Sort Of Books: 13 books

Daniel Brennan, approaching the premature end of his life, retreats to a room in his brother's suburban house. To divert himself and to entertain Ellen, his carer, he writes the journal that is Telescope, blurring truth, gossip and fiction in vignettes of his own life and the lives of those close...

Dominic Pattison's life is one of level contentment. His marriage has proved happy and durable; his business is successful. And then Sam Williams, builder and ex-squaddie, enters his life. Sam claims to be his son. Yet is Sam who he says he is? After almost thirty years, Dominic can remember little...

THE ALMOND BLOSSOM APPRECIATION SOCIETY finds Chris and his family still living o their farm, El Valero, and with its easy 'Sun-Lit' charm and funny, evocative anecdotes, it will draw in new and old readers alike.You will find yourself laughing out loud as Chris is instructed by his daughter on local...

When ten Pakistani men walk into Kathleen Jamie's small Scottish town on a peace march, in November 2001, she is thrown back to her own travels in Northern Pakistan and a book she wrote a decade earlier. Among Muslims is the account of Jamie's time travelling alone and living among the Shia and Ismaili...

It's 1943. The allied invasion of Sicily. In a lull in the fighting, a British battalion march through the summer heat into the bombed-out city of Catania, to be greeted by the women, children and old men who remain there. Yearning for some semblance of home life, the men begin to fill the roles left...

One summer, writer and musician, Jasper Winn set himself an extraordinary task. He would kayak the whole way round Ireland -- a thousand miles -- camping on remote headlands and islands, carousing in bars and paddling clockwise until he got back where he started. But in the worst Irish summer in living...

She was the bestselling author of Regency England. Admired by Jane Austen whose fame she eclipsed and dubbed 'Our Great Maria' by Sir Walter Scott. John Ruskin declared her work, 'The most re-readable in existence'. Isn't it time we started reading Maria Edgeworth? Written in 1834, Helen was the last...

The fresh and exciting debut novel by the author of Konstantin"Immensely enjoyable . . . almost unbearably tense"-The GuardianIn an attic in Southwest London, an acid factory has just been dismantled. Six students, among them the luminously sexy Belle, are speeding in a decommissioned ambulance...

A mosaic-like novel about love, loss and looking. A quietly brilliant writer, almost eccentric in his craftsmanship. The Sunday Times. In the small hours of January 1st, a man begins to write, having watched Le Grand Concert de la Nuit, a film in which a former lover – Imogen – plays a major role....

About Patronage: She set out to write an adventurous soap opera about the trails and fortunes of two neighbouring families in Regency England. She ended with a searing critique of corruption within British public and private life and a rare insight into the opportunities available for young men making...

The epic of Island Life that has gripped Finland Winner of the Finlandia Prize Nominated for the Nordic Criti Prize It is the summer of 1946. A novice Lutheran priest, his wife and baby daughter arrive at a windswept island off the coast of Finland, where they are welcomed by its frugal, self-sufficient...

The Finnish-Swedish writer and artist Tove Jansson achieved worldwide fame as the creator of the Moomin stories, written between 1945 and 1970 and still in print in more than twenty languages. However, the Moomins were only a part of her prodigious output. Already admired as a painter, cartoonist...

“Buckley is a mighty creative force.” The Sunday Times “Jonathan Buckley’s intensely compassionate, astoundingly observed novels unfold with exquisite power, and The river is the river is perhaps his most perfectly written book yet. The surprise of its haunting ending makes other plot twists...