Book Choice

July's Book Choice

• 

  Dan Brown "Angyalok es Demonok"

  This issue of Showcase is the first to feature a title in a language other than English. This month's choice is Dan Brown's Angyalok es Demonok, the Hungarian version of Angels and Demons. You can also read this title in Chinese, French, Polish, Russian. If you would like to improve your language skills or read in your first language look out for future featured recommendations. We have 30 languages to choose from - just ask in your local library or Discovery Centre.

  • Reserve a copy or add a review

   

The rest of this month’s choice features food in all its delights including novels with great foodie titles!

•  

• 

  Lauren Liebenberg “The voluptuous delights of peanut butter and jam”

  Set against a backdrop of war this story is told through the eyes of two young sisters. Poignant and thought provoking with some memorable characters.

  • Reserve a copy or add a review

   

• 

  Alexander McCall Smith “The unbearable lightness of scones “

  The fifth story of Bertie and his dysfunctional family and their continuing pursuit of a little happiness.

  • Reserve a copy or add a review

   

• 

  Joanne Harris "The lollipop shoes"

  Yanne and her daughters live above the chocolate shop in Montmartre. Their normal, ordinary lives are throw into chaos when Zozie, the lady with the lollipop shoes, arrives and everything starts to change.

  • Reserve a copy or add a review

   

• 

  Yasutaka Tsutsui "Paprika "

  Paprika, the alter ego of psychotherapist Atsuko Chiba, enters the world of her patients’ dreams.

  • Reserve a copy or add a review

   

• 

  Anna Del Conte "Risotto with nettles: a memoir with food"

  Del Conte brought Italian cooking to Britain when dried spaghetti was regarded as exotic. This is a feast of a memoir, full of tastes and talk of food from an unusual life.

  • Reserve a copy or add a review

   

• 

  David Pritchard "Shooting the cook"

  The story of television and the rise of the TV superchefs as told by a producer who inadvertently changed the landscape of cookery programmes for ever.

  • Reserve a copy or add a review

   

• 

  Tom Standage "An edible history of humanity"

  Throughout history food has done more than just provide sustenance. This is an account of how it has helped to shape and transform societies around the world.

  • Reserve a copy or add a review

   

• 

  Hunter Davies "Cold meat and how to disguise it"

  A history of how to survive in hard times thorough a hundred years of making ends meet. Although it’s social history it has resonance for today’s economic climate.

  • Reserve a copy or add a review

   

• 

  Kate Colquhoun "The Thrifty cookbook"

  Everything you need to know about eating well with leftovers. Make the most of your food including what to do with spare egg yolks, wrinkly fruit and veg and stale bread.

  • Reserve a copy or add a review

   

September book recommendations

There’s a feeling for the past in this month’s selection with some enthralling novels and tales of British history.

• Chris Bohjalian - Skeletons at the feast
  Inspired by real events, this novel tells the story of a dramatic time in Europe’s history as one German family flees from the advancing Russian army in the last days of the Second World War.

• Clio Gray - Envoy of the black pine
  Set in 1808 this is the third book featuring Whilbert Stroop, missing persons finder. A gripping story of dangerous secrets, desperate men and macabre murder set in Little Slaughter on the Baltic Sea archipelago.

• Philippa Gregory - The other queen
  Gregory’s novels have been described as historical fiction at its best. Following on from the big screen success of “The Other Boleyn girl” her new book centres on Mary Queen of Scots and her fight to regain her kingdom whilst under the guard of Bess of Hardwick.

• James McBride - Song yet sung
  In the days before the American Civil War, a captured slave girl is entrusted with the Code, a fiercely guarded means of communication for slaves on the run. When Liz escapes once again, Denwood Long is coaxed out of retirement to break the Code and track her down.

• Michelle Moran - The heretic queen
  Nefertiti’s niece, Nefertari, follows in her aunt’s path as she marries a pharaoh, Ramesses the Great. Destined to be the most powerful pharaoh in Egypt, he is also the man who must confront the most famous exodus in history. A novel of passion and redemption.

• Andrew Pepper - Kill-devil and water
  The new Pyke mystery set in the back streets of Victorian London and the sugar plantations of Jamaica. Pyke is in debtors' prison having lost his home and reached the edge of bankruptcy. Fitzroy Tilling, now head of the new Metropolitan Police Force gives Pyke his freedom, but in return he must agree to investigate a brutal death.

• Catharine Arnold - Bedlam: London and madness
  An absorbing history of how London has dealt with insanity among its population. Starting with the founding of the Bethlehem Hospital in 1247 through to the Victorian asylums and beyond.

• Michael O Siochru - God’s executioner: Oliver Cromwell and the conquest of Ireland
  A new account of this bloody period of Anglo-Irish history when Cromwell spent 9 months in Ireland. “A warrior of Christ, somewhat like the crusaders of medieval Europe, he acted as God's executioner, convinced throughout the horrors of the legitimacy of his cause and striving to build a better world for the chosen few”.

• Andrew Wheatcroft - The enemy at the gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe
  An accessible history of the four centuries of conflict between Europe and the Ottoman Empire which stretched from the 15th to the 18th century.

• Glyndwr Williams - The death of Captain Cook; a hero made and unmade
  A new take on the death of Captain Cook and how this has coloured his reputation in history. A superb hydro cartographer who mapped the world, his reputation as hero to many and anti-hero to others is re-evaluated.