October Highlights 2009

The abolitionists say they have brought me to England to help them change the course of history. Well. We shall see about that. But if I have lived this long, it must be for a reason. Abducted from Africa as a child and enslaved in South Carolina, Aminata Diallo thinks only of freedom-and of the knowledge she needs to get home. Sold to an indigo trader who recognizes her intelligence, Aminata is torn from her husband and child and thrown into the chaos of the Revolutionary War. In Manhattan, Aminata helps pen the Book of Negroes... read more

Oprah's Book Choice 'Nothing interests Maman today, not even Jean, her favorite child ...She acts dumb, bewitched, like a goat that the neighborhood children have fed sorghum beer.' These extraordinary stories centre on African conflicts as seen through the eyes of children and describes their resilience and endurance in heartbreaking detail. From child trafficking to inter-religious conflicts, Uwem Akpan reveals in beautiful prose the resilience and endurance of children faced with the harsh consequences of deprivation and terr... read more

<b>The dazzling new book from the winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize: one of the summer's most eagerly anticipated works of fiction.</b><p>In <i>Between the Assassinations</i>, Aravind Adiga brings to life a chorus of distinctive Indian voices, all inhabitants in the fictional town of Kittur...<br>His new book sizzles with the same humour, anger, and humanity that characterized <i>The White Tiger</i>. <br>On India's south-western coast, between Goa and Calicut, lies Kittur - a ... read more

The dog days of August...All summer long, thirteen-year-old Henry kept hoping that something different would happen, but it never did. Then, just as the Labour Day weekend gets under way, in the Pricemart where Henry's mother, Adele, on one of her rare forays out of the house and into the wider world has taken him to buy trousers for school, a bleeding man approaches Henry and asks for help. Frank is a man with a secret, and a man on the run. Adele is a wounded soul whose dreams of family life and romantic dancing died years ago, e... read more

Edward M. Kennedy is widely regarded as one of the great Senators in the nation's history. He is also the patriarch of America's most heralded family. In this landmark autobiography, five years in the making, Senator Kennedy speaks with unprecedented candour about his extraordinary life. He writes movingly of his brothers and their influence on him; his marriage to the woman who changed his life, Victoria Reggie Kennedy; his role in the major events of our time (from the civil rights movement to the election of Barack Obama); and h... read more

What is the devastating effect on your life when, through no fault of your own, you lose everything - home, family, friends, job, reputation, passport, money, credit cards, mobile phone - and you can never get them back? This is what happens to a young man called Adam Kindred, one May evening in Chelsea, London, when a freakish series of malign accidents and a split-second decision turns his life upside down for ever. The police are searching for him. There is a reward for his capture. A hired killer is stalking him. He is alone a... read more

A magisterial new novel that takes us behind the scenes during one of the most formative periods in English history: the reign of Henry VIII.

With her inimitable wit, treasury of tales and outspoken views, Clarissa Dickson Wright opens her diary and takes us on a journey around Britain and her life.

As celebrated cook and champion of the countryside, Clarissa recalls episodes from her life and describes her encounters with everyone from local farmers to Women's Institutes, supermarket managers to greyhound coursers. A lover of local traditions, she has attended events from the Whitstable Oyster Festival to the Hungerford Hochtide.
In a world of political cor... read more

In a novel reminiscent of the work of Penelope Lively, Anne Tyler, and Alice Munro, acclaimed author Marina Endicott gives us one of the most profound and most memorable reads of the year. Absorbed in her own failings, Clara Purdy crashes her life into a sharp left turn, taking the young family in the other car along with her. When bruises on the mother, Lorraine, prove to be late-stage cancer, Clara - against all habit and comfort - moves the three children and their terrible grandmother into her own house. We know what is good,... read more

Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners - a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, the preservation of all species, the tending of the Earth, and the cultivation of bees and organic crops on flat rooftops - has long predicted the Waterless Flood. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have avoided it: the young trapeze-dancer, Ren, locked into the high-end sex club, Scales and Tails; and former SecretBurgers meat-slinger turned Gardener, Toby, barricaded into the luxuriou... read more