Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Paperback:  Who says you can't run away from your problems?

You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty.  A wedding invitation arrives in the mail:  your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else.  You can't say yes - it would be too awkward - and you can't say no - it would look like defeat.  On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.

QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?

ANSWER: You accept them all.

What would possibly go wrong?  Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there:  he will turn fifty.  Through it all, there is his first love.  And there is his last.

Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less (2017) is, above all, a love story.

A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author The New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.

Less won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2018.

About the author:  Andrew Sean Greer (born 1970) is an American novelist and short story writer.

He is the bestselling author of The Story of a Marriage, which The New York Times has called an “inspired, lyrical novel,” and The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which was named one of the best books of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle and received a California Book Award.

The child of two scientists, Greer studied writing with Robert Coover and Edmund White at Brown University, where he was the commencement speaker at his own graduation, where his unrehearsed remarks, critiquing Brown's admissions policies, caused a semi-riot.  After years in New York working as a chauffeur, theatre tech, television extra and unsuccessful writer, he moved to Missoula, Montana, where he received his Master of Fine Arts from The University of Montana, from where he soon moved to Seattle and two years later to San Francisco where he now lives.  He is currently a fellow at the New York Public Library Cullman Center.  He is an identical twin.

While in San Francisco, he began to publish in magazines before releasing a collection of his stories, How It Was for Me.  His stories have appeared in Esquire, The Paris Review, The New Yorker and other national publications, and have been anthologized most recently in The Book of Other People, and The PEN/ O. Henry Prize Stories 2009.  His first novel, The Path of Minor Planets, was published in 2001.

Rating:  3/5

Meghan: A Hollywood Princess by Andrew Morton

Hardback:  Meghan:  A Hollywood Princess (2018) is the #1 New York Times bestselling biography of Meghan Markle, the American actress who won Prince Harry's heart.

Women who smash the royal mould have always fascinated the public, from Grace Kelly to Princess Diana.  Now acclaimed royal biographer Andrew Morton, the New York Times bestselling author of Diana: Her True Story, brings us a revealing, juicy, and inspiring look at Meghan Markle, the confident and charismatic duchess-to-be whose warm and affectionate engagement interview won the hearts of the world.

When Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were set up by a mutual friend on a blind date in July 2016, little did they know that the resulting whirlwind romance would lead to their engagement in November 2017 and marriage on 19 May 2018.

Morton goes back to Meghan's roots to uncover the story of her childhood growing up in The Valley in Los Angeles, her studies at an all-girls Catholic school, and her fraught family life-a painful experience mirrored by Harry's own background.

Morton also delves into her previous marriage and divorce in 2013, her struggles in Hollywood as her mixed heritage was used against her, her big break in the hit TV show Suits, and her work for a humanitarian ambassador - the latter so reminiscent of Princess Diana's passions.  Finally, we see how the royal romance played out across two continents but was kept fiercely secret, before the news finally broke and Meghan was thrust into the global media's spotlight.

Drawing on exclusive interviews with her family members and closest friends, and including never-before-seen photographs, Morton introduces us to the real Meghan as he reflects on the impact that she has already had on the rigid traditions of the House of Windsor, as well as what the future might hold.

About the author:  Andrew David Morton is an English journalist and writer who has published biographies of royal figures such as Diana, Princess of Wales, and celebrity subjects including Tom Cruise, Madonna, Angelina Jolie and Monica Lewinsky;  several of his books have been unauthorised and contain contested assertions.  Morton was born and raised in Dewsbury, West Riding of Yorkshire, where his father ran a picture framing business.  He attended Leeds Grammar School and Sussex University where he studied history.  After university, Morton became a tabloid journalist and worked for three London tabloids, the Daily Star, News of the World, and Daily Mail, until 1987.  Monica Lewinsky; several of his books have been unauthorised and contain contested assertions.

Murder in the Palais Royal (Aimée Leduc Series) by Cara Black

Paperback:  Someone impersonating Parisian PI Aimée Leduc shoots her partner, René, and eyewitnesses identify Aimée as the culprit.  She must clear herself and find the shooter before she finishes the job.

Just as Aimée is about to leave for New York City to follow up on a lead about a possible younger brother, her partner in Leduc Detective, René Friant, is wounded by a near-fatal gun shot.

Eyewitnesses identify Aimée as the culprit.

The police have pegged her as the guilty party.  Aimée is distraught over René’s condition and horrified to be under suspicion.

At the same time, a large, mysterious sum appears in their firm’s bank account, and the tax authorities descend upon Aimée.  She has no idea who would have sent this money.

It seems that someone is impersonating Aimée, someone who wants revenge. But for what? Two murders ensue. How do they relate to the youth whom Aimée’s testimony sent to jail in the very first Aimée Leduc investigation, Murder in the Marais?

Murder In The Palais Royal (2010) is the tenth instalment in the brilliant French PI Aimée Leduc series.

About the author:  Cara Black is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of 17 books in the Private Investigator Aimée Leduc series, which is set in Paris.  Cara has received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Macavity Awards, a Washington Post Book World Book of the Year citation, the Médaille de la Ville de Paris - the Paris City Medal, which is awarded in recognition of contribution to international culture - and invitations to be the Guest of Honour at conferences such as the Paris Polar Crime Festival and Left Coast Crime.  With more than 400,000 books in print, the Aimée Leduc series has been translated into German, Norwegian, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew.

Cara was born in Chicago but has lived in California’s Bay Area since she was five years old.

Her love of all things French was kindled by the French-speaking nuns at her Catholic high school, where Cara first encountered French literature and went crazy for the work of Prix Goncourt winner Romain Gary.  Her junior year in high school, she wrote him a fan letter - which he answered, and which inspired her to make her first trip to Paris, where her idol took her out for coffee and a cigar. Since then, she has been to Paris many, many times.  On each visit she entrenches herself in a different part of the city, learning its secret history.  She has posed as a journalist to sneak into closed areas, trained at a firing range with real Paris flics, gotten locked in a bathroom at the Victor Hugo museum, and - just like Aimée - gone down into the sewers with the rats (she can never pass up an opportunity to see something new, even when the timing isn’t ideal - she was headed to a fancy dinner right afterwards and had a spot of bother with her shoes).  For the scoop on real Paris crime, she takes the flics out for drinks and dinner to hear their stories - but it usually turns into a long evening, which is why she sticks with espresso.

Rating:  5/5

Swift Things Are Beautiful by Elizabeth Coatsworth

Definition: Omnilegent

Robert Kuok: A Memoir with Andrew Tanzer

Hardback:  Robert Kuok is one of the most highly respected businessmen in Asia.  But this legendary Overseas Chinese entrepreneur, commodities trader, hotelier and property mogul has maintained a low profile and seldom shed light in public on his business empire or personal life. That is, until now.

In these memoirs, the 94-year-old Kuok tells the remarkable story of how, starting in British Colonial Malaya, he built a multi-industry, multinational business group.

In reflecting back on 75 years of conducting business, he offers management insights, discusses strategies and lessons learned, and relates his principles, philosophy, and moral code.

Kuok has lived through fascinating and often tumultuous times in Asia - from British colonialism to Japanese military occupation to post-colonial Southeast Asia and the dramatic rise of Asian economies, including, more recently, China.

From his front-row seat and as an active participant, this keen, multi-cultural observer tells nearly a century of Asian history through his life and times.

Readers interested in business, management, history, politics, culture and sociology will all enjoy Robert Kuok's unique and remarkable story in Robert Kuok:  A Memoir (2017).

About the author:  Andrew Tanzer worked as a correspondent in East Asia for 20 years for Far Eastern Economic Review and Forbes Magazine and received the US Overseas Press Club Award for best business reporting from abroad in magazines for his work at Forbes.

He holds an MS in Journalism from Columbia University and is a CFA Charterholder.  Tanzer is currently a senior researcher, portfolio strategist and investment writer for a New York City-based private wealth manager.

About Robert Kuok:  Robert Kuok Hock Nien, is an author, a Malaysian business magnate and investor.  According to Forbes, his net worth is estimated at $14.8 billion on March 2018, making him the richest person in Malaysia and sixth richest in Southeast Asia.  As of May 2018, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Kuok has an estimated net worth of $19.9 billion, making him the 48th richest person in the world.

His business interests range from sugarcane plantations (Perlis Plantations Bhd), sugar refineries, flour milling, animal feed, oil, mining, finance, hotel (Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts), property, trading, freight and publishing.  The biggest source of his wealth is his stake in Wilmar International, the world's largest listed palm oil trader company.

Kuok is among five prominent Malaysians who will be part of a Council of Eminent Persons set up to advise the new Malaysian government.

Macbeth by Jo Nesbø

Hardback:  Set in the 1970s in a run-down, rainy industrial town, Jo Nesbø's Macbeth centers around a police force struggling to shed an incessant drug problem.

Duncan, chief of police, is idealistic and visionary, a dream to the townspeople but a nightmare for criminals.  The drug trade is ruled by two drug lords, one of whom - a master of manipulation named Hecate - has connections with the highest in power, and plans to use them to get his way.

Hecate’s plot hinges on steadily, insidiously manipulating Inspector Macbeth:  the head of SWAT and a man already susceptible to violent and paranoid tendencies.

What follows is an unputdownable story of love and guilt, political ambition, and greed for more, exploring the darkest corners of human nature, and the aspirations of the criminal mind.

Macbeth (2018) is translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett.

About the author:  Jo Nesbø is one of the world's leading crime writers, which he claims only partly compensates for having a promising soccer career abruptly terminated when he tore ligaments in both knees at the age of eighteen.  After he studied economics and financial analysis, he worked as a stockbroker by day and played with the band Di Derre ('Them There') by night.  When commissioned by a publisher to write a memoir about life on the road with his band, he instead came up with the plot for his first Harry Hole crime novel, The Bat.  His novels are published in 50 languages and have sold over 49 million copies worldwide.

Macbeth was inspired by Shakespeare's original, which Nesbø sees as a 'thriller about the struggle for power, set both in a gloomy, stormy, noir-like setting and in a dark, paranoid human mind.'

Sign up for the Jo Nesbø newsletter at jonesbo.com/newsletter

About the translator:  Don Bartlett completed an MA at UEA, Norwich in 2000.  He has translated, or co-translated, novels by Norwegian authors such as Karl Ove Knausgård, Lars Saabye Christensen and Gunnar Staalesen.

Rating:  5/5

Sweet Mandarin by Helen Tse

Paperback:  Spanning almost a hundred years, this rich and evocative true story recounts the lives of three generations of remarkable Chinese women.  Their extraordinary journey takes us from the brutal poverty of village life in mainland China to newly prosperous 1930s Hong Kong and finally to the West. 

Their lives were as dramatic as the times they lived through.

A love of food and a talent for cooking pulled each generation through the most devastating of upheavals.  Helen Tse's grandmother, Lily Kwok, was forced to work as an amah after the violent murder of her father. 

Crossing the ocean to the UK in the 1950s, she eventually opened her own restaurant where her daughter, Mabel, worked from the tender age of nine.  But gambling and the Triads were pervasive in the Chinese immigrant community and they tragically lost the restaurant.

It was up to Helen and her sisters, the third generation of these exceptional women, to re-establish their grandmother's dream.

Sweet Mandarin (2007) shows how the most important inheritance is wisdom, and how recipes - passed down the female line - can be the most valuable heirloom.  It is also a memoir of survival and victories, luck and determination and perpetual mounds of dirty dishes waiting to be washed - a banquet of family stories.

About the author:  Helen Tse MBE (born 1977) is a British author and restaurateur.  Her most noted work has been Sweet Mandarin, a memoir of three generations of Chinese women, beginning with her grandmother, Lily Kwok, establishing themselves in the Manchester area.  Before she became an author and restaurateur, she studied law at Cambridge University and then worked in finance and law for Clifford Chance and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

In 2006, she won a Young Accountant of the Year award and in 2008, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Staffordshire University for her "contribution to literature".  Tse is one of three granddaughters of Lily Kwok;  the others are Lisa and Janet.  All three have continued in the hospitality business with Sweet Mandarin, a Chinese restaurant they opened together in 2004 in Manchester's Northern Quarter, where "Lily Kwok's Chicken Curry" remains a menu item.

,In 2007 Helen Tse published a family memoir, also called Sweet Mandarin, about her grandmother's life and career.  In collaboration with Lisa Tse, she has also published cookbooks based on their grandmother's recipes:  Dim Sum: Small Bites Made Easy and Sweet Mandarin Cookbook.

Tse was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to the food and drink sector.

Rating:  4/5

Out Of Thin Air: A True Story Of Impossible Murder In Iceland (True Crime) by Anthony Adeane

Hardback:  Every Icelander knows about the Gudmundur and Geirfinnur disappearances.

In 1974, in two seemingly unconnected incidents, two men vanished into thin air.

Then, out of it, came six murder confessions and six convictions.

Yet, in the decades that followed, these too would evaporate.

Anthony Adeane tells the stranger-than-fiction true crime story that has dogged Iceland for forty-five years.  In doing so, he provides a comprehensive account of the case, paints a fascinating picture of the country - covering its history, landscape, law, media, domestic politics and geopolitical importance - while placing the increasingly bizarre developments in the contexts that shaped each decade:  from the effects of World War Two, to the Cod Wars and Cold War, the 2008 economic crash and beyond.

Using unprecedented access, and fuelled by a personal obsession with the case, he uncovers the mistakes that were made, the lives that were ruined, the questions that remain unanswered, and the headlines that continue to be printed.

Out Of Thin Air (2018) is at once the shocking story of a miscarriage of justice, a brilliant portrait of a society through the lens of a tragedy, and a compelling true crime narrative.

About the author:  Anthony Adeane is a journalist based in London.  He pitched the idea for a documentary about the Gudmundur and Geirfinnur disappearances to an independent production company in autumn 2014 and then worked with them over the next three years, travelling back and forth to Iceland to conduct interviews with those involved, and to learn more about this fascinating country.

He has since built up a vast network of contacts, including the main suspects, the police who first investigated the disappearances, and the journalists who made their names with this story.

When he is not writing about bizarre Icelandic disappearances, he can be found working at the BBC as a current affairs producer.

Jean Rhys (1890-1979) Novelist

Thank God

Walking by Henry David Thoreau

Paperback:  Walking, or sometimes referred to as "The Wild", is a lecture by Henry David Thoreau first delivered at the Concord Lyceum on 23 April 23 1851.  It was written between 1851 and 1860, but parts were extracted from his earlier journals.  Thoreau read the piece a total of ten times, more than any other of his lectures.

Walking was first published as an essay in the Atlantic Monthly after his death in 1862.  He considered it one of his seminal works, so much so, that he once wrote of the lecture, "I regard this as a sort of introduction to all that I may write hereafter."

Walking is a Transcendental essay in which Thoreau talks about the importance of nature to mankind, and how people cannot survive without nature, physically, mentally, and spiritually, yet we seem to be spending more and more time entrenched by society.  For Thoreau, walking is a self-reflective spiritual act that occurs only when you are away from society, that allows you to learn about who you are, and find other aspects of yourself that have been chipped away by society.

Walking (1862, 2017) is an important canon in the transcendental movement that would lay the foundation for his best known work, Walden.  Along with Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature, and George Perkins Marsh's Man and Nature, it has become one of the most important essays in the Transcendentalist movement. (Wikipedia)

About the author:  Henry David Thoreau was born (1817), died, and lived most of his life in Concord Massachusetts, where the American Revolution against British colonial rule began.  Educated at Harvard, Thoreau was an avid reader - in five languages - of everything from classical literature and Hindu and Chinese philosophy through narratives of travel and early American settlement, to works on the flora and fauna of his native region.  Taking an active part in current political and ethical debates, Thoreau became a courageous, outspoken opponent of federal government policies, such as the expansionist war against Mexico and the refusal of Congress to legislate against southern slavery. Though he loved books about discovery and travel, Thoreau wandered neither frequently nor over a great distance.   Thoreau kept a journal of his thoughts and observations exceeding two million words by the end of his life. He died, in Concord, in 1862.

Lay Down My Sword and Shield by James Lee Burke

Paperback:  Hackberry Holland, cousin of beloved James Lee Burke hero Billy Bob Holland, made his debut in this novel, Lay Down My Sword and Shield, which was originally published in 1971.  Fans can learn about Hack’s colourful history, forged against the backdrop of the civil rights era.

In hot and sultry Texas, Hack, an attorney and Korean War POW, is being pushed by his wife, his brother, and his so-called friends in the oil business to run for political office.  But Hack would prefer to drink, look after his beloved horses, and represent the occasional long-shot pro bono case at his law firm. 

When Hack attempts to overturn a conviction for an old army buddy, he finds himself embroiled in the seamy underbelly of the Texas patronage system - and in the earliest beginnings of the United Farm Workers movement, led by a beautiful woman who speaks to his heart in a way no one else has. As Hack begins to bring justice to the underserved, he finds both a new love and a new purpose.

With his skilful blend of engaging plot lines, compelling characters, and graceful prose, James Lee Burke demonstrates the shimmering clarity of vision that has made him beloved by suspense fans all over the globe.

Lay Down My Sword and Shield is the first instalment in the Hackberry Holland series set in Texas.

About the author:  James Lee Burke is an American author best known for his mysteries, particularly the Dave Robicheaux series.  He has twice received the Edgar Award for Best Novel, for Black Cherry Blues in 1990 and Cimarron Rose in 1998.

Burke was born in Houston, Texas, but grew up on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast.  He attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and the University of Missouri, receiving a BA and MA from the latter.  He has worked at a wide variety of jobs over the years, including working in the oil industry, as a reporter, and as a social worker.  He was Writer in Residence at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, succeeding his good friend and posthumous Pulitzer Prize winner John Kennedy Toole, and preceding Ernest Gaines in the position.  Shortly before his move to Montana, he taught for several years in the Creative Writing program at Wichita State University in the 1980s.

Burke and his wife, Pearl, split their time between Lolo, Montana, and New Iberia, Louisiana.  Their daughter, Alafair Burke, is also a mystery novelist.

The book that has influenced his life the most is the 1929 family tragedy "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner.

Rating:  5/5

Walking With Plato: A Philosophical Hike Through The Biritsh Isles (Travelogue) by Gary Hayden

Hardback:  "If one keeps on walking, everything will be alright.”

So said Danish writer Søren Kierkegaard, and so thought philosophy buff Gary Hayden as he set off on Britain's most challenging trek:  to walk from John O'Groats to Land's End.  But it was not all quaint country lanes, picture-postcard villages and cosy bed and breakfasts.

In this humorous, inspiring and delightfully British tale, Gary finds solitude and weary limbs bring him closer to the wisdom of the world's greatest thinkers.

Recalling Rousseau's reverie, Bertrand Russell's misery, Plato's love of beauty and Epicurus' joy in simplicity, Walking with Plato (2016) offers a breath of fresh, country air and clarity for anyone craving an escape from the humdrum of everyday life.

About the author:  Gary Hayden is an English journalist and popular philosopher.  He has written for several publications including The Times Educational Supplement, The Scotsman and Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times.  He is the author of You Kant Make It Up!: Strange Ideas from History's Great Philosophers.  He lives near Tokyo, Japan.