Books of the month for August

General Fiction: Melissa Harrison – At Hawthorn Time

Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2015, Longlisted for the Baileys Prize 2016.

Four-thirty on a May morning: the black fading to blue, dawn gathering somewhere below the treeline in the east. A long, straight road runs between sleeping fields to the little village of Lodeshill, and on it two cars lie wrecked and ravished, violence gathered about them in the silent air. One wheel, upturned, still spins.Howard and Kitty have recently moved to Lodeshill after a life spent in London; now, their marriage is wordlessly falling apart. Custom car enthusiast Jamie has lived in the village for all of his nineteen years and dreams of leaving it behind, while Jack, a vagrant farm-worker and mystic in flight from a bail hostel, arrives in the village on foot one spring morning, bringing change. All four of them are struggling to find a life in the modern countryside; all are trying to find ways to belong.

Building to an extraordinary climax over the course of one spring month, At Hawthorn Time is both a clear-eyed picture of rural Britain, and a heartbreaking exploration of love, land and loss.

British Crime: Robert Thorogood – A Meditation on Murder

Aslan Kennedy has an idyllic life: leader of a spiritual retreat for wealthy holidaymakers on one of the Caribbean's most unspoilt islands, Saint Marie. Until he's murdered, that is. The case seems open and shut: when Aslan was killed he was inside a locked room with only five other people, one of whom has already confessed to the murder.

Detective Inspector Richard Poole is hot, bothered, and fed up with talking to witnesses who'd rather discuss his 'aura' than their whereabouts at the time of the murder. But he also knows that the facts of the case don't quite stack up. In fact, he's convinced that the person who's just confessed to the murder is the one person who couldn't have done it. Determined to track down the real killer, DI Poole is soon on the trail, and no stone will be left unturned.

Tough Crime: Craig Johnson – The Cold Dish (Walt Longmire #1)

After twenty-five years as Sheriff of Absaroka County, Walt Longmire's hopes of ending his tenure in peace are dashed when Cody Pritchard is found dead near the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Two years earlier, Cody was one of four high school boys given suspended sentences for raping a local Cheyenne girl. Somebody, it would seem, is seeking vengeance, and Longmire might be the only thing standing between the three remaining boys and a Sharps .45-70 rifle.

With lifelong friend Henry Standing Bear and Deputy Victoria 'Vic' Moretti, Walt Longmire attempts to see that revenge, a dish best served cold, is never served at all.

Fantasy: Tiffany Trent – The Unnaturalists

In an alternate London where magical creatures are preserved in a museum, two people find themselves caught in a web of intrigue, deception, and danger.

Vespa Nyx wants nothing more than to spend the rest of her life cataloging Unnatural creatures in her father’s museum, but the requirement to become a lady and find a husband is looming large. Syrus Reed’s Tinker family has always served and revered the Unnaturals from afar, but when his family is captured to be refinery slaves, he finds that his fate may be bound up with Vespa’s—and with the Unnaturals.

As the danger grows, Vespa and Syrus find themselves in a tightening web of deception and intrigue. At stake may be the fate of New London—and the world.

Science Fiction: Becky Chambers – Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1)

Longlisted for the Baileys' Prize 2016! Recommended!!

Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer when the crew are offered the job of a lifetime: the chance to build a hyperspace tunnel to a distant planet. With the crew on board with secrets to hide they soon discover space may be vast, but spaceships are very small indeed.

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: Sarah Kuhn – Heroine Complex

Being a superheroine is hard. Working for one is even harder.

Evie Tanaka is the put-upon personal assistant to Aveda Jupiter, her childhood best friend and San Francisco’s most beloved superheroine. She’s great at her job—blending into the background, handling her boss’s epic diva tantrums, and getting demon blood out of leather pants.

Unfortunately, she’s not nearly as together when it comes to running her own life, standing up for herself, or raising her tempestuous teenage sister, Bea.

But everything changes when Evie’s forced to pose as her glamorous boss for one night, and her darkest secret comes out: she has powers, too. Now it’s up to her to contend with murderous cupcakes, nosy gossip bloggers, and supernatural karaoke battles—all while juggling unexpected romance and Aveda’s increasingly outrageous demands. And when a larger threat emerges, Evie must finally take charge and become a superheroine in her own right…or see her city fall to a full-on demonic invasion.

Teen reading: David Owen – Panther

An important and powerful story told in striking and original prose, Panther is an honest, funny, unsentimental look at how depression affects those around the sufferer, especially when we don't talk about it.

Classic of the Month: John Milton – Paradise Lost

'Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world...
Sing heavenly muse'

From almost the moment of its first publication in 1667, Paradise Lost was considered a classic. It is difficult now to appreciate both how audacious an undertaking it represents, and how astonishing its immediate and continued success was. Over the course of twelve books Milton wrote an epic poem that would 'justify the ways of God to men', a mission that required a complex drama whose source is both historical and deeply personal. The struggle for ascendancy between God and Satan is played out across hell, heaven, and earth but the consequences of the Fall are all too humanly tragic - pride, ambition, and aspiration the motivating forces.

In this new edition derived from their acclaimed Oxford Authors text, Stephen Orgel and Jonathan Goldberg discuss the complexity of Milton's poem in a new introduction, and on-page notes explain its language and allusions.

Non-Fiction: Edmund  de Waal – White Road, The: A Pilgrimage of Sorts

This book blends the dramatic story for the hunt for porcelain, from the 17th century to today, with a memoir of Edmund de Waal's own life as a potter. Ranges throughout the world, from China to the palaces of Versailles and Dresden, to 18th century Plymouth and the settlements of the Cherokee Indians in North Carolina.