Fall in Love with Reading

The king’s scholar, the magus, believes he knows the site of an ancient treasure. To attain it for his king, he needs a skillful thief, and he selects Gen from the king’s prison. The magus is interested only in the thief’s abilities. What Gen is interested in is anyone’s guess. Their journey toward the treasure is both dangerous and difficult, lightened only imperceptibly by the tales they tell of the old gods and goddesses.Megan Whalen Turner weaves Gen’s stories and Gen’s story together with style and verve in a novel that is filled with intrigue, adventure, and surprise.

Seven months into her pregnancy, Rachel Samstat discovers that her husband, Mark, is in love with another woman. The fact that the other woman has "a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb and you should see her legs" is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel writes cookbooks for a living. And in between trying to win Mark back and loudly wishing him dead, Ephron's irrepressible heroine offers some of her favorite recipes.Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. For in this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of "Sleepless in Seattle" reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter. Heartburn is a sinfully delicious novel, as soul-satisfying as mashed potatoes and as airy as a perfect soufflé.

When a young writer dies before completing his first novel, his teacher Jake, himself a failed novelist, helps himself to its plot. The resulting book is a phenomenal success. But what if somebody out there knows?Somebody does. And if Jake can't figure out who he's dealing with, he risks something far worse than the loss of his career.Endorsements'Remarkable.' — Stephen King'Breathtakingly suspenseful.' — Megan Abbott'Smart, surprising and stealthily unsettling.' — The Times

'There will be many books written about the year 2020: historical, analytic, political and comprehensive accounts. This is not any of those - the year isn't half-way done. What I've tried to do is organize some of the feelings and thoughts that events, so far, have provoked in me, in those scraps of time the year itself has allowed. These are above all personal essays: small by definition, short by necessity.'Deeply personal and powerfully moving, a short and timely series of essays on the experience of lockdown, by one of the most clear-sighted and essential writers of our time.

Born to swim thousands of miles in the ocean, the giant sea turtles are now trapped in a tank of golden-green water at London Zoo. But not for much longer. Two lonely people, a bookseller and a children's illustrator, have begun thinking turtle thoughts. As they come together to hatch a plan to release the turtles into the sea, their diaries reveal how they find their own lives changing in imperceptible and quite unintended ways.Endorsements'Wonderful, life-saving ... places Russell Hoban among the greatest, timeless novelists' — The Times'Crackles with witty detail, mordant intelligence and self-deprecating irony' — Time'This lovely human fable seems to me one of the best things of its kind - a fine and touching achievement' — John Fowles

For years Carmen Maria Machado has struggled to articulate her experiences in an abusive same-sex relationship. In this candid, radically inventive memoir, Machado tackles a dark and difficult subject with wit and an inquiring spirit, using a series of narrative tropes—including classic horror themes—to create an entirely unique work.

Goodbye, Vitamin is the wry, beautifully observed story of a woman at a crossroads, as Ruth and her friends attempt to shore up her father's career; she and her mother obsess over the ambiguous health benefits — in the absence of a cure — of dried jellyfish supplements and vitamin pills; and they all try to forge a new relationship with the brilliant, childlike, irascible man her father has become.

bell hooks writes, "The word 'love' is most often defined as a noun, yet... we would all love better if we used it as a verb." Here, at her most provocative and intensely personal, the renowned scholar, cultural critic, and feminist skewers our view of love as romance.In its place she offers a proactive new ethic for a people and a society bereft of love. Using her incisive mind and razor-sharp pen, she explores the question "What is love?"—her answers strike at both the mind and heart.In thirteen concise chapters, hooks examines her own search for emotional connection and society's failure to provide a model for learning to love. Razing the cultural paradigm that equates ideal love with sex and desire, she offers a path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for individuals and for a nation.EndorsementsThe Utne Reader declared bell hooks one of the "100 Visionaries Who Can Change Your Life."

Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning either to welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight the invasion.

One of the most famous accounts of living under the Nazi regime of World War II comes from the diary of a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl, Anne Frank.'12 June 1942: I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support'The Diary of a Young Girl is one of the most celebrated and enduring books of the last century. Tens of millions have read it since it was first published in 1947 and it remains a deeply admired testament to the indestructible nature of the human spirit.It reveals Anne as a teenage girl who fretted about and tried to cope with her own emerging sexuality and who also veered between being a carefree child and an aware adult.Anne Frank and her family fled the horrors of Nazi occupation by hiding in the back of a warehouse in Amsterdam for two years with another family and a German dentist. Aged thirteen when she went into the secret annexe, Anne kept a diary. She movingly revealed how the eight people living under these extraordinary conditions coped with hunger, the daily threat of discovery and death and being cut off from the outside world, as well as petty misunderstandings and the unbearable strain of living like prisoners.Anne Frank was born on 12 June 1929. She died while imprisoned at Bergen-Belsen, three months short of her sixteenth birthday.The Diary of a Young Girl is a timeless true story to be rediscovered by each new generation. For young readers and adults it continues to bring to life Anne's extraordinary courage and struggle throughout her ordeal.EndorsementsHay Festival and the Poole Vote 100 Books for Women selection.