Gisèle Pelicot (Author)
,
Natasha Lehrer (Translator)
,
Ruth Diver (Translator)
The extraordinarily powerful memoir by a heroine of our times, whose story inspires change, compassion and courage.
One November day, Gisèle Pelicot was called to a local police station and life as she knew it ended. Her husband of fifty years had been caught by a supermarket guard filming up women’s skirts. But on his computer was shattering evidence: for nearly a decade, he had been secretly drugging and raping her and inviting dozens of strangers into their home to abuse her.
Four years later, he and fifty other men were put on trial and Gisèle’s courage in waiving her right to anonymity made global headlines. ‘Shame must change sides,’ she declared, giving voice and hope to millions. Her words became a rallying cry and her decision marked a turning point in public feeling about sexual violence.
For the first time, and with unwavering honesty and grace, she describes a difficult childhood, first love, her career and motherhood. It is a life in determined search of happiness, both before and after her devastating discovery. She is an ordinary person who faces extraordinary catastrophe, whose example changes the world.
A Hymn to Life is an unforgettable testament and a promise. Its message is one of defiance and renewal – that victims have no reason to feel ashamed; that even after unimaginable betrayal we can go on; that the colour can come back to life. Ultimately, Gisèle Pelicot emerges with a renewed passion and reverence for living, and for love.
Michiko Aoyama (Author)
,
E. Madison Shimoda (Translator)
THE GLOBAL BESTSELLER
By the multi-million-copy author of WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS IN THE LIBRARY for fans of BEFORE THE COFFEE GETS COLD
Readers love HOT CHOCOLATE ON THURSDAY:
‘Slipped into my heart and warmed me, just like a cup of cocoa’ *****
‘I definitely recommend this book!’ *****
‘Thursday is the beginning of the second half of the week. I felt restored reading this’ *****
‘Reminds you that everyone is living their own daily joy and pain. Heartwarming’ *****
‘This made me realise how we magically influence each other’s lives without realising it’ *****
___________
'I learned first-hand how people, flora, and fauna interact. All that breathes on this Earth is interconnected'
Across a bridge in a quiet neighbourhood in Tokyo, a seasonal cherry blossom sits on the river. Nearby is the Marble Cafe, where a woman writes in a notebook and a young waiter prepares her favourite hot drink. Both wonder about each other and about the other lives of the clientele who frequent this charming little cafe behind the trees...
Taking a walk along the river, cooking the best tamagoyaki, ordering hot chocolate, forgetting to remove our nail polish... The small, everyday acts that we do can lead to unexpected encounters and reverberate far beyond our own lives to make a real difference in the world.
Hot Chocolate on Thursday is a tapestry of slice-of-life moments that open and close with a woman ordering her regular hot chocolate at the mysterious Marble Cafe.
What happens in between will touch and swell your heart, as we connect with a community of untold unfolding lives.
Peter Jones (Author)
What can a twelfth-century monk teach us about burnout, envy, or despair? Far more than we might imagine. In Self-Help from the Middle Ages, historian Peter Jones travels through Europe’s archives and libraries to uncover a lost psychology: a world where confession was therapy, sin was diagnosis, and the Seven Deadly Sins served as a map of the human mind.
From the deserts of Egypt to the Vatican Library, from Dante’s Florence to Catherine of Siena’s cell, Jones introduces the thinkers, mystics and rebels who wrestled with the same questions that preoccupy us now: how to live with our flaws, forgive ourselves, and find meaning amid confusion.
Medieval lives and landscapes come vividly alive: Siberian winters and Parisian manuscripts, lustful saints and anxious scholars, candlelit abbeys and vaults of forgotten books. Wise, surprising, and deeply humane, Self-Help from the Middle Ages reveals that the remedies we seek for our 21st-century anxieties may have been with us all along—written in brown Gothic ink on lambskin seven hundred years ago.
Kae Tempest (Author)
Seán Hewitt (Author)
On the cusp of adulthood, James dreams of another life far away from his small village. As he contends with the expectations of his family, his burgeoning desire – an ache for autonomy, tenderness and sex – threatens to unravel his shy exterior.Then he meets Luke. Unkempt and handsome, charismatic and impulsive, he has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle on a nearby farm. Luke comes with a reputation for danger, but underneath his bravado lie anxieties and hopes of his own.With the passing seasons, the two teenagers grow closer and the bond that emerges between them transforms their lives. James falls deeply for Luke, yet he is never sure of Luke’s true feelings. And as the end of summer nears, he has a choice to make – will he risk everything for the possibility of love?
Maggie Aderin (Author)
From a childhood in Camden to the frontiers of space, an inspirational memoir from space scientist, presenter of The Sky at Night, and bestselling author Maggie Aderin.
'I'd toast the moon and look at the sky... I think it draws us to it; we wonder what lies beyond.'
Maggie Aderin's destiny was always written in the stars. From the age of three, inspired by The Clangers, her dream was to go into space. Throughout a chaotic childhood, ricocheting between divorced parents and acrimonious custody battles, she attended thirteen schools in fourteen years – but while her environment regularly changed, her fascination with the Universe did not. It became enmeshed in her desire to succeed as a scientist even when her school careers advice was to become a nurse.
Starchild is Maggie’s emotionally honest and revealing memoir, telling a story of education and prejudice, adversity and ambition, motherhood and the moon – all recounted in her characteristically warm and relatable style. From being the only Black woman on her physics course at Imperial College London, to her groundbreaking work on the James Webb and Gemini telescopes, to starting her own public speaking company and sharing the wonders of science with thousands of children every year, Maggie’s story will inspire you to never give up on your dreams.
Katie Kitamura (Author)
Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young – young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately.
Taut and hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best.
Shari Lapena (Author)
The new gripping and addictive thriller from the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author of EVERYONE HERE IS LYING.
Bryden and Sam have it all: thriving careers, a smart apartment in a luxury condo, supportive friends and a cherished daughter. The perfect life for the perfect couple.
Then Sam receives a call at his office. Bryden – working from home that day - has failed to collect their daughter from daycare.
Arriving home with their little girl, he finds his wife’s car in the underground garage. Upstairs in their apartment her laptop is open on the table, her cell phone nearby, her keys in their usual place in the hall.
Except Bryden is nowhere to be seen. It’s as if she just walked out.
How can she have disappeared from her own home? And did she even leave the building at all?
With every minute that passes – and as questions swirl around their community – Bryden and Sam’s past seems a little less perfect, their luxury condo less safe, their friends, neighbours and relatives no longer quite so reliable . . .
'A modern master of the psychological thriller.' STEVE CAVANAGH
'The queen of page-turners' ANDREA MARA
'Shari Lapena keeps you guessing until the very last page.' PAULA HAWKINS
'Shari Lapena is the undisputed queen of dysfunctional families.' CLARE MACKINTOSH
