Looking for something good to read that isn’t a textbook? The 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction longlist was announced yesterday, and the amazing books selected will be available from the library very soon. Click the Check Availability links to check which books have arrived and which books are still on order,and snatch up a copy!
- Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey – Olivier is a young aristocrat, one of an endangered species born in France just after the Revolution. Parrot, the son of an itinerant English printer, wanted to be an artist but has ended up in middle age as a servant. When Olivier sets sail for the New World – ostensibly to study its prisons, but in reality to avoid yet another revolution – Parrot is sent with him, as spy, protector, foe and foil. Check Availability
- Room by Emma Donoghue – The story of a mother, her son, a locked room and the outside world. Jack is five and his upbringing is far from ordinary. Jack’s entire life has been spent in a single room that measures just 12 feet by 12 feet, as far as he’s concerned, Room is the entire world. Check Availability – currently on order
- The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore – Leningrad in 1952: a city recovering from war, where Andrei, a young hospital doctor and Anna, a nursery school teacher, are forging a life together. Summers at the dacha, preparations for the hospital ball, work and the care of sixteen year old Kolya fill their minds. The extraordinary sequel to ’The Siege’. Check Availability– currently on order
- The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson – A scorching story of friendship and loss, exclusion and belonging, and of the wisdom and humanity of maturity. Funny, furious, unflinching, this extraordinary novel shows one of our finest writers at his brilliant best. on order Check Availability
- The Long Song by Andrea Levy – Told in the irresistibly wilful and intimate voice of Miss July, with some editorial assistance from her son, Thomas, is at once defiant, funny, and shocking. The child of a field slave on the A
mity sugar plantation, July lives with her mother until Mrs. Caroline Mortimer decides to move her into the great house and rename her ’Marguerite.’ Check Availability– currently on order
- C by Tom McCarthy – C follows the short, intense life of Serge Carrefax, a man who, as his name suggests, surges into the electric modernity of the early twentieth century, transfixed by the technologies that will obliterate him. Check Availability– currently on order
- The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell – In 1799, Jacob de Zoet arrived on the island of Dejima, the Dutch East India Company’s remotest outpost in Japan. His task is to uncover evidence of corruption but while cold-shouldered by his compatriots he becomes intrigued by a local woman but each is betrayed by someone they trust and are caught up in a tectonic shift between East and West. Check Availabil
ity – currently on order
- February by Lisa Moore – In 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank off the coast of Newfoundland during a Valentine’s night storm. In the early hours of the next morning, all 84 men aboard died. Helen O’Mara is one of those left behind when her husband, Cal, drowns. Check Availability – currently on order
- Skippy Dies by Paul Murray – Ruprecht Van Doren is an overweight genius whose hobbies include very difficult maths and the search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Daniel ’Skippy’ Juster is his roommate. In the grand old Dublin institution that is Seabrook College for Boys, nobody pays either of them much attention. Check Availability – currently on order
- Trespass by Rose Tremain – In a silent valley stands an isolated stone farmhouse, the Mas Lunel. Its owner is Aramon Lunel, an alcoholic. Into this closed Cevenol world comes Anthony Verey, a wealthy antiques dealer from London. From the moment he arrives at the Mas Lunel, a frightening and unstoppable series of consequences is set in motion. Check Availability– currently on order
- The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas – At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own. This event has a shocking effect on a group of people, friends and relatives who are all directly or indirectly influenced by the slap. Check Availability
- The Stars in the Bright Sky by Alan Warner – The Sopranos are back: out of school and out in the world, gathered in Gatwick to plan a super-cheap last-minute holiday to celebrate their reunion. Check Availability – currently on order