Laufey Book Club

Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard.Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question: how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?A brilliant literary debut, inspired by a true story: the final days of a young woman accused of murder in Iceland in 1829.

On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.Neither parent knows that Hamnet will not survive the week.Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright: a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.Two extraordinary people. A love that draws them together. A loss that threatens to tear them apart.EndorsementsWinner of the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction"Richly sensuous... something special" — The Sunday Times"A thing of shimmering wonder" — David Mitchell

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.Oxford, 1836.The city of dreaming spires.It is the centre of all knowledge and progress in the world.And at its centre is Babel, the Royal Institute of Translation. The tower from which all the power of the Empire flows.Orphaned in Canton and brought to England by a mysterious guardian, Babel seemed like paradise to Robin Swift.Until it became a prison...But can a student stand against an empire?An incendiary new novel from award-winning author R.F. Kuang about the power of language, the violence of colonialism, and the sacrifices of resistance.EndorsementsThe #2 Sunday Times and #1 New York Times bestseller.'One for Philip Pullman fans' — The Times'This one is an automatic buy' — Glamour'Ambitious, sweeping and epic' — Evening Standard'Razor-sharp' — Daily Mail'An ingenious fantasy about empire' — The Guardian'A masterpiece that resonates with power and knowledge. Babel is a stark picture of the cruelty of empire, a distillation of dark academia, and a riveting blend of fantasy and historical fiction — a monumental achievement' — Samantha Shannon, author of The Priory of the Orange Tree

Grown-up Meg, tomboyish Jo, timid Beth, and precocious Amy. The four March sisters couldn't be more different. But with their father away at war, and their mother working to support the family, they have to rely on one another. Whether they're putting on a play, forming a secret society, or celebrating Christmas, there's one thing they can't help wondering: Will Father return home safely?

"The Gift of the Magi" is a short story by O. Henry, first published in 1905. The story tells of a young husband and wife and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little money. As a sentimental story with a moral lesson about gift-giving, it has been popular for adaptation, especially for presentation at Christmas time.

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—neither powerful like her father nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power: the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts, and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she was born of or with the mortals she has come to love.

In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital. She spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital as renowned for its famous clientele — Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles — as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its sanctuary.Kaysen's memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. It is a brilliant evocation of a "parallel universe" set within the kaleidoscopically shifting landscape of the late sixties. Girl, Interrupted is a clear-sighted, unflinching document that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery.

Jacaranda is a dreamy young woman moving between the planets of Los Angeles and New York City. She’s a beach bum, a part-time painter of surfboards, sun-kissed and beautiful. Jacaranda has an on-again, off-again relationship with a married man and glitters among the city’s pretty creatures, blithely drinking White Ladies with any number of tycoons, unattached and unworried in the pleasurable mania of California. Yet she lacks a purpose—so at twenty-eight, jobless, she moves to New York to start a new life and career, eager to make it big in the world of New York City.Sex and Rage delights in its sensuous, dreamlike narrative and spontaneous embrace of fate, work, and of certain meetings and chances. Jacaranda moves beyond the tango of sex and rage into the open challenge of a defined and more fulfilling expressive life.

The House of Atreus is cursed. A bloodline tainted by a generational cycle of violence and vengeance. This is the story of three women, their fates inextricably tied to this curse, and the fickle nature of men and gods.Clytemnestra — The sister of Helen, wife of Agamemnon; her hopes of averting the curse are dashed when her sister is taken to Troy by the feckless Paris. Her husband raises a great army against Troy and is determined to win, whatever the cost.Cassandra — Princess of Troy, cursed by Apollo to see the future but never to be believed when she speaks of it. She is powerless in her knowledge that the city will fall.Elektra — The youngest daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, Elektra is horrified by the bloodletting of her kin. But can she escape the curse, or is her own destiny also bound by violence?

An elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Gradually, the two learn to adjust to each other's fears, whims and yearnings for independence, and a fierce yet understated love emerges — one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the island itself, with its mossy rocks, windswept firs and unpredictable seas.Full of brusque humour and wisdom, The Summer Book is a profoundly life-affirming story. Tove Jansson captured much of her own experience and spirit in the book, which was her favourite of the novels she wrote for adults.

'Everything, somehow, fit together; some sly and benevolent Providence was revealing itself by degrees and I felt myself trembling on the brink of a fabulous discovery, as though any morning it was all going to come together—my future, my past, the whole of my life—and I was going to sit up in bed like a thunderbolt and say oh! oh! oh!'Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality.Endorsements'Haunting, compelling and brilliant' — The Times'Irresistible and seductive' — The Guardian'Enthralling... Forceful, cerebral and impeccably controlled' — The New York Times

Pearl and May are sisters, living carefree lives in Shanghai, the Paris of Asia. But when Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, they set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the Chinese countryside, in and out of the clutch of brutal soldiers, and across the Pacific to the shores of America.In 1937, Shanghai is the Paris of Asia, a city of great wealth and glamour, the home of millionaires and beggars, gangsters and gamblers, patriots and revolutionaries, artists and warlords. Thanks to the financial security and material comforts provided by their father’s prosperous rickshaw business, twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Though both sisters wave off authority and tradition, they couldn’t be more different: Pearl is a Dragon sign, strong and stubborn, while May is a true Sheep, adorable and placid. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree . . . until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth and that in order to repay his debts he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from California to find Chinese brides.As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the Chinese countryside, in and out of the clutch of brutal soldiers, and across the Pacific to the shores of America. In Los Angeles they begin a fresh chapter, trying to find love with the strangers they have married, brushing against the seduction of Hollywood, and striving to embrace American life even as they fight against discrimination, brave Communist witch hunts, and find themselves hemmed in by Chinatown’s old ways and rules.

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church.EndorsementsA Book of the Year in The Times, The New Statesman, Observer, Financial Times, Irish Times, Irish Independent, Times Literary Supplement.Winner of the Orwell Prize and the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award.Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year at the Dalkey Literary Awards.“Exquisite.” — Damon Galgut“Masterly.” — The Times“Miraculous.” — Herald“Astonishing.” — Colm Toibin“Stunning.” — Sunday Independent“Absolutely beautiful.” — Douglas Stuart

Nora's life has been going from bad to worse. Then at the stroke of midnight on her last day on earth, she finds herself transported to a library. There she is given the chance to undo her regrets and try out each of the other lives she might have lived.Which raises the ultimate question: with infinite choices, what is the best way to live?

The French Riviera: home to the Beautiful People. And none are more beautiful than Cécile, a precocious seventeen-year-old, and her father Raymond, a vivacious libertine. Charming, decadent and irresponsible, the golden-skinned duo are dedicated to a life of free love, fast cars and hedonistic pleasures. But then, one long, hot summer, Raymond decides to marry, and Cécile and her lover Cyril feel compelled to take a hand in his amours, with tragic consequences.Bonjour Tristesse scandalized 1950s France with its portrayal of the terrible teenager Cécile, a heroine who rejects conventional notions of love, marriage and responsibility to choose her own sexual freedom.

It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger."Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract."A tesseract (in case the reader doesn't know) is a wrinkle in time. To tell more would rob the reader of the enjoyment of Miss L'Engle's unusual book.A Wrinkle in Time is the story of the adventures in space and time of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school). They are in search of Meg's father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem.EndorsementsWinner of the Newbery Medal (1963)

Since his debut in 1955, Tom Ripley has evolved into the ultimate bad-boy sociopath, influencing countless novelists and filmmakers. In this first novel, we are introduced to suave, handsome Tom Ripley: a young striver, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan in the 1950s. A product of a broken home, branded a "sissy" by his dismissive Aunt Dottie, Ripley becomes enamored of the moneyed world of his new friend, Dickie Greenleaf. This fondness turns obsessive when Ripley is sent to Italy to bring back his libertine pal but grows enraged by Dickie's ambivalent feelings for Marge, a charming American dilettante. A dark reworking of Henry James's The Ambassadors, The Talented Mr. Ripley was adapted into a 1990s film and René Clément's 1960s film, Purple Noon.