A BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB CHOICE 2019, RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB CHOICE 2020, AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE

'This is a novel of international significance. Courageous, provocative, haunting, it will open our eyes' Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz

In the midst of war, he found love
In the midst of darkness, he found courage
In the midst of tragedy, he found hope

The Beekeeper of Aleppo

What will you find from his story?

Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Afra, an artist. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo - until the unthinkable happens. When all they care for is destroyed by war, they are forced to escape.

As Nuri and Afra travel through a broken world, they must confront not only the pain of their own unspeakable loss, but dangers that would overwhelm the bravest of souls. Above all - and perhaps this is the hardest thing they face - they must journey to find each other again.

Moving, powerful, compassionate and beautifully written, The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a testament to the triumph of the human spirit. Told with deceptive simplicity, it is the kind of book that reminds us of the power of storytelling.

Die wonderwêreld van Willem Landman gaan onder andere oor Mintaka, een van drie sterre in Orion se gordel. Dis eintlik tweelingsterre, die een ʼn bloureus, die soldaat, en die ander sagter, vriendeliker. Dit speel op die twee broers in die boek: Alex, meestermanipuleerder en sy afwesige broer, Zander.

Alex het vir hom ʼn aansienlike sakeryk uit gekonkel opgebou. Hy het vir hom ʼn vesting op ʼn koppie gebou nadat hy Bella, die Griekwa-vrou aan wie se familie die grond reeds geslagte behoort, bedrieg en die munispaliteit omgekoop het. Van daar bedryf hy sy sake en daarheen laat kom hy sy “agente”. Hy is magsbehep en ʼn sekspes. Hy is ook psigoties, bossies en vermoedelik skisofrenies.

Die karakter wat die kollig steel, is die titelkarakter, Willem Landman – een van Alex se agente. Lesers het hom leer ken as die sukkelende kulkunstenaar in Die formidabele Ling Ho. Willem is ʼn formidabele bullshitter, ’n stiksienige siener wat moontlik, per ongeluk, wel oor sekere gawes beskik, effens kommin, ongeleerd maar vol planne en ʼn oog vir ʼn gaping. Onrus broei in die gemeenskap en dinge word op die spits gedryf wanneer ’n hele paar agente tegelyk by Alex se vesting byeenkom.

Beloved bestselling author Mitch Albom returns with a powerful novel that moves from a coastal Greek city during WWII, to America, where the intertwined lives of three survivors are forever changed by the perils of deception and the grace of redemption.

Eleven-year-old Nico Krispis never told a lie. When the Nazi’s invade his home in Salonika, Greece, the trustworthy boy is discovered by a German officer, who offers him a chance to save his family. All Nico has to do is convince his fellow Jewish residents to board trains heading to “new homes” where they are promised jobs and safety. Unaware that this is all a cruel ruse, the innocent boy goes to the station platform every day and reassures the passengers that the journey is safe. But when the final train is at the station, Nico sees his family being loaded into a large boxcar crowded with other neighbors. Only after it is too late does Nico discover that he helped send the people he loved—and all the others—to their doom at Auschwitz.

Nico never tells the truth again.

In The Little Liar, his first novel set during the Holocaust, Mitch Albom interweaves the stories of Nico, his brother Sebastian, and their schoolmate Fanni, who miraculously survive the death camps and spend years searching for Nico, who has become a pathological liar, and the Nazi officer who radically changed their lives. As the decades pass, Albom reveals the consequences of what they said, did, and endured.

A moving parable that explores honesty, survival, revenge and devotion, The Little Liar is Mitch Albom at his very best. Narrated by the voice of Truth itself, it is a timeless story about the harm we inflict with our deceits, and the power of love to ultimately redeem us.

Cassandra Penelope Dankworth is a creature of habit.

She likes what she likes (museums, jumpsuits, her boyfriend Will) and strongly dislikes what she doesn't (mess, change, her boss drinking out of her mug). Her life runs in a pleasing, predictable order. Until now.

She's just been dumped. She's just been fired. Her local café has run out of banana muffins. Then, something truly unexpected happens: Cassie discovers she can go back and change the past.

Now, Cassie should be able to find a way to fix the life she accidentally obliterated. And with time on her side, how hard can it be...?

The hotly anticipated adult novel from the multi-million-copy bestselling author of Geek Girl, Holly Smale.

Lucy Lurie is deeply sunk in PTSD following a gang rape at her father’s farmhouse in the Western Cape. She soon becomes obsessed with the author John Coetzee, who has made a name for himself by writing Disgrace, a celebrated novel that revolves around the attack on her.

Lucy lives the life of a celibate hermit, making periodic forays into the outside world in her attempts to find and confront Coetzee. The Lucy of Coetzee’s fictional imaginings is a passive, peaceful creature, almost entirely lacking in agency. She is the lacuna in Coetzee’s novel – the missing piece of the puzzle.

But Lucy Lurie is no one’s lacuna. Her attempts to claw back her life, her voice and her agency may be messy and misguided, but she won’t be silenced. Her rape is not a metaphor. This is her story.

Carl Benz may be known as the "Father of the Automobile," but Bertha Benz was the woman behind the wheel driving the world into a new era. Woman at the Wheel is a gorgeous historical fiction novel that takes a peek under the hood, examining the life of a fascinating woman who refused to let men hit the brakes on her revolutionary machine

Inspiring historical fiction based on the real life of Bertha Benz, whose husband built the first prototype automobile, which eventually evolved into the Mercedes-Benz marque.

From a young age, Cäcilie Bertha Ringer is fascinated by her father's work as a master builder in Pforzheim, Germany. But those five words, which he wrote next to her name in the family Bible, haunt Bertha.

Years later, Bertha meets Carl Benz and falls in love-with him and his extraordinary dream of building a horseless carriage. Bertha has such faith in him that she invests her dowry in his plans, a dicey move since they alone believe in the machine. When Carl's partners threaten to withdraw their support, he's ready to cut ties. Bertha knows the decision would ruin everything. Ignoring the cynics, she takes matters into her own hands, secretly planning a scheme that will either hasten the family's passage to absolute derision or prove their genius. What Bertha doesn't know is that Carl is on the cusp of making a deal with their nemesis. She's not only risking her marriage and their life's work, but is also up against the patriarchy, Carl's own self-doubt, and the clock.

Like so many other women, Bertha lived largely in her husband's shadow, but her contributions are now celebrated in this inspiring story of perseverance, resilience, and love.

’n Vreemdeling by ’n familiebegrafnis keer Kristie se lewe onderstebo. Haar daaglikse take by die argiteksfirma beleef ook ’n wending: Erik is ’n moeilike kliёnt en ook die onweerstaanbare tipe. Toe Kristie se werklikheid ineenstort, vlug sy na Phuket in Thailand. Maar die eiland bring nie vir haar die gemoedsrus waarop sy gehoop het nie. Terwyl sy van haar omgekeerde wêreld probeer sin maak, begin een van die laaste bastions in haar lewe wankel.

The Blue sisters have always been exceptional – and exceptionally different.

Avery, a strait-laced lawyer living in London, is the typical eldest daughter, though she’s hiding a secret that could undo her perfect life forever.

Bonnie was a boxer but, following a devastating defeat, she's been working as a bouncer in LA, until one reckless night threatens to drive her out of the city.

And Lucky, the rebellious youngest, is a model in Paris whose hard-partying ways are finally catching up with her.

Then there was Nicky, the beloved fourth sister, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie and Lucky reeling. When, a year later, the three of them must reunite in New York to stop the sale of their childhood home, they find that it's only by returning to each other that they can navigate their grief, addiction and heartbreak―and learn to fall in love with life again.

Drawing on the true history of ‘Farini’s Friendly Zulus’, a group of men who were taken to Britain and then to America as performing curiosities, the novel opens in 1885 in wintry New York City.

The protagonist, Mpiyezintombi, simply called Em-Pee by the English-speakers, loses more than his name in this far-off foreign country; he is seen as little more than a freak-show act – though he is not kept in a cage like the beautiful Dinka Princess, with her gold-painted papier-mâché crown and fur cape. For EmPee, it is love at first sight, but the caged woman is not free to love anyone back: she is the property of Monsieur Duval, proprietor of Duval Ethnological Expositions.

And so begins one of Zakes Mda’s most striking stories, one that depicts terrible historical injustices and indignities, while at the same time celebrating the vigour and ingenuity of the creative spirit, and the transformative power of love.

In an already-great pantheon of Mda love stories and classic gems, this may be his most powerful work yet.

Nelia Baker’s life gets turned into one of her fantasy writing pieces, when the handsome tv series producer Jake Anderson wants to work with her. Life in the fantasy world is more complicated than she anticipated as it starts to confuse her reality.

Recovering from her Mother’s death, Nelia focuses most of her energy into escaping in one of her writing realms, where she is most at home these days. Her Father, Nate tries his best to be her support system, but things get a bit complicated along the way when Nelia’s college boyfriend proposes to her and simultaneously she receives a job opportunity in Italy to be a screenwriter. Which world will she prefer, the written fantasy or her reality?

With her fiancé Lucas waiting for her back home to become his trophy wife, Nelia gets spun into a love triangle whilst in Italy. Things get really complicated when one of her love interests happens to be Jake Anderson, her soon to be boss. All the chaos affects Nelia negatively, as she tries to hide her skin flare ups whilst trying to spin herself out on the straight and narrow. Everything gets a bit much and she decides to flee back home. How will the insecure Nelia choose which life is best for her and also which guy?

All this whilst trying to find herself in this crazy world she has written about.

Bullish about peaking her psychologist career, she struts around in stilettos whilst leading a new way of thinking in business, with equal gravitas. Married happily, jet-setting the globe, she portrays an image of promise and success.

Believing that talent is enough, she sets about a path towards excellence, yet finds herself wedged in a layered coporate cult. She rebels unwittingly, believing that if she has nothing to lose, she has everything to gain. Bitchiness permeates on an extreme scale, as the stakes are high with power, wealth and glamour.

Can Azra maintain her mental stamina or does she fall?

Wat doen twee ouers ná die verlies van hul enigste kind?

Mara en Bernard verloor hul tienerseun Dylan (aan selfdood) en daarmee saam hul idee van familie, van normaal, van “ons.” Hulle rou op verskillende maniere en sukkel om mekaar te verstaan en te ondersteun. Hulle het baie vrae, maar geen antwoorde nie. Daar is verwyte, woede, hartseer, beskuldigings, en toe deure. Daar is die eerste Kersfees sonder Dylan, die eerste herdenking van sy dood, hul vriende wat nie weet wat om te sê nie.

Opdrifsel is ’n verhaal oor twee mense wat hulself én mekaar in die donker gat van rou verloor, en weer moet vind. In 2021 het die toneelstuk die Opwip-Aardklop prys gewen vir beste aanbieding.

Twenty-six years is a long time not to be alive.

Since the accident that ruined her life, Catherine has lived on autopilot, going through the motions of work and motherhood without being fully present. Trying to fill the gap, her adult daughter, Julia, is looking for love in all the wrong places, and wreaking havoc on the lives that she touches along the way.

Just what will it take to shock Catherine back into life?

There’s a hierarchy to fame – from the Real Celebs who sell their skills as actors and singers, to the Professionally Pretty (the garnish to any occasion), the Hashtag Hustlers, who range from influencers to the social media savvy, to the Hopeless Hangers-On. Everyone has their place in the ecosystem, and knowing your place in that hierarchy is half the fame game won.

For three young women in Joburg, the new age of internet celebrity presents them with obstacles, opportunities, opulence and a chance at fame, fortune and fierce fashion.

LIN
Through sheer ambition and force of will, Lin has rebranded her entire existence. She’s shrugged off her past to fully embrace a new identity: Linfluencer, the high-end influencer whose Outfits Of The Day are obsessively followed by every budding fashionista with a blossoming social media addiction.

LEBO
Then there’s Lebo, who has only ever known a life of fame – real fame – as the former child prodigy behind TV phenomenon Sedi Star. Everyone grew up watching her every move, but now, as she’s grown up, the work, roles and offers have evaporated. But her penchant for scandal, controversy and social media squabbles have kept her in the headlines.

MBALI
And finally there’s South Africa’s reigning Queen of Gossip: Mbali. The entertainment site she runs with an iron fist is known for breaking the hottest news – and the odd celebrity career. With the Hashtag Hustle threatening her media empire, how will she continue to keep her readers enthralled?

As Lin, Lebo and Mbali jostle to take their places in the fame hierarchy, their ambitions, aspirations and agendas collide. Their wins and woes not only affect one another, but can mean that they either individually rise or collectively crumble. Will Lin’s past threaten her future? Will Lebo’s (self-)sabotage prevent her return to the top? Will Mbali’s reign as the Queen of Gossip continue – or reach a dead end? The choices they make can balance or break their entire ecosystem.

The Voss family is anything but normal. They live in a repurposed church, newly baptized Dollar Voss. The once cancer-stricken mother lives in the basement, the father is married to the mother’s former nurse, the little half-brother isn’t allowed to do or eat anything fun, and the eldest siblings are irritatingly perfect. Then, there’s Merit.

Merit Voss collects trophies she hasn’t earned and secrets her family forces her to keep. While browsing the local antiques shop for her next trophy, she finds Sagan. His wit and unapologetic idealism disarm and spark renewed life into her—until she discovers that he’s completely unavailable. Merit retreats deeper into herself, watching her family from the sidelines, when she learns a secret that no trophy in the world can fix.

Fed up with the lies, Merit decides to shatter the happy family illusion that she’s never been a part of before leaving them behind for good. When her escape plan fails, Merit is forced to deal with the staggering consequences of telling the truth and losing the one boy she loves.

Poignant and powerful, Without Merit explores the layers of lies that tie a family together and the power of love and truth.

A whimsical and innovative debut novel, HAPPY is the story of a starry-eyed cinephile who leaves his rural village in Punjab to pursue his dreams - set against the global migration crisis.

In a small farming village in Punjab, India, a boy crouches over his brother's phone in a rapeseed field watching clips of Godard's Bande a part on YouTube.

His name is Happy Singh Soni and when he's not sleeping among the cabbages and eating sugary rotis, Happy dreams of becoming an actor, one who plays the melancholy roles; the sad, pretty boys, rare in Indian cinema. He plans a clandestine journey to Europe, where he'll finally land a breakout role.

After a nightmarish passage to Italy, Happy still manages to find relief in food and fantasy, even as he is forced into ever-worsening work conditions on a radish farm by the syndicate involved in smuggling him to Europe to pay off the supposed debt they claim he has accrued. While disillusionment amongst the farm workers rise, Happy will find the love - and tragedy - that his favourite films always promised.

At turns funny and heart-breaking, sunny and tragic, Happy is a formally ambitious novel about the psychic fissures produced by the splintering of nations, and the lovely, generative, artful coping mechanisms created by generations of diasporic people. With this ingenious, daringly cinematic debut, Celina Baljeet Basra argues for the things that are basic to human survival: food, water, shelter, but also pleasure, romance, art, and the right to a vivid inner life.

Two friends. Ten trips. Their last chance to fall in love... ------ 'One of my favourite authors' Colleen Hoover, It Ends With Us 'A gorgeous romance' Beth O'Leary, The No-Show 'Loveable characters, hilarious wit and steamy sexual chemistry' Laura Jane Williams, Our Stop *Also known as People We Meet On Vacation* 12 YEARS AGO: Poppy and Alex meet. They hate each other, and are pretty confident they'll never speak again. 11 YEARS AGO: They're forced to share a ride home from college and by the end of it a friendship is formed. And a pact: every year, one vacation together. 10 YEARS AGO: Alex discovers his fear of flying on the way to Vancouver. Poppy holds his hand the whole way. 7 YEARS AGO: They get far too drunk and narrowly avoid getting matching tattoos in New Orleans. 2 YEARS AGO: It all goes wrong. THIS YEAR: Poppy asks Alex to join her on one last trip. A trip that will determine the rest of their lives. You and Me on Vacation is a New York Times bestselling love story for fans of When Harry Met Sally, One Day and Casey McQuiston. Get ready to travel the world, snort with laughter and - most of all - lose your heart to Poppy and Alex. ------ 'Our generation's answer to Nora Ephron' Sophie Cousens, This Time Next Year 'So warm and funny' Paige Toon, The Minute I Saw You 'The hottest book of the summer - the pages simply sizzle!' Josie Silver, One Night on the Island 'Emily Henry is my newest automatic-buy author . . . a heartfelt, funny, tender escape that you wish could last forever' Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here 'A compulsively readable book full of sparkling wit, dazzling prose and a romance that grabbed me by the heart and wouldn't let me go' Abby Jiminez, Part of Your World 'Funny, and seriously sizzling' BEST 'If whipcrack banter and sexual tension is your catnip, you'll adore this book' Sally Thorne, The Hating Game 'What an absolute flipping triumph of a novel!!! I LOVED it ' Emma Cooper, It Was Always You

What would you change if you could go back in time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story – translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot – explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?

Joshua and Lily know it from the moment they set eyes on one another: here is someone who shares their gift. Here is another time traveller.

Over the years they grow more adventurous, taking ever greater risks even after their twins, Tommy and Eva, are born. One day they depart and never return, and the children are left to deal with their grief alone.

Tommy takes refuge in the past, but when he falls in love with a woman from a different era, his fragile ties to the present day look set to disappear forever.

Heartfelt and hopeful, weaving through decades and across continents in incredible prose, The Moon Represents My Heart is an unforgettable debut about the bond between one extraordinary family, and the strength it takes to move forward.

Millions of Amor Towles fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood.

The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages.

In Towles’s novel Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September 1938 with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood” describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in a noirish tale that takes us through the movie sets, bungalows, and dive bars of Los Angeles.

Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting fiction.

The brand-new, hilarious, feel-good adventure from the internationally bestselling author of The Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared.

Sweden, late summer of 2011. Self-taught astrophysicist Petra has calculated that the atmosphere will collapse on the 21st of September that year, around 21.20 to be more precise, bringing about the end of times.

Armed with this terrible knowledge, Petra meets Johan, a domesday prophet, and Agnes, a widow of 75 who has made bank living a double life on social media as a young influencer. Together, the trio race through Europe as they plan to make the most out of the time they have left, in more ways than one.

But of course, things rarely go to plan, even the end of the world…

A spellbinding historical novel set in the eighteenth century: a hero’s quest, a love story, the story of a young artist coming of age, and an exuberant heist adventure that traces the bloody legacy of colonialism across two continents and fifty years.

This wildly inventive, irresistible feat of storytelling from a writer at the height of her powers is “an expertly-plotted, deeply affecting novel about war, displacement, emigration, and an elusive mechanical tiger” (Maggie O’Farrell, best-selling author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait).

Abbas is just seventeen years old when his gifts as a woodcarver come to the attention of Tipu Sultan, and he is drawn into service at the palace in order to build a giant tiger automaton for Tipu’s sons, a gift to commemorate their return from British captivity. His fate—and the fate of the wooden tiger he helps create—will mirror the vicissitudes of nations and dynasties ravaged by war across India and Europe.

Working alongside the legendary French clockmaker Lucien du Leze, Abbas hones his craft, learns French, and meets Jehanne, the daughter of a French expatriate. When Du Leze is finally permitted to return home to Rouen, he invites Abbas to come along as his apprentice. But by the time Abbas travels to Europe, Tipu’s palace has been looted by British forces, and the tiger automaton has disappeared. To prove himself, Abbas must retrieve the tiger from an estate in the English countryside, where it is displayed in a collection of plundered art.

Jake Brigance, the hero of John Grisham's classic legal thriller A Time To Kill is back. This time he's at the epicenter of a sensational murder trial that bitterly divides the citizens of Clanton, Mississippi.

John Grisham's debut novel, A Time To Kill is one of the most popular novels of our time. It established Jake as a classic American hero-a lawyer who sought truth and justice at all costs, even when his life and reputation were on the line. Brigance returned in 2013's Sycamore Row, in which he once again found himself embroiled in a deeply divisive trial.

Now, in A Time For Mercy, Jake is the court-appointed lawyer for Drew Gamble, a young man accused of murdering a local deputy. Many in Clanton want a swift trial and the death penalty, but Brigance sees it another way. Once he learns the details of the case, he realizes he has to do everything he can to save Drew.... who is sixteen. His commitment to the truth puts Jake's career and the safety of his family at risk.

Filled with all the courtroom machinations, small town intrigues, and plot twists that have become hallmarks of the master of the legal thriller, A Time For Mercy emphatically confirms John Grisham's reputation as America's favourite storyteller.

For the first time ever, a very special edition of the classic masterpiece, illustrated throughout in colour by the author himself and with the complete text printed in two colours. Since it was first published in 1954, The Lord of the Rings has been a book people have treasured. Steeped in unrivalled magic and otherworldliness, its sweeping fantasy and epic adventure has touched the hearts of young and old alike. Over 150 million copies of its many editions have been sold around the world, and occasional collectors' editions become prized and valuable items of publishing. This one-volume hardback edition contains the complete text, fully corrected and reset, which is printed in red and black and features, for the very first time, thirty colour illustrations, maps and sketches drawn by Tolkien himself as he composed this epic work. These include the pages from the Book of Mazarbul, marvellous facsimiles created by Tolkien to accompany the famous 'Bridge of Khazad-dum' chapter. Also appearing are two removable fold-out maps drawn by Christopher Tolkien revealing all the detail of Middle-earth. Sympathetically packaged to reflect the classic look of the first edition, this new edition of the bestselling hardback will prove irresistible to collectors and new fans alike.