Summers tend to drag on, and while we don’t necessarily want them to end, you might need some entertainment to make the hot day slip by a bit faster! Check out these seven titles from Diwan and make the right choice for your book shelf this month.
Heads You Win
by Jeffrey Archer
Leningrad, Russia, 1968. Alexander Karpenko is no ordinary child, and from an early age, it is clear he is destined to lead his countrymen. But when his father is assassinated by the KGB for defying the state, he and his mother will have to escape from Russia if they hope to survive. At the docks, they are confronted with an irreversible choice: should they board a container ship bound for America, or Great Britain? Alexander leaves that choice to the toss of a coin.
In a single moment, a double twist decides Alexander’s future. During an epic tale of fate and fortune, spanning two continents and thirty years, we follow his triumphs and defeats as he struggles as an immigrant to conquer his new world. As this unique story unfolds, Alexander comes to realize where his destiny lies, and accepts that he must face the past he left behind in Russia.
Rival Queens: The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots
by Kate Williams
Elizabeth and Mary were cousins and queens, but eventually it became impossible for them to live together in the same world.
This is the story of two women struggling for supremacy in a man’s world, when no one thought a woman could govern. Their relationship was one of love, affection, jealousy, antipathy—and finally death.
This book tells the story of Mary and Elizabeth as never before, focusing on their emotions and probing deeply into their intimate lives as women and queens. They loved each other, they hated each other—and in the end they could never escape each other.
Motherhood
by Sheila Heti
Motherhood treats one of the most consequential decisions of early adulthood, whether or not to have children, with the intelligence, wit and originality that have won Sheila Heti international acclaim. In a compellingly direct mode that straddles the forms of the novel and the essay, Motherhood raises radical and essential questions about womanhood, parenthood, and how – and for whom – to live.
Playgroups and Prosecco: The (mis)Adventures of a Single Mum
by Jo Middleton
January 3rd
Jaffa Cakes – 7. Times I was forced to watch a small child do a dance involving a dusty piece of ribbon found under the sofa – 4. Inappropriate thoughts about Zac Efron – undisclosed.
Single mum Frankie’s whole life revolves around her kids. But when your toddler has a more active social life, something has to change. Forget ‘me-time’, Frankie would settle for some adult conversation, and watching something other than the Disney channel.
The local playgroup may be ruled by Instagram mums with perfect husbands but Frankie accidentally forms a splinter group of single parents. After all, Mummy really needs a playdate of her own. (Now pass the prosecco.)
I Who Have Never Known Men
by Jacqueline Harpman
‘For a very long time, the days went by, each just like the day before, then I began to think, and everything changed’
Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only vague recollection of their lives before.
As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl – the fortieth prisoner – sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others’ escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.
Stranger Things: Darkness on the Edge of Town: The Second Official Novel
by Adam Christopher
Chief Jim Hopper reveals long-awaited secrets to Eleven about his old life as a police detective in New York City, confronting his past before the events of the hit show Stranger Things.
Although he’d rather face a horde of demogorgons than talk about his own past, Hopper knows that he can’t deny the truth any longer. And so begins the story of the incident in New York, the last big case before everything changed.
Machines Like Me
by Ian McEwan
Britain has lost the Falklands war, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. In a world not quite like this one, two lovers will be tested beyond their understanding.
Ian McEwan’s subversive and entertaining new novel poses fundamental questions: what makes us human? Our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart? This provocative and thrilling tale warns of the power to invent things beyond our control.
