Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

$32.99 AUD

Category: Contemporary

IN THE DARKNESS OF WAR, THE LIGHT OF BOOKS Based on the true World War II story of the heroic librarians at the American Library in Paris, this is the unforgettable story of romance, friendship, family, and the power of literature to bring us together. PARIS, 1939 Odile Souchet is obsessed with books, and working at The American Library in Paris for the formidable director Dorothy Reeder is all she has ever dreamed of. The Library and its thriving community of students, writers, diplomats and book lovers provide her with a safe haven. When war is declared, the Library is determined to remain open. But then the Nazis invade Paris, and everything changes. The Nazi 'Library Protector' changes the rules overnight, declaring a war on words and making the librarians risk their lives to do their jobs. Under the courageous guidance of Miss Reeder, Odile and her fellow librarians defy the authorities to make sure all their subscribers, even those deemed no longer desirable, get access to books and remain part of their community, whatever the cost. Choices as black and white as the words on a page become a murky shade of grey - choices that will put many of the wrong side of history, and the consequences of which will echo for decades to come. The Paris Library illuminates a seldom-seen slice of history: the role of women and their fate during the war. It also recounts the consequences of unspeakable betrayal, when the people we count on for understanding and protection fail us. ...Show more

Perth College Bookclub - November - Honeybee by Craig Silvey

$29.69 AUD

$32.99 (10% off)

Category: Contemporary

Late in the night, fourteen-year-old Sam Watson steps onto a quiet overpass, climbs over the rail and looks down at the road far below. At the other end of the same bridge, an old man, Vic, smokes his last cigarette. The two see each other across the void. A fateful connection is made, and an unlikely f riendship blooms.   Slowly, we learn what led Sam and Vic to the bridge that night. Bonded by their suffering, each privately commits to the impossible task of saving the other.   Honeybee is a heartbreaking, life-affirming novel that throws us headlong into a world of petty thefts, extortion plots, botched bank robberies, daring dog rescues and one spectacular drag show.   At the heart of Honeybee is Sam: a solitary, resilient young person battling to navigate the world as their true self; ensnared by loyalty to a troubled mother, scarred by the volatility of a domineering stepfather, and confounded by the kindness of new alliances.   Honeybee is a tender, profoundly moving novel, brimming with vivid characters and luminous words. It's about two lives forever changed by a chance encounter - one offering hope, the other redemption. It's about when to persevere, and when to be merciful, as Sam learns when to let go, and when to hold on.     ...Show more

The Pull of the Stars (PB) by Emma Donoghue

$32.99 AUD

Category: Contemporary

From the international bestselling author of Room. In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city centre, where expectant mothers who have come down with an unfamiliar Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two o utsiders: Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.       ...Show more

O by Steven Carroll

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian author

'A woman writes a story for her married lover. Something she always thought of as a fairy tale. A fairy tale with a dark side, like the best of fairy tales...' Occupied France, 1943. France's most shameful hour. In these dark times, Dominique starts an illicit affair with a distinguished publisher, a m arried man. He introduces her to the Resistance, and she comes to have a taste for the clandestine life - she has never felt more alive. Shortly after the war, to prove something to her lover, she writes an erotic novel about surrender, submission and shame. Never meant to be published, Story of O becomes a national scandal and success, the world's most famous erotic novel. But what is the story really about - Dominique, her lover, or the country and the wartime past it would rather forget? From one of our foremost writers, the acclaimed and multi-award-winning Steven Carroll, comes O, a reimagining of what might have been, the story of a novel that took on a life of its own and mirrored its times in a way the author never dreamt of. 'He is one of the best we've ever had.' Geraldine Brooks ...Show more

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

$22.99 AUD

Category: Australian author | Reading Level: very good

An utterly wonderful debut novel of love, crime, magic, fate and a boy's coming of age, set in 1980s Australia and infused with the originality, charm, pathos, and heart of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The mind can take you anywhere you want to go. Eli Bell's life is complicated. His father is lost, his mother is in jail, and his stepdad is a heroin dealer. The most steadfast adult in Eli's life is Slim--a notorious felon and national record-holder for successful prison escapes--who watches over Eli and August, his silent genius of an older brother. Exiled far from the rest of the world in Darra, a seedy suburb populated by Polish and Vietnamese refugees, this twelve-year-old boy with an old soul and an adult mind is just trying to follow his heart, learn what it takes to be a good man, and train for a glamorous career in journalism. Life, however, insists on throwing obstacles in Eli's path--most notably Tytus Broz, Brisbane's legendary drug dealer. But the real trouble lies ahead. Eli is about to fall in love, face off against truly bad guys, and fight to save his mother from a certain doom--all before starting high school. A story of brotherhood, true love, family, and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe is the tale of an adolescent boy on the cusp of discovering the man he will be. Powerful and kinetic, Trent Dalton's debut is sure to be one of the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novels you will experience. ...Show more

The Yield by Tara June Winch

$32.99 AUD

Category: Chat10Looks3 Recommendations | Reading Level: very good

Winner of the NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2020. Winner of the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction 2020. Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2020. Just tell the truth and someone will hear it eventually. The Yield in English is the reaping, the things that man can take from the land. In the langu age of the Wiradjuri yield is the things you give to, the movement, the space between things. Knowing that he will soon die, Albert ‘Poppy’ Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains. Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered. He finds the words on the wind. August Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for ten years when she learns of her grandfather’s death. She returns home for his burial, wracked with grief and burdened with all she tried to leave behind. Her homecoming is bittersweet as she confronts the love of her kin and news that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. Profoundly moving and exquisitely written, Tara June Winch’s The Yield is the story of a people and a culture dispossessed. But it is as much a celebration of what was and what endures, and a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling and identity.   ...Show more

The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood

$22.99 AUD

Category: Contemporary

From the extraordinary imagination of the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale, comes one of her most intricate and subversive novels. Set in contemporary Toronto, The Robber Bride revolves around the lives of three fascinating women. Classmates from university, Roz, Charis, and T ony all shared the seductive and destructive experience of a past friendship with the flashy, sensuous, smart, irresistible Zenia. As the novel opens, they are twenty years past their college days and have met at Zenia's funeral, but at lunch, after the funeral, they spot Zenia--not dead at all and up to no good. ...Show more

The Frenchman by Jack Beaumont

$29.99 AUD

Category: Thriller

A gripping debut thriller based on the real-life experiences of a former French intelligence operative. Alec de Payns is an operative in the secretive Y Division of the DGSE, France's famed foreign intelligence service. He's the agent at the sharp end of clandestine missions, responsible for eliminatin g terror threats and disrupting illegal nuclear and biological weapons programs. The element the missions have in common is danger - danger to de Payns, to his team and to those who stand in his way. But increasingly it's not just the enemies of France that are being damaged by de Payns' actions. His marriage is under strain, and at the back of his mind lurks the fear that haunts every operative with a family - what if they come after my children? When a routine mission in Palermo to disrupt a terrorist organisation goes fatally wrong, Alec is forced to confront the possibility that they may have been betrayed by a fellow operative. And now he's been tasked to investigate a secretive biological weapons facility in Pakistan. Alec must find out how they're producing a weaponised bacteria capable of killing millions, and what they plan to do with it. But with a traitor in the ranks, it's not just Alec in the firing line. Soon he'll be forced to confront his worst fear - and the potential destruction of Paris itself. ...Show more

Ripping Tree by Nikki Gemmell

$32.99 AUD

Category: Contemporary

An illustrious family. A beautiful home. A shipwrecked young woman left on its doorstep. Don't think they're going to save her. A new novel from international bestselling author, Nikki Gemmell. Early 1800s. Thomasina Trelora is on her way to the colonies. Her fate: to be married to a clergyman she's ne ver met. As the Australian coastline comes into view a storm wrecks the ship and leaves her lying on the rocks, near death. She's saved by an Aboriginal man who carries her to the door of a grand European house, Willowbrae. Tom is now free to be whoever she wants to be and a whole new life opens up to her. But as she's drawn deeper into the intriguing life of this grand estate, she discovers that things aren't quite as they seem. She stumbles across a horrifying secret at the heart of this world of colonial decorum - and realises she may have exchanged one kind of prison for another. The Ripping Tree is an intense, sharp shiver of a novel, which brings to mind such diverse influences as The Turn of the Screw, Rebecca and the film Get Out as much as it evokes The Secret River. A powerful and gripping tale of survival written in Nikki Gemmell's signature lyrical and evocative prose, it examines the darkness at the heart of early colonisation. Unsettling, audacious, thrilling and unputdownable.   ...Show more

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

$19.99 AUD

Category: Contemporary

THE SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'I LOVE it . . . I can't remember the last time I read a book that was so fun' DOLLY ALDERTON _________________ They were the new icons of rock and roll, fated to burn bright and not fade away. But on 12 July 1979, it all came crashing down. There was Dai sy, rock and roll force of nature, brilliant songwriter and unapologetic drug addict, the half-feral child who rose to superstardom. There was Camila, the frontman's wife, too strong-willed to let the band implode - and all too aware of the electric connection between her husband and Daisy. There was Karen, ice-cool keyboardist, a ferociously independent woman in a world that wasn't ready for her. And there were the men surrounding them: the feuding, egotistical Dunne brothers, the angry guitarist chafing on the sidelines, the drummer binge-drinking on his boat, the bassist trying to start a family amid a hedonistic world tour. They were creative minds striking sparks from each other, ready to go up in flames. It's never just about the music... _________________ 'Brace for 2019's first pop-culture sensation . . . we're not exaggerating . . . new obsession, incoming' TELEGRAPH 'Utterly believable . . . fantastically enjoyable' THE TIMES 'Pitch perfect' SUNDAY TIMES 'Reads like an addictive Netflix documentary meets A Star Is Born - despite being utterly fictional. It's also a call-to-arms that when you find your niche, don't doubt, embrace it.' EMERALD STREET 'The verdict: Daisy Jones steals the limelight... A zeitgeist book for 2019' STYLIST 'Well observed, sensitively told . . . a great read.' WILL GOMPERTZ, BBC 'A tremendously engaging, and completely believable tale of rock and roll excess... inventive, persuasive and completely satisfying.' DYLAN JONES 'I spent a lost weekend in this book. Daisy Jones is an instant icon.' ERIN KELLY 'DAISY JONES & THE SIX is a transporting novel - at once a love story, a glimpse into the combustible inner workings of a rock-and-roll band, and a pitch-perfect recreation of the music scene of the Fleetwood Mac era. You'll never want it to end.' CECILIA AHERN 'Once in a blue moon you get to discover a book you end up pressing upon many other people to read. Taylor Jenkins Reid has got every nuance, every detail exact and right. I loved every word.' PAUL REES 'So brilliantly written I thought all the characters were real . . . I couldn't put it down' EDITH BOWMAN 'Explosive . . . a gorgeous novel and a ravishing read.' CHARLOTTE HEATHCOTE, SUNDAY EXPRESS 'Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll? You bet, but it's Daisy's refusal to become a mere muse that powers this buzzy music-industry romance.' HEPHZIBAH ANDERSON, MAIL ON SUNDAY 'The characters leap off the page, seducing you with their dramas, and making you wish the band was real.' HEAT 'The heady haze of the 70s music scene, and a perfectly flawed Daisy, combine to create a fresh, rock n roll read. I loved it.' ALI LAND, author of Good Me Bad Me ...Show more

Driving Stevie Fracasso by Barry Divola

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian author

Two estranged brothers, one stolen car and a road trip from Texas to New York. What could possibly go wrong? For fans of Nick Hornby, David Nicholls and Jonathan Tropper. Jaded music journo Rick McLennan knows his life is going south when he loses his job, his apartment and his long-term girlfriend al l on the same day. But then he is thrown a lifeline: a paying gig to drive his ex-rock star brother, Stevie, from Austin, Texas, to New York to get his story and play one final gig. One small problem: the brothers have history; they haven't spoken in thirty years.Rick knows it's a bad idea. But he's out of choices. So he gets behind the wheel of a beaten-up Datsun 180B and drives towards his destiny. He's about to find everything he didn't know he was missing. It's September 2001.From high-profile, award-winning journalist and author Barry Divola comes a glorious, music-infused, rollicking road-trip novel - think High Fidelity meets The Big Lebowski meets The Darjeeling Limited. A smart, funny and wholly endearing story about how, though we may at times lose ourselves along the way, the road always leads back to family and the things that bring us joy.   ...Show more

Who Is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews

$32.99 AUD

Category: Contemporary

Celebrated, bestselling, elusive...who is Maud Dixon? Florence Darrow wants to be a writer. Correction: Florence Darrow IS going to be a writer. Fired from her first job in publishing, she jumps at the chance to be assistant to the celebrated Maud Dixon, the anonymous bestselling novelist. The arrangeme nt comes with conditions - high secrecy, living in an isolated house in the countryside. Before long, the two of them are on a research trip to Morocco, to inspire the much-promised second novel. Beach walks, red sunsets and long, whisky-filled evening discussions...win-win, surely? Until Florence wakes up in a hospital, having narrowly survived a car crash. How did it happen - and where is Maud Dixon, who was in the car with her? Florence feels she may have been played, but wait, if Maud is no longer around, maybe Florence can make her mark as a writer after all... ...Show more