XO is the third book in the Kathryn Dance series by American author, Jeffery Deaver. CBI agent Kathryn Dance’s expertise is in kinesics, and she is often in demand when suspects are interviewed. But when she goes to Fresno on vacation, in search of folk songs and a country music concert, she isn’t expecting to need those skills. When Kathryn meets young country music sensation, Kayleigh Towne for lunch, she learns the singer is plagued by a stalker, one Edwin Stanton Sharp, and when one of Towne’s crew is murdered at the concert hall, suspicion falls on the stalker. But Kathryn finds she is neither wanted nor welcome at his interrogation. Not only that, but Chief of Detectives, P K Madigan, seems determined to ignore any advice she offers. In yet another thriller, Deaver gives the reader a plot with plenty of suspense, twists and turns and the odd red herring. Country music is heavily featured, and there are interesting tidbits on types of stalking and the legislation covering this, as well as, of course, quite a bit of kinesics. While it may be a little slow-moving in parts, this novel manages to include an assassination plot, a secret lover, a secret baby, some unpublished Beatles songs, a kidnapping, an overbearing father and witness intimidation. Deaver touches on innocence and image and immigration policy. Deaver’s other creations, Lincoln Rhyme and Amanda Sachs, make an appearance to help out with trace evidence analysis, and the reader is kept guessing to the end. Definitely a page-turner.

Goat Mountain is the third novel by American author, David Vann. In the early fall of 1978, an eleven-year-old boy is on an annual deer hunting trip on a Californian mountainside with his father, his father’s best friend and his grandfather. This year, he expects to bag his first buck, but instead, in a life-changing moment, he shoots dead a poacher. The shocking series of events that follows this moment are told with matter-of-fact candour, revealing a flawed set of values, a moral void. Vann draws on his own family’s history of violence and his Cherokee ancestry to weave this compelling tale. The stirring, highly evocative, sometimes even lyrical prose is a counterpoint to the darkness and savagery of the subject matter. Gorgeous fragments like “Feel of the air, thinner in the cool sections, fattening up in the light” and “Cicadas turning the air into clicks and a pulse” and “The light not a light of this world but more a temperature, a coldness through which we could see” give the reader a feast of images, sounds and feelings. The boy’s inner monologue, filled with biblical references and uncensored thoughts, is often blackly comic. Vann’s thought-provoking and complex story will have the reader reflecting on a number of subjects: the sanctity of human life; the responsibility for a child’s actions; hunting and killing; conscience, goodness and moral fibre. This is a powerful read.

Netherland is the third novel by Irish-born author, Joseph O’Neill. Set mainly in post 9/11 New York, it is narrated by Hans van den Broek, a Dutch-born equities analyst living the Chelsea Hotel and working in for a large bank. When his English wife, Rachel takes his young son, Jake, and returns to England, Hans fills his empty weekends with the unlikely (in America) pastime of cricket. He makes the acquaintance of the charismatic Chuck Ramkissoon, a Jamaican of Pakistani extraction who has a finger in many pies, including Kosher sushi, real estate, the establishment of an International Cricket Arena, running a betting business and perhaps something darker, all the while with a wife and a mistress. There are lots of interesting and occasionally surprising tidbits in this novel: cricket in New York; cricket in Holland; preparation of cricket pitches; and New York’s non-white immigrant population. The concept of cricket as a civiliser is novel and the comment on America’s seeing (or lack thereof) of the world is perceptive. There is quite a lot of description of New York which is likely to appeal to people who have lived there. But I found the main character frustrating, emotionally deficient and therefore difficult to really like or care about. Even the departure of his wife and son seems insufficient impetus to stir him from his depressive mood and make him feel strongly enough to insist on leaving with her: he settles for no more than visiting every second weekend. When he returns to England, Hans seems to get his wife back by default: “ ‘He’s fucking someone else,’ Rachel said. ‘Good,’ I said, ‘that means I can fuck you.’ ‘OK, she said.’” There is certainly some lovely descriptive prose and imagery: “My family, the spine of my days, had crumbled. I was lost in invertebrate time” and “Huge trees grew nearby, and their leaves intercepted the sunlight very precisely, so that the shadows of their leaves seemed vital and creaturely as they stirred on the ground – an inkling of some supernature, to a sensibility open to such things.” But does this novel live up to the descriptions on the cover: “Mesmerising”, “Dazzling” and “A Brilliant Book” (Barack Obama)? This was an OK read, but nothing earth-shattering.

Trains and Lovers is a stand-alone novel by popular Scottish author, Alexander McCall Smith. This novel takes the reader on a train journey where any boredom is dispelled by the stories that four strangers in a railway carriage relate, stories that involve trains (both real and of the art variety) and lovers (variously realised, possibly dangerous and unrequited). McCall Smith gives us four very different characters and chooses a novel way of telling four discrete tales. As always, McCall Smith offers up gentle philosophy as he touches on subjects as diverse as modern-day connectedness and loneliness; identity theft; issues of trust and how powerful and persistent the seeds of doubt, once sown, can be; the comparison of communication today with the bygone era (emails and texts versus telegrams and pen friends); and the concept of moral luck. McCall Smith’s prose is charming and evocative: “…wonderful, exotic languages including one that had clicks and whistles in it…It’s called !Kung. And it has an exclamation mark in front of it. Imagine talking !English or !French with an exclamation mark. It was lovely to listen to – rather like the sound of the wind in the reeds, or a pair of exotic birds talking to one another on the branch of a tree.” And “There are many ways of falling off the high moral ground you’ve carefully built up for yourself. Moral ground is like that – slippery at the edges.” Charming, humorous and insightful.

Started Early, Took My Dog is the fourth book in the Jackson Brodie series by popular British author, Kate Atkinson. Set some two years after When Will There Be Good News, Jackson is wandering around England, looking for his fake wife, Tessa, and researching the real parents of a New Zealand adoptee, Hope McMaster. At the same time, ex-cop Tracy Waterhouse finds herself buying a toddler from a prostitute, while ageing actress Tilly Squires slowly sinks into dementia. As Jackson follows leads to dead ends, he finds a doppelganger is treading the same paths, and stumbles into a thirty-year-old crime. This instalment has a great cast of characters, including crooked cops, retired social workers, prostitutes, actors, children and a dog. Jackson manages to rescue a dog, be followed, beaten up, have his dog bugged, his car stolen and end up hogtied in a rubbish skip. As always, the dialogue is snappy and Atkinson’s strength is her characters’ inner monologues: “Jackson tried to remember why but the tiny people who resentfully ran his memory these days (fetching and carrying folders, checking the contents against index cards, filing them away in boxes that were then placed on endless rows of grey metal Dexion shelving never to be found again) had, in an all too frequent occurrence, mislaid that particular piece of information” and “Ravaged by acne, if you knew Braille you could probably have read his face” and “Schrodinger, whoever he was, and his cat, and anyone else that felt like it, had all climbed inside Pandora’s box and were dining on a can of worms”. There are lots of literary quotes, misquotes, bits of poetry and jokes. The plot, as always, is original and keeps twisting and turning to the very end. While it is not essential to have read the earlier books of this series, this book does contain spoilers for earlier books, so it doesn’t hurt to read them in order. Once again, Atkinson provides a brilliant read and one can only hope there will be more of Jackson Brodie.

When Will There Be Good News? is the third book in the Jackson Brodie series by popular British author, Kate Atkinson. Some two years after the events of One Good Turn, Jackson Brodie is intent on discovering the paternity of Julia Land’s son, Nathan, in a small town in the Yorkshire Dales. At the same time, in Edinburgh, Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe tries to protect a small family from their threatening father, but is distracted by young Reggie Chase, who is convinced that the disappearance of her employer and son is not as innocent as it is claimed to be. A moment of inattention finds Jackson travelling to Edinburgh and much more deeply involved than he ever intended. This instalment has a plot with quite a few twists and some surprises that will leave the reader gasping or laughing out loud. Once again, Atkinson carefully builds up her characters until the reader is invested in them and really cares about their fate. As well as multiple murders, there are stolen IDs, comprehensively vandalised flats, faithful dogs, a severed artery, kidnapping, amnesia (real and feigned) and a train derailment as the action moves from Devon to Edinburgh to Yorkshire and back. There are some marvellous poetic quotes, nursery rhymes and wordplay, and the inner monologues of the main characters are priceless: “She was wearing an aggressive three-piece outfit that was probably very expensive but had the kind of pattern you would get if you cut up the flags of several obscure countries and then gave them to a blind pigeon to stick back together again.” and “…she was still using her car, a blue Saxo that she drove in the way an excitable and short-sighted chimpanzee might have done, accelerating when she should be braking, braking when she should be accelerating, going slow in the fast lane, fast in the slow lane, more like someone on an amusement arcade simulator than a real road.” Brilliant, as always.

The Unknown Terrorist is the fourth novel by Australian author, Richard Flanagan. After a night of passion with an attractive young stranger, Gina Davies wakes to everyone’s worst nightmare: she finds she has become a terror suspect. Within the space of three days, her life goes from one of happiness, of an optimistic future, to the surreality of being a fugitive with nothing. All it took was a bit of post-9/11 hysteria, some unexploded bombs in backpacks, a journalist’s career on a downhill slide, some sagging government approval ratings and a snub. For Sydneysiders, Flanagan’s characters feel familiar, their dialogue is genuine and the whole series of events has a completely plausible and a frighteningly authentic feel, even as they hurtle towards their tragic conclusion. As Flanagan demonstrates how easily a set of circumstances can condemn an innocent, he also shows the power of the media and fear-mongering. On terrorism, his main character muses: “…she had the odd idea that the terrorism question had become a fad, like body piercing or flares; a fashion that had come and would go like this season’s colours.” This powerful read is fittingly dedicated to David Hicks.

The Casual Vacancy is the first adult novel by popular British author, J.K.Rowling. This contemporary fiction is set in the seemingly idyllic English village of Pagford, where the sudden death of Parish Councillor, Barry Fairbrother creates a casual vacancy on the parish council. As subsequent events are narrated from the points of view of various different characters, the picture emerges of a village whose inhabitants are not all satisfied with their lot in life, a village of simmering tensions waiting to boil over. Rowling’s characters are easily recognisable as the denizens of the typical English village, but at the same time, show individual depth and appeal (or repugnance, as the case may be). And it seems quite a few of the characters have a secret (or two). The setting, characters and events will resonate with readers, and these same happenings drive the characters to desperate actions that ultimately result in tragedy for some. Rowling manages to pack quite a lot into this novel: she has an obese megalomaniac, drug addicts, computer-savvy teens, a fawning wife, a violent husband and father, an anxious teacher, and a caring social worker, to name just a few. There is domestic violence, rape, racism, corruption, self-mutilation, bullying, gossip, teen pregnancy, child abuse and SQL injection. But if this sounds depressing, it is relieved by the underlying black humour that fills the novel. This all comes together to make a brilliant read.

Be Different is the second book by American author and Aspergian, John Elder Robison. When his memoir, Look Me In The Eye: My life With Asperger’s became a publishing success, no-one was more surprised than Robison himself. When it began to be adopted by certain schools, Robison was asked for a book with more insight into the condition, and Be Different is the result. In this book, Robison looks at the quirks of the Aspergian brain that can lead to disability or expertise, depending on how they are handled. While this may sound like a dry topic, Robison illustrates with captivating and often humorous examples from his own life, making this an easy and exceptionally interesting read. With intriguing chapter headings like Underwear With Teeth and Lobster Claws: Dealing with Bullies, Robison has all sorts of tips and tricks for Aspergians and those who deal with them. Robison’s rules for manners would serve everyone well, regardless of their neurological state. This is a fascinating look at a neurological condition that has the power to create a misfit but also an expert.

One Day is the third novel by British author, screenwriter, and actor, David Nicholls. The day referred to in the title is St. Swithin’s Day, July 15th, and the narration describes what is happening in the lives of two people, Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley, each year on that day as well as referring to significant events of the preceding year. Emma and Dexter are first encountered on the day after their graduation and are followed through twenty years of life: relationships, career highs and lows, personal crises, addictions, weddings, marriages, divorces, extramarital affairs, parenthood, resounding successes and abysmal failures, loss of significant family members, loneliness, cohabitation and physical ageing all feature. Apart from straight narration, Nicholls uses letters (sent and unsent), poems, phone messages and newspaper articles to tell the story, and he cleverly creates the feel of the period with songs, books, movies, TV shows, world affairs, politics and sports. It all feels very real. Dexter and Emma have lots of depth and appeal; the supporting characters are likewise interesting. Nicholls manages to evoke plenty of laughter, but also tears (occasionally at the same time!) as well as groans and sighs. He also packs a punch that will leave the reader gasping. This is a marvellous novel that will have readers searching out other works by David Nicholls.

Queen of the Flowers is the fourteenth book in the popular Phryne Fisher series by Australian author, Kerry Greenwood. For the 1928 Flower Festival in St Kilda, Phryne is to be Queen of the Flowers. Appropriate outfits and Flower Maidens have to be organised, adding to Phryne’s usual busy schedule. On top of this, Ruth, one of Phryne’s adopted daughters, is intent on finding her father; an acquaintance (or two) from Phryne’s days in England turn up; and she receives a cryptic card in the post. Then one of the Flower Maidens goes missing, and Ruth fails to return home. This installment has elephants, musical sailors, TB, a Gambling Boat, someone performing CPR, a miserly grandfather, a dangerous man with a shotgun and, finally, a parade. Bert and Cec, Dot, Jane and Ruth, Li Pen and Lin Chung all do their part, and the Butlers provide background support. Mr Butler’s Refreshing Cocktail is helpfully provided in the appendix. Each chapter ends with some communication between two people that sheds light on Ruth’s parentage. Characters from several earlier books rate mentions or cameos, but this book can be enjoyed without having read previous installments. Phryne fans will enjoy revisiting this unique household with its adopted daughters, ladies maids, and a Chinese lover whose wife designs his lover’s garden. My favourite passage: ”The day dawned far too bright and fair……Dot was awake, dressed and characteristically cheerful. Dot liked dawn. Phryne only liked it from the other side.” Excellent Greenwood , as always.

The Unknowns is the first novel by American author, journalist and software developer, Gabriel Roth. Eric Muller is the quintessential computer nerd trying really hard not to be a dork. At school he never quite managed to fit in, stumbling from one social disaster to another; as an adult, despite being a Silicon Valley millionaire, he goes to great lengths to not appear socially awkward, and his ultimate solace is still writing computer code. Enter journalist Maya Marcom. Eric finds himself in love with this enigmatic woman, but will their relationship survive the dark secret she carries from her past? Roth does a brilliant job of portraying a teenager with a dysfunctional childhood trying to understand how the world works and his place in it. The teen angst, self-centredness and confusion are skilfully conveyed. Even as the reader laughs, cringes, gasps and groans at his decisions, Eric’s adult thoughts are a revealing look at the analytical mind of the computer nerd. Because the story is told as a first person narrative, the reader never gets to know the other major characters really well, but this is entirely appropriate, as they are just some of the unknowns that Eric spends his time trying to allow for as he calculates (and sometimes grossly miscalculates) the best possible action to take to optimise his chances in life. Roth manages to inject plenty of humour (the Ecstasy episode is particularly hilarious), and handles certain dark topics in a sensitive and insightful manner. An inspired debut novel.

One Of Our Thursdays Is Missing is the sixth novel in the popular Thursday Next series by Welsh author, Jasper Fforde. Not long after the Remake of BookWorld, it seems that Real World Thursday Next is missing. Written Thursday (Thursday 1-4 from First Among Sequels, the huggy one) has been trying to play Thursday with dignity, but the series is virtually unread, so the presence of an understudy allows her to investigate with the help of Sprocket, a clockwork butler she has acquired (everyone needs a butler). This instalment features Men in Plaid as enforcers, a Triumph Bonneville, inter-genre cabs, a book sabotaged by rhetorical worms, a geologist thrown from a window, and a car chase. Written Thursday travels to the Real World, meets the real Landen, is kidnapped by a Wiltshire Stiltonista, tries to interpret obscure clues to Thursday’s whereabouts, travels up the Metaphoric River, meets some Loser Literary Siblings (The Mediocre Gatsby, Brian Heep, Tracy Capulet, Sharon Eyre etc) and is finally offered a job with Jurisfiction. Concepts like character assassins, a mime field, the Large Metaphor Collider and the intricacies of a character’s backstory are also a source of entertainment. Fforde still delights with some absurd names like Keitel Black, Red Herring and D.J. Growling, and each chapter is prefaced by a pertinent passage from Bradshaw’s BookWord Companion, which, we note, runs to at least fifteen editions, confirming that Colonel Bradshaw’s eventual retirement must have been profitable. As always, Fforde is incredibly clever: this is a brilliant read.

The Light Between Oceans is the first novel by Australian-born author, M.L.Stedman. A veteran of the First World War, 27-year-old Tom Sherbourne takes a position with the Commonwealth Lighthouse Service and finds himself on a remote island off the West Australian coast, at the meeting point of the Indian and Southern Oceans. Grateful (if guilty) to have survived, Tom is happy to live a quiet life, so meeting and marrying the fascinating Isabel Graysmark is well beyond his expectations. Their happiness on Janus Rock is marred only by Isabel’s failed pregnancies. Then, in 1926, a boat washes up on the beach containing a dead man and a tiny, very-much-alive baby. The decisions the couple make at this point will have consequences they could never have imagined. Stedman has crafted a beautiful story: an original plot filled with dilemmas that will have the reader contemplating long after the last page; luminous prose that is marvellously descriptive of the Western Australian landscape and effectively conveys the post-war atmosphere; and characters with depth and appeal whose situations evoke empathy (only the most hard-hearted reader will finish this book without a tear shed). Stedman’s extensive research into the area, the era and, in particular, lighthouses, is apparent in every paragraph. Stedman made me want to find out more about lighthouses and maybe climb one; she also made me want to see Izzy and Lucy’s drawings. My favourite quote of many comes from Tom: “I’ve learned the hard way that to have any kind of future you’ve got to give up hope of ever changing your past.” This brilliant novel has been a world-wide bestseller and was long-listed for the Miles Franklin Literary Award: a win would have been richly deserved.

The Austere Academy is the fifth book in A Series of Unfortunate Events by American author, Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler). As we once again join the unlucky Baudelaire orphans, Mr Poe deposits the siblings at a boarding school, the Prufrock Preparatory School, with an advanced computer that will protect them from Count Olaf. Or will it? Having already suffered the loss of their parents, the threat of marriage, slave labour, hypnosis, and the murder of their Uncle Monty and Aunt Josephine at the hands of the evil Count Olaf and his nefarious assistants, the siblings are ever-vigilant of his reappearance. Luckily these well-mannered and uncomplaining children are also very resourceful: Violet invents, Klaus reads and Sunny bites. Snicket’s tone throughout is apologetic, sincere and matter-of-fact as he relates the unfortunate events in the children’s lives; his imaginative and even surreptitiously educational style will hold much appeal for younger readers. Snicket’s word and phrase definitions are often hilarious. This installment, the orphans manage to make friends with two triplets who are in a similar situation. But it isn’t enough to save them from horrible living conditions, enduring boring lessons and nasty teasing classmates, or in Sunny’s case, secretarial duties, as well as cruel punishments like torture by violin recital, toe-nipping crabs and nightly running exercises. Violet turns her inventing skills to staple manufacture, Klaus manages to read important notes without his glasses and Sunny’s vocabulary seems to be improving. The alliterative titles are a delight and Brett Helquist provides his usual wonderfully evocative illustrations. What will happen to the orphans now that they have been expelled? No doubt the sixth installment, The Ersatz Elevator, will reveal all.

11/22/63 is the 34th stand-alone novel by popular American author, Stephen King. This time, the master craftsman of storytelling turns his prodigious talents to time travel. In 2011, schoolteacher and budding novelist, Jake Epping is shown a portal into the past, into 1958, and convinced that he can change certain events: specifically, he is to prevent Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating President John Kennedy on 11/22/63. But as Jake makes his way from 1958 towards his goal, he finds that the past resists change, that the past is obdurate, and that every change has consequences. Fans of King’s work will be pleased to pass through Derry, Maine just after the events of “It”, and encounter some of that novel’s protagonists. King’s extensive research into the time period and the events surrounding the Kennedy assassination is apparent in every paragraph: the feel of the late fifties and early sixties is very convincing. Once the reader suspends disbelief about time travel, the rest of the novel is utterly believable and, despite the volume, eminently readable. King paints for the reader a very plausible picture of a nascent assassin. This novel has romance, nostalgia, humour, sadness and an exciting climax. King’s main character is appealing and easy to identify with; the supporting characters, no less engaging. The plot is original and brilliantly executed. This is King at the top of his game: an excellent read.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is the fifth novel by award-winning British author, David Mitchell, who classifies it as historical fiction. Jacob de Zoet is a young Dutch clerk, a Zeelander working for the Dutch East India Company, on a five-year clerical post to Java, where he hopes to make his fortune in order to marry his Dutch sweetheart. He arrives in Nagasaki with the new Chief Resident-elect of Dejima, an island enclave to which the Dutch traders are confined. Soon after his arrival, he encounters a young Japanese midwife with whom he promptly falls in love. Mitchell slowly and carefully crafts his plot to reach a dramatic climax. Mitchell’s potted histories of his characters contribute to their depth and appeal, as well as developing the plot. His dialogue sounds genuine, especially the rendering of translated language. Mitchell gives the reader a fascinating peek into the world that was European trade with Japan in the late 18th century. This was a world filled with corruption, bribery, execution and religious persecution. De Zoet learns the diplomacy and the political tactics necessary in dealing with the Japanese, and that men of honour and integrity are few and far between. This novel makes the historical facts, which might have been dry and unpalatable, interesting and easy to assimilate. De Zoet is loosely based on Hendrick Doeff, one of Dejima’s real Chief Residents. Mitchell does bend a few historical facts: the incident on which the climax is based actually happened somewhat later; the reference by characters in 1799 to the mass eradication of Tasmanian aborigines is premature; nonetheless, this does not detract from the novel in any way. Some of the prose is truly beautiful: Mitchell manages to be quite lyrical about clouds and weather; there are also several charming illustrations. This is a brilliant novel and easily the best I have read in a long time.

The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection is the thirteenth in the Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. In this installment, Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi find themselves investigating not for clients, but rather, for themselves and their friends. Precious and Grace are delighted to find that Clovis Anderson, author of their much-consulted bible, The Principles of Private Detection, is visiting Botswana and decides to stop in for a chat. Precious uses the opportunity to get his advice on a troubling situation affecting her dear friend, Matron of the Orphan Farm, Mma Potokwani. It seems the Orphanage Board has decided to institute changes which Mma Potokwani feels will be detrimental to the orphans, and her dissension is to cost her her job. In an uncharacteristic move, the usually forthright matron retreats to her lands: is this the end for Mma Potokwani? Fanwell, the irreproachable apprentice at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, reluctantly agrees to help an old acquaintance and finds this decision has unforeseen serious consequences. While Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and Mma Ramotswe give him their full support, a surprisingly resourceful Charlie demonstrates unexpected loyalty and comes to the rescue. And newlyweds, Grace and Phuti, find that building a house can be complicated, especially when the builder is not completely honest. As always, the lives of our favourite Gabarone residents keep the reader engrossed; their dialogue, especially that of Mma Makutsi (and her shoes!) provide many light moments; the courtroom scene is pure farce; we discover the origin of Grace’s obsession with shoes; we learn more about Fanwell’s background; Grace’s musings on physical and mental comfort are worth consideration, as is the concept of the guilt-free sofa; Mma Ramotswe’s inner monologue is full of gentle philosophy and it was a lovely surprise for the reader to meet the much-quoted (and apparently very human) Clovis Anderson. Another delightful novel.

The Children’s Book is the fifth stand-alone novel by British author, Antonia S. Byatt. This novel spans about a quarter of a century, starting in 1895, and tells the story of children’s author, Olive Wellwood, her extended family, friends and acquaintances. Against a backdrop of Victorian, then Edwardian then World War One England, Byatt creates a dynasty that is exposed to Imperialists, Socialists, Fabians, Malthusians, Theosophists, and revolutionaries. Jung, Freud, Oscar Wilde, H.G.Wells, Lalique, women’s suffrage, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Grande Exposition in Paris all play their part. This family is involved, not just in children’s literature, but also pottery, jewellery making, puppeteering, fairy mythology, plays and Art and Craft Summer Camps. Byatt intersperses the narrative with Olive’s fiction and, later, poetry by one of the children. As the children of the various families grow and develop, they come to realise that the adults they trust and rely on are not what they seem, and secrets are revealed that change lives. Adultery is rife in this novel, as are births where parentage is suspect; suicides and war deaths take their toll too. Byatt’s descriptions are highly evocative: pottery, puppets and nature are almost tangible. The Lalique brooch on the cover of this edition presages the sumptuous work within. A magical read.

The Alchemist is the first novel by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho and this edition is translated by Alan. R. Clarke. It is the story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearning to travel motivates him to take a chance and search for his destiny. Along the way he encounters a Gypsy, a King, a thief, a merchant, an Englishman, a camel driver, the love of his life, a Tribal Chief and of course, the Alchemist. He leaves Spain, travels to Africa, to the Pyramids, earns money and loses it, and learns about much along the way, including the Soul of the World, The Philosopher’s Stone and the Elixir of Life. There is lots of profound wisdom contained in this little story: “It’s not what enters men’s mouths that’s evil,” said the Alchemist. “It’s what comes out of their mouths that is.” “You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it’s better to listen to what it has to say.” “….the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.” Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.” “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” “…when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” A charming read.