Past ​Imperfect

Isabel Wolff - Ghostwritten
A ​childhood mistake. A lifetime of regrets. Jenni is a ‘ghost’: she writes the lives of other people. It’s a job that suits her well: still haunted by a childhood tragedy, she finds it easier to take refuge in the memories of others rather than dwell on her own. Jenni has an exciting new commission, and is delighted to start working on the memoirs of a Dutchwoman, Klara. As a child in the Second World War, Klara was interned in a camp on Java during the Japanese occupation – she has an extraordinary story of survival to tell. But as Jenni and Klara begin to get to know each other, Jenni begins to do much more than shed light on a neglected part of history. She is being forced to examine her own devastating memories, too. But with Klara’s help, perhaps this is finally the moment where she will be able to lay the ghosts of her own past to rest?

John Green - The ​Fault in Our Stars
Diagnosed ​with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 12, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now. Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault. Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.

Flora Thompson - Candleford ​Green
Flora ​Thompson's semi-autobiographical Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy is known and loved the world over for its gentle depiction of rural life in Oxfordshire in the late 19th century, a way of life that was soon to vanish forever as mechanisation took over farming. In the final book, Laura in her early teens moves to the village of Candleford Green, to work in the post office under the tutelage of her cousin Dorcas Lane, and grow into womanhood. She loves her work and enjoys interacting with the people around her but still pines for the open spaces and freedom of Lark Rise.

Elizabeth Massie - King ​Takes Queen
Dissent ​rises in the kingdom of King Henry VIII of England. The king's ongoing dispute with the papacy over a desire for annulment is about to incite the Reformation, and his next step is to appoint a new archbishop in order to obtain his long-awaited marriage to Anne Boleyn. All crests that once bore the initials "H & K" are promptly replaced with an intertwining "H & A," the first of many significant changes to come. The birth of the new royal couple's first child, Princess Elizabeth, is followed by the death of Katherine of Aragon. New legislation decrees that any who dare commit an act against the king - or the kingdom's newfound beliefs - will face extreme consequences. With her husband growing increasingly impatient, it becomes apparent that the only crime Anne could commit against her king would be to deny him a male heir. As pressures rise in the kingdom, those who once found themselves in the king's good graces foresee a somber end to their reign. This rich novelization of season two of The Tudors follows the complicated relationship between Henry and Anne through to its historically significant and dramatic conclusion.

Anthony Capella - The ​Various Flavours Of Coffee
It ​was a cup of coffee that changed Robert Wallis’s life --- and a cup of very bad coffee at that. The impoverished poet is sitting in a London coffeehouse contemplating an uncertain future when he meets Samuel Pinker. The owner of Castle Coffee offers Wallace the very last thing a struggling young artiste in fin de siècle England could possibly want: a job. But the job Wallis accepts --- employing his palate and talent for words to compose a “vocabulary of coffee” based on its many subtle and elusive flavors --- is only the beginning of an extraordinary adventure in which Wallis will experience the dizzying heights of desire and the excruciating pain of loss. As Wallis finds himself falling hopelessly in love with his coworker, Pinker’s spirited suffragette daughter Emily, both will discover that you cannot awaken one set of senses without affecting all the others. Their love is tested when Wallis is dispatched on a journey to North Africa in search of the legendary Arab mocca. As he travels to coffee’s fabled birthplace --- and learns the fiercely guarded secrets of the trade --- Wallis meets Fikre, the defiant, seductive slave of a powerful coffee merchant, who serves him in the traditional Abyssinian coffee ceremony. And when Fikre dares to slip Wallis a single coffee bean, the mysteries of coffee and forbidden passion intermingle…and combine to change history and fate.

Vanessa Diffenbaugh - The ​Language of Flowers
The ​Victorian language of flowers was used to express emotions: honeysuckle for devotion, azaleas for passion, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it has been more useful in communicating feelings like grief, mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings. Now eighteen, Victoria has nowhere to go, and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. When her talent is discovered by a local florist, she discovers her gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But it takes meeting a mysterious vendor at the flower market for her to realise what's been missing in her own life, and as she starts to fall for him, she's forced to confront a painful secret from her past, and decide whether it’s worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness. The Language of Flowers is a heartbreaking and redemptive novel about the meaning of flowers, the meaning of family, and the meaning of love.

Flora Thompson - Over ​To Candleford
Flora ​Thompson's semi-autobiographical Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy is known and loved the world over for its gentle depiction of rural life in Oxfordshire in the late 19th century, a way of life that was soon to vanish forever as mechanisation took over farming. The second book sees an older Laura still growing up in Lark Rise, but branching out into the wider world and visiting her urbanite cousins in the small country town of Candleford, and contrasting her life with theirs.

Flora Thompson - Lark ​Rise
Lark ​Rise is Flora Thompson's childhood memories of a north Oxfordshire village, the people who lived and worked in it, and a way of life that has totally disappeared. The story is built around Laura and her brother Edmund, through whose eyes are seen "old Sally," whose grandfather built the house she lived in before the enclosure of the heathland, children's games, the interaction of village and gentry, and the way in which the seasons governed life.

Anthony Capella - The ​Food of Love
In ​Anthony Capella's delicious debut novel, Laura, a twentysomething American, is on her first trip to Italy. She's completely enamored of the art, beauty, and, of course, food that Rome has to offer. Soon she's enamored of the handsome and charming Tommaso, who tells her he's a chef at the famed Templi restaurant and begins to woo her with his gastronomic creations. But Tommaso hasen't been entirely truthful he's really just a waiter. The master chef behind the tantalizing meals is Tommaso's talented but shy friend Bruno, who loves laura from afar. Thus begins a classic comedy of errors full of the culinary magic and the sensual stmosphere of Italy. The result is a romantic comedy in the tradition of Cyrano de Bergerac and Roxanne that tempts readers to devour it in one sitting. Evoking the sights, smells and flavors of Italy in sensuous prose, this lively book also features recipes for readers to create (or just dream about) Bruno's food of amore.

John Grisham - The ​Broker
In ​his final hours in the Oval Office the outgoing President grants a controversial last minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems that Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system. Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive - there's no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him?

Jennifer Weiner - In ​Her Shoes
Meet ​Rose Feller. She's thirty years old and a high-powered attorney with a secret passion for romance novels. She has an exercise regime she's going to start next week, and she dreams of a man who will slide off her glasses, gaze into her eyes, and tell her that she's beautiful. She also dreams of getting her fantastically screwed-up little sister to get her life together. Meet Rose's sister, Maggie. Twenty-eight years old, drop-dead gorgeous and only occasionally employed, Maggie sings backup in a band called Whiskered Biscuit. Although her dreams of big-screen stardom haven't progressed past her left hip's appearance in a Will Smith video, Maggie dreams of fame and fortune -- and of getting her dowdy big sister to stick to a skin-care regime. These two women with nothing in common but a childhood tragedy, shared DNA, and the same size feet, are about to learn that their family is more different than they ever imagined, and that they're more alike than they'd ever believe. In Her Shoes -- Jennifer Weiner's follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut, Good in Bed -- observes Rose and Maggie, the brain and the beauty, as they make journeys of discovery that take them from the streets of Philadelphia to Ivy League libraries to a "retirement community for active seniors" in Boca Raton. Along the way, they'll encounter a wild cast of characters -- from a stepmother who's into recreational Botox to a small, disdainful pug with no name. They'll borrow shoes and clothes and boyfriends, and make peace with their most intimate enemies -- each other. Funny and poignant, richly detailed and wrenchingly real, In Her Shoes will speak to anyone who has endured the bonds of big -- or little -- sisterhood, or longed for a life different from the one the world has dictated, and dreamed of trying something else on for size.

Marian Keyes - Watermelon
It's ​bad enough that Claire's husband James left her the day he was at the birth of their first child - I mean, if he thought it was going to upset him that much he should have just stayed at home - but to rub salt into the episiotomy, he didn't even have the decency to leave her for someone skinny!He's just absconded, leaving Claire with a newborn baby, a broken heart, two extra stone and an ...er...birth canal ten times its normal size.In the absence of any better offers, Claire goes home to her family. To her beautiful sister Helen, her soap-watching mother, her bewildered father. And in a story that's both hilarious and bitter-sweet, Claire just gets better.A lot better.In fact so much better that when James slithers back into her life he's in for a bit of a surprise.

Joanna Trollope - The ​Rector's Wife
Anna ​Bouverie is the rector's wife. She irons his surplices (badly), delivers the parish newsletter, and scrimps to get by on a pittance, all the while keeping up appearances. She rarely complains and rarely rebels. But now-as she watches her children do without, as her husband withdraws further into his work, and her frustration mounts into fury-Anna realizes that she's willing to do whatever it takes to save herself..."A novel of large ideas and small touches," (Boston Globe) The Rector's Wife "will be quickly devoured and long remembered" (USA Today).

Markus Zusak - The ​Book Thief
Here ​is a small fact: You are going to die. 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall. Some important information: This novel is narrated by Death. It's a small story, about: a girl an accordionist some fanatical Germans a Jewish fist fighter and quite a lot of thievery. Another thing you should know: Death will visit the book thief three times...

John Grisham - The ​Confession
An ​innocent man is days from execution. Only a guilty man can save him. Travis Boyette is a murderer. In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, he abducted, raped, and strangled a popular high-school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it would never be found, then watched and waited as police and prosecutors arrested Donte Drumm, a local football star with no connection to the crime. Tried, convicted and sentenced, Drumm was sent to death row: his fate had been decided. Nine years later, Donte Drumm is four days from execution. Over 400 miles away in Kansas, Travis faces a fate of his own: an inoperable brain tumour will soon deliver the end. Reflecting on his miserable life, he decides to do what's right. After years of silence he is ready to confess. But how can a guilty man convince lawyers, judges and politicians that they\'re about to execute an innocent man?

Witi Ihimaera - The ​Whale Rider
Eight-year-old ​Kahu craves her great-grandfather's love and attention. But he's focused on his duties as chief of Ngati Konohi in Whangara, on the East Coast - a tribe that claims descent from the legendary 'whale rider'. In every generation since the whale rider, a male has inherited the title of chief. But now there is no male heir - there's only Kahu. She should be next in line for the title, but her great-grandfather is blinded by tradition and sees no use for a girl. Kahu will not be ignored. And in her struggle she has a unique ally: the whale rider himself, from whom she has inherited the ability to communicate with the whales.

Kate Morton - The ​House at Riverton
Summer ​1924: On the eve of a glittering Society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again. Winter 1999: Grace Bradley, 98, one-time housemaid of Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet's suicide. Ghosts awaken and memories, long-consigned to the dark reaches of Grace's mind, begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge; something history has forgotten but Grace never could.

Dan Brown - The ​Lost Symbol
The ​most anticipated publication of the decade, The Lost Symbol is the stunning new thriller featuring Robert Langdon. Six years in the writing, it is Dan Brown's extraordinary sequel to his internationally bestselling Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code. Nothing is ever what it first appears in a Dan Brown novel. Set over a breathtaking 12 hour time span, the book's narrative takes the reader on an exhilarating journey through a masterful and unexpected landscape as Professor of Symbology, Robert Langdon, is once again called into action.

Nicholas Evans - The ​Horse Whisperer
In ​the still of a snow-covered morning in upstate New York, a girl out riding her horse is hit by a 40-ton truck. Though horribly injured, both thirteen-year-old Grace Maclean and her horse Pilgrim survive. But the impact on their lives and the lives of those who love them is devastating. Grace is the only child of a prominent New York magazine editor, Annie Graves, and her lawyer husband Robert. In a way which none of them at first understands, their destiny comes to depend upon Pilgrim's. So mutilated and traumatized is he that even the vet who saved his life now wishes he hadn't. Annie refuses to have him destroyed, sensing that if she does, something in Grace will die too. She hears about a man in Montana, a 'whisperer' who is said to have the gift of healing troubled horses. Abandoning her job, Annie sets off across the continent with Grace and Pilgrim to find him. The man's name is Tom Booker and he lives on the Rocky Mountain Front, a place of daunting beauty. Here, under the massive Montana sky, all their lives are changed forever.

Jonathan Franzen - The ​Corrections
The ​Corrections is a grandly entertaining novel for the new century-a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes. After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. The oldest, Gary, a once-stable portfolio manager and family man, is trying to convince his wife and himself, despite clear signs to the contrary, that he is not clinically depressed. The middle child, Chip, has lost his seemingly secure academic job and is failing spectacularly at his new line of work. And Denise, the youngest, has escaped a disastrous marriage only to pour her youth and beauty down the drain of an affair with a married man - or so her mother fears. Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home. Stretching from the Midwest at midcentury to the Wall Street and Eastern Europe of today, The Corrections brings an old-fashioned world of civic virtue and sexual inhibitions into violent collision with the era of home surveillance, hands-off parenting, do-it-yourself mental healthcare, and globalized greed. Richly realistic, darkly hilarious, deeply humane, it confirms Jonathan Franzen as one of our most brilliant interpreters of American society and the American soul.