Tough Crime – December

Dwayne Alexander Smith – Forty Acres is our Tough Crime book of the month for December. Martin Grey, a smart, talented. young lawyer working out of a storefront in Queens, is taken under the wing of a secretive group made up of America's most powerful, wealthy, and esteemed black men.

Science Fiction – December

Eric Brown – Jani and the Greater Game is our Science Fiction book of the month for December. Jani and the Greater Game is the first book in a rip-roaring, spice-laden, steampunk action adventure series set in India and featuring a heroine who subverts all the norms...

Fantasy – December

E. C. Blake – Masks (Masks of Aygrima #1) is our Fantasy book of the month for December. Masks, the first novel in a mesmerizing new fantasy series

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy – December

Nailini Singh, Ilona Andrews, Leasa Shearin – Night Shift is our Paranormal/Urban Fantasy book of the month for December. Four masters of urban fantasy and paranormal romance plunge readers into the dangerous, captivating world unearthed beyond the dark…

Classic of the Month – December

Stella Gibbons  – Cold Comfort Farm is our Classic of the Month for December. 'We are not like other folk, maybe, but there have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm...'

Teen Reading – December

Terry Pratchett – Nation is our Teen Reading book of the month for December. When a giant wave destroys his entire Nation - his family and everyone he has ever known - Mau finds himself totally alone. Until he meets Daphne, daughter of a colonial Governor and the sole survivor from a shipwreck.

Storytelling for Children - Saturday 6th December

Bears can do amazing things like jump and crash and grab the moon. But they can’t use a spoon. So, will a pig miss a bear when it is gone?

Eleven o’clock, Saturday 6th December at the English Bookshop in Uppsala.

Wibbly Pig’s Silly Big Bear by Mick Inkpen

Wibbly Pig’s Silly Big Bear by Mick Inkpen

My Real Children by Jo Walton

We are already in the future. In a future. A high-tech environment, in many ways different from every other earlier part of history. Of course, there were many possible futures, and we inhabit only one of them. Where are the moon bases, for example?

In Jo Walton's My Real Children Patricia Cowan lives in two futures, with two different pasts. The year is 2015, and she is old and confused. It's dementia, but it's also the weirdness and vertigo of two sets of memories of two very different lives. She has three children. Or she has four. There was a bomb over Europe. Or there wasn't.

Storytelling for Children - Saturday 22nd November

Do your parents ever get up your nose, under your skin or even in your face? If so, perhaps you should bring those pesky parent to story time to be reminded of all the useful things that parents can do for children.

Eleven o’clock, Saturday 22nd November at the English Bookshop in Uppsala.

Meet the Parents by Peter Bentley and Sarah Ogilvie.

Meet the Parents by Peter Bentley and Sarah Ogilvie

Books of the month for November

Natalie Haynes – The Amber Fury

General Fiction: Natalie Haynes – The Amber Fury

When you open up, who will you let in? When Alex Morris loses her fiance in dreadful circumstances, she moves from London to Edinburgh to make a break with the past. Alex takes a job at a Pupil Referral Unit, which accepts the students excluded from other schools in the city. These are troubled, difficult kids and Alex is terrified of what she's taken on.

Jane Casey – The Kill

British Crime: Jane Casey – The Kill

A killer is terrorising London but this time the police are the targets. Urgently re-assigned to investigate a series of brutal attacks on fellow officers, Maeve Kerrigan and her boss Josh Derwent have little idea what motivates the killer's fury against the force. But they know it will only be a matter of time before the killer strikes again.

Alison Gaylin – And She Was...

Tough Crime: Alison Gaylin – And She Was...

Missing persons investigator Brenna Spector has a rare neurological disorder that enables her to recall every detail of every day of her life. A blessing and a curse, it began in childhood, when her older sister stepped into a strange car never to be seen again, and it’s proven invaluable in her work. But it hasn’t helped her solve the mystery that haunts her above all others—and it didn’t lead her to little Iris. When a local woman, Carol Wentz, disappears eleven years later, Brenna uncovers bizarre connections between the missing woman, the long-gone little girl … and herself.

Robert Charles Wilson – Burning Paradise

Science Fiction: Robert Charles Wilson – Burning Paradise

Cassie Klyne, nineteen years old, lives in the United States in the year 2015--but it's not our United States, and it's not our 2015. Cassie's world has been at peace since the Great Armistice of 1918. There was no World War II, no Great Depression. Poverty is declining, prosperity is increasing everywhere; social instability is rare. But Cassie knows the world isn't what it seems. Her parents were part of a group who gradually discovered the awful truth: that for decades--back to the dawn of radio communications--human progress has been interfered with, made more peaceful and benign, by an extraterrestrial entity. That by interfering with our communications, this entity has tweaked history in massive and subtle ways. That humanity is, for purposes unknown, being farmed. Cassie's parents were killed for this knowledge, along with most of the other members of their group. Since then, the survivors have scattered and gone into hiding. Cassie and her younger brother Thomas now live with her aunt Nerissa, who shares these dangerous secrets. Others live nearby. For eight years they have attempted to lead unexceptional lives in order to escape detection. The tactic has worked. Until now. Because the killers are back. And they're not human.

Wen Spencer – Eight Million Gods

Fantasy:  Wen Spencer – Eight Million Gods

A contemporary fantasy of mystery and death as American expats battle Japanese gods and monsters to retrieve an ancient artifact that can destroy the world.

On Saturday afternoon, Nikki Delany thought, "George Wilson, in the kitchen, with a blender." By dinner, she had killed George and posted his gory murder to her blog. The next day, she put on her mourning clothes and went out to meet her best friend for lunch to discuss finding a replacement for her love interest. …

Stephen Blackmoore – Broken Souls

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: Stephen Blackmoore – Broken Souls

Sister murdered, best friend dead, married to the patron saint of death, Santa Muerte. Necromancer Eric Carter’s return to Los Angeles hasn’t gone well, and it’s about to get even worse.

His link to the Aztec death goddess is changing his powers, changing him, and he’s not sure how far it will go. He’s starting to question his own sanity, wonder if he’s losing his mind. No mean feat for a guy who talks to the dead on a regular basis.

While searching for a way to break Santa Muerte’s hold over him, Carter finds himself the target of a psychopath who can steal anyone’s form, powers, and memories. Identity theft is one thing, but this guy does it by killing his victims and wearing their skins like a suit. He can be anyone. He can be anywhere.

Now Carter has to change the game — go from hunted to hunter. All he has for help is a Skid Row bruja and a ghost who’s either his dead friend Alex or the manifestation of Carter’s own guilt-fueled psychotic break.

Everything is trying to kill him. Nothing is as it seems. If all his plans go perfectly, he might survive the week.

He’s hoping that’s a good thing.

E. M. Forster – Maurice

Classic of the Month: E. M. Forster – Maurice

Maurice Hall is a young man who grows up confident in his privileged status and well aware of his role in society. Modest and generally conformist, he nevertheless finds himself increasingly attracted to his own sex. Through Clive, whom he encounters at Cambridge, and through Alec, the gamekeeper on Clive's country estate, Maurice gradually experiences a profound emotional and sexual awakening.

A tale of passion, bravery and defiance, this intensely personal novel was completed in 1914 but remained unpublished until after Forster's death in 1970. Compellingly honest and beautifully written, it offers a powerful condemnation of the repressive attitudes of British society, and is at once a moving love story and an intimate tale of one man's erotic and political self-discovery.

Eleanor Updale – The Last Minute

Teen reading: Eleanor Updale – The Last Minute

9.21am: business as usual on a high street in England.

9.22am: the explosions are heard for miles around, and in the early confusion there is talk of a gas leak, a plane crash, and even terrorism .…

The people of Heathwick had been preparing for Christmas unaware that many would die, and the rest would be transformed for ever. Travel with them, second-by-second, through the hopes, fears, love, worries, gossip, cruelty, kindness and trivia that dominated their final minute before tragedy struck.

And in the everyday story of an ordinary street, look for clues to what happened, and why.

Books of the Month – March 2024

Ellen Hawley
A Decent World
Paperback

Modern Fiction of the month

*Join the reading group

Edith Wharton
Ethan Frome
Paperback

Classic of the month

*Join the reading group

J.F. Murray
Fling
Paperback
Katie Williams
My Murder
Paperback

Mystery of the month

*Join the Crime reading group

Scott Von Doviak
Lowdown Road
Paperback

Noir of the month

David Koepp
Aurora
Paperback

Sci-Fi of the month

*Join the reading group

Nghi Vo
The Empress of Salt and Fortune
Paperback

Fantasy of the month

*Join the reading group

Stephen Graham Jones
Mapping the Interior
Paperback

Horror of the month

Nic Stone
Chaos Theory
Paperback

Teen/YA of the month

Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller
Bad Gays
Paperback

– A Homosexual History

Queer book of the month

*Join the reading group

Hua Hsu
Stay True
Paperback

– A Memoir

Non-Fiction of the month

Books of the Month – February 2024

Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
A Spell of Good Things
Paperback

Modern Fiction of the month

*Join the reading group

Leo Tolstoy
The Cossacks
Hardback

Classic of the month

*Join the reading group

Nancy Peach
The Mother of All Problems
Paperback

Feel-Good of the month

Catherine Kirwan
A Lesson in Malice
Paperback

Mystery of the month

*Join the Crime reading group

Daniel Weizmann
The Last Songbird
Paperback

Noir of the month

M.D. Lachlan
Celestial
Paperback

Sci-Fi of the month

*Join the reading group

Hannah Kaner
Godkiller
Paperback

Fantasy of the month

*Join the reading group

Cassandra Khaw
Nothing But Blackened Teeth
Paperback

Horror of the month

Jesse Q. Sutanto
Didn’t See That Coming
Paperback

Teen/YA of the month

Eloghosa Osunde
Vagabonds!
Paperback

Queer book of the month

*Join the reading group

Kirsty Sedgman
On Being Unreasonable
Paperback

– Why Being Bad Can Be a Force for Good

Non-Fiction of the Month

Books of the Month – January 2024

Jonathan Carroll
Mr Breakfast
Paperback

Modern Fiction of the month

*Join the reading group

Alice Walker
The Color Purple
Paperback

Classic of the month

*Join the reading group

Linda Corbett
What Would Jane Austen Do?
Paperback

Feel-Good of the month

Tim Sullivan
The Monk
Paperback

Mystery of the month

*Join the Crime reading group

Robbie Morrison
Edge of the Grave
Paperback

Noir of the month

Aliette de Bodard
The Red Scholar’s Wake
Paperback

Sci-Fi of the month

*Join the reading group

Josiah Bancroft
The Hexologists
Paperback

Fantasy of the month

*Join the reading group

C. J. Cooke
The Ghost Woods
Paperback

Horror of the month

Danielle Jawando
When our Worlds Collided
Paperback

Teen/YA of the month

Ryan Love
Arthur and Teddy Are Coming Out
Paperback

Queer book of the month

*Join the reading group