What’s new and good to read this month? Dan Coombes has a look at what’s on offer and chooses A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories by Terry Pratchett, Night Side of the River by Jeanette Wilson and Liberation Day by George Saunders A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories - Terry Pratchett Hands up, I am a huge Terry Pratchett fan, and this collection of his previously unpublished early stories - before he found fame with the legendary Discworld novels - is certainly a must for all lovers of his work. But ask any Pratchett lover just how good a writer he was and they'll mostly tell you the same thing: he was a literary genius would've won pretty much every highbrow book award going if he wasn't pigeonholed as a fantasy writer. There's something in here

What’s new and good to read this month? Dan Coombes has a look at what’s on offer and chooses The Normal Rules Don't Apply by Kate Atkinson, Tom Lake by Anne Patchett and Bridge by Lauren Beuke. The Normal Rules Don't Apply - Kate Atkinson The author of recent bestseller Shrines Of Gaiety and the multi-award winning classic Life After Life has written her first short story collection in two decades - an ingenious collection of linked tales that showcase her mastery of comedy, poignancy and the intertwining of the ordinary and the extraordinary to full effect. We meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep; a secretary who watches over the life she has just left; a man whose luck changes when a horse speaks to him. With clockwork intrica

What’s new and good to read this month? Dan Coombes has a look at what’s on offer and chooses Translation State, The Trial and The Wind Knows my Name. Translation State – Ann Leckie The first science fiction novel in six years from a writer who won the Hugo, Nebula, BSFA and Arthur C. Clarke awards with their debut alone, Translation State is a grand-scale space opera set in an intricate far future that explores some of humanity’s most pressing themes and issues as only the best sf can. Qven always had a clear path before them: learn human ways, make a match and serve as an intermediary between the dangerous alien Presger and the human worlds. The realization that they might want something else is the type of behaviour that results in eliminati

What’s new and good to read this month? Dan Coombes has a look at what’s on offer and chooses Greek Lessons by Han Kang, Atalanta by Jennifer Saint, and Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater. Greek Lessons – Han Kang Winner of the International Booker Prize in 2016 for her beautiful and disturbing The Vegetarian, Han Kang’s new novel - and her first in nine years - promises to be every bit as powerful and unforgettable. Greek Lessons is the story of two ordinary people brought together at a moment of private anguish – the fading light of a man losing his vision meeting the silence of a woman who has lost her language, yet these are the very things that draw them together. A tender love letter to human intimacy and

What’s new and good to read this month? Dan Coombes has a look at what’s on offer and chooses Salman Rushdie's Victory City, Rebecca Makkai's I Have Some Questions for You and Samantha Shannon's A Day of Fallen Night. Victory City, by Salman Rushdie The new novel from the bestselling, Booker-Prize winning author Salman Rushdie. In the wake of an insignificant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms in fourteenth-century southern India, a nine-year-old girl has a divine encounter that will change the course of history. After witnessing the death of her mother, the grief-stricken Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for a goddess, who tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city called Bisnaga - l

What’s new and good to read this month? Jessica Bloom has a look at what’s on offer and chooses Stella Maris, City of Last Chances, and Night Shift. Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy The best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Road returns with the second volume of The Passenger series: Stella Maris is an intimate portrait of grief and longing, as a young woman in a psychiatric facility seeks to understand her own existence.

What’s new and good to read this month? Jessica Bloom has a look at what’s on offer and chooses Dawnlands, Murder On The Christmas Express, and My Soul Twin. Dawnlands by Philippa Gregory The new historical novel from Philippa Gregory, the Number One bestselling author of Tidelands and Dark Tides. It is 1685, England is on the brink of a renewed civil war against the Stuart kings and many families are bitterly divided. Ned Ferryman cannot persuade his sister Alinor that he is right to return from America with his Pokanoket servant Rowan to join

What’s new and good to read this month? Jessica Bloom has a look at what’s on offer and chooses The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman, Nights of Plague by Orphan Pamuk and Stone Blind: Medusa's Story by Natalie Haynes. The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman It is an ordinary Thursday and things should finally be returning to normal. Except trouble is never far away where the Thursday Murder Club are concerned. A decade-old cold case leads them to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers. Then a new foe pays Elizabeth a visit. Her mission? Kill. . . or be killed. As the cold case turns white hot, Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), while Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim chase down clues with help from old f

What’s new and good to read this month? Jessica Bloom has a look at what’s on offer and chooses Four Treasures of the Sky, Joan and The House of Fortune. Four Treasures of the Sky by Jenny Tinghui Zhang 'A propulsive and dazzling debut novel set against the backdrop of the Chinese Exclusion Act, about a Chinese girl fighting to claim her place in the 1880s American West' Daiyu never wanted to b

What’s new and good to read this month? Jessica Bloom has a look at what’s on offer and chooses The House With the Golden Door, Ruth & Penand The Island. The House With the Golden Door by Elodie Harper The life of a courtesan in Pompeii is glittering, yet precarious... Amara has escaped her life as a slave in the town's most notorious brothel, but now her existence depends on the affections of her patron: a man she might not know as well as she once thought. At night she dreams of the wolf den, still haunted by her past. Amara longs for the women she was forced to l

What’s new and good to read this month? Annakarin Klerfalk has a look at what’s on offer and chooses To Paradise, The Christie Affair and The Woman Who Came Back to Life, all out in January. Hanya Yanagihara, the author of the highly acclaimed books The People in the Trees and A Little Life, has her third book coming out. To Paradise To Paradise consists of three stories, all set in New York City, a hundred years apart. The first part opens in an alternative version of America, in 1893, where New York is part of the Free States. A place where people may live and love anybody, despite their gender. The second part is set in 1993, during the AIDS epidemic – and the final and third part takes place in 2093, in a world t

What’s new and good to read this month? Annakarin Klerfalk has a look at what’s on offer and chooses The Stranger in the Lifeboat, Lily and Walking on Sunshine are all published in November. The Stranger in the Lifeboat Mitch Albom, best known as the author of Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People you Meet in Heaven, is back with The Stranger in the Lifeboat. Ten strangers survive a terrible shipwreck and whilst adrift, waiting to be rescued, they see a man floating on the waves. They pull him onboard and get another surprise when he claims that he can save them all. Can they trust him? And will they ever come home again? Readers will discover yet another deeply moving novel from Albom about love and hope in

What’s new and good to read this month? Annakarin Klerfalk has a look at what’s on offer and chooses Apples Never Fall, The Man Who Died Twice and Beautiful World, Where Are You - all published in September. Apples Never Fall Liane Moriarty is famous for her bestseller Nine Perfect Strangers and the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning series Big Little Lies. In her latest book, Apples Never Fall, we meet the Delaney family, who seem to be happy and content. Joy and Stan are former tennis coaches and their four adult children are busy with their own lives- until Joy disappears. The investigation begins with the young woman who was their house guest the previous year. Is she the reason or is there something darker hidden within