Non-fiction

A Stranger at My Table by Ivo de Figueiredo

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A Stranger at My Table

A thorough exploration of a complex family history

It feels timely for Norwegian historian and biographer Ivo de Figueiredo’s postcolonial family chronicle to be published in English on the eve of Brexit. A Stranger at My Table by Ivo de Figueiredo is the author’s autobiographical account of a family history that spans two centuries and four continents, and the result is an ambitious amalgam; an exploration of a family ‘caught in the half-life of empires’, as well as a personal memoir detailing de Figueiredo’s turbulent relationship with his father Xavier.

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Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

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Three Women

Not a ‘feminist classic’ in my book

Devouring Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, this summer’s most talked about book, has left a bad taste in my mouth. For eight years Taddeo followed the relationships of three American women – Maggie, Lina and Sloane – with the goal of uncovering ‘vital truths about women and desire’. Taddeo’s initial plan was to study a larger group of women but finding volunteers (the level of intimate details in this book would make the bravest of women shy away) proved tricky. That’s a shame as these three stories, captivating as they are (Taddeo is a superb storyteller), surely represent only a small sub-section of female sexual experience. So that begs the question: what is the point of this book?

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No One is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg

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No One is Too Small to Make a Difference

Be inspired

We’ve all seen her by now. The little girl with the long plaits and a yellow rain coat desperately trying to save the world. No One is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg is a collection of her speeches, from The World Economic Forum to The Houses of Parliament, from the European Parliament to the UN Climate Change Conference. It’s the clarity of her message and the simplicity of her form that makes Greta and her message so powerful. Read this little book of her speeches and be inspired to act.

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So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch by Karl Ove Knausgaard

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So Much Longing In So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch

A brilliant introduction to the non-canonical Munch

With a new exhibition on at the British Museum entitled ‘Edvard Munch: Love and Angst’, the English publication of  So Much Longing In So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch by Karl Ove Knausgaard is timely. The book was written when Knausgaard was co-curating the exhibition ‘Mot Skogen’ (‘To the forest’) at the Munch Museum in Oslo in 2017, a task he took on despite acknowledging that ‘my only qualification was that I liked looking at paintings and often browsed through art books.’

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Notes to Self by Emilie Pine

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Notes to Self

Writing as therapy

Writing can be therapeutic and for Emilie Pine, who has had her fair share of problems, it was the only way to deal with them. Notes of Self by Emilie Pine, were meant to remain just that, but then her partner found them lying around and convinced Pine to bring them to a publisher. The result is this strangely addictive little collection of essays. It’s a brave and brutally honest book dealing with the raw reality of Pine’s father’s alcoholism, her struggles conceiving and her teenage rebellion. Sounds depressing? You bet, but there’s also something hopeful and optimistic about these stories which teach us something about human resilience.

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The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es

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The Cut Out Girl

An astonishing piece of multi-layered historical writing

Bart van Es grew up with the knowledge that his grandparents had sheltered a young Jewish girl in the Netherlands during the war. As a middle-aged Oxford don he decides the time has come to find out more. This Costa Book of the Year winning book is the result: a remarkable blend of family history, wartime record and investigative journalism, where the secrets and lies of a family and a country are unearthed. The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es is an astonishing piece of multi-layered historical writing in which we make the author’s discoveries alongside him, where artefacts and public records are examined alongside an old lady’s memories, and in which we learn anew about both the horrors and the sacrifices that humans are capable of.

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Educated by Tara Westover

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Educated

Prepare to laugh, cry, cringe and gasp at this fierce love letter from a daughter to her parents

Tara Westover grew up in rural Idaho in a deeply dysfunctional Mormon family. Her fanatical father believed the End of Days was fast approaching, so she and her six older siblings spent every summer bottling hundreds of peaches and every winter rotating emergency supplies in the belief that when the end came her family would survive. Prevented by her parents from attending school, Tara has no birth certificate. She also has no medical records, due to her authoritarian father’s extreme aversion to hospitals and doctors of any kind. As far as the state is concerned, she doesn’t exist. Educated by Tara Westover is the remarkable story of her struggle for self-invention.

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Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

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Bad Blood

A peek into the dark corners of Silicon Valley

Twenty-one-year-old Stanford drop-out Elizabeth Holmes had a game changing idea for the health care industry, a steely determination and seductive powers of persuasion; she also had an execution problem and questionable ethics. In Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, an investigative journalist at The Wall Street Journal, we get the shocking story of Theranos, the largest health care start-up fraud in recent history. A page turning real-life thriller.

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The Order of the Day by Eric Vuillard

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The Order of the Day

Sleepwalking into disaster

What really happened in the 1938 meeting when Hitler told the Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg to roll over or be rolled over? Or during the dinner at 10 Downing Street where Foreign Minister Ribbentropp waxed lyrical about macaroons while watching Chamberlain receive the news that Germany had invaded Austria? In The Order of the Day by Eric Vulliard, the author has pieced together the facts, filled in the gaps and created a fascinating and frightening account of a sleepwalk into disaster.

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Books for Christmas 2018

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Books are for life, not just for Christmas

People who put up Christmas decorations early are happier and more in touch with their inner child than those who don’t, according to a recent report by psychologists. I love this news as I am a bit of a self-confessed Christmas fanatic. Perhaps it’s the Scandinavian in me, but I just can’t get enough of sweet covered gingerbread houses, candlelit windowsills, roaring fireplaces, the smell of incense and mulled wine. So no surprise then that suggesting books as Christmas presents is one of my absolute favourite things to do.

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