Kevin Barry Pages: 214 Published: 2019
The book: It’s evening and two middle-aged Irish gangsters sit in the terminal at the old port of Algeciras, Spain, waiting for a ferry from Tangier. They’re looking for a girl called Dilly. But why are they trying to find her? What is her connection to them? And, does Dilly want to be found? Read more
John Burnham Schwartz Pages: 268 Published: 2019
The book: Svetlana Alliluyeva was the only daughter of Joseph Stalin. Her high-profile defection to the USA in 1967 caused an international stir.
Schwartz has conjured up a fictional telling of Svetlana’s story that is loosely based on fact and an imagined relationship with Schwartz’s own father, who did in fact have some dealings with her in real life. Read more
Madeline Miller Pages: 393 Published: 2018
The book: In the ancient Greek epic, The Odyssey, by the poet Homer, Odysseus, journeying home after the fall of Troy, encounters the witch Circe. He and his men are delayed on her island for a year. Although it takes Odysseus ten years to get home, Circe’s appearance in The Odyssey is fleeting. This wonderful novel is Miller’s reimagining and retelling of Circe’s life. Read more
Viet Thanh Nguyen Pages: 385 Published: 2015
The book: This is a story about a Vietnamese communist double agent who comes to America after the fall of Saigon. He’s an Army captain, ostensibly building a new life in the USA, but all the time he is continuing to spy and report back to his communist handler in Vietnam. This is a saga about friendship, the duality of man, and what can both divide us and keep us together. Within the plot, the truth about the role of the USA, in what Americans refer to as the Vietnam War, is explored. Read more
John Carreyrou Pages: 303 Published: 2018
The book: Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos in 2003. She claimed to have a blood testing machine that would make blood tests faster and less painful for patients: only a pin prick of blood was required, instead of a traditional needle draw.
By 2015 Holmes was the new darling of the tech world. Her company was valued at $9 billion. Holmes net worth was estimated to be $4.5 billion. Read more
Shaun Bythell Pages: 310 Published: 2017
The book: Shaun Bythell lives in Wigtown, a small Scottish town that is known as Scotland’s Book Town. It has a large number of bookshops and hosts an annual book festival. Shaun owns the oldest bookshop in Wigtown: a delightful place crammed with secondhand books on every topic imaginable and unimaginable.
This is his diary. It captures a year in his life selling books. Read more
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