Books I Want to Read

John Perry was living peacefully on one of humanity's colonies - until he and his wife were offered an opportunity these ex-supersoldiers couldn't resist. To come out of retirement and lead a new frontier world. However, once on the planet, they discover they've been betrayed. For this colony is a pawn in an interstellar game of war and diplomacy. Humanity's Colonial Union has pitched itself against a new, seemingly unstoppable alien alliance, dedicated to ending all human colonization. As this contest rages above, Perry struggles to keep his terrified colonists alive on the surface below - despite dangerous interstellar politics, violence and treachery. And the planet has yet to reveal its own fatal secrets. PRAISE FOR THE OLD MAN'S WAR SERIES "Clever dialogue, fast-paced story and strong characters." The Times "Great fun" Daily Telegraph

"Traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives"--

HERE IS A SMALL FACT - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall. SOME IMPORTANT INFORMATION - THIS NOVEL IS NARRATED BY DEATH It's a small story, about: a girl an accordionist some fanatical Germans a Jewish fist fighter and quite a lot of thievery. ANOTHER THING YOU SHOULD KNOW - DEATH WILL VISIT THE BOOK THIEF THREE TIMES

Edited by J. C. C. Mays Murphy, Samuel Beckett's first novel, was published in 1938. Its work-shy eponymous hero, adrift in London, realises that desire can never be satisfied and withdraws from life, in search of stupor. Murphy's lovestruck fiancée Celia tries with tragic pathos to draw him back, but her attempts are doomed to failure. Murphy's friends and familiars are simulacra of Murphy, fragmented and incomplete. But Beckett's achievement lies in the brilliantly original language used to communicate this vision of isolation and misunderstanding. The combination of particularity and absurdity gives Murphy's world its painful definition, but the sheer comic energy of Beckett's prose releases characters and readers alike into exuberance.