Books of the month for October

General Fiction: Jonathan Coe – Number 11

This is a novel about the hundreds of tiny connections between the public and private worlds and how they affect us all.
It's about the legacy of war and the end of innocence.
It's about how comedy and politics are battling it out and comedy might have won.
It's about how 140 characters can make fools of us all.
It's about living in a city where bankers need cinemas in their basements and others need food banks down the street.
It is Jonathan Coe doing what he does best ­- showing us how we live now.

British Crime: Steve Burrows – A Siege of Bitterns (Birder's Mystery #1)

Newly appointed police inspector Domenic Jejeune doesn't mind ruffling a few feathers. Indeed his success has elevated him into a poster boy for the police. The problem is Jejeune doesn't really want to be a detective at all; he much prefers watching birds.

Recently reassigned to the small Norfolk town of Saltmarsh, located in the heart of Britain's premier birding country, Jejeune's two worlds collide with the grisly murder of a prominent ecological activist. His ambitious police superintendent foresees a blaze of welcome publicity, although doubts soon emerge when Jejeune's best theory involves a feud over birdwatching lists. A second murder does little to bolster confidence.

Jejeune must call on all his birding knowhow to solve the mystery and deal with unwelcome public acclaim, the mistrust of colleagues and his own insecurities. For, in the case of the Saltmarsh birder murders, the victims may not be the only casualties…

Tough Crime: Brian Panowich – Bull Mountain

Clayton Burroughs is sheriff of Bull Mountain and black sheep of the brutal and blood-steeped Burroughs clan. In the forties and fifties, the family ran moonshine over six state lines. In the sixties and seventies, they farmed the largest marijuana crop on the East Coast, and now they are the dominant suppliers of methamphetamine in the South.An uneasy pact exists between the law man and his folk, but when a federal agent shows up in Clayton's office with a plan to shut down Bull Mountain, his agenda will pit brother against brother and set Clayton on the path to self-destruction.

Bull Mountain is a story about family, and the lengths men will go to protect it, honour it, or, in some cases, destroy it.

Fantasy: Natasha Pulley – The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

In 1883, Thaniel Steepleton returns to his tiny flat to find a gold pocketwatch on his pillow. But he has worse fears than generous burglars; he is a telegraphist at the Home Office, which has just received a threat for what could be the largest-scale Fenian bombing in history.

When the watch saves Thaniel's life in a blast that destroys Scotland Yard, he goes in search of its maker, Keita Mori – a kind, lonely immigrant who sweeps him into a new world of clockwork and music. Although Mori seems harmless at first, a chain of unexpected slips soon proves that he must be hiding something.

Meanwhile, Grace Carrow is sneaking into an Oxford library dressed as a man. A theoretical physicist, she is desperate to prove the existence of the luminiferous ether before her mother can force her to marry.

As the lives of these three characters become entwined, events spiral out of control until Thaniel is torn between loyalties, futures and opposing geniuses.

Science Fiction: James P. Smythe – Way Down Dark (Australia #1)

There's one truth on Australia. You fight or you die. Usually both.

Imagine a nightmare from which there is no escape. Seventeen-year-old Chan's ancestors left a dying Earth hundreds of years ago, in search of a new home. They never found one.

This is a hell where no one can hide. The only life that Chan's ever known is one of violence, of fighting. Of trying to survive.

This is a ship of death, of murderers and cults and gangs. But there might be a way to escape. In order to find it, Chan must head way down into the darkness – a place of buried secrets, long-forgotten lies, and the abandoned bodies of the dead.

This is Australia. Seventeen-year-old Chan, fiercely independent and self-sufficient, keeps her head down and lives quietly, careful not to draw attention to herself amidst the violence and disorder. Until the day she makes an extraordinary discovery – a way to return the Australia to Earth.But doing so would bring her to the attention of the fanatics and the murderers who control life aboard the ship, putting her and everyone she loves in terrible danger. And a safe return to Earth is by no means certain.

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: Amanda Downum – Dreams of Shreds and Tatters

"The door opened and the current pulled him through. Darkness filled his mouth, pushed down his throat. Coiling, solidifying, dragging him under. Swallowing him."

When Liz Drake’s best friend vanishes, nothing can stop her nightmares. Driven by the certainty he needs her help, she crosses a continent to search for him. She finds Blake comatose in a Vancouver hospital, victim of a mysterious accident that claimed his lover’s life – in her dreams he drowns.

Blake’s new circle of artists and mystics draws her in, but all of them are lying or keeping dangerous secrets. Soon nightmare creatures stalk the waking city, and Liz can’t fight a dream from the daylight world: to rescue Blake she must brave the darkest depths of the Dreamlands.

Even the attempt could kill her, or leave her mind trapped or broken. And if she succeeds, she must face the monstrous Yellow King, whose slave Blake is on the verge of becoming forever.

Teen reading: David Arnold – Kids of Appetite

In the Hackensack Police Department, Vic Benucci and his friend Mad are explaining how they found themselves wrapped up in a grisly murder. But in order to tell that story, they have to go way back...

It all started when Vic's dad died. Vic's dad was his best friend, and even now, two years later, he can't bring himself to touch the Untouchable Urn of Oblivion that sits in his front hall. But one cold December day, Vic falls in with an alluring band of kids that wander his New Jersey neighbourhood, including Mad, the girl who changes everything. Along with his newfound friendships comes the courage to open his father's urn, the discovery of the message inside, and the epic journey it sparks.

Classic of the Month: Christopher Isherwood – Mr Norris Changes Trains

After a chance encounter on a train the English teacher William Bradshaw starts a close friendship with the mildly sinister Arthur Norris. Norris is a man of contradictions; lavish but heavily in debt, excessively polite but sexually deviant. First published in 1933 Mr Norris Changes Trains piquantly evokes the atmosphere of Berlin during the rise of the Nazis.

Non-Fiction: Kim Barker – Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Kim Barker is not your typical foreign correspondent. Raised in Montana, at thirty she had barely been overseas, spoke only English, and knew little about Islam and even less about Osama Bin Laden. But none of that would stop her from heading to Afghanistan and Pakistan to cover the fallout from 9/11.

When she arrives, Kim makes all sorts of mistakes – from eating toxic sushi, to forgetting her money on her first trip to Kabul – but soon she grows into a wisecracking, seasoned reporter, with grave concerns about the ability of US might to win hearts and minds in the region. As she moves between conflict zones, Kim offers a close-up account of the war, and of the people at its heart, finding humour and humanity amid the rubble and the heartbreak. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot captures the absurdity and tragedy of our modern wars, and gives us an unlikely but unforgettable heroine for our times.