English books

Alva and Irva are identical twins - but one is shy and the other very outgoing. They become obsessed with making models out of plasticine, their home city perfectly copied. They seem destined to spend their lives unknown, until an earthquake ravages the city and they become heroes. Strange and somewhat eerie, this book is definitely a challenge, but worth it. It delves into the psyche of twins, but with tenderness and understanding. Extract We spent much time in the attic looking out of the window (despite Mother's protestations) onto Veber Street, wondering about all the life there. And one day I decided, and Irva cautiously agreed, to make a model of the street, not just a quick model that would take a few hours to build, but a complex work that would take weeks and perhaps even months to finish: a highly detailed miniturisatio of exactly what was seen from our window. It was constructed entirely from red blocks of plasticine which we purchased with Grandfather from the Mison's toy shop. How we struggled to see them properly for the first time. How plasticine helped to understand.

“AS ENTERTAINING AS SARUM AND RUTHERFURD’S OTHER SWEEPING NOVEL OF BRITISH HISTORY, LONDON.” –The Boston Globe “Engaging . . . A sprawling tome that combines fact with fiction and covers 900 years in the history of New Forest, a 100,000-acre woodland in southern England . . . Rutherfurd sketches the histories of six fictional families, ranging from aristocrats to peasants, who have lived in the forest for generations. . . . But the real success is in how Rutherfurd paints his picture of the wooded enclave with images of treachery and violence, as well as magic and beauty.” –The New York Post “THE FOREST IS MICHENER TOLD WITH AN ENGLISH ACCENT.” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch “TALES OF LOVE AND HONOR, DECEIT AND VIOLENCE, INHERITANCE AND LOSS.” –San Jose Mercury News

"Nothing quite like this has ever been published before," proclaimed The Guardian about the Neapolitan novels in 2014. Against the backdrop of a Naples that is as seductive as it is perilous and a world undergoing epochal change, Elena Ferrante tells the story of a lifelong friendship between two women with unmatched honesty and brilliance. The Story of the Lost Child is the concluding volume in the dazzling saga of two women — the brilliant, bookish Elena, and the fiery, uncontainable Lila. Both are now adults, with husbands, lovers, aging parents, and children. Their friendship has been the gravitational center of their lives. Both women fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up — a prison of conformity, violence, and inviolable taboos. Elena married, moved to Florence, started a family, and published several well-received books. In this final novel she has returned to Naples, drawn back as if responding to the city's obscure magnetism. Lila, on the other hand, could never free herself from the city of her birth. She has become a successful entrepreneur, but her success draws her into closer proximity with the nepotism, chauvinism, and criminal violence that infect the neighborhood. Proximity to the world she has always rejected only brings her role as its unacknowledged leader into relief. For Lila is unstoppable, unmanageable, unforgettable. The four volumes in this series constitute a long remarkable story that readers will return to again and again, and each return will bring with it new revelations.

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, Booklist, BookPage, Library Journal, and Library Reads A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Selection An IndieNext Selection A People Magazine Pick of the Week Winner of the Rome Prize Winner of the American Initiative for Italian Culture “The Bridge” Book Award Longlisted for the International DUBLIN Literary Award Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence (Fiction) "Raw and beautiful. . . . What rises and shines from the page is Todd Aaron, a hero of such singular character and clear spirit that you will follow him anywhere. You won’t just root for him, you will fight and push and pray for him to wrest control of his future. You will read this book in one sitting or maybe two, and, I promise, you will miss this man deeply when you are done.” ―Ann Bauer, Washington Post Sent to a “therapeutic community” for autism at the age of eleven, Todd Aaron, now in his fifties, is the “Old Fox” of Payton LivingCenter. A joyous man who rereads the encyclopedia compulsively, he is unnerved by the sudden arrivals of a menacing new staffer and a disruptive, brain-injured roommate. His equilibrium is further worsened by Martine, a one-eyed new resident who has romantic intentions and convinces him to go off his meds to feel “normal” again. Undone by these pressures, Todd attempts an escape to return “home” to his younger brother and to a childhood that now inhabits only his dreams. Written astonishingly in the first-person voice of an autistic, adult man, Best Boy―with its unforgettable portraits of Todd’s beloved mother, whose sweet voice still sings from the grave, and a staffer named Raykene, who says that Todd “reflects the beauty of His creation”―is a piercing, achingly funny, finally shattering novel no reader can ever forget.

When the body of Nicola Maiden, the daughter of a retired Scotland Yard undercover officer, is found near an unidentified body in the middle of a pre-historic stone circle in Derbyshire, Inspector Lynley is asked to lead the investigation into the deaths.Lynley must get to the bottom of the crime without the assistance of his long-time partner Sergeant Barbara Havers following her demotion as a result of an internal investigation. But Barbara Havers has plans of her own, and they involve the very case that Lynley is working on ...

Baghdad Central is a noir debut novel set in Baghdad in September 2003. Now a major TV series on HULU. The WSJ said: ‘Baghdad Central,” the impossible-to-stop-watching six-part series on Hulu, is a Middle Eastern western in the “High Noon” tradition, though that hardly does it justice. Yes, there’s a solitary hero with the cards stacked against him. High-stakes gambling. Even a saloon. But the setting is Baghdad during the Iraq War.The US occupation of Iraq is a swamp of incompetence and self-delusion. The CPA has disbanded the Iraqi army and police as a consequence of its paranoid policy of de-Ba'athification of Iraqi society. Tales of hubris and reality-denial abound, culminating in Washington hailing the mess a glorious "mission accomplished." Inspector Muhsin al-Khafaji is a mid-level Iraqi cop who deserted his post back in April. Khafaji has lived long enough in pre- and post-Saddam Iraq to know that clinging on to anything but poetry and his daughter, Mrouj, is asking for trouble. Nabbed by the Americans and imprisoned in Abu Ghraib, Khafaji is offered one way out—work for the CPA to rebuild the Iraqi Police Services. But it's only after United States forces take Mrouj that he figures out a way to make his collaboration palatable, and even rewarding. Soon, he is investigating the disappearance of young women translators working for the US Army. The bloody trail leads Khafaji through battles, bars, and brothels then finally back to the Green Zone, where it all began. This is a first novel by Elliott Colla , an American writer totally immersed in Middle Eastern affairs. He is a professor of Arabic literature at Georgetown University, and a well-known translator from the Arabic of local fiction and poetry. He divides his time between Washington, DC, and the Middle East.

'America's greatest crime writer' (Newsweek) brings his genius for characterisation, his rich ear for dialogue, and his piercing psychological insight to a gripping story set in an era he's never before explored: the years of the Second World War. The odd thing about Walter Schoen is he's a dead ringer for Heinrich Himmler. Walter is a member of a spy ring that sends US war production data to Germany and gives shelter to escaped German prisoners of war. Honey Deal, Walter's American wife, has given up trying to make him over as a regular guy. She decides it's time to stop telling him jokes he doesn't understand and get a divorce. Along comes Carl Webster, the Hot Kid of the Marshals Service, looking for an escaped POW. Carl uses Honey to meet Walter, who Carl believes is hiding the POW. Honey's a free spirit; she likes the hot kid marshal and doesn't care much that he's married. But all Carl wants is to do his job without getting shot...