Book of the month

Book of the month for July

Peter Nichols – The Rocks is our book of the month for June. Three generations, two families and the dangerous delights of a Mediterranean island, The Rocks is a bittersweet chronicle of unresolved feuds. Darkly comic.

Book of the month for June

Judy Chicurel – If I Knew You Were Going To Be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go is our book of the month for June. It is the summer of 1972, and Katie has just turned eighteen. Katie and her town, Elephant Beach, are both on the verge: Katie of adulthood, and Elephant Beach of gentrification. But not yet: Elephant Beach is still gritty, working-class, close-knit. And Katie spends her time smoking and drinking with her friends, dreaming about a boy just back from Vietnam who's still fighting a battle Katie can't understand.

Book of the month – May

Luke Brown – My Biggest Lie is our book of the month for May. Liam has it all. A job he enjoys, a glamorous lifestyle and a girlfriend he is madly in love with. But after one night out he loses everything and finds himself on a plane to Buenos Aires. There he hopes to write the world's longest and truest love letter to the one person who still matters to him.

Book of the month – April

Rufi Thorpe – The Girls From Corona del Mar is our book of the month for April. Mia and Lorrie Ann are lifelong friends: hard-hearted Mia and untouchably beautiful, kind Lorrie Ann. While Mia struggles with a mother who drinks, a pregnancy at fifteen, and younger brothers she loves but can’t quite be good to, Lorrie Ann is luminous, surrounded by her close-knit family, immune to the mistakes that mar her best friend’s life. Then a sudden loss catapults Lorrie Ann into tragedy: things fall apart, and then fall further—and there is nothing Mia can do to help. And as good, brave, fair Lorrie Ann stops being so good, Mia begins to question just who this woman is, and what that question means about them both.

Book of the month – March

Laline Paull – The Bees is our book of the month for March. Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee trained to accept, obey and serve. But Flora is not like other bees, and she will break the most sacred law of all.

British Crime Book of the month – February

Susan Elia MacNeal – Mr Churchill's Secretary (Maggie Hope #1) is our british crime book of the month for February. Maggie Hope, a young American in London during the second world war, finds herself being drawn into a secretive world of spies, code-breaking and betrayal.

Book of the month – February

Dinaw Mengestu – All Our Names  is our book of the month for February. An unforgettable tale of love, friendship and revolution set between Africa and America, by the winner of the Guardian First Book Award. Two young friends join an uprising against Uganda's corrupt regime in the early 1970s. As the line blurs between idealism and violence, one of them flees for his life. In a quiet Midwestern town in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, an African student falls for the woman who helps him settle in. Prejudice overshadows their relationship, yet it is equally haunted by the past. Both men are called Isaac. But are they one and the same?

Book of the month – January

Matt Haig – The Humans is our book of the month for January. Nominated for the 2014 Edgar AwardAfter an 'incident' one wet Friday night where Professor Andrew Martin is found walking naked through the streets of Cambridge, he is not feeling quite himself. Food sickens him. Clothes confound him. He feels lost amongst a crazy alien species and hates everyone on the planet. Everyone, that is, except Newton, and he's a dog.

British Crime Book of the month – January

Ann Granger – The Testimony of the Hanged Man is our british crime book of the month for January. Victorian London is brought vividly to life in Ann Granger's fifth historical crime novel to feature Scotland Yard's Inspector Ben Ross and his wife Lizzie. A hanged man would say anything to save his life. But what if his testimony is true? When Inspector Ben Ross is called to Newgate Prison by a man condemned to die by the hangman's noose he isn't expecting to give any credence to the man's testimony. But the account of a murder he witnessed over seventeen years ago is so utterly believeable that Ben can't help wondering if what he's heard is true.

Book of the month – December

T. Jefferson Parker – Full Measure is our book of the month for December. Patrick Norris returns to rural California after serving with the US Army in Iraq. Fire has ravaged his home farm and it has all become too much for his parents and brother to manage. The country has changed though, notably after the mass killings of children in schools across the United States, invariably by lone gunmen, and a great tension exists in the people.