Shire of Mundaring Libraries Book Club List 2019

Shire of Mundaring Libraries Book Club List 2019
Mornings in Jenin / Susan Abulhawa
Forcibly removed from the ancient village of Ein Hod by the newly formed state of Israel
in 1948, the Abulhejas are moved into the Jenin refugee camp. There, exiled from his
beloved olive groves, the family patriarch languishes of a broken heart, his eldest son
fathers a family and falls victim to an Israeli bullet, and his grandchildren struggle against
tragedy toward freedom, peace, and home. This is the Palestinian story, told as never
before, through four generations of a single family.

Unbreakable threads / Emma Adams (True Story)
When psychiatrist and mother of three Emma Adams travels to Darwin as an observer of
conditions for mothers and babies in the immigration detention centres there, she
expects the trip to be confronting. What she doesn't expect is to return to Canberra
consumed by the idea that she must help a sixteen-year-old unaccompanied Hazara boy
from Afghanistan – Abdul. In this brutal and bureaucratic system, freedom was a
hopeless dream. Emma and Abdul's connection, and her fight to get him out and provide
him with an Australian home, a family and a future, forms an important testimony in
Australia's appalling treatment of asylum seekers. Their story is a beacon of hope and
humanity.

The Household Guide to Dying / Debra Adelaide
On the face of it, Delia's got it all – good marriage, two great kids, dream job writing
witty, practical house and garden books. But when she's diagnosed with terminal cancer,
she's forced to view her life in an entirely new light. There are things she must do, there
are wrongs to be put right, and there are mysteries from the past that demand
resolution. But there is just so little time.
Summoning all her strength, she returns to the tiny country town where she fled
pregnant and unmarried 14 years before and comes to terms with a loss no mother
should ever have to endure. She finishes writing her ultimate how-to book. And she tries,
as best she can, to prepare herself and her family for the inevitable...

A General Theory of Oblivion / Jose Eduardo Agualusa
On the eve of Angolan independence an agoraphobic woman named Ludo bricks herself
into her apartment for 30 years, living off vegetables and the pigeons she lures in with
diamonds, burning her furniture and books to stay alive and writing her story on the
apartment’s walls. Almost as if we’re eavesdropping, the history of Angola unfolds
through the stories of those she sees from her window. As the country goes through
various political upheavals from colony to socialist republic to civil war to peace and
capitalism, the world outside seeps into Ludo’s life through snippets on the radio, voices
from next door, glimpses of someone peeing on a balcony, or a man fleeing his pursuers.

The Elephant Whisperer / Lawrence Anthony (True Story)
Lawrence Anthony accepted a herd of "rogue" wild elephants on his Thula Thula game
reserve in Zululand in order to save their lives. In the years that followed he became a
part of their family. And as he battled to create a bond with the elephants, he came to
realize that they had a great deal to teach him about life, loyalty, and freedom.
The Elephant Whisperer is a heartwarming, exciting, funny, and sometimes sad memoir
of Anthony's experiences set against the background of life on an African game reserve,
with unforgettable characters and exotic wildlife, Anthony's unrelenting efforts at animal
protection and his remarkable connection with nature will inspire animal lovers and
adventurous souls everywhere.

The Truth and Other Lies / Sascha Arango
From the outside, Henry Hayden has a perfect life: he's a famous novelist with more
money than he can spend, a grand house in the country, a loyal, clever wife. But Henry
has a dark side. If only the readers and critics who worship his every word knew that his
success depends on a carefully maintained lie. One he will stop at nothing to protect. His
luck must surely run out, and he simply can't allow that to happen. In thrall to paranoia
and self-interest, Henry makes a fatal error that could cause the whole dream to unravel
and, despite his Machiavellian efforts, events swiftly spin out of control as lie is heaped
upon lie, menace upon menace.

The Birdman’s Wife / Melissa Ashley
Inspired by a letter found tucked inside her famous husband’s papers, The Birdman’s
Wife imagines the fascinating inner life of Elizabeth Gould. Elizabeth was a woman ahead
of her time, juggling the demands of her artistic life with her roles as wife, lover and
helpmate to a passionate and demanding genius, and as a devoted mother who gave
birth to eight children. In a society obsessed with natural history and the discovery of
new species, the birdman’s wife was at its glittering epicentre. Her artistry breathed life
into hundreds of exotic finds, from her husband’s celebrated collections to Charles
Darwin’s famous Galapagos finches. Fired by Darwin’s discoveries, in 1838 Elizabeth
defied convention by joining John on a trailblazing expedition to the untamed wilderness
of Van Diemen’s Land and New South Wales to collect and illustrate Australia’s ‘curious’
birdlife.
The Floating Garden / Emma Ashmere
Sydney, Milsons Point, 1926. Entire streets are being demolished for the building of the
Harbour Bridge. Ellis Gilbey, landlady by day, gardening writer by night, is set to lose
everything. Only the faith in the book she’s writing, and hopes for a garden of her own,
stave off despair. As the tight-knit community splinters and her familiar world crumbles,
Ellis relives her escape to the city at 16, landing in the unlikely care of self-styled
theosophist Minerva Stranks. When artist Rennie Howarth knocks on her door seeking
refuge from a stifling upper-class life and an abusive husband, Ellis glimpses a chance to
fulfil her dreams. This beautiful novel evokes the hardships and the glories of Sydney s
past and tells the little-known story of those made homeless to make way for the famous
bridge
Life after Life / Kate Atkinson
What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?
What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of
chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own
inevitable destiny? And would you even want to? Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as
she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. With wit and
compassion, she finds warmth even in life's bleakest moments, and shows an
extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Here a novel that celebrates the best and worst
of ourselves.

Danger Music / Eddie Ayres (True Story)
In 2014 Emma was spiralling into a deep depression, driven by anguish about her gender.
She quit the radio, travelled, and decided on a surprising path to salvation - teaching
music in a war zone. Emma applied for a position at Dr Sarmast's renowned Afghanistan
National Institute of Music in Kabul, teaching cello to orphans and street kids.
In Danger Music, Eddie takes us through the bombing and chaos of Kabul, into the lives
of the Afghan children who are transported by Bach, Abba, Beethoven and their own
exhilarating Afghan music. Alongside these epic experiences, Emma determines to take
the final steps to secure her own peace; she becomes the man always there inside -
Eddie.

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree / Shokoofeh Azar
This book is an extraordinarily powerful and evocative literary novel set in Iran in the
period immediately after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Using the lyrical magic realism
style of classical Persian storytelling, Azar draws the reader deep into the heart of a
family caught in the maelstrom of post-revolutionary chaos and brutality that sweeps
across an ancient land and its people.
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree is really an embodiment of Iranian life in
constant oscillation, struggle and play between four opposing poles: life and death;
politics and religion. The sorrow residing in the depths of our joy is the product of a life
between these four poles.

My Grandmother Sends Her Regards & Apologises / Fredrik Backman
Everyone remembers the smell of their grandmother's house. Everyone remembers the
stories their grandmother told them. But does everyone remember their grandmother
flirting with policemen? Driving illegally? Breaking into a zoo in the middle of the night?
Seven-year-old Elsa does. Some might call Elsa's granny 'eccentric', or even 'crazy'. Elsa
calls her a superhero. And granny's stories, of knights and princesses and dragons and
castles, are her superpower. Because, as Elsa is starting to learn, heroes and villains don't
always exist in imaginary kingdoms; they could live just down the hallway. As Christmas
draws near, even the best superhero grandmothers may have one or two things they'd
like to apologise for. And, in the process, Elsa can have some breath-taking adventures of
her own ...
Days Without End / Sebastian Barry
Thomas McNulty, aged barely seventeen and having fled the Great Famine in Ireland,
signs up for the U.S. Army in the 1850s. With his brother in arms, John Cole, Thomas goes
on to fight in the Indian Wars—against the Sioux and the Yurok—and, ultimately, the
Civil War. Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, the men find these days to be vivid
and alive, despite the horrors they see and are complicit in.
Days Without End is a fresh and haunting portrait of the most fateful years in American
history and is a novel never to be forgotten.

The Paris Architect / Charles Belfoure
Like most gentiles in Nazi-occupied Paris, architect Lucien Bernard has little empathy for
the Jews. So when a wealthy industrialist offers him a large sum of money to devise
secret hiding places for Jews, Lucien struggles with the choice of risking his life for a
cause he doesn't really believe in. Ultimately he can't resist the challenge and begins
designing expertly concealed hiding spaces - behind a painting, within a column, or inside
a drainpipe - detecting possibilities invisible to the average eye. But when one of his
clever hiding spaces fails horribly and the immense suffering of Jews becomes incredibly
personal, he can no longer deny reality.

The Blue / Nancy Bilyeau
In eighteenth century London, porcelain is the most seductive of commodities; fortunes
are made and lost upon it. Kings do battle with knights and knaves for possession of the
finest pieces and the secrets of their manufacture.
For Genevieve Planché, an English-born descendant of Huguenot refugees, porcelain
holds far less allure; she wants to be an artist, a painter of international repute, but
nobody takes the idea of a female artist seriously in London. If only she could reach
Venice. When Genevieve meets the charming Sir Gabriel Courtenay, he offers her an
opportunity she can’t refuse; if she learns the secrets of porcelain, he will send her to
Venice. But in particular, she must learn the secrets of the colour blue…

The Other Side of the World / Stephanie Bishop
Cambridge, 1963. Charlotte struggles to reconnect with the woman she was before
children, and to find the time and energy to paint. Her husband, Henry, cannot face the
thought of another English winter. A brochure slipped through the letterbox gives him
the answer: 'Australia brings out the best in you'. Charlotte is too worn out to resist, and
before she knows it is travelling to the other side of the world. But on their arrival in
Perth, the southern sun shines a harsh light on both Henry and Charlotte and slowly
reveals that their new life is not the answer either was hoping for. Charlotte is left
wondering if there is anywhere she belongs, and how far she'll go to find her way home .

Chasing the Light / Jesse Blackadder
Based on the little-known true story of the first woman to ever set foot on Antarctica. It′s
the early 1930s. Antarctic open-sea whaling is booming. Aboard a ship setting sail from
Cape Town carrying the Norwegian whaling magnate Lars Christensen are three women:
Lillemor Rachlew, who tricked her way on to the ship and will stop at nothing to be the
first woman to land on Antarctica; Mathilde Wegger, a grieving widow who′s been forced
to join the trip by her calculating parents-in-law; and Lars′s wife, Ingrid Christensen, who
has longed to travel to Antarctica since she was a girl. None of the women are prepared
for the reality of the brutality of the icy world. None of them expect the outcome and
none of them know how they will be changed by their arrival.
Behind the Beautiful Forever’s: Death and Hope in a Mumbai Slum / Katherine Boo
Katherine Boo spent three years among the residents of the Annawadi slum, a sprawling,
cockeyed settlement of more than 300 tin-roof huts and shacks in the shadow of
Mumbai’s International Airport. From within this “sumpy plug of slum” Boo unearths
stories both tragic and poignant--about residents’ efforts to raise families, earn a living,
or simply survive. These unforgettable characters all nurture far-fetched dreams of a
better life. As one boy tells his brother: “Everything around us is roses. And we’re like the
s**t in between.” A New Yorker writer and recipient of a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur
“Genius” grant, Boo’s writing is superb and the depth and courage of her reporting from
this hidden world is astonishing. At times, it’s hard to believe this is nonfiction.
The Museum of You / Carys Bray
Clover Quinn was a surprise. She used to imagine she was the good kind, now she’s not
sure. She’d like to ask Dad about it, but growing up in the saddest chapter of someone
else’s story is difficult. She tries not to skate on the thin ice of his memories.
Darren has done his best. He's studied his daughter like a seismologist on the lookout for
waves and surrounded her with everything she might want - everything he can think of,
at least - to be happy. What Clover wants is answers. This summer, she thinks she can
find them in the second bedroom, which is full of her mother's belongings. Volume isn't
important, what she is looking for is essence; the undiluted bits: a collection of things
that will tell the full story of her mother, her father and who she is going to be.
But what you find depends on what you're searching for.
Caleb’s Crossing / Geraldine Brooks
 The book is inspired by the life of Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, in 1665, Caleb became the
first American Indian to graduate from Harvard Caleb’s Crossing is about Caleb’s journey
from the Island to Harvard but it is also Bethia Mayfield’s story. Bethia is a young Puritan
girl, who becomes Caleb’s lifelong friend, who also longs for an education but is denied.
The novel is about a unique time in American history, the intersection of two people
from different cultures and ideas, and the love they share for each other and their home.
From the few facts that survive of Caleb’s extraordinary life, Geraldine Brooks creates a
luminous yet harsh tale of love and faith, pain, and magic.

Good Morning Midnight / Lily Brooks-Dalton
Augustine, a brilliant, aging astronomer, is consumed by the stars. He has lived in remote
outposts, studying the sky for evidence of how the universe began. At his latest posting,
in the Arctic, news of a catastrophic event arrives. The scientists are forced to evacuate,
but Augustine stubbornly refuses to abandon his work. Shortly after the others have
gone, Augustine discovers a mysterious child, Iris, and realizes that the airwaves have
gone silent. At the same time, Mission Specialist Sullivan is aboard the Aether on its
return flight from Jupiter. The astronauts are the first human beings to delve this deep
into space, and Sully has made peace with the sacrifices required of her. So far the
journey has been a success. But when Mission Control falls inexplicably silent, Sully and
her crewmates are forced to wonder if they will ever get home. As Augustine and Sully
each face an uncertain future against forbidding yet beautiful landscapes, their stories
gradually intertwine in a profound and unexpected conclusion.
The Miniaturist /Jessie Burton
In 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman knocks at the door of a grand house in the
wealthiest quarter of Amsterdam. She has come from the country to begin a new life as
the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt, but instead she is met by his
sharp-tongued sister, Marin. Only later does Johannes appear and present her with an
extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. It is to be furnished by
an elusive miniaturist, whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in
unexpected ways . . .
Family Secrets / Liz Byrski
When patriarch Gerald Hawkins passes away in his Tasmanian home, after ten years of
serious illness, his family experience a wave of grief and, admittedly, a surge of relief.
Gerald's dominating personality has loomed large over his wife, Connie, their children,
Andrew and Kerry, and his sister Flora, for decades. As the family adjusts to life after
Gerald, they could not be more splintered. But there are surprises in store and secrets to
unravel. And once the loss has been absorbed, is it possible that they could all find a way
to start afresh with forgiveness, understanding and possibility?
A Long Way From Home / Peter Carey
Irene Bobs loves fast driving. Her husband is the best car salesman in western Victoria.
Together they enter the Redex Trial, a brutal race around the ancient continent over
roads no car will ever quite survive.
With them is their lanky fair-haired navigator, Willie Bachhuber, a quiz show champion
and failed schoolteacher whose job it is to call out the turns, the grids, the creek
crossings on a map that will finally remove them, without warning, from the lily-white
Australia they know so well.
The Windy Season / Sam Carmody
A young fisherman is missing from the crayfish boats in the harsh West Australian coastal
town of Stark. There's no trace at all of Elliot, there hasn't been for some weeks and Paul,
his younger brother, is the only one who seems to be active in the search. Taking Elliot's
place on their antagonistic cousin's boat, Paul soon learns how many opportunities there
are to get lost in those many thousands of kilometres of lonely coastline. Fierce,
evocative and memorable, this is an Australian story set within an often wild and
unforgiving sea, where mysterious influences are brought to bear on the inhospitable
town and its residents.

Happiness for Beginners / Katherine Center
A year after getting divorced, Helen Carpenter, thirty-two, lets her annoying, younger
brother talk her into signing up for a wilderness survival course. It's supposed to be a
chance for her to pull herself together again, but when she discovers that her brother's
even-more-annoying best friend is also coming on the trip, she can't imagine how it will
be anything other than a disaster. Thus begins the strangest adventure of Helen's well-
behaved life: three weeks in the remotest wilderness of a mountain range in Wyoming.
And, somehow the people who annoy her the most start teaching her the very things she
needs to learn. How being scared can make you brave. And how sometimes you just
have to get really, really lost before you can even have a hope of being found.
Saving Mona Lisa / Gerri Chanel (True Story)
In August 1939, curators at the Louvre nestled the world's most famous painting into a
special red velvet-lined case and spirited her away to the Loire Valley. So began the
biggest evacuation of art and antiquities in history. As the Germans neared Paris in 1940,
the French raced to move the masterpieces still further south, then again and again
during the war, crisscrossing the southwest of France. Throughout the German
occupation, the museum staff fought to keep the priceless treasures out of the hands of
Hitler and his henchmen, often risking their lives to protect the country's artistic
heritage.

Three Souls / Janie Chang
We have three souls, or so I'd been told. But only in death could I confirm this....
So begins the haunting and captivating tale, set in 1935 China, of the ghost of a young
woman named Leiyin, who watches her own funeral from above and wonders why she is
being denied entry to the afterlife. Beside her are three souls—stern and scholarly yang;
impulsive, romantic yin; and wise, shining hun—who will guide her toward
understanding. She must, they tell her, make amends.
Suffused with history and literature, Three Souls is an epic tale of revenge and betrayal,
forbidden love, and the price we are willing to pay for freedom.

Remarkable Creatures / Tracy Chavalier
 From the moment she's struck by lightning as a baby, it is clear Mary Anning is marked
for greatness. When she uncovers unknown dinosaur fossils in the cliffs near her home,
she sets the scientific world alight, challenging ideas about the world's creation and
stimulating debate over our origins. In an arena dominated by men, however, Mary is
soon reduced to a serving role, facing prejudice from the academic community, vicious
gossip from neighbours, and the heartbreak of forbidden love. Luckily Mary finds an
unlikely champion in prickly, intelligent Elizabeth Philpot, a middle-class spinster who is
also fossil-obsessed. Their relationship strikes a delicate balance between fierce loyalty
and barely suppressed envy. Despite their differences in age and background, Mary and
Elizabeth discover that, friendship is their strongest weapon.
Gutenberg’s Apprentice / Alix Christie
Johann Gutenberg's first printed Bibles amazed and shocked medieval Europe. He had
started a revolution that would one day put books in the hands of any man or woman.
The project was fraught with danger, for it threatened the power of politicians and the
Catholic church. In Alix Christie's evocative and compelling novel, he comes vividly to life
- driven, caustic and ruthless. Behind him stands a brilliant young scribe, Peter Schoeffer,
whose genius is to stay true to his artistic values in the cauldron of the printer's
workshop. Caught between the old ways and the new, the men struggle with one
another and the world outside to prevail against overwhelming obstacles.

Little Bee / Chris Cleve
The publishers don’t want to tell you too much about this book. It is a truly special story
and they don't want to spoil it. Nevertheless, you need to know something, so they will
just say this:
This is the story of two women. Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to
make a terrible choice, the kind of choice we hope you never have to face. Two years
later, they meet again - the story starts there ...

Sweet Breath of Memory /Ariella Cohen
It’s been two years since her husband, John, was killed in Iraq and life has been a
struggle. Her new job as a caregiver doesn’t pay much, but the locals are welcoming. In
fact, Cate has barely unpacked before she’s drawn into a circle of friends. Diner-owner
Gaby, who nourishes her customers’ spirits as well as their bodies; feisty Beatrice, who
kept the town going when its men marched off to WWII; wise-cracking Mary Lou, as
formidable as Fort Knox but with the same heart of gold; and, Sheila, whose Italian
grocery is the soul of the place. When revelations about John’s death threaten Cate’s
newfound peace of mind, these sisters-in-arms’ stories show her an unexpected way
forward. And Cate comes to understand that although we suffer loss alone, we heal by
sharing our most treasured memories.
The Ship That Never Was / Adam Courtenay
In 1823, cockney sailor and chancer James Porter was convicted of stealing a stack of
beaver furs and transported halfway around the world to Van Diemen's Land. After
several escape attempts from the notorious penal colony, Porter, who told authorities he
was a 'beer-machine maker', was sent to Sarah Island, known in Van Diemen's Land as
hell on earth. Many had tried to escape Sarah Island; few had succeeded. But when
Governor George Arthur announced that the place would be closed and its prisoners
moved to the new penal station of Port Arthur, Porter, along with a motley crew of other
prisoners, pulled off an audacious escape. Wresting control of the ship they'd been
building to transport them to their fresh hell, the escapees instead sailed all the way to
Chile. What happened next is stranger than fiction, a fitting outcome for this true-life
picaresque tale.
The Wife Drought / Annabel Crabb (True Story)
"Why can't I have a wife?" It's a common joke among busy women. But it's not a joke.
Male politicians who reach their 40s without having children are so rare as to be
remarkable, but politics is full of women who are childless. Why? Because if you want to
combine kids with an elite career, the first thing you need is a stay-at-home spouse. And
it's awfully hard to interest a bloke in a gig like that. Sometimes as women we spend too
much time thinking about flexibility from only one perspective--ours. But what about the
men? Shouldn't the fight for workplace flexibility extend to men as well? And then
perhaps it wouldn't be seen as such an anomaly to see a man in a part-time role so he
can spend more time with the kids? Cliche but true: kids need their fathers, too.
The Sinkings / Amanda Curtin
In 1882, dismembered human remains were discovered at a lonely campsite called the
Sinkings near Albany, Western Australia. The surgeon conducting the autopsy claimed
the remains were those of a woman. Why, then, was the victim identified as Little Jock, a
sandalwood-cutter and former convict? And why was the murder so brutal, so
gruesome? More than a hundred years later, Willa Samson embarks on a search to find
out why in this novel. A recluse after having lost her daughter, Willa is drawn back into
the world as she negotiates and researches various archives, communicates with family
historians, and journeys to Scotland, Northern Ireland, and England, looking for clues to
her questions.

Coming Rain / Stephen Daisley
Western Australia, the wheatbelt. Lew McLeod has been travelling and working with
Painter Hayes since he was a boy. Shearing, charcoal burning - whatever comes. Painter
made him his first pair of shoes. It's a hard and uncertain life but it's the only one he
knows. But Lew's a grown man now. And with this latest job, shearing for John Drysdale
and his daughter Clara, everything will change.

Boy Swallows Universe / Trent Dalton
Brisbane, 1985: A lost father, a mute brother, a junkie mum, a heroin dealer for a
stepfather and a notorious crim for a babysitter. It's not as if Eli Bell's life isn't
complicated enough already. He's just trying to follow his heart and understand what it
means to be a good man, but fate keeps throwing obstacles in his way - not the least of
which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane drug dealer.
But now Eli's life is going to get a whole lot more serious: he's about to meet the father
he doesn't remember, break into Boggo Road Gaol on Christmas Day to rescue his mum,
come face to face with the criminals who tore his world apart, and fall in love with the
girl of his dreams.
Lost & Found / Brooke Davis
At seven years old, Millie Bird wasn’t to know that after she had recorded twenty-seven
assorted creatures in her Book of Dead Things her dad would be a Dead Thing, too.
Agatha Pantha is eighty-two and has not left her house since her husband died. She sits
behind her front window, hidden by the curtains and ivy, and shouts at passers-by. Until
the day Agatha spies a young girl across the street.
Karl the Touch Typist is eighty-seven when his son kisses him on the cheek before leaving
him at the nursing home. As he watches his son leave, Karl has a moment of clarity. He
escapes the home and takes off in search of something different.
Three lost people needing to be found. But they don’t know it yet. Millie, Agatha and Karl
are about to break the rules and discover what living is all about.
Sarah’s Key / Tatiana de Rosnay
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten-year-old girl, is taken with her parents by the French police
as they go door to door arresting Jewish families in the middle of the night. Desperate to
protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard—their secret
hiding place—and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released.
Sixty Years Later: Sarah’s story intertwines with that of Julia Jarmond, an American
journalist investigating the roundup. In her research, Julia stumbles onto a trail of secrets
that link her to Sarah, and to questions about her own future.
The Red Tent / Anita Diament
Lost to the history by the chronicles of men, here at last is the story of Dinah, Jacob's
only daughter in the Book of Genesis.
The Red Tent is narrated by Dinah, from her upbringing by the four wives of Jacob, to her
growth into one of the most influential women of her time. Seeking to preserve not only
her own remarkable experiences but those of a long-ago era of womanhood left largely
undocumented by the original male scribes and later Biblical scholars, Dinah breaks a
male silence that has lasted for centuries, revealing the ancient origins of many
contemporary religious practices and sexual politics. The result is a beautiful, thought-
provoking novel.

The Language of Flowers / Vanessa Diffenbaugh
After a childhood spent in the foster-care system, Victoria Jones is unable to get close to
anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings.
Now eighteen and emancipated from the system, Victoria has nowhere to go and sleeps
in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. Soon a local florist
discovers her talents, and Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through the
flowers she chooses for them. But a mysterious vendor at the flower market has her
questioning what’s been missing in her life, and when she’s forced to confront a painful
secret from her past, she must decide whether it’s worth risking everything for a second
chance at happiness.
The Happiest Refugee / Anh Do
Anh Do nearly didn't make it to Australia. His entire family came close to losing their lives
on the sea as they escaped from war-torn Vietnam in an overcrowded boat. But nothing
could quench their desire to make a better life in the country they had dreamed about.
Life in Australia was hard, an endless succession of back-breaking work, crowded rooms,
ruthless landlords and make-do everything. But there was a loving extended family, and
always friends and play and something to laugh about. The Happiest Refugee tells the
incredible, uplifting and inspiring life story of one of our favourite personalities. Tragedy,
humour, heartache and unswerving determination - a big life with big dreams. Anh's
story will move and amuse all who read it.
The Midnight Watch / David Dyer
As the Titanic and her passengers sank slowly into the Atlantic Ocean after striking an
iceberg late in the evening of April 14, 1912, a nearby ship looked on. Second Officer
Herbert Stone, in charge of the midnight watch on the SS Californian sitting idly a few
miles north, saw the distress rockets that the Titanic fired. He alerted the captain,
Stanley Lord, who was sleeping in the chartroom below, but Lord did not come to the
bridge. Eight rockets were fired during the dark hours of the midnight watch, and eight
rockets were ignored. The next morning, the Titanic was at the bottom of the sea and
more than 1,500 people were dead. When they learned of the extent of the tragedy,
Lord and Stone did everything they could to hide their role in the disaster, but pursued
by newspapermen, lawyers, and political leaders in America and England, their terrible
secret was eventually revealed.
Whispers Through a Megaphone / Rachel Elliott
Miriam hasn’t left her house in three years, and cannot raise her voice above a whisper.
She still lives in the shadow of her dead mother… But today she has had enough, and is
finally ready to rejoin the outside world. Meanwhile, Ralph has made the mistake of
opening a closet door, only to discover that his wife Sadie doesn’t love him… And so he
decides to leave his home. Miriam and Ralph’s chance meeting in a wood during a
summer storm leads to an unusual friendship, and quirky twists. Rachel Elliott’s loveable
characters confront the hardest things in life with delicious humour and steady courage.
Because sometimes, our over-connected world can seem too much for just one person…
Time and Time Again / Ben Elton
It's the 1st of June 1914 and Hugh Stanton, ex-soldier and celebrated adventurer is quite
literally the loneliest man on earth. No one he has ever known or loved has been born
yet. Perhaps now they never will be. Stanton knows that a great and terrible war is
coming. A collective suicidal madness that will destroy European civilization and bring
misery to millions in the century to come. He knows this because, for him, that century is
already history. Somehow he must change that history. He must prevent the war. A war
that will begin with a single bullet. But can a single bullet truly corrupt an entire century?
And, if so, could another single bullet save it?

A Crooked Heart / Lissa Evans
When Noel Bostock, aged ten, with no family, is evacuated from London to escape the
Nazi bombardment, he ends up with Vera Sedge, a thirty-six-year old widow drowning in
debts and dependents. Always desperate for money, she’s unscrupulous about how she
gets it. Noel, wise beyond his years & with a disdain for authority, has little in common
with other children and even less with the impulsive Vee. The war has provided
opportunities for making money, but what Vee needs is a cool head and the ability to
make a plan. On her own, she’s a disaster. With Noel, she’s a team. Together, they cook
up a scheme. Vee starts to make a profit and Noel begins to regain his interest in life. But
there are plenty of other people making money out of the war—and some of them are
dangerous. Noel may have been moved to safety, but he isn’t actually safe at all.
The Universe Versus Alex Woods / Gavin Extence
A rare meteorite struck Alex Woods when he was ten years old, leaving scars and
marking him for an extraordinary future. The son of a fortune teller, bookish, and an easy
target for bullies, Alex hasn't had the easiest childhood.
But when he meets curmudgeonly widower Mr. Peterson, he finds an unlikely friend.
Someone who teaches him that that you only get one shot at life. That you have to make
it count. So when, aged seventeen, Alex is stopped at customs with 113 grams of
marijuana, an urn full of ashes on the front seat, and an entire nation in uproar, he's
fairly sure he's done the right thing ...
Narrow Road to the Deep North / Richard Flanagan
A novel of the cruelty of war, and tenuousness of life and the impossibility of love.
August, 1943. In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma death railway,
Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle's young wife
two years earlier. Struggling to save the men under his command from starvation, from
cholera, from beatings, he receives a letter that will change his life forever.
 This savagely beautiful novel is a story about the many forms of love and death, of war
and truth, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost.
Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2014.
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves / Karen Joy Fowler
Rosemary's young, just at college, and she's decided not to tell anyone a thing about her
family. So we're not going to tell you too much either: you'll have to find out for
yourselves, round about page 77, what it is that makes her unhappy family unlike any
other. Rosemary is now an only child, but she used to have a sister the same age as her,
and an older brother. Both are now gone - vanished from her life. There's something
unique about Rosemary's sister, Fern. And it was this decision, made by her parents, to
give Rosemary a sister like no other, that began all of Rosemary's trouble. So now she's
telling her story. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014.
Lenny’s Book of Everything / Karen Foxlee
Lenny, small and sharp, has a younger brother Davey who won't stop growing - and at
seven is as tall as a man. Raised by their single mother, who works two jobs and is made
almost entirely out of worries, they have food and a roof over their heads, but not much
else. The bright spot every week is the arrival of the latest issue of Burrell's Build-it-at-
Home Encyclopedia. Through the encyclopedia, Lenny and Davey experience the
wonders of the world - beetles, birds, quasars, quartz - and dream about a life of
freedom and adventure, visiting places like Saskatchewan and Yellow Knife, and the
gleaming lakes of the North West Territories. But as her brother's health deteriorates,
Lenny comes to accept the inevitable truth; Davey will never make it to Great Bear Lake.

My Brilliant Career / Miles Franklin
"My Brilliant Career" is the story of Sybylla, a headstrong young girl growing up in early
20th century Australia. Sybylla rejects the opportunity to marry a wealthy young man in
order to maintain her independence. As a consequence she must take a job as a
governess to a local family to which her father is indebted. An Australian classic.

The House of Grief / Helen Garner (True Story)
On the evening of 4 September 2005, Robert Farquharson, a separated husband, was
driving his three sons home to their mother when his car plunged into a dam. The boys,
aged ten, seven, and two, drowned. Was this an act of deliberate revenge or a tragic
accident? The court case became Helen Garner's obsession. She was in the courtroom
every day of Farquharson's trial and subsequent retrial, along with countless journalists
and the families of both the accused and his former wife.In this utterly compelling book,
Helen Garner tells the story of a man and his broken life. At its core is a search for truth
that takes author and reader through complex psychological terrain. Garner exposes,
with great compassion, that truth and justice are as complex as human frailty and
morality.
Still Alice / Lisa Genova
 Alice Howland is a Harvard professor, gifted researcher, wife, and mother of three
grown children. One day, she sets out for a run and soon realizes she has no idea how to
find her way home. It's a route she has taken for years, but nothing looks familiar. She is
utterly lost. After a few doctors' appointments and medical tests, Alice has her diagnosis
-- she has early-onset Alzheimer's disease. What follows is the story of Alice's slow but
inevitable loss of memory and connection with reality. Readers learn of the progression
of Alice's disease through the reactions of others, as Alice does, so they feel what she
feels.
Secrets of the Sea House / Elisabeth Gifford
Scotland, 1860. Reverend Alexander Ferguson, naive and newly-ordained, takes up his
new parish, a poor, isolated patch on the Hebridean island of Harris. His time on the
island will irrevocably change the course of his life, but the house on the edge of the
dunes keeps its silence long after Alexander departs. It will be more than a century
before the Sea House reluctantly gives up its secrets. Ruth and Michael buy the grand but
dilapidated building and begin to turn it into a home for the family they hope to have.
Their dreams are marred by a shocking discovery. The tiny bones of a baby are buried
beneath the house; the child's fragile legs are fused together -a mermaid child. Who
buried the bones? And why? Ruth needs to solve the mystery of her new home -but the
answers to her questions may lie in her own past.
Tinderbox / Lisa Gornick
Myra is a psychotherapist. A quick study and an excellent judge of character, she thinks
she knows what she's getting when she hires a nanny. Her phobia-addled son has just
moved back in with his wife and child, and the new nanny, Eva, seems like a perfect
addition: she cleans like a demon and irons like a dream, and she forms an immediate
bond with Myra's grandson. But as Eva reveals more of herself, what seemed a felicitous
arrangement turns ominous. One afternoon, she settles into Myra's patient chair and
begins to expose the secrets of her past. Their relationship slowly and inexorably
becomes too close, too dependent, and, ultimately, terrifyingly destructive. As events
spiral out of Myra's control, she learns that even a family as close-knit as her own can
have plenty to hide.

The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club / Sophie Green
In 1978 the Northern Territory has begun to self-govern. Cyclone Tracy is a recent
memory and telephones not yet a fixture on the cattle stations dominating the rugged
outback. Life is hard and people are isolated. But they find ways to connect.
Sybil is the matriarch of Fairvale Station, run by her husband, Joe. Their eldest son,
Lachlan, has left the Territory - for good. It is now up to their second son, Ben, to take his
brother's place. With her oldest friend, Rita, now living in Alice Springs and working for
the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and Ben's English wife, Kate, finding it difficult to adjust
to life at Fairvale, Sybil comes up with a way to give them all companionship and
purpose: they all love to read, and she forms a book club.

The Secret River / Kate Grenville
William Thornhill, a Thames bargeman, is deported to the New South Wales colony in
what would become Australia. In this new world of convicts and charlatans, Thornhill
tries to pull his family into a position of power and comfort. When he rounds a bend in
the Hawkesbury River and sees a gentle slope of land, he becomes determined to make
the place his own. But, as uninhabited as the island appears, Australia is full of native
people, and they do not take kindly to Thornhill's theft of their home.

Homegoing / Yaa Gyasi
Effia and Esi- two sisters with two very different destinies. One sold into slavery; one a
slave trader's wife. The consequences of their fate reverberate through the generations
that follow. Taking us from the Gold Coast of Africa to the cotton-picking plantations of
Mississippi; from the missionary schools of Ghana to the dive bars of Harlem, spanning
three continents and seven generations, this intimate, gripping story with a brilliantly
vivid cast of characters and through their lives, the very story of America itself. Epic in its
canvas and intimate in its portraits, Homegoing is a searing and profound debut from a
masterly new writer.

How To Stop Time / Matt Haig
Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but he
was born in 1581. Owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. From
Shakespeare's England to jazz age Paris and voyaging the Pacific, Tom has seen a lot, and
now craves an ordinary life. Always changing his identity to stay alive, Tom now has the
perfect cover - working as a history teacher at a London school. Here, he can teach the
kids about wars and witch hunts as if he'd never witnessed them first-hand. The only
thing Tom mustn't do is fall in love. This novel is a wild, bittersweet, time-travelling story
about losing and finding yourself; about the certainty of change, and the mistakes
humans are doomed to repeat. And about the lifetimes it can take to learn how to live.

The Dry / Jane Harper
It hasn't rained in small country town Kiewarra for two years. Tensions in the community
become unbearable when three members of the Hadler family are brutally murdered.
Everyone thinks Luke Hadler, who committed suicide after slaughtering his wife and
young son, is guilty. Policeman Aaron Falk returns to the town of his youth for the
funeral of his childhood friend, and is unwillingly drawn into the investigation. As
questions mount and suspicion spreads, Falk is forced to confront the community that
rejected him twenty years earlier. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret, one
which Luke's death threatens to unearth. And as Falk probes deeper into the killings,
secrets from his past and why he left home bubble to the surface as he questions the
truth of his friend's crime.

Plainsong / Kent Haruf
In the small town of Holt, Colorado, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his
two boys alone after their mother retreats first to the bedroom, then altogether. A
teenage girl is alone herself, with nowhere to go. And out in the country, two brothers,
elderly bachelors, work the family homestead, the only world they've ever known. From
these unsettled lives emerges a vision of life, and of the town and landscape that bind
them together -- their fates somehow overcoming the powerful circumstances of place
and station, their confusion, curiosity, dignity and humor intact and resonant. As the
milieu widens to embrace fully four generations, Kent Haruf displays an emotional and
aesthetic authority to rival the past masters of a classic American tradition.
The Pearl That Broke It’s Shell / Nadia Hashimi
A luminous tale of two women, destiny, and identity in Afghanistan. With a drug-
addicted father and no brothers, Rahima becomes a bacha posh, a girl dressed as a boy.
She gains freedoms that were previously unimaginable… freedom that transforms her
forever. A century earlier, her orphaned ancestor Shekiba saved herself and built a new
life in the same way—the change took her from a rural village to the opulence of a king’s
palace in bustling Kabul. Crisscrossing in time, The Pearl That Broke Its Shell interweaves
the stories of two remarkable women who are separated by a century but share the
same courage and dreams…
Elizabeth is missing / Emma Healey
Maud, an aging grandmother, is slowly losing her memory and her grip on everyday life.
Yet she refuses to forget her best friend Elizabeth, whom she is convinced is missing and
in terrible danger. But no one will listen to Maud, not her frustrated daughter, not her
caretakers, not the police, and especially not Elizabeth’s mercurial son. Armed with
handwritten notes she leaves for herself Maud resolves to discover the truth and save
her beloved friend. The clues she discovers seem only to lead her deeper into her past,
to another unsolved disappearance: her sister, Sukey, who vanished shortly after World
War II.As vivid memories of a tragedy that occurred more fifty years ago come flooding
back, Maud discovers new momentum in her search for her friend. Could the mystery of
Sukey’s disappearance hold the key to finding Elizabeth?
The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted / Robert Hillman
Tom Hope doesn’t think he’s much of a farmer, but he’s doing his best. He can’t have
been much of a husband to Trudy, either, judging by her sudden departure. It’s only
when she returns, pregnant to someone else, that he discovers his surprising talent as a
father. So when Trudy finds Jesus and takes little Peter away with her to join the holy
rollers, Tom’s heart breaks all over again. Enter Hannah Babel, quixotic small town
bookseller: the second Jew - and the most vivid person - Tom has ever met. He dares to
believe they could make each other happy. But it is 1968: twenty-four years since
Hannah and her own little boy arrived at Auschwitz. Tom Hope is taking on a battle with
heartbreak he can barely even begin to imagine.
Faithful / Alice Hoffman
Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an
extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend’s future is destroyed in an
accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt. What happens when a life is
turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky?
Faithful is the story of a survivor, filled with emotion—from dark suffering to true
happiness—a moving portrait of a young woman finding her way in the modern world. A
fan of Chinese food, dogs, bookstores, and men she should stay away from, Shelby has to
fight her way back to her own future. In New York City she finds a circle of lost and found
souls—including an angel who’s been watching over her ever since that fateful icy night.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine / Gail Honeyman
Meet Eleanor Oliphant. She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say
exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully time-tabled life of avoiding
social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone
chats with Mummy. Then 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.
The Tall Man / Chloe Hooper (True Story)
The Tall Man is the story of the death of Cameron Doomadgee, who one morning swore
at a policeman and forty-five minutes later lay dead in a watch house cell.The Tall Man
tells the full story of the subsequent trial and its repercussions through northen
Australia. Chloe Hooper follows Hurley's trail to some of the hard towns of the Gulf,
uncovering the true story behind the trial. The Tall Man offers a brilliant insight into the
clash of two worlds - and a haunting moral puzzle that no reader will forget

Our Homesick Songs / Emma Hooper
Newfoundland, Canada, 1992. When all the fish vanish from the waters, and the cod
industry abruptly collapses, it's not long before the people begin to disappear from the
town of Big Running as well. As residents are forced to leave the island in search of work,
10-year-old Finn Connor suddenly finds himself living in a ghost town. There's no school,
no friends and whole rows of houses stand abandoned. And then Finn's parents
announce that they too must separate if their family is to survive. But Finn still has his
sister, Cora, with whom he counts the dwindling boats on the coast at night, and Mrs
Callaghan, who teaches him the strange and ancient melodies of their native Ireland.
That is until his sister disappears, and Finn must find a way of calling home the family and
the life he has lost.
The Ballroom / Anna Hope
Where love is your only escape ....
1911: Inside an asylum at the edge of the Yorkshire moors, where men and women are
kept apart by high walls and barred windows, there is a ballroom vast and beautiful.
For one bright evening every week they come together and dance. When John and Ella
meet it is a dance that will change two lives forever. Set over the heatwave summer of
1911, the end of the Edwardian era, THE BALLROOM is a tale of unlikely love and
dangerous obsession, of madness and sanity, and of who gets to decide which is which.

And the Mountains Echoed / Khaled Hosseini
From the no. 1 bestselling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns -
And the Mountains Echoed is a deeply moving new novel about how we love, how we
take care of one another and how the choices we make resonate through history. A
multi-generational family story revolving around brothers and sisters. With profound
wisdom, depth, insight and compassion -moving from Kabul, to Paris, to San Francisco, to
the Greek island of Tinos it explores the ways in which they love, wound, betray, honour
and sacrifice for each other.

The Fence / Meredith Jaffe
Gwen Hill adores Green Valley Avenue. Here she has built friendships, raised her children
and nurtured a thriving garden. So when the house next door is sold, Gwen wonders how
the new family will settle into this cosy community. Francesca Desmarchelliers has high
hopes for the house on Green Valley Avenue. More than a new home, it's a clean slate
for Frankie, who has moved her brood in a bid to save her marriage. To maintain her
privacy and corral her wandering children, Frankie proposes a fence between the
properties, destroying Gwen's picture-perfect front yard. To Gwen, this is an act of war.
Soon the neighbours are in an escalating battle about more than just council approvals,
where boundaries aren't the only things at stake.
Unreliable Memoirs / Clive James
In the first instalment of Clive James's memoirs we follow the young Clive on his journey
from boyhood to the cusp of manhood, when his days of wearing short trousers are
finally behind him. Battling with school, girls, various relatives and an overwhelming
desire to be a superhero, Clive's adventures growing up in the suburbs of post-war
Sydney are hair-raising, uproarious and almost too good to be true . . .
Told with James's unassailable sense of humour and self-effacing charm, Unreliable
Memoirs is a hilarious and touching introduction to the story of a national treasure. A
million-copy bestseller, this classic memoir is a celebration of life in all its unpredictable
glory.
Erotic Stories for Pinjabi Widows / Balli Kaur Jaswal
When Nikki takes a creative writing job at her local temple, with visions of emancipating
the women of the community she left behind as a self-important teenager, she’s shocked
to discover a group of barely literate women who have no interest in her ideals. Yet to
her surprise, the white dupatta of the widow hides more than just their modesty, these
are women who have spent their lives in the shadows of fathers, brothers and husbands;
being dutiful, raising children and going to temple, but whose inner lives are as rich and
fruitful as their untold stories. But as they begin to open up to each other about
womanhood, sexuality, and the dark secrets within the community, Nikki realises that
the illicit nature of the class may place them all in danger.
Dustfall / Michelle Johnston
Dr Raymond Filigree, running away from a disastrous medical career, mistakes an
unknown name on a map for the perfect refuge. He travels to the isolated town of
Wittenoom and takes charge of its small hospital, a place where no previous doctor has
managed to stay longer than an eye blink. Instead of settling into a quiet, solitary life, he
discovers an asbestos mining corporation with no regard for the safety of its workers and
no care for the truth. Thirty years later, Dr Lou Fitzgerald stumbles across the abandoned
Wittenoom Hospital. She, too, is a fugitive from a medical career toppled by a single
error. Here she discovers faded letters and barely used medical equipment, and, slowly
the story of the hospital's tragic past comes to her.
My Brother Jack / George Johnston
David and Jack Meredith grow up in a patriotic suburban Melbourne household during
the First World War, and go on to lead lives that could not be more different. Through
the story of the two brothers, George Johnston created an enduring exploration of two
Australian myths: that of the man who loses his soul as he gains worldly success, and
that of the tough, honest Aussie battler, whose greatest ambition is to serve his country
during the war. Acknowledged as one of the true Australian classics, My Brother Jack is a
deeply satisfying, complex and moving literary masterpiece.

The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared / Jonas
Jonasson
After a long and eventful life, Allan Karlsson ends up in a nursing home, believing it to be
his last stop. The only problem is that he’s still in good health, and in one day, he turns
100. A big celebration is in the works, but Allan really isn’t interested. So he decides to
escape. He climbs out the window in his slippers and embarks on a hilarious and entirely
unexpected journey, involving, among other surprises, a suitcase stuffed with cash, some
unpleasant criminals, a friendly hot-dog stand operator, and an elephant (not to mention
a death by elephant).
The Map of Salt & Stars / Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar
The Map of Salt and Stars is the story of Nour, a Syrian American girl reeling from the
recent loss of her beloved Baba (father) to cancer. After returning to Syria before the war
breaks out, Nour and her family then must flee across the Middle East and North Africa
in a desperate and dangerous search for safety. Her journey intertwines with the story of
Rawiya and the legendary mapmaker al-Idrisi who made the same journey nine hundred
years before in their quest to map the world. This rich, moving, compelling, and lyrical
debut novel is the first to bring the headlines about the Syrian crisis to life, placing our
current moment in the sweep of history.
The Unlikley Pilgrimage of Harold Fry / Rachel Joyce
This is the story of recently-retired Harold Fry, who sets out one morning to post a letter
to a dying friend. Quite unexpectedly, in a moment of impulse, Fry finds himself at the
start of a journey which will lead him to walk hundreds of miles from home, en route
making chance encounters and reflecting on tragic events from his past which transform
his life and in turn alter the lives of the people he meets.
When Breath Becomes Air / Paul Kalanithi (True Story)
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a
neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a
doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. Just like that,
the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. This book chronicles Kalanithi's
transformation from a naïve medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the question
of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life" into a
neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human
identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.
Burial Rites / Hannah Kent
Burial Rites is a moving account of a convicted woman’s last days as she struggles to
maintain her equilibrium whilst confronting her death. God has not been kind to Agnes,
whose life has been blighted by fate, and yet she is blessed with a fierce intelligence and
a will to survive. Her search for the love she has been denied has resulted in her
conviction. In this factional work, Hannah Kent draws on the story of the last woman to
be publicly beheaded in Iceland. She has woven together the facts of the case with her
own creative interpretation, both to fill the gaps and to create a thrilling account of this
tragic story set against the moody backdrop of Icelandic extremities of weather.
The Good People / Hannah Kent
Based on true events in 19th-century Ireland, this novel tells the story of three women
drawn together to rescue child from a superstitious community.
Nora, bereft after the death of her husband, finds herself alone and caring for her
grandson, Micheal, who can neither speak nor walk. A handmaid, Mary, arrives to help
Nora just as rumours begin to spread that Micheal is a changeling child who is bringing
bad luck to the valley. Determined to banish evil, Nora and Mary enlist the help of
Nance, an elderly wanderer who understands the magic of the old ways.
Set in a lost world bound by its own laws, The Good People is Hannah Kent's startling
new novel about absolute belief and devoted love.