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The Parade by Dave Eggers

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The Parade

Light and funny trademark Eggers

In a faraway country torn apart by civil war, two men are paving a new road that will reunite the north and south. The job is dangerous, employees of large international companies are attractive targets for kidnappers, so the men are known by their code names Four and Nine. They are polar opposites as far as personality goes. Four is a risk-averse pedant, Nine a careless hedonist. The stage is set for chaos. I’ve always enjoyed the way Eggers throws characters into unchartered territories, a fertile ground for comedy, and here he does it again. The Parade by Dave Eggers is not his best book, but as a light, funny read it’s very enjoyable nonetheless. (The Parade will be published in the UK on 21st March.)

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Happy Poems by Roger McGough

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Happy Poems

8-11 years

Big smiles for World Poetry Day this March

And so to March, a month that brings us the springing of spring, and World Poetry Day, a global celebration of the joys of poetry. Happy Poems by Roger McGough seems to me to be the ideal collection to share with you. Boldly introducing young readers to the likes of William Blake and Alfred Tennyson, through to Carol Ann Duffy and the ever fabulous Benjamin Zephaniah, the bright, smiley cover promises an array of poems designed to bring sunshine to your kids’ reading.

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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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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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Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen McManus

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Two Can Keep a Secret

Teen/Young Adult

 Perfect for winter weekends on the sofa

‘Sucks how people in this town keep getting away with murder doesn’t it?’

When twins Ellery and Ezra come to stay in Echo Ridge, they’re already acquainted with its unsettling history. On the surface, a bastion of decent small-town America, Echo Ridge has witnessed the murder of not one but two homecoming queens. Does the town’s respectable veneer conceal a shocking trail of deceit, conspiracy, and sheer bloody murder? You bet. As the unknown killler stirs once more, it’s time for a screamfest in the thrilling Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen McManus.

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Cost Award Book of the Year Winner 2019

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Costa Book of the Year 2018

Biography won this year in the competition for the Costa Book of the Year 2018. The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es is the story of a Jewish girl, Lien, hidden from the Nazis during the Second World War by the author’s grandparents. Van Es own journey in writing the book and befriending Lien, who had fallen out with his family, is a big part of this book. Sounds like a wonderful read which I will definitely add to my towering pile.

The Guardian on the winner.

More about 2018 Costa category winners.

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Ghost Wall

The Iron Age throws chilling echoes to our times

A short novel that delivers a big punch, Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss takes an unusual premise – a students’ archaeological trip – to expose the seam of violence underpinning our modern lives, and to draw chilling parallels between ancient worlds and our own. The disturbing prologue in which an iron age girl is sacrificed in front of her family and friends sets the tone for this unsettling novel which raises themes of gender equality, nationalism, misogyny and domestic violence.

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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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What Would Boudicca Do? by Elisabeth Foley and Beth Coates

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What Would Boudicca Do?

Teen/Young Adult

Sage advice for 21st century feministas

The intro to What Would Boudicca Do? by Elisabeth Foley and Beth Coates, a cheerfully irreverent advice guide for young women, tells us that ‘life can be troublesome for modern gals.’ Whether it’s being generally underestimated, or dealing with the specifics of bullying, body shaming, or toxic relationships, our girls are still, in 2018, living under the shadow of centuries of patriarchal oppression. But what of our foresisters, those who lived in a world where feminism hadn’t even been invented? Take a dip into this collection of everyday problems as tackled by inspirational women in history. Your very own agony aunts from a bygone past.

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The Comoran Strike Series by Robert Galbraith

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The Comoran Strike Series

Looking for the perfect audio book?

I find audio books only work for me if they are not too taxing. I want something I don’t need to flick back and forward, something that doesn’t require reading a paragraph over a few times to absorb the point, check one character’s relationship to another, or admire the imagery.  So when I’m gardening slash driving slash ironing, literary fiction or challenging non-fiction is not on the menu. Instead it’s got to be an audio book that is suspenseful and absorbing enough to make whatever I’m doing pass quickly but nothing so deep that I have to concentrate too much – and of course narrated brilliantly. All hail, therefore, the fabulous detective novels in the Comoran Strike Series by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) and read by Robert Glenister.

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