Book League

'John Lanchester has spun a complex and gripping tale of London life, a pre-crash portrait of greed and fear and money.

His characters are richly and sympathetically drawn. He handles their disparate story lines with immense skill. There is, too, a rich seam of wit running throughout the book which makes it a treat to read, despite its serious intentions.'

Antonia Senior, The Times Book of the Week

Publisher's price: R215.00     Our price: R185.00

Richard I was crowned King in 1189 and set off almost immediately for the Third Crusade. This was a bloody campaign to regain the Holy Land, marked by internecine warfare among the Christians and extraordinary campaigns against the Saracens.

Men and women found themselves facing new sorts of challenges and facing an uncertain future. John, the youngest son, was left behind – and with Richard gone, he was free to conspire with the French king to steal his brother's throne.

Overshadowing the battlefields that stretched to Jerusalem and beyond were the personalities of two great adversaries: Richard and Saladin. They quickly took the measure of each other in both war and diplomacy. The result was mutual admiration: a profound acknowledgement of a worthy opponent.

In this gripping narrative of passion, intrigue, battle and deceit, Penman reveals a true and complex Richard – a man remarkable for his power and intelligence, his keen grasp of warfare and his concern for the safety of his men, who followed him against all odds.

Publisher's price: R195.00     Our price: R165.00

Empress Josephine's family has been called to Napoleon's court for the terrible news that he intends to divorce Josephine, his barren wife of thirteen years and take a younger bride, the Austrian Princess Marie-Louise.

For Josephine's daughter, Hortense, this means she is free to leave her husband, Napoleon's brother, having given the Bonapartes three heirs. As she looks for love, she must support her mother through the terrible grief of Napoleon's betrayal.

For his new wife, it is a terrible duty she must take on in her father's name. She has nothing in common with the strange, older man she has married and can find little in her life to enjoy. But an unlikely friendship with Hortense will bring her much comfort, especially as she must fight for her own happiness.

For Napoleon's sister, Pauline Bonaparte, it is yet another woman stealing her brother's attention and affection. Having spent years attempting to control his power and his influence, she must fight harder and dirtier if she is to win...

Publisher's price: R215.00     Our price: R185.00

The day her gifted twins leave home for university, Eva climbs into bed and stays there. For seventeen years she's wanted to yell at the world, 'Stop! I want to get off'. Finally, this is her chance. Perhaps she will be able to think.

Her husband Dr Brian Beaver, an astronomer who divides his time between gazing at the expanding universe, an unsatisfactory eight-year-old affair with his colleague Titania and mooching in his shed, is not happy. Who will cook dinner? Eva, he complains, is either having a breakdown or taking attention-seeking to new heights.
But word of Eva's refusal to get out of bed quickly spreads.
 

Alexander the dreadlocked white-van man arrives to help Eva dispose of all her clothes and possessions and bring her tea and toast. Legions of fans are writing to her or gathering in the street to catch a glimpse of this 'angel'. Her mother Ruby is unsympathetic: 'She'd soon get out of bed if her arse was on fire.'
And, though the world keeps intruding, it is from the confines of her bed that Eva at last begins to understand freedom.
 

The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year is a funny and touching novel about what happens when someone stops being the person everyone wants them to be. Sue Townsend, Britain's funniest writer for over three decades, has written a brilliant novel that eviscerates modern family life.
 

Publisher's price: R200.00     Our price: R170.00

Godforsaken Crocodile Flats is the last place on earth where you'd expect any marvel, so when Sweetness Moloi believes she saw the Virgin Mary there - all nice and brown like real people - who's going to believe her?

But lo, the good news spreads like wildfire, and soon all hell breaks loose. Every sect and faction want in on the action, there is fierce competition for the elusive glory and hordes of journalists, pilgrims and the just plain curious flock to the troublesome village.

In this small corner of the Rainbow Nation, so desperately in need of a miracle, jealousy tumbles over hypocrisy to end up – miraculously – in a state of grace.

We loved this book!

Publisher's price: R185.00     Our price: R160.00

In her garden, ensconced in the lush vegetation of the Western Cape, Clare Wald, world-renowned author, mother, critic, takes up her pen and confronts her life.

Sam Leroux has returned to South Africa to embark upon a project that will establish his reputation - he is to write Clare's biography. But how honest is she prepared to be? Was she complicit in crimes lurking in South Africa's past; is she an accomplice or a victim? Are her crimes against her family real or imagined?

As Sam and Clare turn over the events of her life, she begins to seek reconciliation, absolution. But in the stories she weaves and the truth just below the surface of her shimmering prose, lie Sam's own ghosts.

Absolution shines light on contemporary South Africa and the long dark shadow of Apartheid, the elusive nature of truth and self-perception and the mysterious alchemy of the creative process. It is a debut of extraordinary strength and power.

Publisher's price: R195.00     Our price: R165.00

Ahalya Ghai is just seventeen when a tsunami rips through her Indian village. Ahalya and her sister Sita are the sole survivors of their family. Destitute, their only hope is to find refuge at a convent in Chennai, many miles away.

A driver agrees to take them. But the second they get into that car they are doomed - the two sisters are sold. Ahalya doesn't understand why any man would pay so much money for them. She will soon find out.

On the other side of the world, Washington, D.C. lawyer Thomas Clarke witnesses the kidnapping of a young girl. Struggling to cope after the death of his baby daughter and the collapse of his marriage to Priya, he takes a sabbatical from his high-pressure job and accepts a position with the Bombay branch of CASE, the Coalition Against Sexual Exploitation. He is now on a path that not only involves saving himself and his marriage, but the lives of Ahalya and Sita Ghai.

A Walk Across The Sun is about cruelty and loss. It is about family and survival. And ultimately it is about love, and the immeasurable strength of the human spirit.

Publisher's price: R200.00     Our price: R170.00

Reformed from his days of assassination and international conspiracy, Paul Janson has a new mission and a new partner.

Working with kickass sharpshooter Jessica Kincaid, he helps other disenchanted covert operatives to be rehabilitated and create new lives. He also accepts independent jobs, but only missions he believes will contribute to the greater good.

Janson takes the job to rescue a doctor who has been kidnapped by West African rebels during an ambush of an American oil service boat. At first, it appears that the doctor's life was spared in order to treat the rebels' wounded leader Ferdinand Poe, a beacon of hope against a cruel dictator. But when the mission goes haywire, Janson realizes he's in the middle of something much bigger.

The puppet dictator has anonymous backers with designs on the oil reserves of this struggling nation - and Janson may find he's been fighting for the wrong side the whole time.
 

Publisher's price: R210.00     Our price: R180.00

New York, 1939. Tom Bradshaw is arrested for first degree murder. He stands accused of killing his brother.

When Sefton Jelks, a top Manhattan lawyer, offers his services for nothing, penniless Tom has little choice but to accept his assurance of a lighter sentence. After Tom is tried, found guilty and sentenced, Jelks disappears, and the only way for him to prove his innocence would be to reveal his true identity – something that he has sworn never to do in order to protect the woman he loves.

Meanwhile, the young woman in question travels to New York, leaving their son behind in England, having decided she'll do whatever it takes to find the man she was to marry – unwilling to believe that he died at sea. The only proof she has is a letter. A letter that has remained unopened on a mantelpiece in Bristol for over a year.

In Jeffrey Archer's epic novel, family loyalties are stretched to their limits as secrets unravel, and the story moves from the backstreets of Bristol to the boardrooms of Manhattan.
 

Jeffrey Archer will be on an author tour in South Africa.

Publisher's price: R275.00     Our price: R235.00

Not since Jack the Ripper terrorised London has there been such a gruesome crime scene. By all accounts acid-tongued Vita Berlin had not a friend in the world, but who did she cross so badly to end up arranged in such a grotesque tableau?

One look at her apartment turned charnel house is enough for hard-bitten LAPD detective Milo Sturgis to summon The Crime Reader.
 

But even Alex Delaware's finely honed skills may be stymied when more slayings occur in the same ghastly fashion . . . yet with no apparent connection between the victims. And the only clue left behind--a blank page bearing a question mark.
 

Publisher's price: R215.00     Our price: R185.00