Monday, 31 December 2018
Careless Love (The Inspector Banks Series) by Peter Robinson
Hardback: Careless Love (2018) is the thrilling twenty-fifth instalment in Peter Robinson's Number One bestselling Banks series, in which Banks and his team find themselves with two suspicious deaths.
A young local student has apparently committed suicide. Her body is found in an abandoned car on a lonely country road.
She did not own a car.
Did not even drive.
How did she get there?
Where did she die?
Who moved her, and why?
Meanwhile a man in his sixties is found dead in a gully up on the wild moorland. He is wearing an expensive suit and carrying no identification. Post-mortem findings indicate he died from injuries sustained during the fall. But what was he doing up there? And why are there no signs of a car in the vicinity?
As the inconsistencies multiply and the mysteries proliferate, Annie's father's new partner, Zelda, comes up with a shocking piece of information that alerts Banks and Annie to the return of an old enemy in a new guise. This is someone who will stop at nothing, not even murder, to get what he wants - and suddenly the stakes are raised and the hunt is on.
About the author: Peter Robinson's DCI Banks is now a major ITV1 drama starring Stephen Tompkinson (Wild at Heart, Ballykissangel) as Inspector Banks, and Andrea Lowe (The Bill, Murphy's Law) as DI Annie Cabbot.
Peter's standalone novel Before The Poison won the IMBA's 2013 Dilys Award as well as the 2012 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel by the Crime Writers of Canada. This was Peter's sixth Arthur Ellis award. His critically acclaimed Inspector Banks novels have won numerous awards in Britain, the United States, Canada and Europe, and are published in translation all over the world.
Peter grew up in Yorkshire, and now divides his time between Richmond and Canada.
Peter keeps a website at www.inspectorbanks.com.
Rating: 5/5
Sunday, 30 December 2018
Cassandra Darke by Posy Simmonds
Hardback: Posy Simmonds is back with a new anti-heroine Cassandra Darke (2018).
Cassandra Darke is an art dealer, mean, selfish, solitary by nature, living in Chelsea in a house worth £7 million.
Cassandra Darke is an art dealer, mean, selfish, solitary by nature, living in Chelsea in a house worth £7 million.
She has become a social pariah, but does not much care. Between one Christmas and the next, she has sullied the reputation of a West End gallery and has acquired a conviction for fraud, a suspended sentence and a bank balance drained by lawsuits. On the scale of villainy, fraud seems to Cassandra a rather paltry offence - her own crime involving ‘no violence, no weapon, no dead body’.
But in Cassandra’s basement, her young ex-lodger, Nicki, has left a surprise, something which implies at least violence and probably a body.
Something which forces Cassandra out of her rich enclave and onto the streets. Not those local streets paved with gold and lit with festive glitter, but grimmer, darker places, where she must make the choice between self-sacrifice and running for her life.
About the author: Posy Simmonds is the author of many books and graphic novels for adults and children, including Gemma Bovery, Lulu and the Flying Babies and Fred, the film of which was nominated for an Oscar. Her style gently satirises the English middle classes and in particular those of a literary bent. She has won international awards for her work, including the Grand Prix 2009 de la Critique Bande Dessiné for Tamara Drewe. Both Gemma Bovery and Tamara Drewe have been made into successful feature films. Simmonds lives in London.
Rating: 5/5
Saturday, 29 December 2018
Friday, 28 December 2018
Thursday, 27 December 2018
Victim Without A Face (Fabian Risk Series) by Stefan Ahnhem
Paperback: The first book in the Fabian Risk series, Victim Without a Face (2016) is a chilling novel about the ultimate revenge.
Criminal investigator Fabian Risk has left Stockholm with his wife, Sonja, and their two children to start fresh in his hometown of Helsingborg.
He has planned a six-week vacation before he starts a new job at the Homicide Department.
But after only a few hours in their new home, he is asked to investigate a brutal murder.
The body of Jörgen Pålsson, one of Risk’s former classmates, has been found with both hands missing.
Soon the bodies of more old classmates are found, and Risk finds himself in a race against time: Can they find the murderer before the entire class is killed?
Victim Without A Face is translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles.
About the author: ”As a kid, I never dreamt of being a writer. Putting letters in the right order to form words did not come easily to me. school, while the rest of my class had Swedish lessons, a strange-smelling lady would pull me out of the classroom to play with wooden blocks painted with colourful letters.
For as long as I can remember, however, I have been a passionate storyteller. Growing up as an only child undoubtedly sparked my creativity, and all the hours spent playing by myself fed my vivid imagination. My grandfather’s rocking chair was a marvellous spacecraft able to transport me to all the planets in the universe. And the world map that my teacher stubbornly refused to pull down revealed precisely where the secret treasure was buried.
From that time on, the stories kept coming to me, as if from an inexhaustible source. But it wasn’t until I reached adulthood that I finally abandoned a future in physics and mathematics and realised that I had to pursue my true calling."
Stefan Ahnhem grew up in Helsingborg, Sweden, and now lives in Stockholm. He is an established screenwriter, whose credits include adapting Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander series for TV. He has worked in both TV and film, with everything from comedy to thriller and with original ideas as well as adaptations. He also serves on the board of the Swedish Writers Guild. Victim Without a Face is his first novel. It won Crimetime's Novel of the Year in Sweden in 2014, and it has been published in more than ten countries. To date, four novels have been published in the internationally bestselling and award-winning Fabian Risk series.
About the translator: Rachel Willson-Broyles is an experienced translator of Swedish fiction. Her recent credits include the translation of The Girl Who Saved The King Of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson.
Rating: 5/5
Wednesday, 26 December 2018
The Burden Of Lies (Peter Tanner Legal Series) by Richard Beasley
Paperback: Cocaine. Construction. Corruption. The unholy trinity of Sydney.
Self-made property mogul Tina Leonard has already lost her business, her home and custody of her children because South East Banking Corporation left her bankrupt. Now it appears she is being framed for the murder of her banker Oliver Randall, a senior executive of the corporation. Her motive? Revenge for ruining her life and her business.
When maverick lawyer Peter Tanner is brought in to represent Tina, he bends the law to learn the truth.
Was the real killer employed by the bank to silence Randall, who knew too much about their corrupt clientele and business dealings?
As Tanner digs deeper the truth is harder and harder to find. Drug dealers and dodgy cops are a breed apart from corrupt corporate bankers, who will do anything to keep their names in the clear.
Who really silenced Randall?
Tanner gets more than he bargained for as he tangles with craven bent banks and a client who cannot talk, and danger lurks far too close to home.
Bestseller The Burden of Lies (2017) is Richard Beasley's latest sharp-edged, gritty Peter Tanner thriller set in Sydney, Australia. This book was purchased from the Margaret River Bookshop in Austrualia.
About the author: Richard Beasley grew up in Adelaide, before moving to Sydney where he has worked as a barrister since 1997. He is the author of five novels: Hell Has Harbour Views (which was adapted for ABC Television in 2005), The Ambulance Chaser, Me and Rory Macbeath, and his Peter Tanner thrillers, Cyanide Games and The Burden of Lies.
Rating: 5/5
Tuesday, 25 December 2018
Monday, 24 December 2018
Sunday, 23 December 2018
Friday, 21 December 2018
The Desert Fathers: Sayings Of The Early Christian Monks
Paperback: "All must endure great travail and conflict when they are first converted to the Lord but later they have unspeakable joy."
The desert fathers provided the inspiration for Christian spirituality throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. The men and women who first embraced the life of solitude in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine and Syria were seldom clerics or scholars.
Yet these uneducated peasants, shepherds, itinerant traders, former slaves and prostitutes soon attracted so many followers they were said to have turned the desert into a city.
From the fourth century onwards, along with biographies and full-length treatises, their reflections were brought together and widely circulated. Powerful and moving in their depth of religious conviction and wholehearted, even joyful, commitment to poverty, simplicity and humility, the sayings directly influenced the Rule of Saint Benedict, and set the pattern for Western monasticism.
This edition makes freshly accessible the most influential Latin collection of sayings. The new English translations follow the original Latin organization around themes important to the monks, such as charity, fortitude, lust, patience, prayer, self-control and visions.
The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks (2003) is translated with an introduction by Benedicta Ward.
About the translator: Benedicta Ward is a Reader in the History of Christian Spirituality in the University of Oxford. She teaches for the Faculty of Theology and is a Supernumerary Fellow of Harris Manchester College. She has written six books on early monasticism and five on aspects of the Middle Ages, including her most recent monograph, High King of Heaven: Aspects of Early English Spirituality. She is a member of the Anglican religious community of the Sisters of the Love of God.
Wednesday, 19 December 2018
Tuesday, 18 December 2018
Monday, 17 December 2018
Comfort Zone by Brian Aldiss
Paperback: When the residents of Old Headington, a leafy suburb of Oxford, learn that a local pub is being knocked down to make room for a mosque, they find their normally liberal views overthrown by deep-seated prejudices.
Looking on with great interest is Justin Haddock (or, as he prefers, Haydock), a retired academic in his eighties. Inspired by these developments, Haddock begins work on a new thesis about the dangers of religion and the role of Chance in society - only to have both subjects start to impact on his own life more closely than he could have expected.
Shot through with characteristic brilliance and wit, Comfort Zone (2013) proves that even sixty years since the publication of his first novel, Brian Aldiss still has something important to say.
About the author: Poet, playwright, critic, fiction and science-fiction writer Brian W(ilson) Aldiss was born on 18 August 1925 in Dereham, Norfolk, and is the author of more than 75 books. He died on 19 August 2017 just after celebrating his 92nd birthday with his family and closest friends.
He was educated at Framlingham College, Suffolk, and West Buckland School, Devon, and served in the Royal Signals between 1943 and 1947. After leaving the army, Aldiss worked as a bookseller in Oxford for almost a decade. This experience provided the setting for his first book, The Brightfount Diaries (1955), a volume of short stories. His first science fiction novel, Non-Stop, was published in 1958 while he was working as literary editor of the Oxford Mail, a post he held between 1958 and 1969. His many prize-winning science fiction titles include Hothouse (1962), which won the Hugo Award, The Saliva Tree (1966), which was awarded the Nebula, and Helliconia Spring (1982), which won both the British Science Fiction Association Award and the John W Campbell Memorial Award. He edited SF Horizons: A Magazine of Criticism and Comment with his friend, the science fiction novelist Harry Harrison, and he has edited numerous anthologies, including Introducing SF: A Science Fiction Anthology (1964). He has also written science fiction criticism, most recently,The Detached Retina: Aspects of SF and Fantasy (1995), as well as introductions to classic novels including Mary Shelley's The Last Man (1983). Brian Aldiss's autobiographical fiction includes The Hand-Reared Boy (1970) and A Soldier Erect (1971), and he has also written three volumes of autobiography, Bury My Heart at W. H. Smith's: A Writing Life (1990), The Twinkling of an Eye or My Life as an Englishman (1998) and When the Feast is Finished (1999). He is the author of several poetry collections, including Home Life with Cats (1992); A Plutonian Monologue on His Wife's Death (2000) and A Prehistory of Mind (2008). Several of his books, including Frankenstein Unbound (filmed 1990), have been adapted for the cinema. His story, 'Supertoys Last All Summer Long', was adapted and released as the film AI in 2001. His book Jocasta (2005), is a reworking of Sophocles' classic Theban plays, Oedipus Rex and Antigone.
Cultural Breaks (2006), published to coincide with his eightieth birthday, is a collection of short fictions which includes commentaries on his work by his peers. In 2011, a selection of his poetry, Mortal Morning, was published. His latest novels were Walcot (2009) and Comfort Zone (2013) and he was working on a long novel set in Russia in the eighteenth century. His publishers, Harper Voyager, reprinted everything Aldiss wrote in the sixties, along with a collection of stories written in his teenage years, Whip Donovan, to celebrate his ninetieth birthday.
Brian Aldiss was the recipient of numerous international awards for science-fiction writing including a Kurd Lasswitz Award (Germany) and a Prix Jules Verne (Sweden). He lived in Oxford and was awarded an OBE in 2005 for Services to Literature.
Rating: 5/5
Saturday, 15 December 2018
The Gurus, The Young Man And Elder Paisios by Dionysios Farasiotis
Paperback: This powerful memoir tells the story of a Greek youth who, out of a desire to know the truth empirically, began to experiment in yoga, hypnotism, and various occult techniques.
Eventually drawn back to the Faith of his forefathers Orthodox Christianity he visited the ancient monastic republic of Mount Athos in his native Greece, where he was brought to a knowledge of the Truth of Jesus Christ by the saintly Elder Paisios (1924 1994).
Nevertheless, believing he had only found part of the truth on the Holy Mountain, he chose to give the same opportunity to Hindu yogis that he had given to Elder Paisios and other Orthodox monks. Thus, at the age of twenty-five, he embarked on a trip to India, where he undertook his search in the ashrams of three famous gurus, one of whom was worshipped as a god.
His experiences in India, along with his subsequent encounters with Elder Paisios on Mount Athos, are recounted in the present book in vivid detail. Popular in Greece since its first publication there in 2001, The Gurus, the Young Man, and Elder Paisios is a page-turning narrative of both outward adventures and inward struggles. What stands out most in this book, however, is the radiant image of Elder Paisios, possessed of divine gifts, labouring in prayer for his fellow man, and overflowing with unconditional love. Through this, one sees the uncreated Source of the elder's love and of the author's spiritual transformation: the true God-man Jesus Christ, Who honours man's personal freedom while drawing him, through love, into everlasting union with Himself.
The Gurus, The Young Man And Elder Paisios (2014) is translated and adapted by Hieromonk Alexis, Holy Monastery of Karakallou, Mount Athos, and edited by Philip Navaro.
About the author: This work is written under a pseudonym to protect the privacy of the writer and that of his family.
Thursday, 13 December 2018
Yesterday by Felicia Yap
Paperback: How do you solve a murder when you only remember yesterday?
Imagine a world in which classes are divided not by wealth or religion but by how much each group can remember. Monos, the majority, have only one day’s worth of memory; elite Duos have two.
In this stratified society, where Monos are excluded from holding high office and demanding jobs, Claire and Mark are a rare mixed marriage. Clare is a conscientious Mono housewife, Mark a novelist-turned-politician Duo on the rise. They are a shining example of a new vision of tolerance and equality - until…
A beautiful woman is found dead, her body dumped in England’s River Cam. The woman is Mark’s mistress, and he is the prime suspect in her murder. The detective investigating the case has secrets of his own. So did the victim. And when both the investigator’s and the suspect’s memories are constantly erased - how can anyone learn the truth?
Told from four different perspectives, that of Mark, Claire, the detective on the case, and the victim, Felicia Yap’s staggeringly inventive debut leads us on a race against an ever-resetting clock to find the killer.
With the science-fiction world-building of Philip K Dick and the twisted ingenuity of Memento, Yesterday (2017) is a thriller you will never forget.
The much anticipated prequel to Yesterday - Today - will be out on 20 March 2019!
About the author: Felicia Yap grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She has been a cell biologist, a war historian, a university lecturer, a technology journalist, a theatre critic, a flea-market trader and a catwalk model. Felicia lives in London and is a graduate of the Faber Academy. Yesterday is her debut thriller.
Rating: 5/5
In Sinu Jesu: When Heart Speaks To Heart - The Journal Of A Priest At Prayer by A Benedictine Monk
Paperback: There is no need for you or any priest to remain alone. My Heart is open to all my priest sons, and to those who ask for it, I will not refuse the grace of a special intimacy with me, a participation in the unique grace given Saint Joseph and Saint John in the beginning. (p. 36)
I am He who understands every man’s loneliness, especially the loneliness of My priests. I want to share their loneliness so that they will not be alone with themselves, but alone with Me. There I shall speak to their hearts as I am speaking to you. I am ablaze to be for each one of My priests the Friend whom they seek, the Friend with whom they can share everything, the Friend to whom they can tell everything, the Friend who will weep over their sins without, for a moment, ceasing to love them. (p. 14)
In 2007, Our Lord and Our Lady began to speak to the heart of a monk in the silence of adoration. He was prompted to write down what he received, and thus was born In Sinu Jesu (2016), whose pages shine with an intense luminosity and heart-warming fervour that speak directly to the inner and outer needs of our time with a unique power to console and challenge.
The pages of this remarkable record of spiritual communication range across, and plunge into, many fundamental aspects of the spiritual life: loving and being loved by God; the practice of prayer in all its dimensions; the unique power of Eucharistic adoration; trustful surrender to divine providence; the homage of silence; the dignity of liturgical prayer and the sacraments; the mystery of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; priestly identity and apostolic fruitfulness; the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints in our lives; sin, woundedness, mercy, healing, and purification; the longing for heaven and the longed-for renewal of the Catholic Church on earth.
Given the harmony of its content with the teaching of Sacred Scripture, Catholic Tradition, and well-known works of the mystics, it is eminently fitting that In Sinu Jesu be published in full at this time (it has been granted the imprimatur).
Passages from this journal have already influenced the spiritual lives of priests, religious, and laymen - may it now give light and warmth, consolation and renewed conviction, to readers throughout the world.
"It is my fervent hope that In Sinu Jesu will inspire many to be ever more ardent adorers of the Eucharistic Face of Jesus." - His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta
Wednesday, 12 December 2018
Monday, 10 December 2018
Saturday, 8 December 2018
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Hardback: Becoming (2018) is an intimate, powerful and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States.
When she was a little girl, Michelle Robinson's world was the South Side of Chicago, where she and her brother, Craig, shared a bedroom in their family's upstairs apartment and played catch in the park, and where her parents, Fraser and Marian Robinson, raised her to be outspoken and unafraid.
But life soon took her much further afield, from the halls of Princeton, where she learned for the first time what it felt like to be the only black woman in a room, to the glassy office tower where she worked as a high-powered corporate lawyer - and where, one summer morning, a law student named Barack Obama appeared in her office and upended all her carefully made plans.
Here, for the first time, Michelle Obama describes the early years of her marriage as she struggles to balance her work and family with her husband's fast-moving political career. She takes us inside their private debate over whether he should make a run for the presidency and her subsequent role as a popular but oft-criticized figure during his campaign.
Narrating with grace, good humour, and uncommon candour, she provides a vivid, behind-the-scenes account of her family's history-making launch into the global limelight as well as their life inside the White House over eight momentous years - as she comes to know her country and her country comes to know her.
Becoming takes us through modest Iowa kitchens and ballrooms at Buckingham Palace, through moments of heart-stopping grief and profound resilience, bringing us deep into the soul of a singular, groundbreaking figure in history as she strives to live authentically, marshalling her personal strength and voice in service of a set of higher ideals.
In telling her story with honesty and boldness, she issues a challenge to the rest of us: Who are we and who do we want to become?
About the author: Michelle Robinson Obama served as First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Mrs Obama started her career as an attorney at the Chicago law firm Sidley and Austin, where she met her future husband, Barack Obama. She later worked in the Chicago mayor's office, at the University of Chicago and at the University of Chicago Medical Centre. Mrs Obama also founded the Chicago chapter of Public Allies, an organization that prepares young people for careers in public service. The Obamas currently live in Washington DC and have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.
Friday, 7 December 2018
Alexandrina: The Agony And The Glory by Francis Johnston
Paperback: Crippled at the age of fourteen when she jumped out of a window to escape from a rapist, Alexandrina da Costa (1904-1955) spent her years after twenty as an invalid, living in the small Portuguese town of Balasar.
Like Therese Neumann, she suffered the Passion of Christ on Fridays in expiation for sins. Her spiritual director considered Alexandrina to be a second St Margaret Mary because of her conversations with Our Lord.
During the last thirteen years of her life, she ate and drank nothing - except daily Communion. Medical researchers examined her and could find no natural explanation for this phenomenon. People revered Alexandrina as a saint and flocked to see her that they might speak with her and implore her prayers.
Her constant message to them was the same as Our Lady's message at Fátima: "Do penance, sin no more, pray the Rosary, receive the Eucharist."
According to the evidence in this book, Alexandrina, through her prayers and sufferings, was instrumental in shortening World War II. The cause for her beatification has currently progressed further than that of Padre Pio (at the time of publication of this book) and her writings were approved in Rome during 1979.
Alexandrina: The Agony and The Glory (1979) is the story of a great and heroic victim soul and positive proof that sanctity exists even in our day. This book is translated from the Italian by Anne Croshaw.
About the author: Francis Johnston was an Irish priest and author who lived in the twentieth century. His works include Voice of the Saints (1965), Heart of the Saints (1975), Alexandria: The Agony and the Glory (1979), and Fátima, the Great Sign (1980). The latter was republished by TAN a year after its initial release. Mr Johnston also wrote several pamphlets, among them Addict for Christ, Have You Forgotten Fátima?, and A Very Ordinary Girl.
Wednesday, 5 December 2018
Suburra by Carlo Bonini and Giancarlo De Cataldo
Paperback: In Ostia, a depressed coastal settlement twenty miles from the powerful and corrupt city of Rome, a mighty local crime family, the Mafia, corrupt politicians, and new rabid criminal elements battle each other for a billion-dollar payoff.
During the final days of Silvio Berlusconi's reign, a massive development proposal that will turn Ostia into a gambling paradise, a Las Vegas on the Mediterranean, is winding its way through the Italian legislature thanks to the sponsorship of politicians in the pay of crime syndicates with vested interests. In short, it is business as usual in the Italian capital.
But a vicious gang of local thugs loyal to nobody but themselves is insisting on a bigger cut than agreed upon. They argue their case quite convincingly, but the Mafia and their political puppets are not likely to back down without a fight.
De Cataldo and Bonini have created a compelling, provocative portrait of contemporary Rome - a city prey to pitiless criminal factions and political opportunism. A fast-paced and atmospheric work of crime fiction, Suburra (2017, translation) rivals the best novels by writers such as Denis Lehane, Richard Price, and George Pelecanos, and successful series like The Wire and The Night Of.
Suburra was released as a Netflix original series in 2017.
About the authors: Carlo Bonini is a staff writer at the Italian national daily, La Repubblica.
Giancarlo De Cataldo is the author of the bestselling novel, Romanzo Criminale, an essayist, the author of numerous TV screenplays, and a judge on the circuit court of Rome.
Suburra is translated from the Italian by Antony Shugaar. Antony Shugaar's translations for Europa Editions include eight books in the Commissario Ricciardi series by Maurizio de Giovanni.
Rating: 5/5
Tuesday, 4 December 2018
Monday, 3 December 2018
Saturday, 1 December 2018
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