Book of the month

Book of the month for August

Melissa Harrison – At Hawthorn Time is our book of the month for August. Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2015, Longlisted for the Baileys Prize 2016.

Book of the month for July

Kate Clanchy – Meeting the English is our book of the month for July. A bright debut novel about dark subjects, by an acclaimed poet and non-fiction and short story writer. 17yr old Struan goes south for the first time, leaving his Scottish town to spend a life-changing summer in London caring for a paralysed literary giant, in response to an advert.

Book of the month for June

Viet Tanh Nguyen – The Sympathizer is our book of the month for June. Finalist for the Edgar Award for best First Novel 2016! Winner of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction! Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize! The Sympathizer is a Vietnam War novel unlike any other. The narrator, one of the most arresting of recent fiction, is a man of two minds and divided loyalties, a half-French half-Vietnamese communist sleeper agent living in America after the end of the war.

Book of the month for May

A. D. Miller – The Faithful Couple is our book of the month for May. California, 1993: Neil Collins and Adam Tayler, two young British men on the cusp of adulthood, meet at a hostel in San Diego. They strike up a friendship that, while platonic, feels as intoxicating as a romance; they travel up the coast together, harmlessly competitive, innocently collusive, wrapped up in each other. On a camping trip to Yosemite they lead each other to behave in ways that, years later, they will desperately regret.

Book of the month for April

Nell Zink – Wallcreeper is our book of the month for April. The Wallcreeper is nothing more than a portrait of marriage, complete with all its requisite highs and lows: drugs, dubstep, small chores, anal sex, eco-terrorism, birding, breeding and feeding.

Book of the month for March

Lia Mills – Fallen is our book of the month for March.

Book of the month for February

Anna North – The Life and Death of Sophie Stark is our book of the month for February. Who is the real Sophie Stark? The Life and Death of Sophie Stark is the story of an enigmatic film director, told by the six people who loved her most. Brilliant, infuriating, all-seeing and unknowable, Sophie Stark makes films said to be 'more like life than life itself'. But her genius comes at a terrible cost: to her husband, to the brother she left behind, and to the actress she can't forget. 

Book of the month for January

Marlon James – A Brief History of Seven Killings is our book of the month for January. Winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. JAMAICA, 1976Seven gunmen storm Bob Marley’s house, machine guns blazing. The reggae superstar survives, but the gunmen are never caught.

Book of the month for December

Lily King – Euphoria is our book of the month for December. Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award 2014 and winner of the 2014 New England Book Award for Fiction."Euphoria" is Lily King's breakout novel of three young, gifted anthropologists of the '30's caught in a passionate love triangle that threatens their bonds, their careers, and, ultimately, their lives. Inspired by events in the life of revolutionary anthropologist Margaret Mead.

Book of the month for November

Helen Oyeyemi – Boy, Snow, Bird is our book of the month for November. A retelling of the Snow White myth, Boy, Snow, Bird is a deeply moving novel about three women and an unbreakable bond.