Summer Reading

'Birdsong in a Time of Silence' is the story of a man rediscovering his passion for birdsong and nature. Narrated against the backdrop of the current pandemic, the book opens by acknowledging the new awareness of birds and birdsong that was made possible by the coincidence of spring and the exper...

The sharp-tongued (and secretly soft-hearted) Kiki Banjo is an expert in relationship-evasion, and likes to keep her feelings close to her chest. As the host of the popular student radio show, 'Brown Sugar,' it is her mission to make sure the women who make up the Afro-Caribbean Society at Whitew...

Would you love to live by the sea, but the thought of selling up and moving away seems impossible? Or perhaps you dream of running a small holding in Wales or setting up a surf school in Cornwall, but are too scared to make the leap of faith, so you stay safe, but unhappy, in your nine-to-five jo...

Over the last decade, Azeem Azhar - writer, technologist and creator of the Exponential View platform - has become our leading thinker on how technology is transforming business, politics and society. Now, Azhar offers a holistic way to think about the effects of new tech. Our society, Azhar argu...

Jake D'Arcy has spent most of his 29 years trying to get his life just right. He's nearly there: great girlfriend, great friends, stable job. A distant relationship with his boisterous family - which is exactly the way he wants it. So why does everything feel so wrong? When his popular, irritatin...

It's a typical summer night in August. Literature professor Arne and artist Tove are with their children at a summer house in southern Norway. Their friend Egil is staying nearby. Kathrine, a priest, is on her way home from a seminar, journalist Jostein is out on the town, and his wife, Turid, an...

A man visits his aging father in a nursing home, where his father writes the novel he imagines his son would write. Or is it the novel that the son imagines his father would imagine, if he were to imagine the kind of novel the son would write?

London, 1985. Joe, father to eleven-year-old Matty, has disappeared, and nobody will explain where he's gone, or why. In the long, hot summer that follows, Matty's hunt for Joe leads to the ponds at Hampstead Heath. Beneath the water, there is a new kind of freedom. Above the water, a welcoming c...

Comic, dark, and insightful, 'What Happened?' is Hanif Kureishi's new collection of essays and fiction. No topic is too fringe or too mainstream for this insatiable - and much-loved - author. From social media to the ancient classics, from appraisals of David Bowie to Georges Simenon to Keith Jar...

When he unexpectedly loses his job, Herbie struggles to find a purpose. His wife, the great love of his life, has long left him for a Southerner, and his daughter has fled Belfast for London in search of work and an easier life. But a local cafe under new ownership, a friend in need and an unexpe...