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£10.99
Rome, 1964. As 13 year old Andre stands at the foot of the gangway to the ship, his mother fusses over their luggage – 32 suitcases, trunks and tea chests that contain their world. The ship will refuel and return to Alexandria, the home where they have left their father, as the Aciman family begin a new adventure. Andre is now head of the family, with a little brother to keep in line and a mother to translate for – for although she’s mute, she is nothing if not communicative. Equal parts transporting and beautiful, this coming of age memoir shares the luminous, fragile truth of life for a family forever in exile, living in Rome, but still yet to find a home.
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£20.00
From the author of ‘Square Haunting’ comes a biography as unconventional and surprising as the life it tells. ‘Think of the Bible and Homer, think of Shakespeare and think of me,’ wrote Gertrude Stein in 1936. Admirers called her a genius, sceptics a charlatan: she remains one of the most confounding – and contested – writers of the twentieth century. In this literary detective story, Francesca Wade delves into the creation of the Stein myth. We see her posing for Picasso’s portrait; at the centre of Bohemian Parisian life hosting the likes of Matisse and Hemingway; racing through the French countryside with her enigmatic companion Alice B. Toklas; dazzling American crowds on her sell-out tour for her sensational autobiography – a veritable celebrity.
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£10.00
This illustrated collection of poems illuminates and reimagines the ingenious, fragile dwellings of the living creatures around us. Poet Laureate Simon Armitage was inspired to write these poems by the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall, an ambitious restoration project where history and mystery combine. The reawakened landscape with its woods, meadows and ‘jungle’ offers a bustling, fertile realm for all sorts of creatures to inhabit. Armitage uses elements of riddle and folklore to animate a series of dwellings: the ‘twig-and-leaf crow’s-nest squat’ of a squirrel’s drey, a beaver lodge’s ‘spillikin stave church’ and a hive’s ‘reactor core’. Distinctions between human and animal, natural and cultivated, are blurred, emphasising commonality and creating a vibrant account of ‘non-stop stop-motion life’.
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£9.99
Since the publication of ‘Multitudes’, her debut collection, Lucy Caldwell has been celebrated as one of today’s pre-eminent short story writers. In this much-anticipated third collection, she continues her exploration of the contemporary female experience, as she delves deeper into motherhood and marriage, love and longing. From a passionate affair in Blitz-era London, to a highly charged Christmas party in Belfast, to a trip to Marrakech which could form a new family, the thirteen striking stories of ‘Openings’ pulse with possibility and illuminate those fleeting but recognisable moments of heartbreak and hope that can change the course of a life.
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£12.99
A knock on the door shouldn’t be a cause for alarm. But when Venkat finds two insolent young men on his doorstep, he knows something is off. They say they need to get in touch with his daughter Rekha, but why is it so urgent? Could she really be a pawn in gang warfare? And more importantly, where is she? The story should begin a few days earlier, when Rekha left for Venkat’s home village. But maybe Venkat needs to look a little further back: at the early days of his marriage to her mother Viji? Or his parents’ marriage? Or does the truth lie even further still?
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£7.99
Can a boy drink the sea? Surely it’s impossible! But Danny McGee does just that – and now he has his sights on other things. Soon he’s swallowing trees, flies, fleas, peas, mountains – where will it end?
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£22.00
‘Can a planet have legal rights? Could it be defended in a court of law?’ A revolution is taking place. Around the world, ordinary people are turning to courts seeking justice for environmental damage. At the forefront of this movement, pioneering barrister Monica Feria-Tinta advocates not only for the people fighting for their homes and livelihoods, but also for those who have no voice: for rivers, forests and endangered species. In ‘A Barrister for the Earth’, Monica takes us behind the scenes of ten real cases – as she argues against the destruction of cloud forests in the world’s first Rights of Nature case, to holding Sovereign states to account for inaction in addressing climate change in a landmark win for the Torres Straight Islanders.
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£12.99
Salka, the faerie Lady of the Lake, can’t help but appear to Owain, a shepherd who has already captured her heart. He needs only to see her to fall deeply in love. But her father has one condition on their marriage: if Owain strikes her three times she must return to the lake forever. Despite their married bliss, Salka is not like the other inhabitants in this small village. Gossip turns against her and as prejudice and suspicion breed, Owain finds himself wishing his wife was more ordinary, that she tried harder to fit in, that she was less herself. What is more of a strike than to question her very nature? The first heart-blow is struck. And now, desperately, their future lies in his hands.
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£9.99
This is the tale of four women. Popo: brilliant, vulnerable and stuck. She’s determined to free herself from the traps of her past. Mana Lala: a devoted mother – her only connection to her man is their little boy, and she will do anything to keep them close. For Doris, well he’s glorious and once she’s licked him into shape, her husband presents an opportunity to climb the social ladder. She’s heard the awful stories, but she’s sure they won’t be hers. Rosie just wants to mind her business, her lover, Etty, and her store. Four lives, connected and controlled by one man: the notorious, charismatic gangster Boysie Singh.
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£18.99
Meet the bad friends. The dangerously romantic school girls of the 1900s. The office gossips of the 1930s. The mum cliques of the 1950s. The angry activists of the 1970s. The coven – women who choose to live together in old age – of the present day. These ‘bad’ friends broke the rules about femininity they didn’t write. Their relationships were controlled, patrolled and judged too intimate, too consuming and in some cases, too powerful. In this history of women’s friendship, celebrated cultural historian Tiffany Watt Smith reckons with the ways we understand this complex and vital connection. She takes us from Japan to the Ivory Coast, The Mindy Project to My Brilliant Friend, and untangles the larger forces acting on our intimate relationships in order to free us from their hold.
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£12.99
In the scorching New York heat, a hundred people wait to be selected as jurors. Paul is reading a newspaper. Catherine is reading a novel. So begins a whirlwind flirtation: over cappuccinos in Manhattan and gallery trips to Chelsea, Paul and Catherine escape into the illusion of an Italian getaway. Their feelings quickly evolve into something deeper, something – as mature adults with lives of their own – Paul and Catherine must carry on in secret, with the understanding that anything more than a casual crush is out of the question. But as the sultry summer week draws to a close, the end of their rendezvous comes into focus, and Paul and Catherine are forced to decide whether to act on their feelings or leave the fantasy of what could have been to the annals of the past.
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£12.99
Framed by the story of escape from a toxic marriage, ‘Chaotic Good’ focuses on the incremental ways in which power accumulates, shifts and is relinquished within both home and community. Incisive, rigorous and artful, Isabelle Baafi reminds us of the importance of self-determination, and how, when we feel most eroded, we might discover what we need deep within ourselves. Here, Baafi explores the complicated pathways of suspicion and uncertainty, and – most vitally – the simultaneous possibilities of threat and beauty, mistrust and hope, darkness and joy. The knowing narrative detail is charged as strongly with ideas as with feeling, resulting in a highly original fusion of resistance and compassionate determination.
