Ponti by Sharlene Teo

Hardback: Clara Chua, Lee Meixi and Trissy Kwok are a three-headed vision of stem-glass necks and crystal-clear skin, branded satchels and understated sexual experience. They are as idle and cunning as crocodiles. They are unknowable and invincible. Their limpid eyes judge and glint. Every morning, in unison, they twist their shampoo-advert hair gently in their hands and draw it over their shoulders like a rifle sling.

2003. Singapore. Friendless and fatherless, sixteen-year-old Szu lives in the shadow of her mother Amisa, once a beautiful actress and now a hack medium performing séances with her sister in a rusty house. When Szu meets the privileged, acid-tongued Circe, they develop an intense friendship which offers Szu an escape from her mother’s alarming solitariness, and Circe a step closer to the fascinating, unknowable Amisa.

Seventeen years later, Circe is struggling through a divorce in fraught and ever-changing Singapore when a project comes up at work: a remake of the cult seventies horror film series ‘Ponti’, the very project that defined Amisa’s short-lived film career. Suddenly Circe is knocked off balance: by memories of the two women she once knew, by guilt, and by a past that threatens her conscience.

Told from the perspectives of all three women, Ponti by Sharlene Teo is an exquisite story of friendship and memory spanning decades. Infused with mythology and modernity, with the rich sticky heat of Singapore, it is at once an astounding portrayal of the gaping loneliness of teenagehood, and a vivid exploration of how tragedy can make monsters of us.

Ponti (2018) is shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Fiction with a Sense of Place Award and Hearsts' Big Book Award 2018. It is longlisted for the Jhalak Prize.

About the author: Sharlene Teo (b 1987) is a Singaporean writer based in the UK. She is the winner of the inaugural Deborah Rogers Writers’ Award for Ponti, her first novel, released by Picador and Simon & Schuster in 2018. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Esquire (Singapore), Magma Poetry, The Penny Dreadful, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, New Writing Net and Best New Singaporean Short Stories: Volume Two. In 2012, she was awarded the Booker Prize Foundation Scholarship to undertake an MA in Prose Fiction at the University of East Anglia, where she is currently in her second year of a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing. She is the recipient of the 2013 David TK Wong Creative Writing Fellowship and the 2014 Sozopol Fiction Fellowship.

Rating:  4/5

All Hallows' Eve

The Girl Who Lived Twice (Millennium Series) by David Lagercrantz

Many dead never have a name and some not even a grave. Others get one white cross among thousands of others, as in the military cemeteries in France. Some few have a whole monument dedicated to them, like the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris or in the Alexander Garden in Moscow. - Part 1, The Unknown

Hardback: The girl with the dragon tattoo is back!

"What are you going to do now?"
"I will be the hunter and not the hunted."

Lisbeth Salander's mentor and protector Holger Palmgren is dead, and she has been gone from Stockholm since his funeral. All summer, Mikael Blomkvist has been plagued by the fear that Salander's enemies will come after her.

He should, perhaps, be more concerned for himself.

In the pocket of an unidentified homeless man, who died with the name of a Swedish government minister on his lips, the police find a list of telephone numbers. Among them, the contact for Millennium magazine and the investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist. Following the scorched trail of her twin sister Camilla to Moscow, Salander nevertheless continues to watch over her old friend. Soon Blomkvist will need her help. But first, she has an old score to settle; and fresh outrage to avenge.

The next episode in David Lagercrantz's acclaimed continuation of Stieg Larsson's Dragon Tattoo series is a thrilling ride that scales the heights of Everest and plunges the depths of Russia's criminal underworld. In a climax of shattering violence, Lisbeth Salander will face her nemesis.

For the girl with the dragon tattoo, the personal is always political - and ultimately deadly.

The Girl Who Lived Twice (2019) is the sixth crime fiction phenomenon in the Stieg Larsson's The Girl With Dragon Tattoo series and the third book in the Millennium series.

The Girl Who Lived Twice is translated from the Swedish by George Goulding.

About the author: David Lagercrantz was born in 1962, and is an acclaimed author and journalist. In 2015, The Girl in the Spider's Web, his continuation of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, became a worldwide bestseller and was made into a film by Sony Pictures (2018). He is the author of the acclaimed and bestselling I am Zlatan Ibrahimović, Fall of Man in Wilmslow, and the fifth in the Millennium series, The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye.

About the translator: George Goulding was born in Stockholm, educated in England, and spent his legal career working for a London-based law firm. He has translated all three of David Lagercrantz's continuations of the Millennium series, as well as his novel Fall of Man in Wilmslow.

Rating: 5/5

You Belong

Intellectual Wallpaper

An Educated Perspective

The Guardians by John Grisham

Hardback: John Grisham delivers a classic legal thriller in The Guardians (2019) - with a twist.

In the small Florida town of Seabrook, a young lawyer named Keith Russo was shot dead at his desk as he worked late one night. The killer left no clues. There were no witnesses, no one with a motive. But the police soon came to suspect Quincy Miller, a young black man who was once a client of Russo’s. Just the fact that Russo had botched Quincy's divorce case, that Quincy was black in a largely all-white town and that a blood-spattered torch was found in the boot of Quincy's car. A torch he swore was planted. A torch that was conveniently destroyed in a fire just before the trial.

The lack of evidence made no difference to judge or jury. In the eyes of the law Quincy was guilty and no matter how often he protested his innocence, his punishment was life in prison. For twenty-two years he languished in prison. No one was listening. He had no lawyer, no advocate on the outside. In desperation, he writes a letter to Guardian Ministries, a small nonprofit run by Cullen Post, a lawyer who is also an Episcopal minister.

Guardian accepts only a few innocence cases at a time. Cullen Post travels the country fighting wrongful convictions and taking on clients forgotten by the system. Post has exonerated eight men in the last ten years. He intends to make Quincy the next. However, with Quincy Miller, though, he gets far more than he bargained for.

Powerful, ruthless people murdered Keith Russo, and they do not want Quincy Miller exonerated. They prefer that an innocent man dies in jail rather than one of them. There is one way to guarantee that - they killed one lawyer twenty-two years ago, and they will kill another without a second thought.

About the author: John Grisham is the author of thirty-three novels, one work of non-fiction, a collection of stories and seven novels for young readers. The recent critically-acclaimed Netflix series, An Innocent Man, was based on his non-fiction bestseller. His works are translated into forty-two languages. He lives in Virginia. Find out more at jgrisham.com and stay in touch via Facebook at John Grisham Books.

Rating:  6/5

Most Of The Trouble In The World

Unfollow: A Journey From Hatred To Hope, Leaving The Westboro Baptist Church (Memoir) by Megan Phelps-Roper

Hardback: Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. - F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 

It was an upbringing in many ways normal. A loving home, shared with squabbling siblings, overseen by devoted parents. Yet in other ways it was the precise opposite: a revolving door of TV camera crews and documentary makers, a world of extreme discipline, of siblings vanishing in the night.

Megan Phelps-Roper was raised in the Westboro Baptist Church - the fire-and-brimstone religious sect at once aggressively homophobic and anti-Semitic, rejoiceful for AIDS and natural disasters, and notorious for its picketing the funerals of American soldiers. From her first public protest, aged five, to her instrumental role in spreading the church’s invective via social media, her formative years brought their difficulties. But being reviled was not one of them. She was preaching God’s truth. She was, in her words, ‘all in’.

What if we're wrong? What if this isn't the place led by God Himself? What if we're just people?

In November 2012, at the age of twenty-six, she left the church, her family, and her life behind.

Unfollow (2019) is a story about the rarest thing of all: a person changing their mind. It is a fascinating insight into a closed world of extreme belief, a biography of a complex family, and a hope-inspiring memoir of a young woman finding the courage to find compassion for others, as well as herself.

About the author: Megan Phelps-Roper is a writer and activist. She was raised in the Westboro Baptist Church: the Topeka, Kansas religious group known internationally for its daily public protests against members of the LGBT community, Jews, the military, other Christians and countless others. As a child, teenager and early twenty-something, she participated in the picketing almost daily and spearheaded the use of social media in the church. Dialogue with 'enemies' online proved instrumental in her deradicalization, and she left the church and her entire way of life in November 2012. Since then she has become an advocate for people and ideas she was taught to despise - especially the value of empathy in dialogue with people across ideological lines and extremism. She lives in South Dakota with her husband, Chad, and daughter, Sølvi Lynne.

Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates (1944- ), American Author And Journalist

To The Land Of Long Lost Friends (The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series) by Alexander McCall Smith

Hardback: Kindness, after all, did not distinguish between those who merited it, and those who did not. It was like rain, she thought. It fell everywhere and made everything green and new and alive once more. That is what it did.

In the latest book in the widely beloved No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, Precious Ramotswe takes on a case for a childhood acquaintance and finds that family relationships are always a tricky proposition - even for Botswana’s premier female detective.

Mma Ramotswe has reconnected with an old friend who has been having problems with her daughter. Though Precious feels compelled to lend a hand, she discovers that getting involved in family affairs is always a delicate affair. The young woman appears to be involved with a charismatic preacher. But are his ministrations entirely of a godly nature?

Elsewhere, Charlie is also struggling with a tricky matter of the heart. He wishes to propose to his girlfriend, Queenie-Queenie, but he is struggling to come up with a bride price that will impress her father. When Queenie-Queenie’s brother offers to help by giving him a job, the offer may not be quite what Charlie expected.

As always, Mr J L B Matekoni will offer wise counsel, Mma Makutsi will weigh in with her opinions, and Mma Potokwane will be there with her welcome fruit cake. But in the end it will be up to Mma Ramotswe to reflect on love, family, and the nature of men and women in order to resolve family dramas and remind everyone about all the good things they have in life - so many, in fact, that it would take far too long to count them.

Last but not least, Mma Makutsi (and all of us included) will be reminded of the value of tried-and-true wisdom to never judge a book by its cover!

To The Land Of Long Lost Friends (2019) is the twentieth and latest instalment in the much-loved and desirable No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series set in Botswana.

About the author: Alexander McCall Smith, often referred to as ‘Sandy’, is one of the world’s most prolific and best-loved authors.  His various series of books have been translated into forty-six languages and become bestsellers throughout the world.  These include the highly successful The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the popular 44 Scotland Street novels, the Isabel Dalhousie novels, the von Igelfeld series and the new Detective Varg novels.  He also writes stand-alone novels, children's fiction and libretti for short operas.

Alexander has received numerous awards for his writing and holds thirteen honorary doctorates from universities in Europe and North America.  He is Professor Emeritus of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. In 2007, he received a CBE for services to literature and in 2011 was honoured by the President of Botswana for services through literature to the country.  In 2015, he received the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and in 2017, The National Arts Club (of America) Medal of Honour for Achievement in Literature.

Rating:  5/5

Murder at the Lanterne Rouge (Aimée Leduc Investigation Series) by Cara Black

Paperback: Lost secrets of the Parisian Knights Templar, dangerous Chinatown sweatshops, dirty policemen, and botched affairs of the heart - the 12th Aimée Leduc mystery is the most exciting yet!

Aimée Leduc is happy her longtime business partner René has found a girlfriend. It is not her fault if she cannot suppress her doubts about the relationship. And her misgivings may not be far off the mark: Meizi disappears during a Chinatown dinner to take a phone call and never returns to the restaurant. Minutes later, the body of a young man, a science prodigy and volunteer at the nearby Musée, is found shrink-wrapped in an alleyway - with Meizi’s photo in his wallet.

Aimée does not like this scenario one bit, but she cannot figure out how the murder is connected to Meizi’s disappearance. The dead genius was sitting on a discovery that has France’s secret service keeping tabs on him. Now they are keeping tabs on Aimée.

What has she gotten herself into?

And can she get herself and her friends back out of it alive?

Murder at the Lanterne Rouge (2012) is the twelfth instalment in the elegant and absorbing Aimée Leduc investigation series set in Paris.

About the author: Cara Black is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of 18 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

The Second Sleep by Robert Harris

Hardback: All civilisations think they are invulnerable. History warns us none is.

1468. A young priest, Christopher Fairfax, arrives in a remote Exmoor village to conduct the funeral of his predecessor. The land around is strewn with ancient artefacts – coins, fragments of glass, human bones – which the old parson used to collect. Did his obsession with the past lead to his death?

As Fairfax is drawn more deeply into the isolated community, everything he believes – about himself, his faith and the history of his world – is tested to destruction.

"All of my books are about power," Robert Harris acknowledged in an interview once. To this effect, The Second Sleep (2019) is a contemplative dystopian story set in Britain 800 years into the post-Apocalypse future, but which alternates between current times and the late Middle Ages.

About the author: Robert Harris was born in Nottingham in 1957, later studying English at Cambridge University. He is the author of twelve bestselling novels: the Cicero Trilogy - Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator - Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, The Ghost, The Fear Index, An Officer and a Spy, which won four prizes including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, Conclave and most recently, Munich. Several of his books have been filmed, including The Ghost, which was directed by Roman Polanski. His work has been translated into forty languages and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in West Berkshire with his wife, Gill Hornby.

Rating:  4/5

Saint John Paul The Great: His Five Loves by Jason Evert

Paperback: A French novelist once wrote, “Tell me what you love, and I will tell you who you are.”
Although there are countless ways to study Saint John Paul the Great, the most direct route is by entering the man’s heart.

Discover the five great loves of St John Paul II through remarkable unpublished stories on him from bishops, priests, students, Swiss Guards, and others. Mining through a mountain of papal resources, Jason Evert has uncovered these many gems, offering a treasure chest brimming with the jewels of the saint's life. After a brief overview of John Paul's life, Evert explores in depth his five great loves: Young People, Human Love, The Eucharist, Our Lady, The Cross.

This work is intended to be catechetical, inspiring, and evangelical. By looking at what he loved and why, the goal is to help readers learn more about key aspects John Paul's life and teachings, including Theology of the Body, Divine Mercy, Total Consecration, Eucharistic adoration, and redemptive suffering.

Woven throughout the book is an assortment of intriguing stories and facts that most Catholics do not know about the saint, such as:

- How the communists actually selected him as archbishop
- How a priest stabbed him in Fatima, yet he continued with the liturgy
- How one of Osama Bin Laden's "best men" nearly murdered him in the Philippines
- How he had conversations with the Virgin Mary

Rekindle your own faith by learning what captivated the heart of this great saint in Saint John Paul The Great: His Five Loves (2014) which also includes 8 pages of colour photos.

About the author: Jason Evert has spoken about the Catholic faith to more than one million people on six continents, and is the author of more than a dozen books, including Pure Faith, Theology of the Body for Teens, and How to Find Your Soulmate without Losing Your Soul. He and his wife, Crystalina, run the website chastityproject.com and live in Colorado with their children.