this story meet in a youth hostel in San Diego. Both English, both graduates, both in their early 20s, they are homogenous only to the casual American bystander. To those versed in the nuances of the English class system, they come from different worlds. Also, they are both men.
While Neil tries to chat up a pretty girl in a sarong, it is Adam, sitting in a corner with a magazine, whom he finds distracting. Adam has the "shaggy dirty-blond hair in the low-rent Romantic poet style that, Neil knew, was fashionable among a certain breed of public schoolboy". Neil, meanwhile, is his polar opposite: "His features suited the half-light: wideset, almost-black eyes, long, feminine eyelashes, lipstick pink lips that sometimes appeared theatrical against his luminous skin."
They have both left London to bum around California for the summer. Adam, freshly graduated in history from Durham, was due to travel with his girlfriend until she dumped him. Neil (economics, Sheffield), recently sacked from his job as a soap salesman, hopes the trip will inspire his next move. There is none of the usual gladiatorial menace in how these men appraise each other. Instead, Adam simply smiles, and Neil smiles back.
There follows your basic modern courtship ritual: drinks, confidences, the "tipsy communion" of karaoke. When Adam talks to other men, Neil feels jealous. After a midnight swim, Adam propositions Neil - why not continue north along the coast together?
By Elena Seymenliyska
www.telegraph.co.uk
Born Karoline King in 1980 in Johannesburg South Africa, Sara-Jayne (as she will later be called by her adoptive parents) is the result of an affair, illegal under apartheid’s Immorality Act, between a white British woman and her black South African employee.
Her story reveals the shocking lie created to cover up the forbidden relationship, and the hurried overseas adoption of the illegitimate baby, born during one of history’s most inhumane and destructive regimes.
Killing Karoline follows the journey of the baby girl (categorised as ‘white’ under South Africa’s race classification system) who is raised in a leafy, middle-class corner of the South of England by a white couple. It takes the reader through the formative years, a difficult adolescence and into adulthood, as Sara-Jayne (Karoline) seeks to discover who she is and where she came from.
This is another literary blend of pathos-ethos and socio-political analyses from one of the most frank writers and seasoned journalists of our time, Fred Khumalo.
His writing is a cocktail of controversial and often thought-provoking topics. He chops and changes topics, from politics, history, current affairs and celebrity gossip.
In #ZuptasMustFall and other rants, Khumalo’s approach is fascinating in that it affords every reader a chance of escapism. His analyses and delves into different topics exploring various ways to tell the South African story, and he deals in all the uncomfortable issues so many shy away from like poor white people, black racism, squatter camps and many issues we all know about but aren’t often discussed publicly.
The informal language he employs can’t be an excuse to ignore the reality of the pressing issues he addresses. Often labelled as a “reluctant Zulu”, “clever black” and an “equal opportunity offender”, Khumalo has the knack to introduce humour into his analyses and pose pressing questions about the political and social state of our country as well as our economic status quo.
This compilation of his recent and already published work is rich with a blend of humour and shrewd analyses. His remarkable treatment of everyday trivial and serious issues offers a unique South African perspective and taste. He entertains readers while at the same time informing them about the pressing issues that continue to confound, infuriate and exasperate the nation – or to sink it into further controversy.
Khumalo asks questions about the state of our country and offers tongue-in-cheek palliative answers. The issues of national identity, self-identity as well as patriotism are addressed in a rather informal sense, but the truth of the matter is that the author’s questions need urgent attention.
We are told Americans view us as a people who still hunt for a living and co-habit with lions for pets. Comedian Trevor Noah was recently accused of plundering a mere joke while in the African culture. No one owns copyrights to a tale. These are also topics the author unpacks cleverly with his well crafted tongue-in-cheek approach.
He wants to show his readers how it feels to be an African living in America. His collection focuses on who we are as a nation viewed by the outside world, proposes antidotes to help Americans deal with their delusional views about Africa and their biased perception when it comes to black Africans.
Turn to page 113 on the article, “No ‘darkie’ sarcasm in the class struggle”, where Khumalo asserts that “one silly friend of mine, who happens to be black, said the conversation now should be about class, not race. I’ll have you know this, brother: race, in this country, is still by and large a class determinant. It is no accident that the majority of the people who are poor are black. A racial oligarchy designed it that way. To change the class situation you will need to educate and empower the majority – a project that will take maybe another century, or even more, to realise fully”.
Here, Khumalo touches on a race and class talk and poses questions about the often white privilege and oligarch status. The author also reflects on better strategies to pursue if we are to move forward, understand where we are going and know how to compare our value and importance as Africans to the rest of the world.
If you are pressed for knowledge, then drink from Fred Khumalo’s cup of wisdom. This book offers a wide range of topics.
* #ZuptasMustFall and Other Rants by Fred Khumalo is published by Penguin
www.iol.co.za
A huge international bestseller, this heartbreaking tale of a tiny Italian village during two World Wars will stay with you forever.
Among the olive groves and vineyards of southern Italy, a boy and a girl are born, moments apart. Far away in the trenches of World War I, their fathers have just died. Now all the men in Vitantonio’s family have been wiped out – all twenty-one. All except him.
Growing up together, war seems far away for the two children. But Vitantonio’s mother will do anything to protect her son from the curse of death that seems to hang over the family – and so she tells a lie. It is a lie that will bind Vitantonio and Giovanna, the girl who shares his birthday, together over the years. But as the clouds of another war begin to gather on the horizon, it may ultimately drive them apart...
"This wacky, charming novel...draws you in with humor, then turns out to contain both a suspenseful subplot and a sweet romance….Hilarious and moving."—People
No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.
But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.
Smart, warm, uplifting, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is the story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .
Susan Svendsen has a special talent: she has a unique ability to make people confide in her and tell her their innermost secrets. She has exploited that talent, and now has a prison sentence hanging over her head for punching a Bollywood actor in an Indian casino. To make matters worse, her husband is on the run from the mafia, one of her children has been accused of antiquity smuggling and the other has run off with a monk.
But Susan gets an offer from a former government official – an offer to use her power one more time and have all her charges dropped so she can return to Denmark. Together with her family, she must track down the last surviving members of a secret think tank of young talents founded in the 1970s, the so-called Future Committee, and find out what was written in the committee’s final report. But the report is apparently covering up information of great value, and some powerful people are determined it is not revealed.
In her mesmerizing adult debut set on the shores of the Great Lakes, critically acclaimed children's author Jean E. Pendziwol delivers an affecting story of family, identity, and art involving a decades-old mystery.
Though her mind is still sharp, Elizabeth's bones have aged and her eyes have failed. No longer able to linger over her beloved books or gaze at the paintings that move her spirit, she fills her days at the retirement home with music and with memories of her family, especially of her beloved twin sister, Emily. When her late father's journals are discovered after a tragic accident, she seizes the opportunity to piece together the mysteries of her childhood.
With the help of Morgan, a delinquent teenager performing community service at the home, Elizabeth delves into the diaries -- a journey through time that brings the two women closer together. Each entry draws these unlikely friends deep into a world far removed -- to Porphyry Island on Lake Superior, where Elizabeth's father served as lighthouse keeper and raised his young family in the years before and during World War II.
As a complex web of secrets unravels, Elizabeth and Morgan realize that their fates are connected to each other and to the isolated island in ways that are at once heartbreaking and healing.
Both sweeping and intimate, The Lightkeeper's Daughters takes readers on an enthralling journey to an unforgettable place.
'The publishing sensation of the year: a compelling, uplifting and heart-rending debut novel'
Mail on Sunday
A Boy Made of Blocks is a funny, heartwarming story of family and love inspired by the author's own experiences with his son, the perfect latest obsession for fans of The Rosie Project, David Nicholls and Jojo Moyes.
A father who rediscovers love
Alex loves his wife Jody, but has forgotten how to show it. He loves his son Sam, but doesn't understand him. He needs a reason to grab his future with both hands.
A son who shows him how to live
Meet eight-year-old Sam: beautiful, surprising - and different. To him the world is a frightening mystery. But as his imagination comes to life, his family will be changed . . . for good.
*Keith Stuart's magical and moving second novel Days of Wonder is available to pre-order now.*
'One of those wonderful books that makes you laugh and cry at the same time'
Good Housekeeping
'Funny, expertly plotted and written with enormous heart. Readers who enjoyed The Rosie Project will love A Boy Made of Blocks - I did'
Graeme Simsion
'Very funny, incredibly poignant and full of insight. Awesome.'
Jenny Colgan
'Heartwarming'
The Unmumsy Mum
'A wonderful, warm, insightful novel about family, friendship and love'
Daily Mail
'A great plot, with a rare sense of honesty'
Guardian
'A truly beautiful story'
Heat
'A heartwarming and wise story'
Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love
