Senior
Reading
List
1
The following list, of authors and titles, is
given as a guide. These titles form a wide
range of possible books, which are suitable
reading for English Studies.
Always remember that these are only
suggestions, and that there are many more
titles available in bookshops such as :
 Border Books
 East Neuk Books, Anstruther.
 Waterstones
 www.amazon.co.uk
2
Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe,
‘Things Fall Apart’ is the personal story of the great Igbo
warrior, Okonkwo, but it is also, a social history, recording the early days of
British colonialization in West Africa from a Nigerian viewpoint. It is a
work of great dignity and compassion, written with all the force of a Greek
tragedy. The novel tells of the series of events by which Okonkwo through
his pride and his fears becomes exiled from his tribe and returns, only to be
forced into the ignominy of suicide to escape the results of his rash courage
against the white man.
Half of a Yellow Sun
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Set in the 1960s, at the time of the Nigerian-Biafra War, ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’
follows the lives of a small group of people. Inevitably the story touches on the
tragedy of the war, and while it does not involve itself with the actual warfare to
any extent, it does highlight the politics of the war and the international
response both in terms of arms support and to the suffering in Biafra. It is a
story of love and loyalty and at times traumatic as the ravages of war take their
toll, but always a story with hope.
Purple Hibiscus
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The limits of fifteen-year-old Kambili's world are defined by the high
walls of her family estate and the dictates of her repressive and
fanatically religious father. Her life is regulated by schedules: prayer,
sleep, study, and more prayer. When Nigeria begins to fall apart
during a military coup, Kambili's father, involved mysteriously in the
political crisis, sends Kambili and her brother away to live with
their aunt. In this house, full of energy and laughter, she discovers
life and love - and a terrible, bruising secret deep within her family.
Brick Lane
by Monica Ali
At the tender age of eighteen, Nazneen’s life is turned upside down, when
in an arranged marriage to a man twenty years her
elder, she exchanges
her Bangladeshi village for a block of flats in London’s East End.
Nanzeen submits to Fate and devotes her life to raising her family and
slapping down her demons of discontent, until she becomes aware of a
young radical, Karim. Against a background of racial and gang conflict,
they embark on an affair that finally forces Nazneen to take control of her
life.
3
Money
by Martin Amis
John Self, the central character in 'Money', is a wonderful, very 1980s
creation. A high-roller in the film business Self’s life is one of wanting, having
and taking it all – whatever and whenever that is. Drink, pills, junk food, porn or
people. The allegorical surname speaks for itself. Subtitled “A Suicide Note” the
novel takes the form of Self’s guiltless confessions of a life lived way beyond
normal constraints where money, and the relentless pursuit of more and more of
it, is everything. Self is a perfect emblem of his selfish and greedy world and the
novel is a portrayal of the disasters and cruelties such greed precipitates. The
comedy of this novel is midnight black.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
by Maya Angelou
This book recounts the hardship of poverty and injustice of discrimination
against black people in the last century, but is also filled with hope and
beauty. Angelou's inspirational resilience and ability to find courage and
humour in a difficult life make this a truly uplifting book. She beautifully
evokes her childhood with her grandmother in the American south of the
1930s. She learns the power of the white folks at the other end of town
and suffers the terrible trauma of rape by her mother's lover. 'I write
about being a Black American woman, however, I am always talking
about what it's like to be a human being. This is how we are, what makes
us laugh, and this is how we fall and how we somehow, amazingly, stand
up again' Maya Angelou
I, Robot
by Isaac Asimov
This is a collection related stories. In these stories Isaac Asimov creates
the Three Laws of Robotics and ushers in the Robot Age, when Earth is
ruled by master-machines, and when robots often seem more human than
mankind. The Three Laws ensure that humans remain superior and the
robots are kept in their rightful place. But an insane telepathic robot
results from a production error; a robot assembled in space logically
deduces its superiority to non-rational humanity, and when machines serve
mankind rather than individual humans, the machine's idea of what is good
for society may contravene the sacred Three Laws.
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
by Kate Atkinson
It's the story of a dysfunctional family, as told by the youngest daughter. One
sees a child's view of the world she that lives in, as she innocently struggles to
make sense of her wayward parents and disturbed sisters. Jumping from present
to past and back again, Atkinson gradually builds up the family's history,
explaining why the characters are who they are. The book flits beautifully
through different eras, reflecting upon the effect of the changing times on the
lives of ordinary people, from events as major as the world wars, to simply
getting the first family television - even the disaster of organizing a wedding on
World Cup Final day 1966!
4
Alias Grace
by Margaret Atwood
The novel is based on the true story of one of Canada's most notorious
19th-century murders. A poor servant girl, Grace Marks, just 16 at the time,
was jointly accused of the murder of her master, Thomas Kinnear, and his
housekeeper, Nancy Montgomery, who were living in a thinlydisguised common-law marriage. Her co-accused James McDermott,
another servant, was widely assumed to be her lover, but their true motive
for the killings was endlessly speculated on and never discovered. The
story unfolds as a kind of detective story.
The Blind Assassin
by Margaret Atwood
It is the story of two sisters, Iris and Laura, who grow up in provincial Canada,
daughters of a wealthy man who runs a button-making factory. The novel opens
with a description of Laura's apparent suicide after the Second World War, and
then Iris takes over as narrator, trying to understand and unravel the threads of
Laura's life and her own. The Blind Assassin is the name of the novel that Laura
leaves behind. Published posthumously, it becomes a controversial cult classic,
lauded as a proto-feminist classic. Iris is the reluctant keeper of her sister's
troublesome flame. Woven around this intriguing structure is a dazzling array of
characters: anarchists, bitter society women, strikers, husbands, housekeepers
and lovers.
The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
Written in 1984 as a response to Orwell’s novel of the same name, it
outlines Atwood’s nightmarish vision of life in a totalitarian America. The
novel itself is set in the aftermath of a nuclear war and is told in fragments
by Ofglen, a handmaid whose every aspect of the day is state controlled.
Her account is both chilling and emotional. The state offers her only one
function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the
wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness.
Emma
By Jane Austen
Emma, has grown up without a mother's softening influence, and at
twenty-one, she is bright, spoiled and wilful. Having too little to do to keep
out of trouble, Emma's hobby is matchmaking, "the greatest amusement in
the world." Marriage is more often a merger of "appropriate" families than
the result of romance or passion. Class distinctions, acknowledged by all
levels of society, limit both personal friendships and romantic possibilities,
and as Emma's matchmaking fails again and again, causing grief to many of
her victims, Emma begins to recognize that her pride, wilfulness, and love of
power over others have made her oblivious to her own faults.
5
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy,
she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks
and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved
himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her
beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever. In
the sparkling comedy of manners that follows, Jane Austen shows the
folly of judging by first impressions and superbly evokes the friendships,
gossip and snobberies of provincial middle-class life.
Sense and Sensibility
by Jane Austen
Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love
with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister
Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and
innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is
struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those
closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love - and its threatened
loss - the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find
personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of
love.
All Jane Austen’s Novels are written with irony, wit and faultless control. They are
novels of intense emotional power, social history and comic masterpieces. ‘Sense &
Sensibility’ was published in 1811; ‘Pride & Prejudice’ in 1813 and ‘Emma’ in 1815.
Her other novels are: ‘Mansfield Park’ (1814), ‘Northanger Abbey’ (1817) and
‘Persuasion’ (1817).
Go Tell it on the Mountain
by James Baldwin
Baldwin was a wonderful and hugely important writer whose books are
always masterfully told narratives as well as sharp social commentary. He
was one of the first black authors to be accepted into the mainstream. This
is his first and most autobiographical novel, dealing with his boyhood in
1930's Harlem. He tells the story of young Johnny Grimes. Johnny is
destined to become a preacher like his father, Gabriel. But he feels only
scalding hatred for Gabriel, whose fear and fanaticism make him cruelly
abuse his family. Johnny vows that, for him, things will be different.
6
Empire of the Sun
by J. G. Ballard
This is the heartrending story of a British boy's four-year ordeal in a Japanese prison
camp during the Second World War. Based on the author’s own childhood, this is
the extraordinary account of a boy's life in Japanese-occupied wartime Shanghai – a
mesmerizing, hypnotically compelling novel of war, of starvation and survival, of
internment camps and death marches. It blends searing honesty with an almost
hallucinatory vision of a world thrown utterly out of joint.
The Bridge
by Iain Banks
This is a surreal, story of a man who awakens from a coma into a weird and
wonderful world. The man has been in what appears to be a bad car accident on a
bridge; he is trapped and may be dying. He regains consciousness (or does he?)
and finds himself in a hospital as a complete amnesiac. The doctors have named
him John Orr. Exploring his new world, Orr discovers that he is living in what
seems to be a gigantic Bridge. Events take him through the many social strata that
make up the Bridge, and he finally "awakens" in yet another hospital bed - but into
what world and what reality? Banks makes it deliberately hard to tell dream from
reality.
Complicity
by Iain Banks
Cameron Colley is a Edinburgh journalist, who smokes too much,
drinks too much, plays seriously with hard drugs, and is addicted to
computer games. A mysterious informant is feeding him just enough
information to get him running about the countryside trying to track down a
major story. The source is pretty thin, but Cameron senses a scoop and
checks out a series of bizarre deaths from a few years ago - only to find that
the police are checking out a series of bizarre deaths that are happening
right now. Cameron realizes that he just might know more about it than he'd
care to admit. ‘Complicity’ is an exploration of the morality of greed,
corruption and violence.
Crow Road
by Iain Banks
'It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium,
listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach's Mass
in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me
back to Gallanach.'
Prentice McHoan, a student at Glasgow University, has returned to his
home village of Gallanach and to the bosom of his complex but enduring
family. Full of questions about the McHoan past, present and future, he
becomes engrossed in a family mystery, and preoccupied with death and
religion. He is also interested in alcohol, drugs and sex in general and the
beautiful Verity Walker in particular. His key relationship, however, is probably the one he has (or,
more accurately, doesn't have) with his father, Kenneth.
7
Espedair Street
by Iain Banks
The central character is Daniel Weir. He was once a famous rock star but now
he lives as a recluse in Glasgow, and has done so ever since the tragic events
which led to the demise of the band. The story unfolds as he reminisces about
the success and failures of his past life.
Whit
by Iain Banks
The book's central character is Isis Whit. Isis is a Luskentyrian, a member of
a Scottish, religious sect founded by her grandfather, Salvador. Like him,
she is very important to the faithful - she holds the position 'Elect of God'
and is a future leader. The book opens in May 1995, when Isis is nineteen
years old. A crisis in the Sect on the eve of its Festival of Love, sends Isis
on a mission through the spiritual wastelands of nineties Britain. Isis' cousin,
Morag, has been living in London for six years and apparently become a
successful musician. However, her most recent letter to the community
includes the news that she has turned her back on her faith and will not be
returning. Isis is sent to London to try and rescue her cousin - the book tells
the story of her journey and return.
The State of the Art
By Iain M. Banks
Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks are the same person. He includes his middle
initial when he writes in the genre of science fiction. He allows his
imagination free reign to explore new worlds and he creates a
technological and a political utopian vision through the 'Culture'. The
Culture is a benign, post-sexist society, peopled with strong female
characters. His science fiction writing Includes the novels Consider Phlebas
(1987), The Player of Games (1988), 000), as well as The State of the Art
(1989), which is a collection of short stories.
Another World
by Pat Barker
On the surface this is the story of Nick and the complex life he now shares
with his second wife, and their joint extended families. It is also the story
of the Fanshawe family, a much earlier, and also troubled, family that
once inhabited the house Nick is now restoring. But it is especially the
story of Geordie, Nick's 101-year-old grandfather and the worlds he has
known, including the world of war. Now that Geordie is dying, Nick learns
of Geordie's other worlds: his family life, his difficulties after World War I,
his marriage, his war nightmares and the haunting death of his brother in
battle.
8
The Regeneration Trilogy
by Pat Barker
Book 1: Regeneration
Book 2: The Eye in the Door
Book 3: The Ghost Road
The novels are based on the real-life experiences of British army officers being treated for shell shock
during World War I at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Scotland. The trilogy starts with Siegfried
Sassoon’s 1917 Declaration “Finished with the War; a soldier’s declaration”. When the poet Sassoon
published his declaration of protest against the war, the authorities decided to have him declared
mentally defective and sent him to Craiglockhart, where he meets fellow poet Wilfred Owen.
The structure of the novels is based around the relationships which develop between the psychologist
W.H.R. Rivers and the shell-shocked officers. Although the author uses historical characters such as
Dr. Rivers and the poets Sassoon and Owen, she also introduces fictional main characters such as
Lieutenant Billy Prior, a working class man elevated to the position of a British Officer.
This is a wonderful trilogy that highlights the true impact of WW1 and how the conditions experienced
there had an impact on the mental health of the soldiers. It creates a very strong vision of what it must
have been like for ordinary men to find themselves taken away from their homes and placed in a world
of mud and death and incessant noise. It also explores the relationship between men, both sexual and
non-sexual and provides a fascinating insight into the development of psychology that took place
during WW1. These novels are made more poignant by the fact that many of the characters existed in
real life, and the views of war portrayed by Pat Barker can be substantiated and expanded by reading
their poetry, and that of other war poets
Talking it over
by Julian Barnes
The story, about best friends Stuart and Oliver and Stuart's wife Gillian,
starts off as a comedy of manners. As the emotional and sexual
complications of their lives begin to unravel, the three characters takes it in
turns to deliver monologues and the unfolding action to the reader,
leading to repeated backtracking and reassessment of what has actually
happened on the part of the reader, as the characters offer different
perceptions of the same events. The book's epigraph is "He lies like an eyewitness", which could be applied to all three characters.
Fair Stood the Wind for France
By H.E.Bates
A British bomber crashes in Occupied France following a wartime raid.
The pilot and crew escape, and are helped by the family of a French farmer
who risk their lives to offer the airmen protection. During the hot summer
weeks that follow, the English pilot and the daughter of the house fall in
love.
9
Black Hawk Down
by Mark Bowden
In Black Hawk Down journalist Mark Bowden delivers a detailed account of
the 1993 nightmare operation in Mogadishu that left 18 American soldiers dead
and many more wounded. This early foreign-policy disaster for the Clinton
administration led to the resignation of Secretary of Defence and a total troop
withdrawal from Somalia. Bowden does not spend much time considering the
context; instead he provides a moment-by-moment chronicle of what happened
in the air and on the ground.
Armadillo
by William Boyd
One winter morning Lorimer Black goes to keep a business appointment
and finds a hanged man. This is just the start of what turns out to be a
horrendous period for Lorimer as he realizes that he's being set up at work
and cast adrift outside the office. This is a very funny novel with its dark
side that shows a good man being boxed in and unable to see how to help
himself.
Brazzaville Beach
by William Boyd
The book follows the life of ecologist Hope Clearwater and is
simultaneously set at three different stages in her recent life - her marriage
to a mathematician whilst she studies ancient hedgerows, her time studying
chimpanzees in a major African ecological project and finally her life 'on
the beach' reviewing her life, reassessing the complicated, violent and
tragic events which have occurred. The characters are beautifully portrayed
especially her husband who finds solace and inspiration digging ditches in
unlikely places, her lover who builds horsefly aeroplanes (well worth the
read for that alone) and the 'rebel leader' and his band of volleyball playing
'soldiers' who inadvertently kidnap Hope and find it quite difficult to get rid
of her.
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Bronte
When it was published in 1847, this novel dazzled and shocked
readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and
freedom. Orphaned Jane Eyre grows up in the home of her heartless aunt
and later attends a charity school with a harsh regime, enduring loneliness
and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural
independence and spirit – which prove necessary when she finds a position
as governess at Thornfield Hall. She falls in love with her employer,
Rochester. However, the discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make
a choice. Should she stay with him and live with the consequences, or
follow her convictions, even if it means leaving the man she loves?
10
Wuthering Heights
By Emily Bronte
In a house haunted by memories, the past is everywhere ...As darkness
falls, a man caught in a snowstorm is forced to shelter at the strange, grim
house Wuthering Heights. It is a place he will never forget. There he will
come to learn the story of Cathy: how she was forced to choose between her
well-meaning husband and the dangerous man she had loved since she was
young. How her choice led to betrayal and terrible revenge - and continues
to torment those in the present. A novel of intense power and intrigue
which like ‘Jane Eyre’ was published in 1847 and shocked its readers with
its depiction of the strong, passionate characters of Cathy and Heathcliff.
Quite Ugly One Morning
by Christopher Brookmyre
This novel is definitely a wickedly entertaining, thriller. The basic plot is
about the truly horrendous murder of a doctor in Edinburgh, the unwitting
involvement of an investigative journalist, and the revelation of a
somewhat blood-curdling business scam at a local hospital. There is a lot
of humour and a lot of violence. The first ten pages can feel a little
uncomfortable reading as the police investigate a murder scene brimming
with blood, vomit (both from the scene and added to by certain police
officers), and human excrement. However, the humour does salvage the
discomfort caused by the murder scene.
Greenvoe
by George MacKay Brown
Greenvoe, the tight-knit community on the Orcadian island of Hellya, has
existed unchanged for generations. However, a sinister military/industrial
project, Operation Black Star, requires the island for unspecified purposes
and threatens the islanders' way of life. In this, his first novel (1972),
George MacKay Brown recreates a week in the life of the island
community as they come to terms with the destructiveness of Operation
Black Star. In the end Operation Black Star fails, but not before it has
ruined the island. But the book ends on a note of hope as the islanders
return to celebrate the ritual rebirth of Hellya.
Magnus
By George Mackay Brown
In this novel, George Mackay Brown links the mediaeval story of St.
Magnus, martyred on the Island of Egilsay in the Orkneys and that of the
philospher Dietrich Bonhoeffer, murdered by the Nazis during the Second
World War. The narrative's many voices range from the 12th century to the
concentration camps of our own time as they explore the eternal questions
of innocence and guilt; good and evil.
11
The Thirty-Nine Steps
by John Buchan
The story is set in May 1914. The central character is Richard
Hannay, who has just returned to London after years in Southern Africa. A
chance encounter embroils him in an international espionage conspiracy
and when a murder is committed in his flat, he becomes an obvious suspect
for the police. Hannay’s adventure begins as he goes on the run in his
native Scotland where he needs all his courage and ingenuity to stay one
step ahead of his pursuers.
Clockwork Orange
by Anthony Burgess
In this nightmare vision of a not-too-distant future, fifteen-year-old Alex and his
three friends rob, rape, torture and murder - for fun. Alex is jailed for his vicious
crimes and the State undertakes to reform him. This is a fascinating study into
the mind of a young vandal. This book studies the fundamental questions of
good and evil, and whether a person is born evil, or chooses to be that way. The
government's controversial method of 'fixing' Alex's brutal manner works
brilliantly, but at what cost to his humanity? 'A Clockwork Orange' is a drugfuelled, intelligent and frightening portrayal of an ever-more possible future
The Mercy Boys
by John Burnside
Scottish poet and novelist John Burnside is known for his disturbing and often
violent images exploring man's place within the natural world. In this, his second
novel, he follows four Dundee men through their dreams of escape from their
despairing, loveless and drink-sodden lives. When Rob, the most violent of the
quartet, murders his wife and her cousin in a jealous rage, he persuades the gentler
Alan to accompany him into hiding on the Argyll coast. Moments of insight are
gained into each of the four men as they briefly glimpse fragments of an
unattainable fulfilment and peace.
Possession
by A.S.Byatt
"Literary critics make natural detectives", says Maud Bailey, …the clues
lurk in university libraries, old letters and dusty journals. Maud
Bailey and fellow academic, Roland Michell, discover a love affair
between two Victorian writers that they have dedicated their lives to
studying: Randolph Ash, a ‘literary great’ long assumed to be a devoted
and faithful husband, and Christabel La Motte, a lesser- known poet and
chaste spinster. At first, their discovery threatens only to alter the direction
of their research, but as they unearth the truth about the long- forgotten
romance, their involvement becomes increasingly urgent and personal.
Desperately concealing their purpose from competing researchers, they
embark on a journey that pulls each of them from solitude and loneliness,
challenges the most basic assumptions they hold about themselves
12
Sleepers
by Lorenzo Carcaterra
The story of a group of four boys brought up in New York's notorious Mafia-run
"Hell's Kitchen" during the 1960s. After nearly causing a man's death, they are
sent to a reformatory where guards routinely brutalize them, leaving them with
nothing but an undying loyalty to one another.
True History of the Kelly Gang
by Peter Carey
Written in the first person, the reader is drawn into the world of Ned
Kelly, the famous Australian outlaw. Set in the desolate settler
communities north of Melbourne in the late 19th century, the novel is told
in the form of a journal, written by Ned Kelly, to a daughter he will never
see. As Kelly explains, "I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know
what it is to be raised on lies and silences my dear daughter you are
presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for
you” The novel chronicles the life of Ned Kelly from birth through to
becoming a legend as the Australian folk hero equivalent to Robin Hood .
Oscar and Lucinda
By Peter Carey
This novel tells the story of Oscar Hopkins, an Anglican priest,and Lucinda
Leplastrier, a young Australian heiress who buys a glass factory. They meet on
an ocean liner travelling to Australia in 1864, and discover that they are both
obsessive gamblers. Lucinda bets Oscar that he cannot transport a glass church
in one piece into the outback of New South Wales. This bet changes both their
lives forever. With beautifully drawn characters and a remarkably clever
narrative scheme, this is a tender love story about the two title characters, but
also a witty fable about the two great enthusiasms of the 19th century – religion
and science.
The Big Sleep
by Raymond Chandler
This is Raymond Chandler's first novel, published in 1939, and is
accepted as a classic crime novel. Set in Los Angeles, Philip Marlowe is a
Private Investigator hired by the Sternwood family to investigate a
blackmailing. The investigation develops from blackmail to murder as
Marlow becomes involved in the Los Angeles underworld. The title is a
euphemism for ‘death’ as it is referred to in the novel as “sleeping the big
sleep”.
13
The Wild Swans
by Jung Chang
Through the story of three generations of women - grandmother, mother
and daughter – ‘Wild Swans’ tells the tumultuous history of China's
tragic twentieth century, from sword-bearing warlords to Chairman Mao;
from the Manchu Empire to the Cultural Revolution. Wild Swans is a true
story which has all the passion and action of a great novel.
The Songlines
by Bruce Chatwin
The songlines are the invisible pathways that criss-cross Australia, ancient
tracks connecting communities and following ancient boundaries. Along these
lines Aboriginals passed the songs which revealed the creation of the land and
the secrets of its past. In this magical account, Chatwin recalls his travels across
the length and breadth of Australia seeking to find the truth about the songs and
unravel the mysteries of their stories.
The Girl with a Pearl Earring
by Tracey Chevalier
’Girl with a Pearl Earring’ centres on the artist, Vermeer's prosperous
household in Delft in the 1660s. The appointment of the quiet, servant girl,
Griet, gradually throws the household into turmoil as Vermeer and the girl
become increasingly close to each other, an intense situation that culminates in
her working for Vermeer as his assistant, and ultimately sitting for him as a
model. Chevalier deliberately cultivates a limpid, painstakingly observed style
in homage to Vermeer, and the complex domestic tensions of the Vermeer
household are vividly evoked.
Clear and Present Danger
by Tom Clancy
Operation Showboat’ is part of the US Government’s "war on drugs".
However, after the specially trained strike team is deployed in Colombia orders
are issued to terminate their plan and leave no traces. Several of America's most
highly trained soldiers are stranded in an unfinished mission that, according to
all records, never existed. Jack Ryan, CIA deputy director of intelligence,
decides to get the men out. Ultimately, Clear and Present Danger is about
moral conscience, law and politics, with Jack Ryan and CIA agent John Clark
as its dual heroes. Ryan relentlessly pursues what he knows is right and legal,
even if it means confronting the president of the United States. Clark is the
perfect soldier, but a man who ultimately values his men higher than the orders
of any careless commander
14
Disgrace
by J. M. Coetzee
‘Disgrace’ tells the story of a white university professor, David
Lurie, and his fall from grace in post-apartheid South Africa. The reader
follows his subsequent wanderings in search of some sort of resolution.
He goes to stay with his daughter who lives in a country district; and it is
through this relationship between Lurie and his daughter that the reader
realizes the terrible impossibility of white life in modern, black, South
Africa. His daughter's black neighbour clearly has designs on her property,
and although he offers help and stability, Lurie also sees him as the face of
the new realities. His daughter must either submit to these or leave.
‘Disgrace’ is beautifully written; it is a story about South Africa and its
people, a country torn apart by years of racial tension which cannot be
remedied simply by the abolition of privilege.
Youth
by J.M. Coetzee
‘Youth's narrator, a student in 1950s South Africa, has long
been
plotting an escape from his native country. Studying mathematics, reading
poetry, saving money, he tries to ensure that when he arrives in the real
world, he will be prepared to experience life to its full intensity, and
transform it into art. Arriving at last in London, however, he finds neither
poetry nor romance. Instead, he succumbs to the monotony of life as a
computer programmer. Devoid of inspiration, he stops writing and begins a
dark pilgrimage in which he is continually tested and continually found
wanting.
The Woman in White
by Wilkie Collins
Written in 1859, ‘The Woman in White’ is filled with mystery and
adventure. When the hero, Walter Hartright, on a moonlit night in North
London, encounters a solitary, terrified and beautiful woman dressed in
white, he feels impelled to solve the mystery of her distress. The
intricate plot continues at Hartright goes to work in the service of Mr.
Fairlie and so meets and falls in love with Laura who strongly resembles
the mysterious woman in white. .
Consider the Lilies
By Iain Crichton Smith
Set in the time of the Highland Clearances, the story is told through the
thoughts and memories of an old woman who has lived all her life within
the narrow confines of her community. Alone and bewildered by the
eviction demands of the factor, Patrick Sellar, she approaches the minister
for help, only to have her faith shattered by his hypocrisy. She finds
comfort, however, from a surprising source: Donald Macleod, a selfeducated man who has been ostracized by his neighbours, on account of his
atheism. Through him and through the circumstances forced upon her, the
old woman achieves new strength.
15
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
by Louis de Bernieres
It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to
the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is
ostracized by the locals, but as his main aim is to have a peaceful war, he
becomes friendly with the community and shares his love of music. He falls
in love with Pelagia, the doctor’s daughter. Love is complicated enough in
wartime, even when the lovers are on the same side, and for Corelli and
Pelagia, it becomes increasingly difficult to negotiate the minefield of
allegiances, both personal and political, as all around them atrocities mount,
former friends become enemies and the ugliness of war infects everyone it
touches.
Fasting, Feasting
by Anita Desai
‘Fasting, Feasting’ presents apparent opposites. It tells the story of Uma, the
plain older daughter of an Indian family, tied to the household of her childhood
and tending to her parents' every extravagant demand; and the story of her
younger brother, Arun, across the world in Massachusetts, bewildered by his
new life in college and the suburbs, where he lives with the Patton family. From
the overpowering warmth of Indian culture to the cool freedom of the American
family, it captures the physical and emotional aspects that form the delicate web
of family conflict in the two contrasting cultures
Giving Up on Ordinary
by Isla Dewar
A light-hearted story, told with humour about Meg, a single mum
who works as a cleaner to support her three children. The reader is
pulled into the family-life of Meg, as she decides that getting by is
somehow not enough any more and it’s time she gave up on being
ordinary.
Keeping up with Magda
by Isla Dewar
In the Scottish fishing village of Mareth, everyone knows
everything about each other and what they don't know they assume. At
the hub of this world is the Ocean Cafe, run by Magda, who makes
grown men eat their greens, won't serve customers she doesn't like, and
loves her children and their father with a passion. Jessie Tate,
devastated by recent tragedy, rents the flat above the cafe with the
intention of escaping from the city to the peace and solitude of a small
town. This dream is shattered as she is drawn into the hustle and
bustle of the small community.
16
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
by Philip K. Dick
World War Terminus had left the Earth devastated. Through its
ruins, bounty hunter Rick Deckard stalked, in search of the renegade
replicants who were his prey. When he wasn't 'retiring' them with his laser
weapon, he dreamed of owning a live animal - the ultimate status symbol in
a world all but bereft of animal life. Then Rick got his chance: the
assignment to kill six Nexus-6 targets, for a huge reward. But in Deckard's
world things were never that simple, and his assignment quickly turned into
a nightmare kaleidoscope of subterfuge and deceit.
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
‘Great Expectations’ appeared initially in serial form between 1860 - 61. A
terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild
Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and
her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella; the sudden generosity of a
mysterious benefactor - these form a series of events that change the
orphaned Pip's life forever, and he eagerly abandons his humble origins to
begin a new life as a gentleman. Dickens's haunting novel depicts Pip's
education and development through adversity as he discovers the true
nature of his 'great expectations'.
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens
‘Oliver Twist’ was published between 1837-8. Its central theme is the
hardship faced by the dispossessed and those on the outside of ‘polite’
society. The story follows the orphan, Oliver, who runs away from the
workhouse only to be taken in by a den of thieves. This tale of childhood
innocence beset by evil depicts the dark criminal underworld of a London
peopled by vivid and memorable characters - the arch-villain Fagin, the
Artful Dodger, the menacing Bill Sikes and the prostitute Nancy.
A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens
‘A Christmas Carol’ published in 1843 is tale of an old and bitter
miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, who undergoes a profound experience of
redemption over the course of one night. Mr. Scrooge has devoted his life
to the accumulation of wealth. He holds anything other than money in
contempt, including friendship, love and the Christmas. Only after he is
visited by the ghost of his former business partner, Marley, and he sees
visions of his past, present and future is he inspired to become a kind and
generous person.
17
A Gathering Light
by Jennifer Donnelly
The story is set in 1906, and the main character, Mattie, is working in a hotel
for the summer. When she is given a bundle of letters to burn she fully intends
to execute the wishes of the giver, Grace Brown. But, when Grace is found
drowned the next day in Big Moose Lake, Mattie finds that it is not as easy to
burn those letters as she had thought. As she reads the letters, a riveting story
emerges, not only Grace’s story but also Mattie’s hopes and ambitions for the
future and her relationships with her friends and family. Slowly the stories of
Grace and Mattie merge to one amazing conclusion as Mattie finds the courage
to make very important decisions.
Buddhada
by Anne Donovan
Anne Marie's Da, a Glaswegian painter and decorator, has always
been game for a laugh. So when he first takes up meditation at the Buddhist
Centre, no one takes him seriously But as he becomes more involved in a
search for the spiritual, his beliefs start to come into conflict with his
apparently happy family life, and the ensuing events change the lives of
each family member.
The House with Green Shutters
by George Brown Douglas
‘The House with the Green Shutters’ was published in 1901, and
was one of the first literary works to forego romance or adventure, and
instead focus attention on a realistic study of contemporary Scottish life.
The brutish John Gourlay is a merchant in the village of Barbie, envied
and resented by the villagers because of his success, which is symbolized
in his prestigious house with green shutters. He dominates and bullies
his family, in particular his sensitive, gifted but weak son. Ultimately, his
refusal to acknowledge the arrival of the railway and to adapt to the
increasing industrialization of the time, precipitates murder, suicide, and
his family’s tragic downfall.
Paddy Clarke, ha ha ha
by Roddy Doyle
This novel offers a wonderful insight into the world of 10-year-old Paddy
Clarke, who is the narrator of the story. The reader finds out what it was
like growing up and living life in the working class suburbs of Dublin in the
late 1960s. His family is central to his existence, and when his parents'
marriage falls apart, Paddy is increasingly troubled, by the fear that he will,
like friends Aidan and Charles, lose a parent. He loves both of his parents
dearly and tries desperately to intervene. Preoccupied and unhappy, he
plans to run away, but his father leaves first.
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The Woman who Walked into Doors
by Roddy Doyle
This is the heart-rending story of a woman struggling to reclaim her dignity
after a violent, abusive marriage and a worsening drink problem. Paula
Spencer recalls her contented childhood, the exhilaration of her romance
with Charlo, and the marriage to him that left her powerless. Capturing
both her vulnerability and her strength, Doyle gives Paula a voice that is
real and unforgettable.
The Barrytown Trilogy
by Roddy Doyle
Meet the Rabbitte family who live in Barrytown, Dublin. They are a motley bunch of
loveable ne'er-do-wells whose everyday life is rich with hangovers, family squabbles
and dirty dishes. Each book in the trilogy features a different member of the family as
the main character; and each book is told with humour, describing the realities of the
family members – stubborn, contrary, loving and aware of life’s absurdities, but most
of all always ready to be cheered by a good laugh.
Book 1: The Commitments
This funny, light-hearted novel tracks the brief existence of
The Commitments, a working-class Dublin band bent on
bringing soul to the people. Managed by Jimmy Rabitte Jnr,
coached by Joel 'The Lips' Fagan, the band develops by leaps
and bounds from performing in local community halls to
immortality on vinyl.
Book 2: The Snapper
When 19 year old, Sharon, announces her pregnancy, the family
are forced to rally together to give her support. Although there is
lots of gossip as to who the father of “the snapper” is, Sharon
refuses to tell his identity.
19
Book 3: The Van
Jimmy Rabbitte Snr. is unemployed and rapidly running out of
money. His best friend Bimbo has also been made redundant at
the company where he has worked for many years. The two old
friends are out of luck and out of options. That is, until Bimbo
finds a dilapidated 'chipper van' and the pair decide to go into
business.
Spell of Winter
by Helen Dunmore
Catherine and her brother, Rob, live an insular life with their Grandfather
in a big old house in the country during the First World War. The big
house seems haunted by whispers, silences and unanswered questions. One
winter, their sense of isolation and loneliness lends their love for each other
a new and dangerous bent. Without guidance or boundaries they struggle
with the moral and physical implications as they come to terms
with what they have done.
Rebecca
By Daphne Du Maurier
Working as a lady's companion, the heroine of Rebecca learns her
place. Life begins to look very bleak until, on a trip to the South of France,
she meets Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal
marriage takes her by surprise. She accepts, but whisked from glamorous
Monte Carlo to the ominous and brooding family home, ‘Manderley’, the
new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. The memory of his dead
wife Rebecca is forever kept alive by the forbidding housekeeper, Mrs
Danvers. Not since Jane Eyre has a heroine faced such difficulty with the
Other Woman. Rebecca is the haunting story of a young girl consumed by
love and the struggle to find her identity.
Mill on the Floss
by George Eliot
Set in the 1820s this is the story of Maggie Tulliver and her brother
Tom. Brought up at Dorlcote Mill on the banks of the river Floss,
Maggie is desperate to win the approval of her parents, but her
passionate, wayward nature and her fierce intelligence bring her into
constant conflict with her family. With its poignant portrayal of sibling
relationships, ’The Mill on the Floss’ published in 1860 is considered
George Eliot's most autobiographical novel; it is also one of her most
powerful and moving.
20
The Crimson Petal and the White
by Michel Faber
'Watch your step. Keep your wits about you; you will need them.
This city I am bringing you to is vast and intricate, and you have
not been here before.' So begins Michel Faber's astonishing novel, set
in Victorian London, he leads the reader through the filthy slum of St
Giles and introduces us to its inhabitants. The main character is Sugar, an
alluring, nineteen-year-old whore in the brothel of the terrifying Mrs
Castaway. Sugar yearns for a better life and her ascent through the strata
of 1870's London society introduces the reader to a host of characters as
she struggles to lift her body and soul out of the gutter.
Under the Skin
by Michel Faber
A brilliantly told and beautifully written novel,’Under the Skin’
introduces Isserley, a woman obsessed with picking up male hitchhikers
- so long as they're well-muscled and alone. As the novel unfolds and the
reason is made explicit, the reader is drawn inexorably into a completely
unexpected and increasingly terrifying world. The narrative is creepy,
faintly sinister and macabre, as well as, at times, very poignant. Like a bad
dream, this book terrifies, intrigues and refuses to disappear even after
finishing the last page - not for the faint-hearted.
Birdsong
by Sebastian Faulks
Set before and during the Great War, "Birdsong" captures the drama of that
era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young
Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of
traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the
family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experiences of the war
itself. This is a truly beautiful book depicting all the passions of a love
affair, before moving to the real hardships of war and the trauma and
suffering of life in the trenches.
The Girl at the Lion D’Or
by Sebastain Faulks
Set in France in the 1930s, the story is told around the life of Anne Louvet, a
waitress at a provincial hotel. Her love affair with a married Jewish lawyer
allows the author to treat major themes of conscience and guilt, of antiSemitism and the collapse of national morale in the period between the two
World Wars.
21
Charlotte Gray
by Sebastian Faulkes
‘Charlotte Gray’ is a haunting story of love and war set in London and
occupied France in 1942-3. Charlotte is a young Scottish woman who falls in
love with an airman, Peter Gregory. He disappears on a mission to France, and
when Charlotte is sent over to Europe, as a British secret courier, to support
the Resistance, she tries to find him. Working with the Resistance, she is also
drawn more and more into the lives of the people she is helping.
These three books by Sebastian Faulks, form what is referred to as
the ‘France Trilogy’. The character Charles Hartmann is common
to all three stories.
The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
This beautifully written novel tells the story of love, loss, betrayal and
emptiness. It is a portrayal of American upper middle class life during the
inter World War years. The story is narrated by Nick Carraway a
neighbour to Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire who throws lavish parties
where everybody who is anybody is seen, drinking, dancing and debating
his mysterious character. For Gatsby, although young, handsome, and
fabulously rich always seems alone in the crowd, watching and waiting.
Beneath the shimmering surface of his life he is hiding a secret: a silent
longing that can never be fulfilled. And soon this destructive obsession will
force his world to unravel.
Tender is the Night
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Between the First World War and the Wall Street Crash the French Riviera
was the stylish place for wealthy Americans to visit. Among the most
fashionable are the Divers, Dick and Nicole who hold court at
their villa. Into their circle comes Rosemary Hoyt, a film star, who is
instantly attracted to them, but understands little of the dark secrets and
hidden corruption that hold them together. As Dick draws closer to
Rosemary, he fractures the delicate structure of his marriage and sets both
Nicole and himself on to a dangerous path where only the
strongest can survive.
The Beginning of Spring
by Penelope Fitzgerald
The novel is set in Moscow in the year 1913. Frank Reid, an Englishman who
has spent most of his life in Russia, comes home after work to find that his wife
Nellie has mysteriously departed, by train, for England, apparently taking their
three children with her. But the three children turn up the next day, back in
Moscow, without their mother. From this point on, things start to become very
confusing for Frank. First, there is the matter of the drunken bear cub
ransacking a dining room. Then there is the break-in at the printing press and,
finally, there is the discomfiting attraction that Frank feels for Lisa Ivanovna the silent peasant girl he has hired to look after his children. In the end, nothing
is quite what it seemed.
22
Madame Bovary
by Gustave Flaubert
Flaubert’s portrayal of Emma Bovary caused a moral outcry on its
publication in 1857. Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her
marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life.
An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and
seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and,
eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment and
the consequences are devastating.
The Collector
by John Fowles
This is a compelling story of abduction and obsession. The title character is
Frederick, a butterfly collector, who decides to "collect”, an art student
named Miranda. Frederick keeps Miranda prisoner in a room in his
secluded basement. All he wants is for her to love him and, other than
keeping her prisoner, he treats her like a queen, fulfilling her every need or
want. The situation is seen first from the collector's point of view and then
from Miranda’s in the form of a diary which she keeps during her captivity.
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
by John Fowles
This novel is set in Victorian times and shows the social and class attitudes of
that period. However, Fowles constantly interrupts the narrative by making
authorial comments. The narrative action digresses back and forth from the
Victorian Age to the twentieth century in time. This is a novel set in the
nineteenth-century romantic literary genre but with a twentieth century
perspective. Charles Smithson is an amateur palaeontologist living on the
south-western coast of England. He is engaged to Ernestina, but is intrigued by
Sarah Woodruff, an enigmatic local governess, said to be pining for a French
Lieutenant who has misused her. Sarah remains ambiguous throughout the
novel and the reader is left uncertain as to whether she is manipulative and selfabsorbed or badly treated and depressed.
Headlong
by Michael Frayn
Art historian Martin Clay identifies a lost Bruegel painting in a tumble-down
country home. He decides to secure the painting for the nation and perhaps a
fortune for himself, without letting the owner discover its true value. There
follows much double-dealing as Martin and the owner try to outwit each other.
23
Cold Mountain
by Charles Frazier
Wounded in the Civil War, Inman, a Confederate soldier, turns his back on
the carnage of the battlefield and begins the treacherous journey home to
Cold Mountain, and to Ada, the woman he loved before the war began.
Told in two voices, the novel is set against the backdrop of the vast,
untamed American landscape. As Inman attempts to make his way across
the mountains, Ada struggles to make a living from the land that her father
left when he died. Neither knows if the other is still alive.The heart of the
story lies in their arduous journey both for survival and to find each other.
Billy
by Albert French
This novel is about death, racism, and injustice in the Deep South. The story
is set in the small town of Banes, Mississippi, 1937. ‘White folks live in the
town, black folks live in the Patch’. 10 year old Billy accidentally kills a
white girl. Despite Billy’s speedy arrest, white vigilantes storm through the
Patch bringing violence and destruction. Even though the Sheriff concedes
that "that boy ain't got the slightest idea what he done," Billy is charged
with first-degree murder, tried as an adult, sentenced to death and
electrocuted.
I Can’t Wait on God
by Albert French
Told over the course of five summer days and nights in 1950, "I Can't Wait on
God" pursues the themes of beauty, humility, and what is truly precious in our
lives. There are two slender, essentially unrelated story lines that emerge from the
rhythms and harsh details of back-alley life in Pittsburgh. Willet Mercer and her
boyfriend, Jeremiah Henderson, strike out for New York with a bankroll and a
Buick that belonged to a pimp she has murdered, but she insists that they first
head for North Carolina to find the child she abandoned years ago. The second
story concerns Mack Jack, a saxophone player who fears he has lost his musical
ability. French poignantly captures Mack's frustration as he wanders the
neighbourhood in a stoic daze, trying to get his nerve back.
24
Clara
by Janice Galloway
Reaching her prime before the dawn of recorded sound, Clara Schumann is now
sadly only known by report as the perfect champion of her husband Robert's
music, an acclaimed virtuoso pianist who had her own international career in
European concert halls in the latter half of the 19th century. The bare bones of her
biography however hint at hidden depths: the mother, who left her husband and
daughter for another man; the father, who nurtured Clara’s career singlemindedly; the marriage, violently opposed by her father, to Robert Schumann,
who soon fell into depression, ending his short life in an asylum. Janice Galloway
has taken full advantage of the raw materials of the first half of this extraordinary
saga, to produce a rich and compelling fictional life.
Foreign Parts
by Janice Galloway
This is the tale of Rona and Cassie, two women on a driving holiday in
northern France. It is an unsentimental, caustic and funny account of
mortality and dysfunctional relationships; exploring not only the breaking
and making ups that are part of their daily routine, but also, through snapshot
flashbacks to other holidays, interpreting Cassie's disastrous relationships
with men.
The Trick is to Keep Breathing
by Janice Galloway
The novel opens with a woman watching herself from the corner of a
darkened room. Immediately, the reader is swept up into the heroine's
confused psychology. Alone in her flat, the woman (ironically named
"Joy") sits quietly in the dark, nervously checking the clock, jumping at the
shrill ring of the telephone. The reader learns through a series of flashbacks
that the twin deaths of her married lover and her mother have brought her to
this state of intense neurosis: "I don't feel as if I'm really here at all".
Fragmented sentences and an irregular typography help to capture her
deepening sense of dislocation and bewilderment.
The Beach
by Alex Garland
Late at night in a seedy hotel, Richard is drawn into a strange conversation
with a fellow guest. Through a narrow strip of mosquito netting he hears for
the first time of a secret beach, an island Garden of Eden, hidden somewhere
in the scattered islands of a Thai marine park. The next morning, Richard finds
a map pinned to his door, and the man who put it there has slashed his wrists.
The challenge is irresistible, and Richard sets off on a perilous journey in
search of Shangri-La.
25
A Scots Quair
by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
This is a trilogy published in the early 1930s, this is the story
of tenant farmers, working on the land in the Mearns, the north
east of Scotland, at the beginning of the 20th century. Chris
Guthrie, torn between her love of the land and her desire to
escape the narrow horizons of the farming community, is the
thread that links the three novels. The personal joys and
sorrows of Chris’ life are interwoven with the great historical
and political events of the time.
Book 1: Sunset Song - covers the early years of the century,
including the First World War. Chris survives, with her son
Ewan, but tragedy has struck and her wild spirit subdued.
Book 2: Cloud Howe – as the minister’s wife, Chris learns to
love again and the reader witnesses the cruel gossip and high
comedy of small village life until once again, Chris suffers a
terrible loss.
Book 3: Grey Granite – focuses on her son Ewan and his passionate involvement with justice for the
common man.
Running through the stories is the concept that only the ever-changing land can endure, and only Chris,
who is simultaneously connected to the land and distanced from it, can fully realise this.
Cold Comfort Farm
by Stella Gibbons
Published in 1932, this novel is a funny, tongue in cheek story about life on a
farm. Flora, recently orphaned at the age of 20, comes to live with her relatives
who live in a neglected, ramshackle farm in Sussex. On the farm, the family lives
a strange life. They still wash the dishes with twigs, and have cows named
Graceless and Pointless. Confronted with their dismal and gloomy existence,
Flora sets about trying to put things to right.
Memoirs of a Geisha
by Arthur Golden
The novel reads as a transcript of the memoirs of a genuine geisha, as told to
an American professor of Japanese history. Gradually an extraordinary story
unfolds, revealing the tragic, touching tale of the transformation of Chiyo, the
daughter of a poor fisherman, into Sayuri, a renowned and much sought-after
geisha in Kyoto in the 1930s. The story, told without sentimentality, delves
beneath the glamorous, erotic facade of these immaculate women constrained
by centuries of tradition, rules and regulations, to expose the grim reality of
their lives.
26
Lord of the Flies
by William Golding
This is the compelling story about a group of very ordinary small boys
marooned on a coral island. At first it seems as though it is all going to be
great fun; but the fun before long becomes furious and life on the island
turns into a nightmare of panic and death. As ordinary standards of
behaviour collapse, the whole world the boys know collapses with them the world of cricket, homework and adventure stories - and another world is
revealed beneath, primitive and terrible.
Goodbye to All That
by Robert Graves
In 1929 Robert Graves went to live abroad permanently, vowing
'never to make England my home again'. This is his superb account of his
life up until that 'bitter leave-taking': from his childhood and desperately
unhappy school days at Charterhouse, to his time serving as a young officer
in the First World War that was to haunt him throughout his life. It also
contains memorable encounters with fellow writers and poets, including
Siegfried Sassoon and Thomas Hardy. "Goodbye to All That", with its
vivid, harrowing descriptions of the Western Front, is a classic war
document.
Lanark: a life in four books
by Alasdair Gray
"Lanark", is a modern vision of Hell, set in the disintegrating cities of Unthank
and Glasgow, and tells the interwoven stories of Lanark and Duncan Thaw.
The novel begins with Book 3, has a prologue halfway through, and also
includes a long index of plagiarisms in the middle of a discussion between the
author and his lead character. Books 3 and 4 are about Lanark, a man who
arrives by train in a strange town. Having no name, he takes one from a
photograph he saw on the compartment wall. The city has no daylight and the
inhabitants do no work, living off subsistence-level grants from an unseen
power. The novel later moves back to Glasgow just after the war, where the
reader meets Thaw (who it would appear is Lanark in a previous incarnation)
for Books 2 and 3. A work of extraordinary imagination and wide range, its unusual narrative
techniques convey a profound message, both personal and political, about humankind's inability to
love, and yet our compulsion to go on trying.
Brighton Rock
by Graham Greene
Set in 1930s, a gang war is raging through the dark underworld of Brighton.
Seventeen-year-old Pinkie has killed a man. Believing he can escape retribution,
he is unprepared for the courageous, life-embracing Ida Arnold. Greene's
gripping thriller exposes a world of loneliness and fear, of life lived on the
'dangerous edge of things'.
27
Our Man in Havana
by Graham Greene
'Our man in Havana' takes place in the humidity and depravity of cold war
Cuba, and focuses on a vacuum cleaner salesman, Mr. Wormold, who, to his
own bewilderment, is employed by the British Secret Service to be their eyes
and ears on the island. To keep the job, Wormold pretends to recruit subagents and sends fake stories. Then as the stories start becoming disturbingly
true, his world spirals into chaos and his every action plunges him and his
daughter into further danger.
Electric Brae
by Andrew Greig
The story, subtitled ‘A modern romance’, is set in the 1980s. This is a
beautifully written novel about passionate love, obsession and betrayal which
are played out around the mountains of Scotland and beyond, and the sense of
Scottish identity is central to the novel. The ‘modern romance’ is between a
young talented artist, Kim and Jimmy, a North Sea roughneck, engineer and
climber.
The Return of John Macnab
by Andrew Greig
Three friends decide to revive the legendary challenge of the famous, poacher,
John Macnab (novel by John Buchan).The novel starts with the challenge being
published in ‘The Scotsman’ – “… to take a salmon or a brace of grouse or a
deer, from the estates of Mavor, Inchallian and Balmoral … during the last
three weeks of August” - and so the adventure begins. The reader is taken at
great pace up and down the hills and moors of the Highlands as the friends try
to complete their challenge without being caught.
That Summer
by Andrew Greig
It is late June in the summer of 1940, when Len Westbourne, an inexperienced
fighter pilot falls in love with Stella Gardam, a radar operator. They are all too
aware that their time together may be short as the War edges towards the epic air
battle - The Battle of Britain. Told in intimate, alternate chapters from the
perspectives of Len and Stella, ‘That Summer’ is a classic love story.
28
When They Lay Bare
by Andrew Greig
A mysterious young woman moves into deserted Crawhill Cottage in the
Borders. The cottage has been empty since the violent deaths of its inhabitants
more than 20 years ago. She brings with her a set of antique plates which tell the
story of one of the Border Ballads, a story from which she hopes to discover the
secret behind events from her own past. Old voices and feuds haunt the telling,
as the lives of those on the estate are stirred up by her arrival.
The Silver Darlings
by Neil Gunn
Set in Caithness, at the time when the people have been uprooted from their
traditional lifestyle of crofting by The Clearances and have re-established
themselves by the sea, which they harvest as once they did the land. The
community slowly develops a bond with the sea, which is at first tentative
and unskilled, but which grows in confidence through the exploits and risktaking of men like Roddie and, later, Finn. Eventually, financial security
returns to the community with the dawning of the Herring Fisheries, the
fishing creels spilling with herring, the silver darlings of the title. This story
paints a vivid picture of a community fighting against nature and history,
and refusing to be crushed.
Snow Falling on Cedars
by David Guterson
In 1954 a fisherman is found dead in the nets of his boat, and a local JapaneseAmerican man is charged with his murder. In the course of his trial, it becomes
clear that what is at stake is more than one man's guilt. For on San Piedro,
memory grows as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and a Japanese girl.
Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese
residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile
while its neighbours watched. ‘Snow Falling on Cedars’ is a testament to the
pointlessness of war, the duality of the nature of love and, above all, to the power
to humanity to do the right thing in the end
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon
Christopher is 15 and lives in Swindon with his father. Christopher has
Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism. He is obsessed with maths, science and
Sherlock Holmes but finds it hard to understand other people. When he
discovers a dead dog on a neighbour's lawn he decides to solve the mystery and
write a detective thriller about it. As in all good detective stories, however, the
more he unearths, the deeper the mystery gets - for both Christopher and the
rest of his family.
29
The Maltese Falcon
by Dashiell Hammett
A classic crime novel, published in 1930, Sam Spade is the quintessential
private eye, notable for his cold detachment, keen eye for detail, and
unflinching determination to achieve his own justice. He is the man who
has seen the wretched, the corrupt, the tawdry side of life but still retains
his "tarnished idealism". He is hired by Miss Wonderley to track down her
sister, who has eloped with a man called Floyd Thursby. When Spade's
partner Miles Archer is shot while on Thursby's trail, Spade finds himself
both hunter and hunted.
Far from the Madding Crowd
by Thomas Hardy
Published in 1874, Hardy’s novel tells the tale of Bathsheba Everdene who has
come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in
the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentlemanfarmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd
Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates
her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community.
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
by Thomas Hardy
Young Tess Durbeyfield attempts to restore her family's fortunes by claiming
their connection with the aristocratic d'Urbervilles. But Alec d'Urberville is a
rich wastrel who seduces her and makes her life miserable. When Tess meets
Angel Clare, she is offered true love and happiness, but her past catches up with
her and she faces an agonizing moral choice. Hardy's indictment of society's
double standards, and his depiction of Tess as 'a pure woman', caused public
controversy when he published the novel in 1891.
Chocolat
by Joanne Harris
Vianne Rocher and her daughter, arrive in the French village of
Lansquenet and opens a chocolate shop directly opposite the church,
Father Reynaud identifies her as a serious danger to his flock - especially as
it is the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial. Vianne's
shop-cum-cafe means that there is now somewhere in the village for secrets
to be whispered, grievances to be aired, dreams to be tested. But Vianne's
plans for an Easter Chocolate Festival divide the whole community in a
conflict that escalates into a 'Church not Chocolate' battle. This is a lighthearted, funny story about a small community.
30
Fatherland
by Robert Harris
“Fatherland" is set in an alternative world where Hitler has won the Second
World War. It is April 1964 and one week before Hitler's 75th birthday,
Xavier March, a detective of the Kriminalpolizei, is called out to
investigate the discovery of a dead body in a lake near Berlin's most
prestigious suburb. As March discovers the identity of the body, he
uncovers signs of a conspiracy that could go to the very top of the German
Reich.
The Go-Between
by L.P. Hartley
Set in the summer of 1900, young Leo Colston is staying with a school-friend at
Brandham Hall, when he begins to act as a messenger, between Ted, the farmer,
and Marian, the beautiful young woman up at the Hall. The reader is shown the
events from two different perspectives - one of Leo as a man in his 60's, looking
back on the fateful summer and how it affected the rest of his life; and the other
through the eyes of Leo as a 12 year old, wrestling with new issues of class, social
obligation, friendship, morality, and love, while inadvertently causing a disaster.
Catch 22
by Joseph Heller
This novel, first published in 1961, is a satirical indictment of military madness
and stupidity, and the desire of the ordinary man to survive it. It is a tale of the
dangerously sane Captain Yossarian, who spends his time in Italy plotting to
survive. The ‘catch’ which gives the book its title, states that a man can be
exempted from bombing missions if he is mad, but that the desire to be exempted
is proof that he is sane.
Farewell to Arms
by Ernest Hemmingway
This is a semi-autobiographical story of a young American Lieutenant who
volunteered for ambulance service in Italy, in World War I. Hemingway's
description of war is unforgettable. He recreates the fear, the comradeship, the
courage of his young American volunteer and the men and women he meets in
Italy with total conviction. It is also a love story.
31
For Whom the Bell Tolls
by Ernest Hemingway
The novel, published in 1940, is told primarily through the thoughts of Robert
Jordan, a young American who has travelled to Spain to join the International
Brigade, during the time of the Spanish Civil War. An expert in the use of
explosives, Jordan is attached to an anti-facist guerilla unit , led by a
disillusioned republican called Pablo. Jordan meets, and falls in love with,
María, a young Spanish woman whose life has been shattered by the outbreak
of the war. The novel describes events which demonstrate the incredible
brutality of civil war.
The Dune Trilogy
by Frank Herbert
Book 1: Dune
Book 2: Dune Messiah
Book 3: Children of Dune
The Trilogy tells the story of life on a desert planet called Arrakis, the focus of an intricate
power struggle in an interstellar empire. Arrakis is the sole source of Melange, the "spice of
spices," which is necessary for interstellar travel and grants psychic powers and longevity, so
whoever controls it wields great influence. In book 1, the troubles start when Duke Atreides
and his family take up court; they fall into a trap set by a rival, and the Duke is poisoned, but
his wife and her son Paul escape to the vast deserts of Arrakis, which have given the planet its
nickname of Dune. Paul and his mother join the Fremen, desert people who have learnt to live
in this harsh environment. The Fremen form the basis of the army with which Paul will
reclaim what's rightfully his. Paul Atreides, though, is far more than just a usurped duke. He
might be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a super
human; he might be a messiah. Paul's destiny was mapped out long ago and his mother is
committed to seeing it fulfilled. (Book 2)
In the ‘Children of Dune’, the sand-blasted world of Arrakis has become green, watered and
fertile and Old Paul Atreides, is gone. But for the children of Dune, the very blossoming of
their land contains the seeds of its own destruction. The altered climate is destroying the giant
sandworms, and this in turn is disastrous for the planet's economy. Paul’s children, can see
possible solutions - but fanatics begin to challenge the rule of the all-powerful Atreides
Empire, and disaster threatens.
32
Fever Pitch
by Nick Hornby
This is the recollections of a football fan, looking back over his obsession with
Arsenal. It started when he was eleven years old and is chronicled from 1968 up
until 1992. Through adolescence years to adulthood, the author examines the
absurdities and traumas of everyday life and football. This is a funny, lighthearted novel where the main character attends every match, home or away,
regardless of best friends' weddings, jobs and much else beside.
High Fidelity
by Nick Hornby
Rob is good on music: he owns a small record shop and has strong views on
what's decent and what isn't. But he's much less good on relationships. In fact,
he's not at all sure that he wants to commit himself to anyone. So it's hardly
surprising that his girlfriend decides that enough is enough. Once she dumps
Rob, however, everything in his life feels like its going to collapse and Rob
is forced to ask himself how he landed in such a mess. Naturally, he has no
idea, so he proceeds to look up his ex-girlfriends - all the way back to high
school - and ask them why things never worked out - a funny and good-natured
look at a young man’s life and relationships.
The Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini
Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting
tournament, to prove that he has the makings of a man. His friend
Hassan helps by being his faithful ‘kite-runner’. But this is 1970s
Afghanistan and Hassan is merely a low-caste servant who is jeered at in
the street. Neither of the boys could foresee what would happen to
Hassan on the afternoon of the tournament, an incident which was to
shatter their lives and friendship. After the Russians invade Amir and his
father flee to America. As Amir grows up in the safety of America, he
realizes that one day he must return to the dangers of Afghanistan to
redeem himself through loyalty to his childhood friend.
A Thousand Splendid Suns
by Khaled Hosseini
The reader is taken into the private world of three generations living
through the tumultuous events of the past decades in Afghanistan from the
Soviet occupation through to the ousting of the Taliban. In particular the
story of two women struggling to retain their dignity while at the mercy of a
world controlled by men, about ordinary people trying to get on with their
lives as the world as they know it falls apart around them.
33
Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley
. Published in 1932, ‘Brave New World’ is set far into the future, London
2540AD. The World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever
use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its
members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx alone seems to be harbouring an
ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage
Reservations where the old, imperfect life still continues may be the cure for his
distress.
A Prayer for Owen Meany
by John Irving
Eleven-year-old Owen Meany, playing in a Little League baseball game in
Gravesend, New Hampshire, hits a foul ball and kills his best friend's mother.
Owen doesn't believe in accidents; he believes that he is God's instrument.
What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul is both extraordinary and terrifying.
At moments a comic, self-deluded victim, but in the end the principal tragic
actor in a divine plan.
Remains of the Day
by Kashio Ishiguru
An elderly butler's obsession with the dignity of his profession is shaken on a
five day West Country motoring trip in the 1950s the climax of which is a
meeting with his former housekeeper Miss Kenton. During the course of the
narrative, he recalls in compelling and vivid detail his service in the 1930s, and
the painful realization that the man he served and respected was a Nazi
sympathizer. The unrealized love between Stevens and Miss Kenton
underscores the novels atmosphere of chastening loss. Ishiguro's work captures
this period of British history while painting a complex picture of a proud,
ageing man.
When We were Orphans
by Kashio Ishiguru
Set in England in the 1930s, Christopher Banks, the main character of the story,
has dedicated his life to detective work but behind his successes lies one
unsolved mystery: the disappearance of his parents when he was a small boy
living in the International Settlement in Shanghai. Moving between England
and China in the inter-war period, the book, encompassing the turbulence and
political anxieties of the time and the crumbling certainties of a Britain deeply
involved in the opium trade in the East, centres on Banks' idealistic need to
make sense of the world through the small victories of detection and his need to
understand finally what happened to his mother and father.
34
The Turn of the Screw
by Henry James
Written in 1898, this is a ghost story, set in a country home in England, during
the 1840s - a tale about a governess who was employed to look after two young
children. . The governess begins to see two ghosts, which she believes are the
previous governess and her lover. She thinks these ghosts are meaning to harm
the children. The children claim to not be able to see any ghosts and the rest of
the household staff are equally bemused. Were it not for the fact that the
housekeeper can identify them from the governess's descriptions, one might be
tempted to think that the governess is hallucinating.
Washington Square
by Henry James
With sharply focused attention upon just four principal characters, the author
provides an acute analysis of middle-class manners and behaviour in the New
York of the 1840s. Published in 1880, the story follows the plight of an
innocent heiress who is deceived by the looks and charm of a worthless suitor.
At the same time she is striving to be loyal to a cold and forbidding father.
The Changeling
by Robin Jenkins
Set in the 1950s, thirteen-year-old Tom Curdie, is on probation for theft. His
teachers admit that he is clever, but only one, Charles Forbes, sees a warmth in
his reticence and in his seemingly insolent smile. So he decides to take Tom on
holiday with his own family. Tom comes from one of the worst slum areas of
Glasgow and with this holiday he is shown a life that he can never have and as
a result his own becomes unbearable in contrast. While Tom wonders how he
can ever go back, Charlie Forbes' own family deteriorates with the presence of
Tom. This powerful novel explores the theme of how goodness and innocence
is compromised when faced with the pressures of growing up and becoming
part of society.
The Cone Gatherers
by Robin Jenkins
Calum and Neil are the cone-gatherers - two brothers at work in the forest of
a large Scottish estate. But the harmony of their life together is shadowed by
the dark obsessive hatred of Duror, the gamekeeper. Set during the Second
World War, this novel examines the power of good and evil, and mankind's
propensity for both. With its themes of class-conflict, war, evil and envy,
"The Cone-Gatherers" is as relevant today as it was when it was first
published in 1955.
35
The Dubliners
by James Joyce
‘The Dubliners’ is a collection of 15 short stories, which were first
published in 1914. Together they reflect life in early twentieth-century
Dublin, as each of the stories offers a glimpse into the lives of ordinary
Dubliners. The book, which begins and ends with a death, moves from
"stories of my childhood" through tales of public life. Its larger purpose,
Joyce said, was as a moral history of Ireland
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by James Joyce
The novel charts the intellectual, moral, and sexual development of Stephen
Dedalus, from his childhood, through his schooldays and adolescence to the
brink of adulthood and independence, and his awakening as an artist.
Growing up in a Catholic family in Dublin in the final years of the
nineteenth century, Stephen's consciousness is forged by Irish history and
politics, by Catholicism and culture, language and art. Stephen's story
mirrors that of Joyce himself. Its originality shocked contemporary readers
on its publication in 1916.
Metamorphosis
by Franz Kafka
This short story about alienation and disoriented anxiety was published in
1915. Gregor Samsa awakes one morning to find that he has been
inexplicably transformed into a giant insect. His parents and his sister
Grete try to rouse him so he can make it to his dreary job as a travelling
salesman as they depend on him financially. Gregor, however, is now a
bug.
The sheer straightforwardness of the narrative has challenged many
readers to search for the hidden meanings lurking beneath its surface.
When Kafka read the story to his circle of companions in Prague, they
laughed out loud--as did he. This is certainly a stark brand of comedy, but laughter has long been a way
of coping with life's absurd afflictions.
How Late it was, How Late
by James Kelman
Sammy's had a bad week - his wallet has gone, along with his new shoes, he's
been arrested then beaten up by the police and thrown out on the street - and
he's just gone blind. He remembers a row with his girlfriend, but she seems to
have disappeared. Things aren't looking too good for Sammy and his problems
have hardly begun. . This novel is a grim tale recounting a week in the life of
the narrator, Sammy, an ex-convict. The author's aim is to give an authentic
voice to working class Scotland and to this end the novel is written in
Glaswegian vernacular.
36
Everything you need
by A. L. Kennedy
This is the story of Nathan Staples, a novelist who lives in a writer's colony
where he dreams of reunion with his estranged wife, Maura, and his daughter,
Mary, who he's not seen for 15 years. Nathan contrives to have Mary, now 19,
invited to join the colony where he can mentor her literary progress without
telling her who he is. Mary, an independent young woman, has been lovingly
raised by an extraordinary gay couple and is more than able to withstand
Nathan's bullying and possessiveness. Kennedy brilliantly teases out the
dilemmas and dramas of his attempts to redeem himself.
Original Bliss
by A. L. Kennedy
The stories collected in ‘Original Bliss’ are concerned, appropriately, with
the complexities of sex and the lack of it. In the long novella that gives the
book its title, Helen Brindle thinks she has lost God- but it is simply love
that she's missing. She can't find it at home, with the violent, deadly Mr.
Brindle; but will she find it in Stuttgart when she meets the enigmatic
Edward E. Gluck? This story is a beautiful and terrifying examination of
passion and of the aching need for completion and healing.
On the Road
by Jack Kerouac
Now recognized as a modern classic, ‘On the Road’ swings to the rhythms of
1950s American Beat Generation, - jazz, sex, and drugs. It is a largely
autobiographical work that was written as a stream of consciousness
creation—based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac and his friends
across mid-twentieth-century America.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
by Ken Kesey
Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially
the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling,
fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. The reader sees the struggle
through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half- Indian patient
who witnesses and understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with
the awesome powers that keep them all imprisoned. What follows is at once
hilarious and heroic, tragic and ultimately liberating.
37
Another Time, Another Place
by Jessie Kesson
It is the story of a small crofting village in Scotland during
the Second
World War, and its reaction to the temporary housing of three Italian Prisoners
of War within their intimate community. Kesson illustrates issues of language,
community, love, war, and deftly characterises a woman who desires to escape
her mundane existence but is forced to realise that her dream of another life can
never materialise. This is a haunting tale of love and war.
The White Bird Passes
by Jessie Kesson
‘The White Bird Passes’ tells the moving story of a young girl’s experiences as
she passes from the city streets into a bleak life in an orphanage in Scotland
during the 1920s. The story offers a stark and haunting account of the
deprivations and poverty of its central character Janie, and uses as its raw
material Kesson's own childhood hardship, her mother's recourse to
prostitution, her unknown father, and her being taken into care in an orphanage .
Schindler’s Ark
by Thomas Keneally
Based on a true story, this novel tells of the determination, strength and
courage in the face of adversity of Oscar Schindler. During World War II, he
was a German businessman and Nazi party member, wealthy and successful;
he decided to set up a factory in Poland producing supplies for the German
army in Russia. He is an entrepreneur, with a passion for money and a life of
luxury. As the story progresses and he witnesses atrocities and acts of
inhumanity towards the Jews, he uses his own money to bribe the SS and
Police and to buy Jews to work for him, thus saving them from a very
uncertain future in the hands of the SS. This is a moving and heartbreaking
story.
The Secret Life of Bees
by Sue Monk Kidd
Set in rural South Carolina in 1964 against the back drop of the civil rights
movement the narrator of this novel is, Lily, a fourteen year old girl, who has
grown up unloved and believing that she accidentally killed her mother at the
age of four. Neglected by her father, Lily has a lonely existence. All she has
left of her mother is a box containing a few mementos, among them a picture
of a Black Madonna, inscribed with the words, "Tiburon, S.C." Lily runs away
from home and travels to Tiburon, South Carolina, where she is taken in by a
trio of middle-aged black women who are sisters, as well as beekeepers, Lily is
introduced to the secret life of bees and begins to learn some important life
lessons.
38
The Football Factory
by John King
A collection of linked stories, "The Football Factory" centres on Vince
Matthews, a seasoned Chelsea hooligan who represents a disaffected society
operating by appalling rules. A mixture of social degradation, unemployment,
racism, excessive drink and casual violence - the facts of life - but also how
they fall into a political context of surveillance, media manipulation and
division.
The Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver
The novel is set in the Belgian Congo, in 1959. Nathan, a Baptist preacher, has
come with his family to work as a missionary in a remote village reachable only
by airplane. To say that he and his family are woefully unprepared would be an
understatement: "We came from Bethlehem, Georgia, bearing Betty Crocker
cake mixes into the jungle," says Leah, one of Nathan's four daughters. But of
course it isn't long before they discover that the tremendous humidity has
rendered the mixes unusable, their clothes are unsuitable and they've arrived in
the middle of political upheaval as the Congolese seek to wrest independence
from Belgium. In addition to poisonous snakes, dangerous animals, and the
hostility of the villagers to Nathan's fiery take-no-prisoners brand of
Christianity, there are also rebels in the jungle and the threat of war in the air.
The Rainbow
by D. H. Lawrence
Published in 1915, ‘The Rainbow’ was condemned and suppressed on first
publication for its open treatment of sexuality and its ‘unpatriotic’ spirit. The
novel chronicles three generations of the Brangwen family over a period of
more than sixty years. Ursula Brangwen becomes the focus of the author’s
examination of relationships and the conflicts they bring, as she struggles to
assert her individuality and to stand separate from her family.
Women in Love
by D.H. Lawrence
This book, published in 1920, is a sequel to ‘The Rainbow’. The novel
follows the relationships of two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun, living in a
Midland colliery town in the years before the First World War. Ursula falls
in love with Birking (a thinly disguised portrait of Lawrence himself) and
Gudrun has an intense but tragic affair with Gerald, the son of a local colliery
owner.
39
The Constant Gardener
by John Le Carre
The themes of betrayal and danger are explored in this gripping story. The main
character, Justin Quayle, is a British diplomat whose job in the British High
Commission in Nairobi is to monitor the efficiency at which international aid is
reaching the intended recipients, the poor and starving. When Quayle's wife is
killed, his investigation of her murder leads him into a murky web of
exploitation and corruption, involving Kenyan government officials and a
major pharmaceutical company. As Quayle looks deeper into the company
which his wife had been investigating, the life that he has carefully built around
him begins to crumble.
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
Set in the town of Maycomb, Alabama during the Depression, ‘To Kill a
Mockingbird’’ tells the tale of the Finch family: widower father Atticus, young
son Jem and younger daughter Scout. Atticus, an attorney, has been appointed
to represent Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping a 19-year-old girl
named Mayall Ewell. Since Tom is black and Mayall is white, guilt is assumed
by most of the town and the trial a mere formality. The truth plays little part.
The story is told through the eyes of the eight year old daughter, ‘Scout’.
If This is a Man
by Primo Levi
Primo Levi's book is an eyewitness account of what went on not just within the
fences of Auschwitz but within the minds and hearts of the human beings trapped
inside. The author tells a story with its characters and settings but most of all he
shows how even in the suffering that was the order of the day in the camp, he
keeps his human dignity and does not resort to any kind of retribution. Primo
Levi's great lesson is that what the Jews went through in the camp teaches us that
one can destroy the body but not the spirit of man. Levi's simplicity of narration
and language are disarmingly effective in conveying this profound message.
Small Island
by Andrea Levy
It is 1948 in an England still shaken by war. In London, Queenie Bligh
takes into her house lodgers who have recently arrived from Jamaica.
Among her tenants are Gilbert and his new wife Hortense. Gilbert Joseph
was one of the several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to
fight against Hitler. Returning to England after the war he finds himself
treated very differently now that he is no longer in a blue uniform.
Queenie's neighbours do not approve of her choice of tenants. Through the
stories of these people, ‘Small Island’ explores a point in England's past
when the country began to change.
40
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
by Marina Lewycka
“Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a
glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four and she was
thirty-six.” Two sisters must put aside a lifetime of feuding to save their
father from marrying voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. But the sisters’
campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets, uncovers fifty
years of Europe’s darkest history and sends them back to roots
that they’d much rather forget!
Private Angelo
by Eric Linklater
Private Angelo has a talent for survival rather than combat – although he
possesses the virtues of love and an engaging innocence, he lacks the gift of
courage. He is a private in Mussolini's 'ever-glorious' Italian army in World
War II, however, due to circumstances beyond his control, he ends up
fighting not only for Italy, but also for the British and German armies,
demonstrating that honor is not solely the preserve of the brave.
Angela’s Ashes
by Frank McCourt
This novel is a recollection of the author's miserable childhood in the
slums of Limerick, Ireland, during the Depression and WW II. McCourt
was born in Brooklyn in 1930 but returned to Ireland with his family at
the age of four. He describes, not without humour, scenes of hunger,
illness, filth, and deprivation. His "shiftless loquacious alcoholic
father," rarely worked; and when he did he usually drank his wages,
leaving his wife, Angela, to beg from local churches and charity
organizations.
Twelve
by Nick McDonnell
This novel tells the story of a fictional drug called Twelve and its
devastating effects on the beautiful rich and desperate poor of New York
City. A bleak Manhattan midwinter and a group of wealthy teenagers, left
to their own devices by disregarding parents, delve into the excesses of
drugs, sex and the most chilling acts of violence imaginable. The author
tightly coils the central theme of the novel around the build up to a
climactic New Year’s Eve party.
41
Atonement
by Ian MacEwan
A rare insight into how a child's imagination can warp the events of everyday
life. When 13 year old Briony Tallis misinterprets an event by the garden
fountain between her older sister and the housekeeper's son, it leads her to
make a terrible accusation and put an innocent man in jail. Her talent for
fantasy starts a chain of events that will dramatically change the lives of
many and haunt her for more than sixty years.
Enduring Love
by Ian MacEwan
One windy spring day in the Chilterns Joe Rose's calm, organized life is
shattered when he is involved in a ballooning accident in which a boy is
saved but a man is killed. The afternoon, Joe reflects, could have
nded in mere tragedy, but for his brief meeting with a fellow rescuer, Jed
Parry. Jed develops an instant obsession so powerful that he makes the first
of many telephone calls to Joe and Clarissa's London flat that very night.
Soon he's openly shadowing Joe and writing him endless letters. The
obsession, will test Joe’s lifestyle to the limit, threaten the love of his wife
Clarissa and drive him to the brink of murder and madness.
First Love, Last Rites
by Ian MacEwan
This is a collection of short stories which are taut, brooding and densely
atmospheric. These stories show the reader the ways in which murder can arise
out of boredom, perversity can result from adolescent curiosity, and sheer evil
might be the solution to unbearable loneliness.
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things
by Jon McGregor
On a street in a town in the North of England, ordinary people are going
through the motions of their everyday existence - street cricket, barbecues,
painting windows. A young man is in love with a neighbour who does not even
know his name. An old couple make their way up to the nearby bus stop. It's the
last day of summer and, against this backdrop of ordinariness, something quite
terrible and astonishing is about to take place. No one in the street who
witnesses it will ever be the same again.
42
Docherty
by William McIlvanney
The novel begins with the birth of Conn, the youngest child of miner Tam
Docherty, at the end of 1903 in the West of Scotland mining town of
Graithnock. Though much of the action is seen through Conn’s eyes, the
novel’s central character is Tam who is presented as a figure of staunch
decency and unassuming courage, and constantly questioning received
ideas of religion, politics and society. Through Tam and his sons,
McIlvanney unrolls the history of the Scottish working class in the early
twentieth century.
The Kiln
by William McIlvanney
Tom Docherty, the central character, is the son of Conn and grandson of Tam
from the earlier novel ‘Docherty.’ Tom, a middle-aged novelist living alone in
a rented flat in Edinburgh, looks back over his life. Memories of his family and
his failed marriage emerge in apparently random order, but he returns
continually to the summer when he was seventeen, between school and
university, working in the local brickwork – the kiln. This is the central image
of the novel. McIlvanney indicates that in this milieu of hard work, rough
company, and the menace of the factory bully; the boy will either harden into a
man or crumble like an ill-made brick. It is also the summer of Tom’s first
attempts at writing and, most important in his estimation, of his quest for sexual
experience.
Laidlaw
by William McIlvanney
Jack Laidlaw, a Glasgow Detective Inspector, is a maverick, a university
dropout, a rebel against authority and an unfaithful husband – however, he is
particularly notable, for his empathy with the criminals he pursues, not because he
approves of their crimes but because he knows that he himself is flawed. Laidlaw
is a complex character and acknowledges the complexity of life: everyone is a
mixture of good and bad, and the frontier between law-abiding and criminal is
narrow and easily crossed. The background to the Laidlaw novel is the city of
Glasgow, a symbol of this complexity, famously combining humour and kindness
with deprivation, ugliness and cruelty.
Weekend
by William McIlvanney
In a Victorian mansion hotel on a Scottish island, a group of English Literature
lecturers and students from Glasgow gather for a study weekend, though
studying is not exactly what some of them have in mind. The weekend does
prove to be a major turning point in the emotional lives of several people - just
not quite in the way any of them expected.
43
The Orchard on Fire
by Shena Mackay
The novel is set in 1953, and chronicles events in the life of eight-year old April
Harlency, whose parents have recently moved to the village of Stonehenge in
Kent to run a tearoom. She becomes best friends with fiery, tomboyish Ruby,
whose parents are proprietors of the local pub, and together they share
experiences with an array of village characters including creepy Mr Greenridge;
strict schoolmistress Miss Fay; bohemian artists Dittany Codrington and Bobs
Rix, and village communists, the Silver family.
Cal
by Bernard MacLaverty
Cal is a young working class Catholic living in Northern Ireland during the
‘Troubles’. He is drawn into the IRA by a former school friend, who
pressurises him into being the getaway driver in the assassination of Robert
Morton, a reserve policeman in the mainly Protestant Royal Ulster
Constabulary. Cal’s feelings of guilt and self-loathing which stem from this
event are intensified by his romantic attraction to Morton’s Catholic widow,
Marcella, with whom he develops a doomed relationship.
Grace Notes
by Bernard MacLaverty
Catherine McKenna, a young composer, returning to Belfast after a long
absence, to attend her father's funeral remembers exactly why she left - the
claustrophobic intimacies of the Catholic enclave, her nagging mother, and the
pervading tensions of a city at war with itself. She remembers a more innocent
time, when the Loyalists drums sounded mysterious and exciting; she
remembers her shattered relationship with the drunken, violent Dave, she
remembers the child she had with him, waiting back in Glasgow. This is a
novel, about coming to terms with the past and the healing power of music.
No Great Mischief
by Alistair MacLeod
In 1779, driven out of his home, Calum MacDonald and his family sets sail
from the Scottish Highlands for a new life in Canada. The family settles in
Cape Breton. It is the 1980s, by the time the narrator of the novel, Alexander
MacDonald, tells the story of his family, a thrilling and passionate story that
intersects with history: with Culloden, where the clans died, and with the 1759
battle at Quebec that was won when General Wolfe sent in the fierce
Highlanders because it was “no great mischief if they fall”.
44
Debatable Land
by Candia McWilliam
Following the last leg of a sailing voyage from Tahiti to New Zealand, this
modern-day Odyssey brings six characters together on the Ardent Spirit.
Playing the vastness of the ocean against the confinement of the sailboat, the
sense of freedom and adventure against the sense of commitment and
community, the novel creates a debatable land of its own. As the Ardent Spirit
navigates well-charted but at times treacherous seas and reef-rimmed coastal
waters, the narrative tacks back and forth between characters, between a
variously idealized past and a disappointing present.
Wait Till I Tell You
by Candia McWilliam
This is a collection of short stories about quietly constrained lives—
mainly the lonely, powerless lives of women—set in "a country so rich in
emptiness." Whether they take place in tearooms or nursing homes, at the
seaside, on islands, or in a department store, the stories deal with
displacements and disappointments, futility and frustration, of aging and
merely holding on as best one can to the very little one has. They are stories
in which lives do not so much progress as they are prolonged and in which
even averting disaster deepens rather than relieves the foreboding.
Falling Leaves
by Adeline Yen Mah
The story of an unwanted Chinese daughter growing up during the
Communist Revolution, blamed for her mother's death, ignored by her father
and unwanted by her Eurasian step mother. A story of greed, hatred and
jealousy; a domestic drama is played against the extraordinary political
events in China and Hong Kong.
The Fight
by Norman Mailer
This novel focuses on the 1975 World Heavyweight Boxing Championship in
Kinshasa, Zaire between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Foreman's
genius employed silence, serenity and cunning. He had never been defeated.
His hands were his instrument, and “he kept them in his pockets the way a
hunter lays his rifle back into its velvet case”. Together the two men made
boxing history in an explosive meeting of two great minds, two iron wills and
monumental egos.
45
Collected Stories
by Katherine Mansfield
These short stories were first published in the early part of the twentieth
century, and they reflect wonderfully Mansfield’s keen eye for the pretension
and absurdity in much of human behaviour - and the strict limitations set on a
woman of her class and era. Men departed every morning to carry out
mysterious functions at the office while women stayed at home, organising the
servants and being decorative. She dissects family life, marriage and loneliness
with both humour and exasperated insight into women’s inescapable
compulsion towards a man rather than to independence.
Love in the Time of Cholera
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
It has been fifty-one years, nine months and four days since Fermina Daza
rebuffed the hopelessly romantic Florentino Arizo's impassioned advances
and married Dr. Juvenal Urbino instead. During that half century, Florentino
has fallen into the arms of many delighted women, but has loved none but
Fermina. Having sworn his eternal love to her, he lives for the day when he
can court her again. When Fermina's husband dies, Florentino seizes his
chance to declare his enduring love. The novel is set somewhere on the
Colombian coast in the early part of the twentieth century.
The Life of Pi
by Yann Martel
This story is about the oceanic wanderings of a lost boy, the young Piscine
Patel of the title (Pi). After a colourful and loving upbringing in India, the
Muslim-Christian-animistic Pi sets off for a fresh start in Canada. His blissful
voyage is rudely interrupted when the ship on which he is travelling is
wrecked halfway across the Pacific, and he is forced to rough it in a lifeboat
with a hyena, a monkey, a whingeing zebra and a tiger called Richard. That
would be bad enough, but from here on things get weirder: the animals start
slaughtering each other in a veritable frenzy of allegorical bloodlust, until
Richard the tiger and Pi are left alone to wander the wastes of ocean, with
plenty of time to ponder their fate and the cruelty of the gods.
Seesaw
by Deborah Moggach
The Price family are privileged by most people's standards. Then, one terrible
Sunday, their sulky 17-year-old daughter Hannah doesn't come home. Two
days later her nose-stud lands on the doormat and a ransom note comes through
the fax demanding half a million pounds for Hannah’s safe return. The price
they eventually pay comes to more than just money.
46
The Magician’s Wife
by Brian Moore
Set in the late 1850s in France and Algeria, this is the story of Emmeline
Lambert, who is married to an illusionist sent by Napoleon III to persuade
the Arabs who are poised for holy war, that France's might and magic are
the greater. When Emmeline dutifully accompanies her husband to that
strange new land, her mistrust of her country’s and husband’s benevolence
deepens, as she simultaneously becomes drawn toward the Arabs'
ulture and moved by the simplicity and selflessness of their faith.
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
In the troubled years following the American Civil War, the spirit of a
murdered child haunts the Ohio home of a former slave. This angry,
destructive ghost breaks mirrors, leaves its fingerprints in cake icing,
and generally makes life difficult for Sethe and her family;
nevertheless, the woman finds the haunting oddly comforting for the
spirit is that of her own dead baby, never named, thought of only as
Beloved. As the reader is taken deeper into Sethe's history and her
memories, the horrifying circumstances of her baby's death start
to make terrible sense.
The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison
This story chronicles the tragic lives of a poor black family in 1940s
America. Every night Pecola, unlovely and unloved, prays for blue
eyes like those of her white schoolfellows - her dream of having bluest
eyes is beautiful, sad and sorrowful. The reader is given a glimpse
into the lives of 3 little black children growing up in Middle America.
Their hopes, dreams and reality are wrapped together as the reader
comes to know and see how these children view their world.
Ladies Coupe
by Anita Nair
Meet Akhila, forty-five and single, an income tax clerk, and a woman who has
never been allowed to live her own life - always the daughter, the sister, the
aunt, the provider. Until the day she gets herself a one-way ticket to the seaside
town of Kanyakumari. In the intimate atmosphere of the all-women sleeping
car - the 'Ladies Coupe' - Akhila asks the five women she is travelling with the
question that has been haunting her all her adult life: can a woman stay single
and be happy, or does she need a man to feel complete? This wonderfully
atmospheric, novel takes the reader into the heart of women's lives in
contemporary India, revealing how the dilemmas that women face in their
relationships with husbands, mothers, friends, employers and children are the
same the world over.
47
A Beautiful Mind
by Sylvia Nasar
John Nash was one of the most brilliant mathematicians of his generation in the
1950s. Unfortunately, he suffered from schizophrenia. Economist and journalist
Sylvia Nasar has written a biography of Nash that looks at all sides of his life.
She gives an intelligent, understandable exposition of his mathematical ideas
and a picture of schizophrenia that is evocative but decidedly unromantic. This
book is indeed "a story about the mystery of the human mind, in three acts:
genius, madness, reawakening". In 1994 Nash, in remission from
schizophrenia, shared the Nobel Prize in economics for work done some 45
years previously.
The Country Girls
by Edna O’Brien
It is the early 1960s in a country village in Ireland. Caithleen Brady and
her attractive friend Baba are on the verge of womanhood and dreaming of
spreading their wings in a wider world; of discovering love and luxury and
liquor and above all, fun. With bawdy innocence, shrewd for all their
inexperience, the girls romp their way through convent school to the bright
lights of Dublin - where Caithleen finds that suave, idealized lovers rarely
survive the real world
Star of the Sea
by Joseph O’Connor
In the bitter winter of 1847, from an Ireland torn by injustice and natural
disaster, the Star of the Sea sets sails for New York. On board are hundreds of
fleeing refugees. Among them are a maidservant with a devastating secret,
bankrupt Lord Merridith and his family, an aspiring novelist, a maker of
revolutionary ballads, all braving the Atlantic in search of a new home. Each is
connected more deeply than they can possibly know. But a camouflaged killer
is stalking the decks, hungry for the vengeance. The twenty-six day journey
will see many lives end, others begin afresh. In a spellbinding story of tragedy
and mercy, love and healing, the further the ship sails towards the Promised
Land, the more her passengers seem moored to a past which will never let them go.
Personality
By Andrew O’Hagan
Maria Tambini is a 13-year-old girl with an amazing singing
voice.Growing up above her mother's chip shop on the Scottish island of
Bute, living at the centre of her family's dream of fame, Maria is an
extraordinary girl making ready to escape the ordinary life. When Maria
wins a national TV talent show she is taken to London and becomes an
instant star. She tours America, can fill the London Palladium, yet all the
while 'the girl with the giant voice' is losing herself in fame and begins a
private war against her own body. Maria becomes a living exhibit in the
modern drama of celebrity.
48
The English Patient
by Michael Ondaatje
The final curtain is closing on the Second World War, and Hana, a nurse, stays
behind in an abandoned Italian villa to tend to her only remaining ward.
Rescued by Bedouins from a burning plane, he is her English patient,
anonymous, damaged beyond recognition and haunted by his memories of
passion and betrayal. The only clue Hana has to his past is the one thing he
clung on to through the fire - a battered copy of ‘Histories’ by Herodotus,
covered with hand-written notes describing a painful and ultimately tragic love
affair.
Animal Farm
by George Orwell
Having got rid of their human master, the animals of Manor Farm look forward
to a life of freedom and plenty. But as a clever, ruthless elite among them takes
control, the other animals find themselves hopelessly ensnared in the old ways.
Orwell captures the slow eradication and then alteration of historical fact by
those in power through the eyes of an animal revolution on Manor Farm. The
pigs, previously of equal standing amongst the animals, owing to their guile and
intelligence manage to place themselves in positions of authority and eventually
overall power. Orwell's chilling story of the betrayal of idealism through
tyranny and corruption, is as fresh and relevant today as when it was first
published in 1945.
1984
by George Orwell
‘1984’ was published in 1949 and is a satire on the horrors of totalitarianism.
It is set in a society run by Big Brother where people are made to conform to
orthodoxy by the Thought Police. Winston Smith is a clerk for the Ministry
of Truth, where his job is to rewrite historical documents so that they match
the current party line, which changes daily. He yearns for truth and liberty,
but he comes to realize that he cannot outwit the forces at work. This book is
about control - the central argument being that whosoever controls the
present also controls the past.
Cry, the Beloved Country
by Alan Paton
This impassioned novel is about a black man's country under white man's law.
The book was published in 1948, and the story takes place in the time
immediately before Apartheid was introduced into South Africa. ‘Cry, the
Beloved Country ‘is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor, Kumalo and his
search for his son Absalom in Johannesburg. As Kumalo travels from place to
place, he begins to see the gaping racial and economic divisions that are
threatening to split his country.
49
The Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath
This is a semi-autobiographical novel from Sylvia Plath that shows great
insight into depression. Esther is a naive nineteen-year-old who reads and
writes poetry, who remembers with some irritation the first boy she really
dated at college, and who comes to New York for a few weeks in the
summer of her junior year having won a magazine apprenticeship award.
Esther becomes depressed; she overeats; she becomes immobilized in
indecision and returns home to lie in bed and never sleep.
The Magician’s Assistant
by Ann Pratchett
‘The Magician's Assistant’ is at once a love story and a brilliant portrayal
of reinvention. It is about a magician, Parsifal, who dies leaving his wife,
Sabine, to discover he has lied about his past. Parsifal had always said that
he had no living family and that he came from wealthy upscale
Connecticut stock. The reality is very different, as Sabine learns from his
lawyer. He came from a poor Nebraska family and they are very
much alive. Indeed his mother and sister are on their way to California to
meet Sabine. What Sabine must now cope with is coming to terms with her
husband’s horrific past and the reason he divorced himself from his family
and roots.
Mort
by Terry Pratchett
Death comes to us all. When he came to Mort, he offered him a job. After
being assured that being dead was not compulsory, Mort accepted. However,
he soon found that romantic longings did not mix easily with the
responsibilities of being Death's apprentice. The idea of Death taking a holiday
and leaving his apprentice (Mortimer) in charge is so funny!
Postcards
by E. Annie Proulx
This is the story of Loyal Blood, a man who spends a lifetime on the run
from a crime so terrible that it renders him forever
incapable of
touching a woman. The odyssey begins on a freezing Vermont hillside in
1944 and propels Blood across the American West for 40 years. Denied
love and unable to settle, he lives a hundred different lives: mining gold,
growing beans, hunting fossils, trapping, prospecting for uranium and
ranching. His only contact with his past is through a series of postcards
he sends home.
50
The Shipping News
by E. Annie Proulx
Quoyle is a hapless, hopeless journalist living and working in New York.
When his wife is killed in a road accident, he decides that it is time to
change and decides to go back to the land of his forefathers – a remote
corner of Newfoundland. An old friend secures him a job writing the
shipping news for a paper, and he begins to make a place for himself and
his family in this harsh but beautiful place
The Rebus Novels
by Ian Rankin
The Rebus novels have been praised for the strength of characterisation, particularly the figure of
Rebus himself, and for the gritty realisation of Edinburgh, the dark heart of contemporary Scotland
which lurks behind the elegant and historic buildings of the tourist trail.
These two titles are just a sample:
Black and Blue
Rebus is juggling four cases trying to find one killer - who might just lead
back to the infamous Bible John. Rebus is also under the scrutiny of an
internal inquiry led by a man he has just accused of taking backhanders from
Glasgow's Mr Big; added to that there are TV cameras at his back
investigating a miscarriage of justice. Just one mistake is likely to mean an
unpleasant and not particularly speedy death or, worse
still, losing his job.
Set in Darkness
Edinburgh is about to become the home of the first Scottish Parliament and
Queensberry House is being renovated as part of the parliament development.
During the renovations a body is found behind a blocked up fireplace. Days
later another body is found. This time the victim is a prospective MP and the
powers that be are on Rebus's back demanding instant answers. Someone's
going to make a lot of money out of Scotland's independence and where
there’s big money at stake, darkness gathers.
.
51
Homeward Journey
by John Macnab Reid
A young man, haunted by the death of his mother, tries to break free with a
night on the town, and falls immediately in love with the first girl he meets.
The novel, set between the two World Wars, charts the love affair and
courtship of two people, David and Jessie, worlds apart in culture,
upbringing, aspirations, attitudes and temperament. It was based from the
start upon concealment and deception, laced with an innocence which left
them unprotected.
All Quiet on the Western Front
by Erich Maria Remarque
One by one the boys begin to fall...In 1914, a room full of German schoolboys,
fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the
'glorious war'. With the fire and patriotism of youth, they sign up. What
follows is the moving story of a young soldier experiencing the horror and
disillusionment of life in the trenches. The story is told in first person narrative,
by a young German soldier, Paul Bauer. He is only eighteen when he enters the
army, along with 6 other class-mates. Paul and his friends witness such horrors
and endure such severe hardship and suffering, that they are unable to even
speak about it to anyone but each other. This is a very moving and poignant
novel about the First World War, told from the viewpoint of a young German.
Wide Sargasso Sea
by Jean Rhys
"Wide Sargasso Sea" was inspired by Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre", and
is set in the lush, beguiling landscape of Jamaica in the 1830s. Born
into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway
meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent sensuality and
beauty. After their marriage the rumours begin, poisoning her husband
against her. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of
belonging, Antoinette is driven towards madness.
Voyage in the Dark
by Jean Rhys
"Voyage in the Dark" was first published in 1934 and it is the story of an
unhappy love affair, a portrait of a hypocritical society, and an exploration
of exile and breakdown. Anna is eighteen and on her own in London. Her
father has died and she has exchanged the West Indies of her childhood for
the cold greyness of England, with its narrow streets and narrower rules.
This is the story of a girl who is cast adrift, with no training for building
her own life, in England, and who slips, almost inevitably, into the sordid
life of a prostitute. Her childish dreams have been replaced by the harsher
reality of living in a man's world, where all charity has its price
52
The Fanatic
by James Robertson
Andrew Carlin works as a ghost on a nightly tour of Old Edinburgh. With
stick, cape and rubber rat he pretends to be the spirit of Major Weir, a
religious extremist burnt at the stake in 1670.Carlin’s research into Weir
draws him into the past and, in particular, to James Mitchel, a ‘justified
sinner’, imprisoned in 1674 for the attempted assassination of the
Archbishop of St. Andrews. Through the story of Carlin and Mitchel, an
extraordinary history of Scotland is revealed – a tale of betrayals, smuggled
journeys and disguised identities.
Joseph Knight
by James Robertson
This is a cleverly structured historical tale that recounts a forgotten episode in
Scottish history. Joseph Knight is a Jamaican slave brought to Scotland in the
1760's by rich plantation owner, Sir John Wedderburn. In 1778, Knight takes
his case to a Scottish Court of Law, and wins his right to freedom. Years later
and unable to rest with what has transpired, Wedderburn hires a private
detective, Archie Jamieson, to find out what has become of the missing
Knight. The story deals with the loss of freedom that Scotland's Imperialist
past brings and the book is full of people who are desperately enslaved, from
the black slaves to the women bound by tradition and the Imperialists
themselves.
Peace Comes Dropping Slow
by Christopher Rush
Christopher Rush was born in St. Monans and grew up in the East Neuk.
In this book of short stories he explores the history and heritage of the
fishing communities of his childhood during the 1940s and 1950s.
Last Lesson of the Afternoon
by Christopher Rush
Published in 1996, this is a satirical view on what the author considers to
be the falling standards
of contemporary education. The setting
initially is “Taft Academy, Skinfasthaven, East Neuk of Fife. … built in
1886 by the bequest of naval lieutenant Andrew Taft …” The author uses
humour and dialogue to draw the reader into the world of education as told
by the main character Campbell Mackay.
53
Catcher in the Rye
by J.L.Salinger
The story is told by Holden Caulfield, a seventeen-year-old
dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Throughout the
novel, Holden dissects the 'phony' aspects of society. Salinger's style
creates an effect of conversation, it is as though Holden is speaking to the
reader personally, sharing his thoughts of being able to see through the
pretences of the American Dream and growing up unable to see the point
of living in, or contributing to, the society around him.
The Lovely Bones
by Alice Seobold
“My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen
when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.” From heaven, Susie watches
her family struggling to come to terms with the feelings of devastation
caused by her death. She watches over the years, as her friends and
siblings grow up, fall in love, and do all the things that she, herself, never
had the chance to do. This is an unusual novel about life, death,
forgiveness and vengeance - but, above all, about finding light in the
darkest of places.
An Equal Music
by Vikram Seth
‘An Equal Music’ is a love story in which the object of desire is as much
the art of music as it is the elusive Julia. Michael lives in London and
plays the violin in a string quartet. The life of this group, its rehearsals,
dependencies and tensions, is the quietly flowing current which
provides a sense of continuity in the novel. One day, by chance Michael
catches sight of Julia on a London bus and cannot help but pursue her.
Julia was his first and only love whom he knew in Vienna many years
earlier.
Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley
First published in 1818, this is the story of Victor Frankenstein a scientist
who is obsessed with creating life itself. He plunders graveyards for the
material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life by electricity.
However, the experiment is not wholly successful and the malformed
creature, which is rejected by Frankenstein and denied human
companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear.
Mary Shelley's chilling gothic tale is a classic work of horror fiction.
54
The Stone Diaries
by Carol Shields
‘The Stone Diaries’ is the story of one woman's life, Daisy Goodwill. Daisy
is born in 1905 on a kitchen floor in Manitoba, and dies in a Florida
nursing home nearly ninety years later. Through Daisy's life, the author
reflects and illuminates the unsettled decades of the twentieth century. "Life
is an endless recruiting of witnesses," Daisy says in the opening chapter,
"Birth," and the narrative structure of the novel bears out this theme.
Unless
by Carol Shields
Reta Winters, the narrator, has a loving family, good friends, and
growing success as a writer of light fiction. Then her eldest daughter
suddenly withdraws from the world, abandoning university to sit on a
street corner, wearing a sign that reads only 'goodness'. As Reta seeks the
causes of her daughter's retreat, her enquiry turns into an unflinching, and
often very funny meditation on Society and where people find meaning
and hope.
The Pilot’s Wife
by Anita Shreve
Being married to a pilot has taught Kathryn Lyons to be ready for
emergencies, but nothing has prepared her for the late-night knock on her
door and the news of her husband's fatal crash. As Kathryn struggles
through her grief, she is forced to confront disturbing rumours about the
man she loved and the life that she took for granted. Torn between her
impulse to protect her husband's memory and her desire to know the truth,
Kathryn sets off to find out if she ever really knew the man who was her
husband.
Sea Glass
by Anita Shreve
Set in the Depression era of the 1930s in New Hampshire, this is the story of
Honora Beecher; and her husband Sexton who is a successful salesman
and spends time away from home selling typewriters, whilst Honora keeps
house and whiles away hours searching for washed up sea glass on the beach.
They fall victim to the stock market crash and are financially wiped out.
Sexton is forced to work in a nearby mill, where a labour conflict is having
violent results. The couple's struggle to maintain their marriage in the face of
dangerous forces that threaten to overwhelm them is vividly and poignantly
told.
55
On the Beach
by Neville Shute
This novel, published in 1958, tells of the aftermath of an atomic war.
Australia is one of the last places where life still exists. An invisible cloak
of radiation has spread almost completely around the world. An American
nuclear-powered submarine has found its way to Australia, but returns to
the coast of North America to discover whether a stray radio signal
originating from near Seattle is a sign of life. While investigating the
signal, one sailor jumps ship and goes back to his home. He is not allowed
to return to the submarine because of contamination; but his report is part
of the record. The dead - caught in their daily round of living with no sign
of life. He prefers to meet his end, fishing familiar waters of his youth.
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
by Alex McColl Smith
Precious Ramotswe inherits her father's cattle herd and sells it to start a
new life. The options are limited for a woman in Botswana. She sets out on
an uncharted course, opening the first private detective agency run by a
woman. She is a very observant person and reasons with precise logic. So
she buys a house, an office, hires a secretary, installs a telephone - and sits
down to wait for clients. Wayward daughters, philandering partners,
missing husbands and children - if there’s a problem, and no one else can
help, then pay a visit to Precious Ramotswe !
White Teeth
by Zadie Smith
A witty satirical novel set in London, chronicling the experiences of two
eccentric multiracial families during the last half of the 20th century. The
narrative charts the progress of Samad Iqbal, with his wife Alsana from
Bengal and Archie Jones with his Afro-Carribean wife Clara. The story
deals with multiculturalism in Britain, with the families struggling with
the expectations and hypocrisies of their elders and the seductive lure of
fundamentalism.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
by Alexander Solzhenitsyen
The novel, published in 1962, is an account of a typical day for the
protagonist, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, who is a prisoner in a Siberian
Labour Camp. The language used is void of sentimentality and the story of
Shukhov’s day is told from a seemingly objective point of view, using
direct fact within fiction, rather than opinion in order to describe the
conditions of the camp, which effectively conveys the brutality of the
Stalinist Regime.
56
The Girls of Slender Means
by Muriel Spark
The setting of the novel is London between V-E Day and V-J Day in 1945.
In contrast to the surrounding death and destruction of war, is the
vigour and gaiety of the young women of a Kensington Hostel. The
contrasts are controlled and revealing: the desolation of London scenes
against the irrepressible urge to live and love by the girls of good family
but slender means as they fight it out, to the last clothing coupon until this charmingly light-hearted innocent period in their lives is
destroyed by the horror and tragedy of the times.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
by Muriel Spark
In the 1930s six ten year old girls are assigned Miss Jean Brodie as their
teacher. Passionate, free-thinking and unconventional, Miss Brodie is a
teacher who exerts a powerful influence over her group of ‘special girls’ at
Marcia Blain School in Edinburgh. She is intent on the girls receiving an
education in the true sense of the word educere, to lead out, and would give
her students lessons on art history or her love life and travels. Under the
mentorship of Miss Brodie, the girls begin to stand out from the rest of the
school as distinctively Brodie, they are ‘the Brodie set, the crème de la
crème’.
It’s Colours They are Fine
by Alan Spence
Published in 1977, ‘Its Colours They Are Fine’, is a very intense and
carefully crafted collection of short stories. Dealing with childhood and
early adulthood in Glasgow through the 1950s and 1960s. Depicting
every aspect of life in the city, its thirteen interlinked stories vividly evoke
the slums and their inhabitants, both the young and old, Catholic and
Protestant, the hopeful and the disillusioned.
The Magic Flute
by Alan Spence
This is a wonderfully funny and sharply observant novel, combining gritty
realism with great humour and considerable poetry. It follows the lives of
four Glasgow boys, Tam, Eddie, Brian and George, through more than
twenty years, from the late 1950s to the early 1980s. A story showing the
different paths that various people take through their lives.
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Stone Garden
by Alan Spence
‘Stone Garden’ is a collection of 12 stories set in Glasgow and around the
world, but always with the Scottish connection. All the stories are marked
by Alan Spence's wry humour and the tender beauty of his descriptions of
a remembered childhood.
East of Eden
by John Steinbeck
Set in the rich farmland of the Salinas Valley, California, this powerful,
often brutal novel, follows the intertwined destinies of two families - the
Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations hopelessly re-enact the
fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. The
author explores his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity; the
inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence.
Of Mice and Men
by John Steinbeck
Published in 1937, this is the tragic story of George Milton average in
stature, intelligent, and cynical, but caring; and Lennie Small, an
ironically named man of large stature and immense strength, but
limited mental abilities They are drifters, searching for work in the fields
and valleys of California during the Great Depression in the 1920s. . They
have nothing except the clothes on their back, and a dream that one
day they'll be able to afford a place of their own. Lennie is gentle but
doesn't know his own strength, and when they find work at a ranch he
gets into trouble with the boss's daughter-in-law. Trouble so bad that even
his protector George may not be able to save him.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson
First published in 1886, this is a tale about a London lawyer who
investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll,
and Mr. Edward Hyde. Dr Jekyll has been experimenting with his identity.
He has developed a drug which separates the two sides of his nature and
allows him to occasionally abandon himself to his most corrupt
inclinations as the monstrous Mr. Hyde. But gradually he begins to find
that the journey back to goodness becomes more and more difficult.
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Dracula
by Bram Stoker
The novel is written as a series of diary entries, telegrams, newspaper
clippings giving it a unique narrative. It tells the tale of solicitor's clerk
Jonathan Harker, sent to Transylvannia to organise the sale of a house in
London for Count Dracula. Jonathan soon becomes aware that there is
something strange about Count Dracula, as he discovers horrifying facts
about his client and his castle. In the ensuing battle of wits between the
sinister Count Dracula and a determined group of adversaries, Bram Stoker
created a masterpiece of the horror genre.
Perfume
By Patrick Suskind
The story is set mainly in 18th century Paris, and the reader is introduced
to the terrible conditions that its poorer residents had to live in, and the vast
range of vile smells which surrounded them. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, was
abandoned on the filthy streets as a child, but grows up to discover he has
an extraordinary gift: a sense of smell more powerful than
any other
human's. Soon, he is creating the most sublime fragrances in Paris.
However, this leads to murder when he tries to capture the essence of a
beautiful woman.
Last Orders
by Graham Swift
‘Last Orders’ is a novel about a group of men, friends since the Second
World War, whose lives revolve around work, family, the racetrack and their
favourite pub. When one of them dies, the survivors drive his ashes from
London to a seaside town where they will be scattered, compelling them to take
stock of who they are today, who they were before and the shifting
relationships in between. Both funny and moving,
Waterland
by Graham Swift
Told from the perspective of a London-based history teacher, the narrator,
Tom Crick, takes the reader back to the lost Fenland of his youth, and
relates the story of his family who have lived in the Fens since the 18th
century. He revisits the past in an effort to understand what is happening to
him in the present, as he nears the end of his school career.
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Anita and me
by Meera Syal
Set in the 1960s, it is a humorous, lively tale of the day-to-day struggles of
a nine-year-old girl, daughter of the only Punjabi family in an English
mining village. Meena is a high spirited child, who would rather roam the
streets with the rough Anita's gang than endure the interminable gatherings
of her parents' Indian friends - her well-meaning 'uncles and aunties'.
The Bonesetter’s Daughter
by Amy Tan
Set in contemporary San Francisco and pre-war China, ‘The Bonesetter's
Daughter’ is a mesmerising story, told with warmth and humour, of a
mother and daughter discovering together that what they share in
their bones through history and heredity is priceless beyond measure.
LuLing Young is now in her eighties, and finally beginning to feel the
effects of old age; Ruth, her daughter, decides to move in with her ailing
mother, and while tending to her discovers the story LuLing wrote in
Chinese, of her tumultuous life growing up in a remote mountain village
known as Immortal Heart.
The Joy Luck Club
by Amy Tan
The story focuses on the lives of four Chinese women, who emigrated, in
their youth, to San Francisco, and their relationship with their very
American daughters. Tan probes the tension of love and often angry
bewilderment experienced between the generations and cultures. The Joy
Luck Club, begun in 1939 San Francisco, was a re-creation of the Club
founded by Suyuan Woo in a beleaguered Chinese city. There, in the stench
of starvation and death, four women told their "good stories," tried their
luck with mah-jongg. Now, the Chinese women in America tell their
stories.
The Blackwater Lightship
by Colm Toibin
Out of the sad history of a young man's death from AIDS, the author
conjures a tale of reconciliation and redemption. In Blackwater in the
early 1990s, three women - Dora Devereux, her daughter Lily and her
granddaughter Helen - have come together after years of strife and reached
an uneasy truce. As Helen’s brother, Decland, slowly declines in his
grandmother's house on the southern Irish coast, the three generations of
women must learn to be reconciled to each other's very different lives and
beliefs. Pride and prejudice give way to the need for human
companionship as each woman tells her story and explores her past.
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Swing, Hammer, Swing
by Jeff Torrington
Set in Glasgow during a single week in the late 1960s, this novel follows the
meanderings and misadventures of Tam Clay, as he awaits the birth of his first
child. This is also the final few days before the slum area, The Gorbals, is
pulled down. Tam stumbles through the drink-sodden world of the Gorbals
underclass on a mini-odyssey of self-discovery.
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
by Robert Tressell
Originally published in 1914, this is a timeless story of socialism, political
awakenings and class struggle. The novel tells the
story of a group of
working men who are joined one day by Owen, a journeyman-prophet with
a vision of a just society. Owen's spirited attacks on the greed and
dishonesty of the capitalist system arouses his fellow men’s political
awareness. A masterpiece of wit and political passion, this is one of the
best novels of working class life ever written.
Death in Summer
by William Trevor
This is the haunting story of how a baby is snatched one afternoon from the
garden of a delightful English house by a disturbed young woman. Thadeus
Davenant had married Letitia for her money and when she dies in an
accident, he and his mother-in-law interview prospective nannies to take care
of his now motherless baby. As there were no suitable nannies, Letitia's
mother moves in to take on a parenting role. However, the poor and troubled
final interviewee has become infatuated by Thadeus, and is drawn back to the
house. Amidst the suspense, the reader becomes engaged in the dramas of the
lives of characters from markedly different backgrounds.
Felicia’s Journey
by William Trevor
'You're beautiful,' Johnny told her and so, full of hope, this
innocent
convent-school educated, 17 year old girl crosses the Irish Sea to England
to find her lover and tell him she is pregnant. Desperately searching for
Johnny in the bleak post-industrial Midlands, Felicia is, instead, found by
Mr Hilditch, a strange and lonely man, who ‘befriends’ homeless young
girls. He misleads Felicia in her search for Johnny, as part of an elaborate
plan to render her defeated and helpless. Whilst, making her pointless
search for Johnny, Felicia relives her rough departure from Ireland.
William Trevor's tightly woven psychological thriller won the 1994
Whitbread Book of the Year Award.
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Breathing Lessons
by Anne Tyler
"Breathing Lessons" covers the events of a day in the life of Maggie Moran,
nearing fifty, married to Ira and with two children. Her eternal optimism and
her inexhaustible passion for sorting out other people's lives and willing them
to fall in love is severely tested one hot summer’s day. Maggie and Ira drive
from Baltimore to Deer Lick to attend the funeral of the husband of
Serena, Maggie's childhood friend. During the course of the journey, the
author shows us all there is to know about a marriage - the expectations and
the disappointments –and the way a wife and husband can fall in love all over
again.
A Patchwork Planet
by Anne Tyler
The story's narrator and main character is Barnaby Gaitlin, who is
disapproved of by his rich and philanthropic family; has been left by his
wife and daughter and is yet to graduate from college – at 30 he’s resigned
himself to failure. The author has created a truly ‘all-American’ reject; who
is endearing and infuriating in equal measures. This is a gentle, thoughtful
book, with a warmth and poignancy that skilfully sidesteps sentimentality.
The Color Purple
by Alice Walker
Set in the deep American South between the wars, this is the classic tale
of Celie, a young poor black girl. Raped repeatedly by her father, she loses
two children and then is married off to a man who treats her no better than
a slave. She is separated from her sister Nettie and dreams of becoming
like the glamorous Shug Avery, a singer and rebellious black woman who
has taken charge of her own destiny. Gradually Celie discovers the
support of women that enables her to leave the past behind and begin a
new life.
Possessing the Secret of Joy
by Alice Walker
A range of voices, including husband Adam, son Benny, and the
character Tashi herself, tell the story of the Olinka girl who made a
brief appearance in ‘The Color Purple’. Married to Adam, the young
African-American missionary who took her back to America, Tashi has
suffered intermittent periods of madness since she was brutally
circumcised as an adolescent in a remote guerrilla camp in Africa.
Though her older sister had bled to death from the effects of the
operation, Tashi chose to have it done because she felt it would make her
"...completely woman. Completely Africa. Completely Olinka.". The
novel explores the psychology and emotion of Tashi and the people
around her who are haunted by these traumatic events.
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The Man Who Walks
by Alan Warner
After the scandalous theft of a pub's World Cup cash kitty, a homeless
drifter pursues his eccentric uncle: 'The Man Who Walks', up into the
Highlands to recover the money. The story follows the nephew as he tracks
his transient uncle across the Highlands. Along the way he encounters a
series of increasingly bizarre characters and situations, dealing with each
with his unnerving cold detachment and humour. His reaction to these
encounters results in a trail of carnage that follows him as he continues
north, seemingly always just a little behind his eccentric one-eyed uncle
Fingersmith
by Sarah Waters
Set primarily in Victorian London, this book brings to life the city's
grotesque and diverse underclass. Sue Trinder, orphaned at birth, is
born among petty thieves – fingersmiths – and criminals. She is recruited
by a gentlemanly rogue to take part in a plot involving a young heiress. The
plan is that Sue will become Maud's maid and help the rogue to seduce her,
elope with and marry her, get his hands on her fortune. Light-heartedly the
girl plunges into her role in this undertaking, overcoming her scruples for a
share of the fortune.
Tipping the Velvet
by Sarah Waters
Set in the late 19th century, Nancy is a girl from an honest Whitstable
oyster-selling family whose head is turned by a visit to the local music hall.
There she watches, night after night, a song and dance routine by Kitty
Butler, a girl not much older than herself who dresses as a boy. Her
obsession deepens and awakens sexual feelings she can neither express nor
deny, so when Kitty befriends her and asks her to travel to London with her
as her dresser, she accepts immediately.
Decline and Fall
by Evelyn Waugh
This is novel is a funny, social satire of British High Society in the 1920s.
Sent down from Oxford for indecent behaviour, Paul Pennyfeather
embarks on a series of bizarre adventures that start in a minor public
school and end in one of Her Majesty’s Prisons. Eventually, he returns to
where he started at Oxford, sudying under his own name, having
convinced the college that he is the distant cousin of the Paul Pennyfeather
who was sent down previously. The novel ends as it started, with Paul in
his room at Oxford.
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A Handful of Dust
by Evelyn Waugh
This novel is a social satire combining comedy, tragedy and brutal
irony. The story, set in the 1930s, tells the tale of Tony, a county
gentleman of the old school, loving his ugly old home, adoring his wife
and son; and of his wife, Brenda, who being bored starts an affair with a
young man who has social aspirations but little money. She decides she
must have a divorce, and Tony plays the conventional gentleman and is
willing to take the blame, until he discovers that she is willing to make a
pauper of him to support her new husband. Tony rebels and goes off to
South America on a fantastic exploration, which has an even more
fantastic ending in the Amazonian jungle.
Trainspotting
by Irvine Welsh
This novel is about the Scottish drug scene in Edinburgh. It is essentially
a collection of short episodes which document the street life among heroin
users. These episodes are linked together by a common cast of
characters and a narrative about Mark Renton escaping from his
addiction. The language used is often graphic and disturbing in its
portrayal of drug addiction and violence
Time Machine
by H.G. Wells
Written in 1895 the Time Machine is an early example of time travel. When
a Victorian scientist propels himself into the year 802,701 AD, he is initially
delighted to find that suffering has been replaced by beauty, contentment and
peace. Entranced at first by the Eloi, an elfin species descended from man, he
soon realises that this beautiful people are simply remnants of a once-great
culture now weak and childishly afraid of the dark. They have every reason
to be afraid: in deep tunnels beneath their paradise lurks another race
descended from humanity the sinister Morlocks. And when the scientist's
time machine vanishes, it becomes clear he must search these tunnels, if he is
ever to return to his own era.
The War of the Worlds
by H.G. Wells
The night after a shooting star is seen streaking through the sky from Mars, a
cylinder is discovered on Horsell Common in London. At first, naive locals
approach the cylinder armed just with a white flag only to be quickly killed by
an all-destroying heat-ray, as terrifying tentacled invaders emerge. Soon the
whole of human civilisation is under threat, as powerful Martians build gigantic
killing machines, destroy all in their path with black gas and burning rays, and
feast on the warm blood of trapped, still-living human prey. This novel was
first published in 1898.
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A Dubious Legacy
by Mary Wesley
Henry brought his new bride, Margaret, to Cotteshaw in 1944. On the threshold
she gave him a black eye and went straight to bed where she remained, apart
from the occasional malevolent outburst, for the rest of her life. Two young
couples, who encountered her first in 1954, became regular if uneasy house
guests over many years, listening, speculating, keeping a watchful eye on
Margaret's door until finally, piecing together the gossip, the rumours, the
mystery, they found themselves tangled in the web of Henry's life.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde
The novel, published in 1891, tells of a handsome young man named Dorian
Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Dorian is introduced to
the philosophy of life, where the only thing worth pursuing in life is beauty, and
the fulfilment of the senses. Realising that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian
cries out, wishing that the portrait Basil has painted of him would age rather than
himself. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, subsequently plunging him into a series of
debauched acts. The portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon
his soul, with each sin being displayed as a disfigurement of his form, or through
a sign of aging.
From Scenes Like These
by Gordon Williams
Set in a small west of Scotland town in the 1950s, this is the powerful and
violent story of Duncan Logan, an adolescent growing up fast in the austere
years after the Second World War. His life is disfigured by violence and
drunkenness, and he can’t find an outlet for his undoubted talents.As his world
begins to crumble around him, Duncan searches desperately for a way out, only
to find himself tragically, trapped in a downward spiral of betrayal and
violence.
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
by Jeanneatte Winterson
This is the story of Jeanette, adopted by working-class evangelists in the
North of England, in the 1960's. Brought up to preach the gospel alongside
such spiritual giants as ‘Testifying Elsie’ and ‘Pastor Spratt’, Jeanette is
destined for the missionary field, but her high success rate of converts
turns into a charismatic encounter with one girl in particular. Love
and sex were not scheduled into her timetable, but at 16, Jeanette decides
to leave the church, her home and her family, for the young woman she
loves. ‘
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Flush
by Virginia Woolf
Published in 1933, this is the biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s
cocker spaniel. The author recreates the world from a dog’s point of
view, with all its associated smells, pain and pleasure. She traces the life
of the spaniel from his country origins; his puppyhood spent with the
writer Mary Mitford, through his sheltered existence with Elizabeth Barrett
in her sick room, and later travels in Florence. From a quite literally low
point of view, Woolf explores class and gender in Victorian London, with
gently mocking humour.
To the Lighthouse
by Virgina Woolf
The serene and maternal Mrs Ramsay, the tragic yet absurd Mr Ramsay,
together with their children and assorted guests, are holidaying in
Scotland. From the seemingly trivial postponement of a visit to a nearby
lighthouse Virginia Woolf constructs a remarkable and moving examination
of the complex tensions and allegiances of family life; the conflict
between male and female principles; and the intensity of childhood longing
and delight. The novel was published in 1927
A Room of One’s Own
by Virginia Woolf
Asked originally to deliver a talk on ‘Women and Fiction’ in 1928, Virginia
Woolf eventually produced this longer essay which expands its subject to cover
education, marriage, property and money. She moves backwards through
literary history, examining the women who have written, often against great
opposition, and the female characters that have been written, mostly by men.
Woolf, knew she was fortunate in being financially independent, and she
famously concludes that a women must have a room of her own and money of
her own in order to write, because writing well and truthfully can only be
properly achieved when a woman is not railing against the bounds of poverty,
dependence, social exclusion and disapproval.
The Chrysalids
by John Wyndham
The Chrysalids tells the story of an isolated remnant of human civilisation
struggling to rebuild in a world that has been devastated. The world is
paralysed by genetic mutation. In the community of Waknut it is believed
mutants are the products of the Devil and must be stamped out. When the
narrator of the story, David, befriends a girl with a slight abnormality, he
begins to understand the nature of fear and oppression. When he develops
his own deviation, he must learn to conceal his secret.
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The Day of the Triffids
by John Wyndham
William Mason, the narrator of this classic science fiction novel, wakes up
in hospital to find that just about the entire population of London has gone
blind following an ecological disaster when the Earth’s orbit passed
through a cloud of comet debris. It appears that he is the only
person who can still see as he emerges into the silent, ruined world and
begins his journey to survive in a terrifying world which includes giant man
eating plants. The Triffids are gigantic plants, which have mysteriously
arrived on earth. They take up their roots and walk, searching for men to
kill.
The Shadow of the Wind
by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'cemetery of lost
books', a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long
gone out of print. To this library, a man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel
one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the
shelves and pulls out 'The Shadow of the Wind’ by Julian Carax. After
nobody, seems to know anything about the novel's mysterious author.
Daniel is intrigued and his curiosity to discover more about the life of
Julian sets him on the path to a thrilling but equally dangerous adventure.
Therese Raquin
by Emile Zola
First published in 1867, ‘Thérèse Raquin’ tells the story of a young woman,
unhappily married to her first cousin by a well-intentioned and overbearing
aunt. Her cousin, Camille, is sickly and selfish, and when the opportunity
arises, Thérèse enters into a tragic affair with one of Camille's friends,
Laurent. Therese and her lover murder Camille. However, after marrying,
the couple are haunted by Camille's ghost, slowly turning their love for one
another into an all- consuming hatred.
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