Book League

Family, that slippery word, a star to every wandering bark, and everyone sailing under a different sky.

After his mother's death, Richard, a newly remarried hospital consultant, decides to build bridges with his estranged sister, inviting Angela and her family for a week in a rented house on the Welsh border. Four adults and four children, a single family and all of them strangers. Seven days of shared meals, log fires, card games and wet walks.

But in the quiet and stillness of the valley, ghosts begin to rise up. The parents Richard thought he had. The parents Angela thought she had. Past and present lovers. Friends, enemies, victims, saviours. And watching over all of them from high on the dark hill, Karen, Angela's stillborn daughter.
 

The Red House is about the extraordinariness of the ordinary, weaving the words and thoughts of the eight characters together with those fainter, stranger voices - of books and letters and music, of the dead who once inhabited these rooms, of the ageing house itself and the landscape in which it sits.

Once again Mark Haddon, bestselling author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, has written a novel that is funny, poignant and deeply insightful about human lives.
 

Publisher's price: R220.00     Our price: R190.00

Abigail Lowery has a dark and terrifying secret. Aged just sixteen, she witnessed a shocking mafia murder. Narrowly escaping with her life, she was forced to leave her old identity - even her real name - behind for good.

Fifteen years later Abigail is still hiding from the world - a semi-recluse in the quiet, rural town of Bickford, Arkansas. She has convinced herself that this is all she needs: peace, safety... and her faithful guard dog Bert. Perhaps now, at last, she can stop running.

But Brooks Gleason, the local chief of police, has other ideas. Abigail intrigues him - and he'd like nothing better than to break through the walls she has built around herself. His persistence and determination to uncover the truth is unsettling, exciting - and dangerous. One way or another, it will change both their lives for ever.

Publisher's price: R250.00     Our price: R215.00

'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

Life on Lawrence Anthony's game reserve, Thula Thula, is rarely dull, what with spitting cobras endangering his rangers and the unpredictable behaviour of his herd of elephants. But at least his orphaned rhino Heidi is calm around people, and a favourite of staff and guests alike. Until she is brutally slaughtered for her horn.

Furious and heartsick, Lawrence heads off to track down the poachers, but also embarks on a bid to save the Congo's last few northern white rhino from extinction. Diplomatic efforts are failing, so he takes action himself, flying into a warzone to negotiate with rebels. Will he survive his most dangerous adventure yet, and will Thula Thula survive the drought that threatens the region?

Peopled with unforgettable characters, from the local witch doctor to eccentric conservationist Brendan and the elephants who have such an extraordinary bond with Lawrence,* The Last Rhinos is a sometimes funny, sometimes moving, always gripping read.

We were very sad to hear of Lawrence's death in March. We were looking forward to having him as our guest to launch this book.

*They milled around the homestead for two days after he died.

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