Book of the month

Imprisoned in the quarries of Syracuse, thousands of defeated Athenians hang on by the thinnest of threads. They’re fading in the baking heat, but not everything is lost: they can still recite lines from Greek tragedy when tempted by Lampo and Gelon with goatskins of wine and scraps of food. And so an idea is born. Because, after all, you can hate the invaders but still love their poetry… The funniest tragedy you’ll ever read. //  Discuss in the Fiction reading group  //    

Something doesn’t add up at the seaside… As an actuary for an insurance company, Una’s job is to spot patterns that other people might miss. When the data for her latest project – into the predicted number of deaths in seaside resorts – shows a blip in her forecasts, Una’s untarnished reputation at work is at risk. And as strange fatalities are befalling her mother’s bingo crowd, Una must put aside her spreadsheets and begin to investigate. A witty mystery, with math and murders.    //  Discuss in the Crime reading group  //

While growing up in West Belfast, Sean does every­thing he’s supposed to do. He works hard, he studies, and he – mostly – stays out of trouble. The thirty-year conflict is over, he’s told, and his future is lit with promise. But when Sean returns home from university, he finds much of the same – the same friends doing the same gear in the same clubs, the same fathers and brothers missing… One night, he assaults a stranger at a party, and everything begins to come undone. Close to Home begins with this sudden act of violence and expands into a startling portrait of working-class Ireland under the long shadow of the Troubles.  //  Discuss in the Fiction reading group  //

How to put a positive spin on a murder mystery... What happens when a ghostwriter for the rich and famous lands the ultimate gig: writing the memoir of a disgraced presidential candidate? Our witty, nosy narrator arrives at a secluded estate to meet Dorothy Gibson, the fallen political star everyone’s talking about. But when a neighbor turns up dead, the ghostwriter finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery she never saw coming. Add in a secret investigation, a suspiciously handsome man, and a plot twist no one expected – and suddenly, the story she’s writing becomes her own.

One family’s deepest pain. Another’s darkest secret. Who will they be when the truth comes out? On a hot day in 1960s Maine, six-year-old Joe watches his little sister Ruthie, sitting on her favourite rock at the edge of the blueberry fields, while their family, Mi’kmaq people from Nova Scotia, pick fruit. That afternoon, Ruthie vanishes without a trace. As the last person to see her, Joe will be forever haunted by grief, guilt, and the agony of imagining how his life could have been… The Berry Pickers is an exquisitely moving story of unrelenting hope, unwavering love, and the power of family – even in the face of grief and betrayal.

Would you kill for a good story? Roach – bookseller, loner and true crime fanatic – is not interested in making friends. She has all the company she needs in her serial killer books, murder podcasts and her pet snail, Bleep. That is, until Laura joins the bookshop. With her cute literary tote bags and sunny smile, she’s everyone’s favourite bookseller.

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighbourhood where Jewish immigrants and African Americans lived side by side through the 1920s and ’30s. In this novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them, James McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community – heaven and earth – that sustain us.  //  Discuss in the Fiction reading group  //  

Six celebrities. One dead singer. No way out. Welcome to the world’s most exclusive rehab clinic – a refuge for the rich and beautiful – and perhaps the perfect place for murder? Meg’s sister Haley was a troubled country singer, hiding away from fans and paparazzi, until she was found dead. Now Meg checks in – to find out why her sister never checked out. You can check in, but you might never check out… //  Discuss in the Crime reading group  //  

”What are you looking for?” So asks Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. But she is no ordinary librarian. Sensing exactly what someone is searching for in life, she provides just the book recommendation to help them find it. We meet five visitors to the library, each at a different crossroads, from a hopeful young manga artist to a mother facing demotion at work – they all go to the library to find that special book only she can find for them.  //  Discuss in the Fiction reading group  //  

Meet Dr. Miriam Price. The most fun you’ll have with a murder mystery all year. She’ll solve this murder if it kills her. Except it already has… ”Hello? Can you hear me? Probably not. I’m Dr Miriam Price . . . and I'm dead. The local police, who couldn't investigate their own nostrils, think I drank myself into an early grave. The nerve! I was murdered. I was just too plastered to know whodunnit, that’s all.”  //  Discuss in the Crime reading group  //