Divorcing Jack - Colin Bateman

In "post-terrorist" Belfast, the old hatreds continue to fester, and the politics remain deeply personal. Anyone, at any moment, may decide the war's not yet over. When his wife catches Belfast journalist Dan Starkey wrapped in the arms of a woman he hardly knows, his troubles are only beginning. Within hours his virtually anonymous girlfriend has been murdered, and before anyone can sort out whether she was killed by the IRA, Protestant extremists, or a jealous beau, Starkey becomes the killer's next target. He had always kept himself above Belfast's violent fray with the cynical, beer-drenched wit that fueled his notorious column in a Protestant newspaper. But when the Belfast police mark Starkey as their prime suspect, his wits are suddenly all he has left to keep himself ahead of both sides of the law--and to win back his wife. As he seeks to solve the crime himself, his frantic pursuit of the only clues to the killer's identity leads him deep into the most guarded reaches of Northern Irish political power. Overflowing with crisp dialogue and taut with sinister violence, "Divorcing Jack," winner of the Betty Trask Prize for Fiction, is a novel you won't want to put down.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K Rowling

Harry Potter has no idea how famous he is. That's because he's being raised by his miserable aunt and uncle who are terrified Harry will learn that he's really a wizard, just as his parents were. But everything changes when Harry is summoned to attend an infamous school for wizards, and he begins to discover some clues about his illustrious birthright. From the surprising way he is greeted by a lovable giant, to the unique curriculum and colorful faculty at his unusual school, Harry finds himself drawn deep inside a mystical world he never knew existed and closer to his own noble destiny.

Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq - John Dower

Author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Embracing Defeat, John W. Dower returns with a groundbreaking comparative study of the dynamics and pathologies of war in modern times, presenting a conceptual breakthrough in the ways we think about "culture" in general and "war" in particular. Immediately after the attacks, the US media proclaimed 11 September a "day of infamy" comparable to Pearl Harbor. Cultures of War takes this analogy as a point of departure for a vivid analysis of the war with Japan, the war on terror and the war with Iraq. Dower addresses institutional failures of intelligence and imagination, the "strategic imbecility" of Japan's and America's wars of choice in 1941 and 2003, terror bombing and the targeting of civilians since the Second World War and the driving forces behind Pan-Asian and Pan-Islam movements. A final section compares occupied Japan and occupied Iraq.

Perfidia - James Ellroy

It is December 6 1941. America stands at the brink of World War II. Last hopes for peace are shattered when Japanese squadrons bomb Pearl Harbor. Los Angeles has been a haven for loyal Japanese-Americans - but now, war fever and race hate grip the city and the Japanese internment begins. The hellish murder of a Japanese family summons three men and one woman. William H. Parker is a captain on the Los Angeles Police. He's superbly gifted, corrosively ambitious, liquored-up and consumed by dubious ideology. He is bitterly at odds with Sergeant Dudley Smith - Irish emigre, ex-IRA killer, fledgling war profiteer. Kay Lake is a 21-year-old dilettante looking for adventure. Hideo Ashida is a police chemist and the only Japanese on the L.A. cop payroll. The investigation throws them together and rips them apart. The crime becomes a political storm centre that brilliantly illuminates these four driven souls - comrades, rivals, lovers, history's pawns. Perfidia is a novel of astonishments. It is World War II as you have never seen it, and Los Angeles as James Ellroy has never written it before. Here, he gives us the party at the edge of the abyss and the precipice of America's ascendance. Perfidia is that moment, spellbindingly captured. It beckons us to solve a great crime that, in its turn, explicates the crime of war itself. It is a great American novel.

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson

A reluctant centenarian much like Forrest Gump (if Gump were an explosives expert with a fondness for vodka) decides it's not too late to start over . . .

After a long and eventful life, Allan Karlsson ends up in a nursing home, believing it to be his last stop. The only problem is that he's still in good health, and in one day, he turns 100. A big celebration is in the works, but Allan really isn't interested (and he'd like a bit more control over his vodka consumption). So he decides to escape. He climbs out the window in his slippers and embarks on a hilarious and entirely unexpected journey, involving, among other surprises, a suitcase stuffed with cash, some unpleasant criminals, a friendly hot-dog stand operator, and an elephant (not to mention a death by elephant).

It would be the adventure of a lifetime for anyone else, but Allan has a larger-than-life backstory: Not only has he witnessed some of the most important events of the twentieth century, but he has actually played a key role in them. Starting out in munitions as a boy, he somehow finds himself involved in many of the key explosions of the twentieth century and travels the world, sharing meals and more with everyone from Stalin, Churchill, and Truman to Mao, Franco, and de Gaulle. Quirky and utterly unique, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared has charmed readers across the world.

Sun in a Bottle - Charles Seife

Fifty years ago scientists and futurists glowingly predicted a future in which cars would run on little fusion cells and the world would extract deuterium from the oceans for an inexhaustible supply of energy. Like all too many shining visions, fusion turned out to be a mirage. Award-winning science journalist Seife (Zero) takes a long, hard look at nuclear fusion and the failure of one scheme after another to turn it into a sustainable energy source. Many readers will remember the 1989 cold fusion debacle, but Seife explains why tabletop fusion isn't all that difficult to achieve. The problem, as with all fusion devices except the hydrogen bomb, is to produce more energy than the fusion process consumes. The two most promising approaches today use plasma and lasers, but again, Seife reports, scientists have been repeatedly frustrated. The United States and several other industrial nations recently agreed optimistically to sink billions of dollars into a 30-year fusion power project. Seife's approachable book should interest everyone concerned about finding alternative energy sources

Parting Shots - Matthew Parris

Up till 2006 a British Ambassador leaving his post was encouraged to write what was known as a valedictory despatch, to be circulated to a small number of influential people in government. This was the parting shot, an opportunity to offer a personal and frank view of the host country, the manners and morals of its people, their institutions, the state of their cooking and their drains. But it was also a chance to let rip at the Foreign Office itself and to look back on a career spent in the service of a sometimes ungrateful nation.

Combining gems from the archives with more recent despatches obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Parting Shots sheds light on Britain's place in the world, revealing the curious cocktail of privilege and privation that makes up the life of an ambassador.

Chemistry for Beginners - Anthony Strong

In this charming, boy-meets-girl-in-a-sex-study love story, a clueless scientist falls for his most incurable patient and learns that romance is far more than a simple solution to a chemical equation. Dr. Steven J. Fisher is fascinated by the elusive nature of the female orgasm, passionately proclaiming it “the last great unexplored territory.” But for all of his scientific candor about human sexuality in the lab, Dr. Fisher is really just a shy chemist who is a beginner in the ways of love. Trock, a major pharmaceutical company, has sponsored his Oxford research team to develop the first pill to cure Female Sexual Dysfunction, and Dr. Fisher is just weeks away from launching his miracle cure at their upcoming conference. When a beautiful and brilliant (and orgasmically challenged) Ph.D. student named Annie begins participating in his study, everything Dr. Fisher thinks he knows about women is turned on its head—and his research becomes more and more complicated with the addition of her perplexing data. Is it the pill making her feel this way, or is it love? What scientific phenomenon can explain the changes in his own feelings? With pressure mounting from the Trock, Annie’s mystery must be solved by any means possible. Cleverly presented through excerpts from Steven’s clinical study and Annie’s blog entries—Chemistry for Beginners gets to the heart of what makes us all tick, showing that love is in fact, all about chemistry.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey - Thornton Wilder

An ancient bridge collapses over a gorge in Peru, hurling five people into the abyss. It seems a meaningless human tragedy. But one witness, a Franciscan monk, believes the deaths might not be as random as they appear. Convinced that the disaster is a punishment sent from Heaven, the monk sets out to discover all he can about the travellers. The five strangers were connected in some way, he thinks. There must be a purpose behind their deaths. But are their lost lives the result of sin? ... Or of love?

Being Wrong - Kathryn Schulz

Being wrong is an inescapable part of being alive. And yet, we go through life tacitly assuming (or loudly insisting) that we are right about nearly everything - from our political beliefs to our private memories, from our grasp of scientific fact to the merits of our favourite team. Being Wrong looks at why this conviction has such a powerful grip on us, what happens when this conviction is shaken, and how we interpret the moral, political and psychological significance of being wrong.Drawing on philosophies old and new and cutting-edge neuroscience, Kathryn Schulz offers an eloquent exploration of the allure of certainty and the necessity of fallibility in four main areas: in religion (when the end of the world fails to be nigh); in politics (where were those WMD?); in memory (where did I leave my keys?); and in love (when Mr or Miss Right becomes Mr or Miss Wrong).

The battle for the soul of capitalism - John Bogle

There is no one better qualified to tell us about the failures of the American financial system and the grotesque abuses that have taken place in recent years than John Bogle, who as founder and former chief executive of the Vanguard mutual funds group has seen firsthand the innermost workings of the financial industry. A zealous advocate for the small investor for more than fifty years, Bogle has championed the restoration of integrity in industry practices. As an astute observer and commentator, he knows that a trustworthy business and financial complex is essential to America’s continuing leadership in the world and to social and economic progress at home.
This book tells not just a story about what went wrong but, more important, the story of why we lost our way and of how we can right our course. Bogle argues for a return to a governance structure in which owners’ capital that has been put at risk is used in their interests rather than in the interests of corporate and financial managers. Given that ownership is now consolidated in the hands of relatively few large mutual and pension funds, the specific reforms Bogle details in this book are essential as well as practical. Every investor, analyst, Wall-Streeter, policy maker, and businessperson should read this deeply informed book.

Bad Science - Linda Zimmermann

Bad Science: A Brief History of Bizarre Misconceptions, Totally Wrong Conclusions, and Incredibly Stupid Theories takes a humorous look at bloodletting, alchemy, quack devices, the worship of meteorites, faked data, secret testing on people, and all kinds of really ridiculous ideas. From the ancient Greeks to the present, the history of science has been fraught with persecution, fraud, and ignorance on a massive scale--but that doesn't mean we can't laugh about it!

The Crusades - Thomas Asbrigde

In the eleventh century, a vast Christian army, summoned to holy war by the pope, rampaged through the Muslim world of the eastern Mediterranean, seizing possession of Jerusalem, a city revered by both faiths. Over the two hundred years that followed this First Crusade, Islam and the West fought for dominion of the Holy Land, clashing in a succession of chillingly brutal wars, both firm in the belief that they were at God's work. For the first time, this book tells the story of this epic struggle from the perspective of both Christians and Muslims, reconstructing the experiences and attitudes of those on either side of the conflict. Mixing pulsing narrative and piercing insight, it exposes the full horror, passion and barbaric grandeur of the crusading era. One of the world's foremost authorities on the subject, Thomas Asbridge offers a vivid and penetrating history of the crusades, setting a new standard for modern scholarship. Drawing upon painstaking original research and an intimate knowledge of the Near East, he uncovers what drove Muslims and Christians alike to embrace the ideals of jihad and crusade, revealing how these holy wars reshaped the medieval world and why they continue to echo in human memory to this day.

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph - a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity and fate.

Gomorrah - Roberto Saviano

A groundbreaking, unprecedented bestseller in Italy, Roberto Saviano's insider account traces the decline of the city of Naples under the rule of the Camorra, an organized crime network more powerful and violent than the Mafia. The Camorra is an elaborate, international system dealing in drugs, high fashion, construction, and toxic waste, and its influence has entirely transformed life in Campania, the province surrounding Naples. 

Since seeing his first murder victim, at thirteen, Roberto Saviano has watched the changes in his home city. For Gomorrah, he disappeared into the Camorra and witnessed at close range its audacious, sophisticated, and far-reaching corruption that has paralyzed his home city and introduced the world to a new breed of organized crime.

Flash Boys - Michael Lewis

If you thought Wall Street was about alpha males standing in trading pits hollering at each other, think again. That world is dead.

Now, the world's money is traded by computer code, inside black boxes in heavily guarded buildings. Even the experts entrusted with your cash don't know what's happening to it. And the very few who do aren't about to tell - because they're making a killing.

This is a market that's rigged, out of control and out of sight; a market in which the chief need is for speed; and in which traders would sell their grandmothers for a microsecond. Blink, and you'll miss it.

In Flash Boys, Michael Lewis tells the explosive story of how one group of ingenious oddballs and misfits set out to expose what was going on. It's the story of what it's like to declare war on some of the richest and most powerful people in the world. It's about taking on an entire system. And it's about the madness that has taken hold of the financial markets today.

You won't believe it until you've read it.

The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson

What if society wasn't fundamentally rational, but was motivated by insanity? This thought sets Jon Ronson on an utterly compelling adventure into the world of madness.

Along the way, Jon meets psychopaths, those whose lives have been touched by madness and those whose job it is to diagnose it, including the influential psychologist who developed the Psychopath Test, from whom Jon learns the art of psychopath-spotting. A skill which seemingly reveals that madness could indeed be at the heart of everything . . .

Combining Jon's trademark humour, charm and investigative incision, The Psychopath Test is both entertaining and honest, unearthing dangerous truths and asking serious questions about how we define normality in a world where we are increasingly judged by our maddest edges.

A Woman in Berlin - Anonymous

Between April 20th and June 22nd of 1945 the anonymous author of A Woman in Berlin wrote about life within the falling city as it was sacked by the Russian Army. Fending off the boredom and deprivation of hiding, the author records her experiences, observations and meditations in this stark and vivid diary. Accounts of the bombing, the rapes, the rationing of food and the overwhelming terror of death are rendered in the dispassionate, though determinedly optimistic prose of a woman fighting for survival amidst the horror and inhumanity of war.

This diary was first published in America in 1954 in an English translation and in Britain in 1955. A German language edition was published five years later in Geneva and was met with tremendous controversy. In 2003, over forty years later, it was republished in Germany to critical acclaim - and more controversy. This diary has been unavailable since the 1960s and is now newly translated into English. A Woman in Berlin is an astonishing and deeply affecting account.

Of Wee Sweetie Mice and Men - Colin Bateman

The title, the terrorist and the punch-drunk pugilist.

Fat Boy McMaster is a hopeless heavyweight boxer, who has somehow managed to become champion of Ireland. His devious manager succeeds in setting up a gigantic payday (largely for himself, admittedly) - a St Patrick's Day fight in New York against Mike Tyson - and he wants journalist Dan Starkey to write a book on it. Starkey's as yet unsuccessful efforts to persuade wife Patricia to give their marriage another try are put on hold, and he boards a plane to the Big Apple with McMaster and his deeply suspect entourage. Once there McMaster's wife is kidnapped, almost every interest group is outraged, the Champ is chased all over town by gunmen of varying allegiance, Starkey's marriage is saved - and there's the Big Fight to consider too...

Garment of Shadows - Laurie R. King

Laurie R. King’s New York Times bestselling novels of suspense featuring Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, comprise one of today’s most acclaimed mystery series. Now, in their newest and most thrilling adventure, the couple is separated by a shocking circumstance in a perilous part of the world, each racing against time to prevent an explosive catastrophe that could clothe them both in shrouds.
 
In a strange room in Morocco, Mary Russell is trying to solve a pressing mystery: Who am I?She has awakened with shadows in her mind, blood on her hands, and soldiers pounding on the door. Out in the hivelike streets, she discovers herself strangely adept in the skills of the underworld, escaping through alleys and rooftops, picking pockets and locks. She is clothed like a man, and armed only with her wits and a scrap of paper containing a mysterious Arabic phrase. Overhead, warplanes pass ominously north.
 
Meanwhile, Holmes is pulled by two old friends and a distant relation into the growing war between France, Spain, and the Rif Revolt led by Emir Abd el-Krim—who may be a Robin Hood or a power mad tribesman. The shadows of war are drawing over the ancient city of Fez, and Holmes badly wants the wisdom and courage of his wife, whom he’s learned, to his horror, has gone missing. As Holmes searches for her, and Russell searches for herself, each tries to crack deadly parallel puzzles before it’s too late for them, for Africa, and for the peace of Europe.
 
With the dazzling mix of period detail and contemporary pace that is her hallmark, Laurie R. King continues the stunningly suspenseful series that Lee Child called “the most sustained feat of imagination in mystery fiction today.”