Recent favourites
Some books really hit the spot, and some just stay with you after you’ve finished them. Here’s a selection of our very favourite reads.
The Calamity Club
Kathryn Stockett £20.00
Oxford, Mississippi, 1933. Eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one. Ever since her beloved mother failed to come home last Christmas Eve, she’s been one of the ‘unadoptable’ girls at the town’s orphanage, where she fights each day to keep her wits sharp and her spirit unbowed.
When she meets Birdie, a young woman who has come to Oxford determined to remind her socialite sister of the impoverished family she left behind, for the first time in a long while it seems someone else might care about Meg’s future. But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie begins to suspect her sister’s charmed life may be founded on a tapestry of lies. Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman haunted by loss who has been pushed to the brink with nothing left to lose.
Drawn together by circumstance, they find unexpected kinship among a disreputable, determined band of women. But in a town steeped in hypocrisy, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences …Bold, heartwarming, and riotously funny, The Calamity Club is an unforgettable story of resilience and friendship, and a sisterhood of underestimated women who risk everything to take back control of their fates.
The Correspondent
Virginia Evans £9.99
Sybil Van Antwerp is seventy-three, slowly losing her sight and always writing letters . .. To her children. Her favourite authors.
Her ex-sister-in-law. The journalist poking into her past. Her doctor.
Suitors. Kindly neighbours. The infuriating gardening club.
All receive Sybil’s witty, wise correspondence, rich with everyday concerns. But there is one letter that she has never sent. It concerns the darkest period of her life.
To post it, Sybil must find forgiveness within herself. The hardest letter to write is the one you’d never dare to send.
What You are Looking for in in the Library
Michiko Aoyama £9.99
The internationally bestselling Japanese novel about the life-changing power of books, kindness and second chances. What are you looking for? That is the question Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian asks everyone who walks through her doors. Because Sayuri Komachi is no ordinary librarian.
With an uncanny gift for sensing what people truly need, she recommends exactly the right book, together with a tiny handmade felted charm. At first, her choices seem surprising. Soon, they begin to change lives.
Among those seeking her help are:• A restless retail assistant searching for a more meaningful future. • A working mother trying to rebuild her career after maternity leave. • A conscientious accountant dreaming of opening an antique shop.
• A talented young manga artist who has lost his confidence. • A newly retired salaryman searching for a new sense of purpose. Each arrives looking for a book.
Each leaves with hope, fresh possibilities and the courage to begin a new chapter. Warm, wise and quietly uplifting, WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS IN THE LIBRARY is a celebration of books, libraries, kindness and community, and a reminder that sometimes the story you need most is the one you never expected to find.
