Lessons - Ian McEwan

In Order to Live - Yeonmi Park

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong

A House in Sicily - Daphne Phelps

Heavenly Date and Other Flirtations - Alexander McCall Smith

The Beauty of Living Twice - Sharon Stone

Still Life - Sarah Winman

1944, in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening.

Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier, Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the wreckage and relive memories of the time she encountered EM Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view.

Evelyn’s talk of truth and beauty plants a seed in Ulysses’ mind that will shape the trajectory of his life – and of those who love him – for the next four decades.

Moving from the Tuscan Hills and piazzas of Florence, to the smog of London’s East End, Still Life is a sweeping, joyful novel about beauty, love, family and fate.

The Man in the Red Coat - Julian Barnes

In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days' intellectual shopping: a prince, a count, and a commoner with an Italian name. In time, each of these men would achieve a certain level of renown, but who were they then and what was the significance of their sojourn to England? Answering these questions, Julian Barnes unfurls the stories of their lives which play out against the backdrop of the Belle Époque in Paris. Our guide through this world is Samuel Pozzi, the society doctor, free-thinker and man of science with a famously complicated private life who was the subject of one of John Singer Sargent's greatest portraits. In this vivid tapestry of people (Henry James, Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Proust, James Whistler, among many others), place, and time, we see not merely an epoch of glamour and pleasure, but, surprisingly, one of violence, prejudice, and nativism—with more parallels to our own age than we might imagine. The Man in the Red Coat is, at once, a fresh portrait of the Belle Époque; an illuminating look at the longstanding exchange of ideas between Britain and France; and a life of a man who lived passionately in the moment but whose ideas and achievements were far ahead of his time.

The Cellist - Daniel Silva

The fatal poisoning of a Russian billionaire sends Gabriel Allon on a dangerous journey across Europe and into the orbit of a musical virtuoso who may hold the key to the truth about his friend’s death.

The plot Allon uncovers leads to secret channels of money and influence that go to the very heart of Western democracy and threaten the stability of the global order.

The Cellist is a breathtaking entry in Daniel Silva’s “outstanding series” (People magazine) and reveals once more his superb artistry and genius for invention—and demonstrates why he belongs “firmly alongside le Carré and Forsyth as one of the greatest spy novelists of all time” (The Real Book Spy).

A Slow Fire Burning - Paula Hawkins

When a young man is found gruesomely murdered in a London houseboat, it triggers questions about three women who knew him. Laura is the troubled one-night-stand last seen in the victim’s home. Carla is his grief-stricken aunt, already mourning the recent death of yet another family member. And Miriam is the nosy neighbor clearly keeping secrets from the police. Three women with separate connections to the victim. Three women who are – for different reasons – simmering with resentment. Who are, whether they know it or not, burning to right the wrongs done to them. When it comes to revenge, even good people might be capable of terrible deeds. How far might any one of them go to find peace? How long can secrets smolder before they explode into flame?

Two Months - Gail Schimmel

 

Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrel

 

The Silver Sparrow - Tayari Jones

 

Becoming - Michelle Obama

 

Wreed en mooi is die dood - Tobie Wiese

Al is die dood ’n feit soos ’n koei, vermy die meeste van ons dit om daaroor te dink of te praat. Hierdie boek probeer om dié stilte te verbreek.

In Wreed én mooi is die dood deel bekende Afrikaanse skrywers hulle verhale oor verlies en heling. Dit bied insig in hoe om die trauma van ’n geliefde se dood te hanteer en jou eie sterflikheid te konfronteer.

Só skryf Marita van der Vyver roerend oor haar babaseun se dood, terwyl Valda Jansen beskryf hoe sy aanvanklik lamgelê is deur die nuus dat sy kanker het en Kerneels Breytenbach vertel hoe sy vrou se sterwe hom tot selfkennis gelei het.

’n Jong paramedikus berig oor sy gereelde ontmoetings met die dood en ’n sterwensbegeleier vertel hoe dit moontlik is om hierdie wêreld blymoedig te verlaat. Daar is selfs ’n bietjie humor... soos die storie oor die jong dominee wat in ’n leë graf beland het en Annelie Botes se lang lys voorskrifte vir haar begrafnis.

Die dood is wreed ja, maar dit kan – verrassend genoeg ̶ ook mooi wees.

The Orphan's Song - Lauren Kate

Venice, 1736. When fate brings Violetta and Mino together on the roof of the Hospital of the Incurables, they form a connection that will change their lives forever. Both are orphans at the Incurables, dreaming of escape. But when the resident Maestro notices Violetta's voice, she is selected for the Incurables' world famous coro, and must sign an oath never to sing beyond its church doors.

After a declaration of love ends in heartbreak, Mino flees the Incurables in search of his family. Known as the "city of masks," Venice is full of secrets, and Mino is certain one will lead to his long-lost mother. Without him, the walls close in on Violetta and she begins a dangerous and forbidden nightlife, hoping her voice can secure her freedom. But neither finds what they are looking for, until a haunting memory Violetta has suppressed since childhood leads them to a shocking confrontation.

Vibrant with the glamour and beauty of Venice at its zenith, The Orphan's Song takes us on a breathtaking journey of passion, heartbreak, and betrayal before it crescendos to an unforgettable ending, a celebration of the enduring nature and transformative power of love.

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

Fans of Margaret Atwood's fiction can now experience The Handmaid's Tale as a gripping audio dramatization. Starring Emma Campbell as Offred, William B. Davis as the Commander, and Donna Goodhand as the Commander's barren wife Serena Joy, this stunning production of Atwood's Booker Prize-nominated work of speculative fiction was an instant hit when it first aired in 2002. A feminist Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Handmaid's Tale portrays the future as a chilling dystopia in which religious extremists rule the United States and birth rates are plunging. Assigned to a member of the Gilead elite as an official breeder, the handmaid Offred mingles memories of her old life in the 1980s with dangerous thoughts of rebellion and escape. Audaciously imaginative, The Handmaid's Tale combines the suspence of a psychological thriller with a bittersweet love story.

The Longest March - Fred Khumalo

A hundred and twenty years ago, seven thousand Zulu mineworkers walked from the gold mines in Johannesburg to Natal, covering a distance of five hundred kilometres over ten days. This journey was their longest march. It is 1899 and Philippa’s fiancé Nduku has just broken off their engagement. She is heartbroken – after all, she has followed him from Kimberley, where they first met, to the goldfields of Johannesburg. In this bustling new city, tensions are mounting between the South African Republic and the gold-hungry British Empire. When war is declared, the mines are shut down and migrant workers ordered to leave town. But how do you get home and out of harm’s way when there are no running trains and home is hundreds of kilometres away? You walk. Over perilous terrain – sleeping in the open, being attacked by wild animals and harassed by armed white farmers – Nduku and Philippa and seven thousand others walk. Disguised as a mineworker’s wife, for Philippa is white, she and Nduku talk about their true histories, about their fears and hopes, with every footfall. On their way to Natal, and on their long journey into their inner selves, the possibility of lasting happiness seems within reach – if only they can survive, and if only they can weather the storm of an unexpected third player in their troubled romance. Set during an incredible event in South African history, Fred Khumalo’s new novel is a tale of heady determination, and a tribute to the perseverance and courage of ordinary men and women when faced with extraordinary circumstances.

Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.

The Testaments - Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood's dystopian masterpiece, The Handmaid's Tale, has become a modern classic - and now she brings the iconic story to a dramatic conclusion in this riveting sequel.

More than 15 years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results.

Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by a third voice: a woman who wields power through the ruthless accumulation and deployment of secrets.

As Atwood unfolds The Testaments, she opens up the innermost workings of Gilead as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes.

"The literary event of the year." (The Guardian)