QUICK DELIVERY
Swift dispatch
Chasing the Stars by Malorie Blackman
Olivia and her twin brother Aidan are heading alone back to Earth following the virus that wiped out the rest of their crew, and their family, in its entirety.
Nathan is part of a community heading in the opposite direction. But on their journey, Nathan’s ship is attacked and most of the community killed. Only a few survive.
Their lives unexpectedly collided, Nathan and Olivia are instantly attracted to each other, deeply, head-over-heels – like nothing they have ever experienced. But not everyone is pleased.
Surrounded by rumours, deception, even murder, is it possible to live out a happy ever after . . . ?
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
Two brown girls dream of being dancers--but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, about what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free.
It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either.
Dazzlingly energetic and deeply human, Swing Time is a story about friendship and music and stubborn roots, about how we are shaped by these things and how we can survive them. Moving from northwest London to West Africa, it is an exuberant dance to the music of time.
From My Sisters Lips
Overview
Covered from head to toe with only her eyes visible, the sight of a Muslim woman on a western city street rarely fails to provoke a strong reaction. Feelings of shock, horror, repulsion, pity or even fear are not uncommon.
But have you ever wondered who it is behind the veil and what makes her tick? Ever wondered what her life is really like and whether her dreams, hopes and aspirations differ from yours? From My Sisters' Lips offers a rare glimpse into the lives of a community of women, most of whom are converts to Islam, and invites you to share their joys, sorrows, convictions and faith.
When Na'ima B Robert abandoned her western lifestyle and embraced Islam six years ago, it was not a decision taken lightly. Yet soon after she took her first tentative steps towards covering, she felt empowered; no longer judged on physical appearances alone, no longer seeking the approval to feel beautiful — or using her looks to wield power over men — the experience effected her greatly.
Before long she grew in confidence and courage. As she says, "Something just clicked." I thought, "Good, don't look; don't compare me with your latest squeeze, don't try and guess my measurements - my body is my own business!"' From My Sisters' Lips offers a glimpse into the lives of just some of the extraordinary women who, like herself, have chosen to live behind the veil.
What emerges is a vivid and intimate portrait of a sisterhood; as they speak candidly and with conviction on a diverse range of subjects ranging from marriage to motherhood, stereotypes, submission and self-image, we hear the strong, proud voices of those who are seldom heard.
"
"
ISBN:9780593054413
Author:Na'ima B. Robert
The Cairo House
Overview
Samia Serageldin's heroine, the daughter of a politically prominent, land-owning Egyptian family, witnesses the changes sweeping her homeland. Looking back to the glamorous Egypt of the pashas and King Faruk, Serageldin moves forward to the police state of the colonels who seized power in 1952 and the disastrous consequences of Nasser's sequestration policies.
Through well-chosen portraits and telling descriptions of the era's fashions and furnishings, Serageldin conveys detailed social and cultural information. She offers a glimpse of the beach at Agami in the 1960s and conveys the change in mood through the Sadat years.
Serageldin's fictional treatment of recent Egyptian history includes key events leading to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, such as the assassination of writer Yussef Siba'yi and the harassment of theologian Nasr Abu Zayd.
Serageldin's heroine goes into exile in Europe and the United States but returns to Egypt in an attempt to reconcile her past and present. Charting fresh territory for the American reader, this semi-autobiographical novel is one of the most sensitive and accessible documents of historical change in Egyptian life.
The book will appeal to a general audience and will be particularly useful to students interested in the social customs of the upper class in Egypt in the Nasser and Sadat years.
ISBN:9780815606734
Author:Samia Serageldin
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabrie...
In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic.
As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs--yet he reserves his heart for Fermina.
Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Brief summary
Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden.
Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family.” But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to the past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.
When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.
Into Thin Air
Brief summary
One of the inspirations for the major motion picture Everest, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Keira Knightley.
Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air is the true story of a 24-hour period on Everest, when members of three separate expeditions were caught in a storm and faced a battle against hurricane-force winds, exposure, and the effects of altitude, which ended the worst single-season death toll in the peak's history.
In March 1996, Outside magazine sent veteran journalist and seasoned climber Jon Krakauer on an expedition led by celebrated Everest guide Rob Hall. Despite the expertise of Hall and the other leaders, by the end of summit day, eight people were dead.
Krakauer's book is at once the story of the ill-fated adventure and an analysis of the factors leading up to its tragic end. Written within months of the events it chronicles, Into Thin Air clearly evokes the majestic Everest landscape.
As the journey up the mountain progresses, Krakauer puts it in context by recalling the triumphs and perils of other Everest trips throughout history. The author's own anguish over what happened on the mountain is palpable as he leads readers to ponder timeless questions.
ISBN:9781447200185
Author:Jon Krakauer
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Color Purple is a 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker which won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction. It was later adapted into a film and musical of the same name.
Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on the life of women of color in the southern United States in the 1930s, addressing numerous issues including their exceedingly low position in American social culture.
The novel has been the frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000-2009 at number seventeen because of the sometimes explicit content, particularly in terms of violence.
The High Mountains of Portugal
Brief summary
In Lisbon in 1904, a young man named Tomás discovers an old journal. It hints at the existence of an extraordinary artifact that—if he can find it—would redefine history. Traveling in one of Europe’s earliest automobiles, he sets out in search of this strange treasure.
Thirty-five years later, a Portuguese pathologist devoted to the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie finds himself at the center of a mystery of his own and drawn into the consequences of Tomás’s quest.
Fifty years on, a Canadian senator takes refuge in his ancestral village in northern Portugal, grieving the loss of his beloved wife. But he arrives with an unusual companion: a chimpanzee. And there the century-old quest will come to an unexpected conclusion.
The High Mountains of Portugal—part quest, part ghost story, part contemporary fable—offers a haunting exploration of great love and great loss. Filled with tenderness, humor, and endless surprise, it takes the reader on a road trip through Portugal in the last century—and through the human soul.
ISBN:9781782114758
Author:Yann Martel
The Secret River
Brief summary
In 1806 William Thornhill, an illiterate English bargeman and a man of quick temper but deep compassion, steals a load of wood and, as a part of his lenient sentence, is deported, along with his beloved wife, Sal, to the New South Wales colony in what would become Australia.
The Secret River is the tale of William and Sal’s deep love for their small, exotic corner of the new world, and William’s gradual realization that if he wants to make a home for his family, he must forcibly take the land from the people who came before him.
Acclaimed around the world, The Secret River is a magnificent, transporting work of historical fiction.
ISBN:9780857860842
Author:Kate Grenville
Rent a Bridesmaid
Brief summary
Tilly can’t believe it when her best friend Matty is asked to be a bridesmaid. In Tilly’s favourite daydream, she’s wearing the most beautiful bridesmaid dress and walking down the aisle behind a bride.
The one wedding she’d really love to attend is her own mum and dad’s - but it seems like that's never going to happen. So Tilly decides to make her own dream come true, and puts a notice in the local shop, advertising her services as a bridesmaid. And to her amazement, she gets a reply.
A fabulous, funny and moving story about finding family and friendship in all sorts of places, from the mega-bestselling author of Tracy Beaker, Hetty Feather and Katy.
ISBN:9780440870241
Author:Jacqueline Wilson
Insane Clown President
Brief summary
In twenty-five pieces from Rolling Stone—plus two original essays—Matt Taibbi tells the story of Western civilization’s very own train wreck, from its tragicomic beginnings to its apocalyptic conclusion.
Years before the clown car of candidates was fully loaded, Taibbi grasped the essential themes of the story: the power of spectacle over substance, or even truth; the absence of a shared reality; the nihilistic rebellion of the white working class; the death of the political establishment; and the emergence of a new, explicit form of white nationalism that would destroy what was left of the Kingian dream of a successful pluralistic society.
Taibbi captures, with dead-on, real-time analysis, the failures of the right and the left, from the thwarted Bernie Sanders insurgency to the flawed and aimless Hillary Clinton campaign; the rise of the "dangerously bright” alt-right with its wall-loving identity politics and its rapturous view of the "Racial Holy War” to come; and the giant fail of a flailing, reactive political media that fed a ravenous news cycle not with reporting on political ideology, but with undigested propaganda served straight from the campaign bubble.
At the center of it all stands Donald J. Trump, leading a historic revolt against his own party, "bloviating and farting his way” through the campaign, "saying outrageous things, acting like Hitler one minute and Andrew Dice Clay the next.” For Taibbi, the stunning rise of Trump marks the apotheosis of the new postfactual movement.
Taibbi frames the reporting with original essays that explore the seismic shift in how we perceive our national institutions, the democratic process, and the future of the country. Insane Clown President is not just a postmortem on the collapse and failure of American democracy. It offers the riveting, surreal, unique, and essential experience of seeing the future in hindsight.
ISBN:9780753548400
Author:Matt Taibbi
Crisis
Brief summary
Introducing Luke Carlton - ex-Special Boat Service commando, and now under contract to MI6 for some of its most dangerous missions.
Sent into the steaming Colombian jungle to investigate the murder of a British intelligence officer, Luke finds himself caught up in the coils of a plot that has terrifying international dimensions.
Hunted down, captured, tortured and on the run from one of South America's most powerful and ruthless drugs cartels and its psychotic leader thirsting for revenge, Luke is in a life-or-death race against time to prevent a disaster on a truly terrifying scale: London is the target, the weapon is diabolical and the means of delivery is ingenious.
Drawing on his years of experience reporting on security matters, CRISIS is Frank Gardner’s debut novel. Combining insider knowledge, up-to-the-minute hardware, fly on the wall insights with heart-in-mouth excitement, CRISIS boasts an irresistible, visceral frisson of authenticity: smart, fast-paced and furiously entertaining, here is a thriller for the 21st century.
ISBN:9780857503725
Author:Frank Gardner
The Woman Next Door
Brief summary
Loving thy neighbor is easier said than done.
Hortensia James and Marion Agostino are neighbors. One is black, the other white. Both are successful women with impressive careers.
Both have recently been widowed, and are living with questions, disappointments, and secrets that have brought them shame. And each has something that the woman next door deeply desires.
Sworn enemies, the two share a hedge and a deliberate hostility, which they maintain with a zeal that belies their age. But, one day, an unexpected event forces Hortensia and Marion together.
As the physical barriers between them collapse, their bickering gradually softens into conversation and, gradually, the two discover common ground. But are these sparks of connection enough to ignite a friendship, or is it too late to expect these women to change?
ISBN:9780552166300
Author:Yewande Omotoso
Predator
Brief summary
They murdered his wife.
They destroyed his future.
Now they have to pay.
Two men are responsible for the death of Hector Cross’ wife and only one is left alive: Johnny Congo – psychopath, extortionist, murderer, and the bane of Cross’s life. He caught him before and let him go. Now, Hector wants him dead. So does the US government.
Congo is locked up on Death Row in the most secure prison in the free world, counting down the days until his execution. He’s got two weeks. He wants out. He’s escaped before and knows he can again, and with whizz kid D’Shonn Brown enlisted, he might just have a chance.
Cross, still licking his wounds from his last bruising encounter with Congo, is back and ready for work. In the middle of the rough Atlantic stands oil supertanker Bannock A. Terrorist activity in the area has triggered panic and there’s only one person they can trust to protect her.
What is promised as a cakewalk turns out to be much more, a mission that will test Cross to his emotional and physical limits. But a life spent in the SAS and private security has left Cross hard-wired for pain and as he is thrown into the bull pit once more, he will not stop until he has snared his prey.
Hector Cross is Predator.
ISBN:9780007535767
Author:Wilbur Smith & Tom Cain
Seven Gothic Tales
Brief summary
Originally published in 1934, Seven Gothic Tales, the first book by "one of the finest and most singular artists of our time" (The Atlantic), is a modern classic.
Here are seven exquisite tales combining the keen psychological insight characteristic of the modern short story with the haunting mystery of the nineteenth-century Gothic tale, in the tradition of writers such as Goethe, Hoffmann, and Poe.
ISBN:9780679736417
Author:Isak Dinesen & Karen Blixen
Orphan X
Brief summary
"Do you need my help?" It was always the first question he asked. They called him when they had nowhere else to turn.
Raised and trained as part of a top secret programme he was sent to the worst places in the world to do the things his government denied any knowledge of.
Then he broke with the programme and disappeared. But now someone's on his tail. Someone who knows he was once known simply as Orphan X.
ISBN:9781405928892
Author:Gregg Hurwitz
Never Never
Brief summary
When Sydney police department sex crimes detective Harriet Blue is called into her boss’s office, she never imagined it would be to tell her that her brother is the prime suspect in the brutal murders of three women.
Shocked and in denial, Harry is transferred to Perth to avoid the media exposure this case will attract. Harry is sent into the outback – the never never – to investigate the disappearance of mine worker Danny Carter.
The mining town is a seedy place, full of money and immoral ways to spend it. As Harry delves deeper into the murky lives of these miners, she finds that Danny isn’t the first to go missing.
ISBN:9781780895444
Author:James Patterson & Candice Fox
The Games
Brief summary
Rio has spent years preparing to host the world during the Olympic Games--but they didn't prepare for this...
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil--home to beautiful white-sand beaches, gorgeous women, stunning natural beauty, and the world's largest Carnival celebration--knows how to throw a party.
So it's a natural choice to host the biggest spectacles in sports--the World Cup and the Olympics. To ensure that the games go off without a hitch, the organizers turn to Jack Morgan, the unflappable head of the renowned international security and consulting firm Private. But when events are this exclusive, someone's bound to get left off the guest list.
Two years after the action nearly spilled from the field to the stands during soccer's championship match, Jack is back in Rio for the Olympics. But before the cauldron is even lit, the only thing more intense than the competition is the security risks.
When prominent clients he's supposed to be protecting disappear, and bodies mysteriously start to litter the streets, Jack is drawn deep into the heart of a ruthless underworld populated by disaffected residents trying to crash the world's biggest party.
As the opening ceremonies near, with the world watching in horror, Jack must sprint to the finish line to defuse a threat that could decimate Rio and turn the games from a joyous celebration into a deadly spectacle.
ISBN:9780316407113
Author:James Patterson & Mark Sullivan
1984 by George Orwell
The year 1984 has come and gone, but George Orwell's prophetic, nightmarish vision in 1949 of the world we were becoming is timelier than ever.
1984 is still the great modern classic of "negative utopia" -a startlingly original and haunting novel that creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing, from the first sentence to the last four words.
No one can deny the novel's hold on the imaginations of whole generations, or the power of its admonitions -a power that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.