With echoes of the film 'Back to the Future', this particular time-travelling journey of discovery takes us back to the Seventies era with its disco music, drugs and sexual freedom. A family drama, combining romance and SF - plus themes of depression, alcoholism and drug addiction does not sound like a feel-good read, but the overall mood is uplifting. An ideal read for book clubs.
View The Summer of Impossible Things
Irene is on a mission for the mysterious organisation The Library whose aim is to travel worlds collecting important books. With a new trainee in tow, danger and intrigue at every turn, dragons, mechanical creatures, fae, and a sinister ex-Librarian to contend with, Irene’s quest in this steam-punk London is not going to be easy. This is an engaging, intriguing, and exciting first title in a new series where getting the book is everything.
View The Invisible Library
I loved these surreal and quirky short stories. Naomi Ishiguro has the knack of making the dream-like seem remarkably normal and feasible.
View Escape Routes
What a surprising little book this is and quite hard to pigeonhole. I could not condone the actions of a postman who steams open the letters he intercepts. But my unease was swept away by the beautiful haiku and tanka that form part of the story - simply sublime.
View The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman
A little gem of a book. It had me hooked from start to finish. Life is not easy for Lee, the trainee undertaker, but he rises above it all and carries on.
View A Trick I Learned from Dead Men
What if you had known as an 18 year old what you now know as a middle-aged adult? This emotionally charged romantic comedy is a mad-cap romp across time and different fictional genres. It is a great antidote to the stress of these current fraught times, inducing in me an unexpected nostalgia for the Nineties!
Although the story may adopt the all-familiar formula of magic, boarding school and family tragedy as its backdrop, Mori’s personal story is a far-cry from the wizardry of Harry Potter. This enchanting tale is recounted through Mori’s personal diary, adding an intimacy to this coming-of-age gem.
View Among Others
Isobel longs so desperately for the mother who disappeared when she was small that she begins to travel, unpredictably, in time and space. But rest assured, this is not a serious, heavy read - there is a comically dysfunctional family, plenty of teenage angst, lyrically beautiful writing and glimpses into the fortunes of a family over many centuries against a haunting background of fairytale and Shakespeare's Forest of Arden.
View Human Croquet
If you're a gobbler of words - a synonym lexiphile (I made that up), you'll relish this book. A lot of Eley's delight in words comes through in her bubbling inventiveness, and I just loved the twists and turns of the back story as well.
View The Liar's Dictionary
Once you get used to Karen's unusual way of telling her story this is a funny, fascinating and compelling tale. It really makes you think about what it means to be human - and you learn an awful lot about tuna.
View The Woman Who Dived into the Heart of the WorldYou won’t find the biggest bestsellers on Whichbook as everyone knows about them already. But you can use your enjoyment of a current bestseller to see titles with a similar mood that you might try next.
