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Reading lists

What to read after The Handmaid’s Tale

The Power

THE ICONIC BESTSELLING NOVEL, WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE, AND NOW AMAZON TV SERIES STARRING TONI COLLETTE AND AULI?I CRAVALHO 
 
'She throws her head back and pushes her chest forward and lets go a huge blast right into the centre of his body. The rivulets and streams of red scarring run across his chest and up around his throat. She'd put her hand on his heart and stopped him dead.' 
 
Suddenly - tomorrow or the day after - girls find that with a flick of their fingers, they can inflict agonizing pain and even death. With this single twist, the four lives at the heart of Naomi Alderman's extraordinary, visceral novel are utterly transformed, and we look at the world in an entirely new light. 
 
What if the power to hurt were in women's hands? 
 
'Electrifying' Margaret Atwood 
 
'A big, brash, page-turning, thought-provoking thriller' Guardian

A big, brash, page-turning, thought-provoking thriller

A fascinating look at what the world might be like if millennia of sexism went the other way. Ingenious . . . deserves to be read by every woman (and, for that matter, every man)

All over the world women are discovering they have the power. 
With a flick of the fingers they can inflict terrible pain - even death. 
Suddenly, every man on the planet finds they've lost control. 
The Day of the Girls has arrived - but where will it end? 
 
With this single twist, the four lives at the heart of Naomi Alderman's shocking and visceral novel are utterly transformed, and we look at the world in an entirely new light. What if the power to hurt were in women's hands? 
 
The iconic bestseller, winner of the Women's Prize, and soon-to-be-TV series, The Power is a truly extraordinary modern classic.

Abridged Edition

Penguin Readers Level 5: Doctor Who: Borrowed Time (ELT Graded Reader)

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series for learners of English as a foreign language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises, the print edition also includes instructions to access supporting material online. 
 
Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. 
 
The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers' story comprehension and develop vocabulary. 
 
Visit the Penguin Readers website 
Exclusively with the print edition, readers can unlock online resources including a digital book, audio edition, lesson plans and answer keys. 
 
Andrew Brown works at a big international bank. He makes lots of money every day, but he never has enough time. Now, he might have found a way to borrow some. But, instead of making his life easier, more time might just give him more problems. Maybe the time-travelling Doctor can help!

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
Doctor Who: Borrowed Time, a Level 5 Reader, is B1 in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to four clauses, introducing present perfect continuous, past perfect, reported speech and second conditional. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear regularly. 
 
Andrew Brown works at a big international bank. He makes lots of money every day, but he never has enough time. Now, he might have found a way to borrow some. But, instead of making his life easier, more time might just give him more problems. Maybe the time-travelling Doctor can help!

Doctor Who: Thirteen Doctors 13 Stories

A new version of this much-loved anthology, with a brand-new story featuring the brand-new Thirteenth Doctor from literary sensation Naomi Alderman! 
 
Twelve wonderful tales of adventure, science, magic, monsters and time travel - featuring all twelve Doctors - are waiting for you in this very special Doctor Who book. 
 
And now they're joined by a very exciting, and very exclusive, new tale - written by Naomi Alderman, author of The Power - that will star the Thirteenth Doctor, as she battles to save the universe with her three close and trusted friends. 
 
Other authors featured are: Eoin Colfer, Michael Scott, Marcus Sedgwick, Philip Reeve, Patrick Ness, Richelle Mead, Malorie Blackman, Alex Scarrow, Charlie Higson, Derek Landy, Neil Gaiman, and Holly Black.

The Lessons

From the author of The Power, winner of the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2017 
 
James, always the outsider, enters Oxford - high seat of privilege, wealth and ambition. There he meets Mark Winters - dissolute, astonishingly, heartbreakingly rich, and pitilessly cruel - and the fellow students he has gathered around him: untouchable Emmanuella; on-again/off-again Simon and Franny; and passionate, true Jess. 
 
The nights - and many of the days - become one long party. Friendships are made, and broken. Lovers swapped, or dropped. It is all beguiling and bewitching. Everything James dreamed of but never quite believed in. 
 
But after university they are each cast out into an indifferent world. Free of Mark and his dark influence, they are lost to one another, until one night tragedy strikes . . .

A world as beautiful and sinister as any in a fairytale. A pleasure to read

A glittering style, a compulsive pleasure. A seductive homage to Donna Tartt and Brideshead Revisited

Remarkable. Alderman is a supremely talented writer

Naomi Alderman is the author of four novels. In 2006 she won the Orange Award for New Writers and in 2007 she was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, as well as being selected as one of Waterstones' 25 Writers for the Future. All of her novels have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime. In 2013 she was selected for the prestigious Granta Best of Young British Writers. She lives in London.

In The Lessons a close-knit group of friends forms at Oxford around the mercurial, charismatic figure of Mark, whose rackety trust-fund upbringing has left him as troubled and dangerously unpredictable as he is wildly promiscuous. After graduation the group fragments, each locked in his or her own suddenly adult, pedestrian world. But Mark's influence is still strong...

The Liars' Gospel

From the author of The Power, winner of the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2017 
 
IT BEGINS AND ENDS WITH A SACRIFICE... 
 
It was a time of brutal tyranny and occupation. Young men and women took to the streets to protest. Dictators put them down with iron force. Rumours spread. Rebels attacked the greatest empire the world had ever known. The empire gathered its forces to make those rebels pay. 
 
And in the midst of all of that, one preacher by the name of Jesus died. And either something miraculous happened or someone lied. 
 
This is the truth according to The Liars' Gospel.

The dark wit that characterised her previous novels, Disobedience and The Lessons, runs through this book as an undercurrent, but The Liars' Gospel shows the hand of a mature novelist, a daring and accomplished work on a broad canvas. She is as much at home describing the sorrow of a mother as the cut and thrust of theological debate, as convincing on the weariness of a man forced into moral compromise as the rush of blood in a teenage boy caught up in his first riot. She paints the sweep of history through the sharp pain of human love and loss, and it is a remarkable achievement.

Exciting, entertaining and enthralling read - this is story telling of the very highest order. It's certainly one of my books of the year.

A series of thoughtful, humane sketches that seek to earnestly put the meat of character on the bones of the bible... An evocative, secular exploration of the New Testaments' sprawling horizons

Such intensity ... a big book about history and violence, you can feel the blood running off the page. It is also a very personal and human book

First piece I've read that puts you completely into the Jewish history. A fascinating new look

'The descriptions of violence are visceral. Parts could be describing contemporary Afghanistan with only a change of names... indisputably elegant.

Stunningly accomplished ... a novel of such intensity, meaning and depth that it must be destined to become a classic

Brilliantly evocative... Naomi Alderman has given us an entire Jewish gospel. Yehoshuah is a Jewish Jesus, the creation of a Jewish novelist; and yet it is the genius and the generosity of Alderman's novel, it seems to me, that it does not preclude an alternative perspective, one in which mystery does indeed haunt the events it describes.

This is the story of a Jewish man, Yehoshuah, who wandered Roman-occupied Judea giving sermons and healing the sick. Now, a year after his death, four people tell their stories. His mother flashes between grief and rage while trouble brews between her village and the occupying soldiers. Iehuda, who was once Yehoshuah's friend, recalls how he came to lose his faith and find a place among the Romans. Caiaphas, the High Priest at the great Temple in Jerusalem, tries to hold the peace between Rome and Judea. Bar-Avo, a rebel, strives to bring that peace tumbling down. 
 
This thrilling novel makes the oldest story entirely new. Viscerally powerful in its depictions of the realities of the period: massacres and riots, animal sacrifice and human betrayal, it finds echoes of the present in the past. It was a time of political power-play and brutal tyranny and occupation. Young men and women took to the streets to protest. Dictators put them down with iron force. Rumours spread from mouth to mouth. Rebels attacked the greatest Empire the world has ever known. The Empire gathered its forces to make those rebels pay. 
 
And in the midst of all of that, one inconsequential preacher died. And either something miraculous happened, or someone lied.

Disobedience

Winner of the Orange Prize for New Writers, this is an insightful and witty novel on the search for love, tolerance and faith.

From the author of The Power, winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 
 
'Sharp, funny and poignant' - Hilary Mantel 
 
Ronit has left London and transformed her life. She has become a cigarette-smoking, wise-cracking, New York career woman, who is in love with a married man. 
 
But when Ronit's father dies she is called back into the very different world of her childhood, a world she thought she had left far behind. The orthodox Jewish suburb of Hendon, north London is outraged by Ronit and her provocative ways. But Ronit is shocked too by the confrontation with her past. And when she meets up with her childhood girlfriend Esti, she is forced to think again about what she has left behind. 
 
Funny, tender and insightful - Guardian

A wonderful novel . . . rich and fresh and fascinating

By the age of 32, Ronit has left London and transformed her life. She has become a cigarette-smoking, wise-cracking, New York career woman, who is in love with a married man.But when Ronit&rsquo;s father dies she is called back into the very different world of her childhood, a world she thought she had left far behind. The orthodox Jewish suburb of Hendon, north London is outraged by Ronit and her provocative ways. But Ronit is shocked too by the confrontation with her past. And when she meets up with her childhood girlfriend Esti, she is forced to think again about what she has left behind.

Naomi Alderman

Naomi Alderman is one of our most surprising and delightful public intellectuals, and this book grapples wonderfully with our current schisms and their historical precedents

How fortunate we are to have Naomi Alderman as our companion in these confusing, challenging and dangerous times. Don't Burn Anyone at the Stake Today is a serious — and also very funny — history of how we got to this point in the information revolution and a wise guide to navigating our way through it. Essential reading for the 21st century

Brisk, insightful, thought-provoking and powerfully empathetic: I started laughing and learning things on the first page and didn't stop until I hit the last one. Don't Burn Anyone at the Stake Today is the product of really deep thinking and a tremendously generous mind. It is the antidote to doom scrolling: a book that made me think in an entirely new way about the age we live in and which will make you excited about our era rather than merely terrified of it

The best book about the Internet I've ever read. Changed how I think about human history, the people I fight with on social media AND my own relationship with my phone, which is quite a lot for 150 pages

You know how the best writers pinpoint something you’ve felt for ages but haven’t been able to articulate? This is like that. It’s so good. She should give Radio 4’s next Reith Lectures

It's a welcome appeal for nuance and thought in a world increasingly dominated by rapid responses, false assumptions and casual cruelties driven by fear. I loved it - it's wise and compassionate, acknowledging that humans change, and make mistakes, and sometimes even grow beyond them

A beautifully written book that alerts us to the necessity of thinking about how we read, what we read and why we read - it will sharpen your perceptions and attach you to the world beyond the word. Keep it by your nearest screen

Nobody who surveys today's toxic internet can doubt that something is badly wrong. But now those of us who want to come through the information crisis wiser, better, and more deeply connected to other human beings have a trusted guide we can rely on

Original, witty and profound – Naomi Alderman's broad historical perspective makes sense of our turbulent age with verve and wisdom

Naomi Alderman has done more than write a Protect and Survive manual for the toxic fallout of the social media age: this is a book that will help you to live, hopefully, in the one thing that none of us can escape - the historical moment

In Don’t Burn Anyone At The Stake Today, Naomi Alderman maps the torrid terrain of the digital age and its implications for humanity with tenderness and clarity . . . This is a book about how not to be engulfed by the inferno of our chaotic world, and how, instead, to light candles that guide us back to each other

The book every conversation should lead to because it explains everything

(and other lessons from history about living through an information crisis)

What’s the most useful thing you could know about your own life? 
 
In this era-defining book, developed from her groundbreaking Radio 4 essay series, Naomi Alderman turns her boundless curiosity and incisive thinking to a question that affects us all: how do we understand, and navigate, the epoch we’re living through? She calls this epoch the Information Crisis. 
 
The internet has flooded us with more knowledge, opinions, ideas, opportunities, as well as verbal attacks and misinformation, than ever before. It lets us learn more quickly and also spread falsehood more quickly, it brings us together and also divides us in new ways, it is now the lens through which we perceive and understand the world. There is no going back. But we have been here before. In fact, this is humanity’s third information crisis. 
 
The first, the invention of writing 5,000 years ago, and the second, the invention of the printing press 600 years ago, drastically reshaped our perceptions, interactions and mental landscapes in ways that feel acutely familiar. Overwhelmed by information, people become afraid and angry, unsettled and distressed, as well as more knowledgeable, educated and curious. By looking at those previous information crises, both the turmoil and the advances, Alderman asks what we can learn from the past to better understand our present, and prepare for our future. 
 
Drawing on the work of philosophers and historians, Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today explores how new technology opens up new ways of being and helps us chart a way forward (once again), through the turbulent seas of information overload.

Naomi Alderman

Praise for Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today

Naomi Alderman is one of our most surprising and delightful public intellectuals, and this book grapples wonderfully with our current schisms and their historical precedents

How fortunate we are to have Naomi Alderman as our companion in these confusing, challenging and dangerous times. Don't Burn Anyone at the Stake Today is a serious — and also very funny — history of how we go ...

Brisk, insightful, thought-provoking and powerfully empathetic: I started laughing and learning things on the first page and didn't stop until I hit the last one. Don't Burn Anyone at the Stake Today is the p ...

Naomi Alderman is one of our most surprising and delightful public intellectuals, and this book grapples wonderfully with our current schisms and their historical precedents

How fortunate we are to have Naomi Alderman as our companion in these confusing, challenging and dangerous times. Don't Burn Anyone at the Stake Today is a serious — and also very funny — history of how we go ...

Brisk, insightful, thought-provoking and powerfully empathetic: I started laughing and learning things on the first page and didn't stop until I hit the last one. Don't Burn Anyone at the Stake Today is the p ...

Naomi Alderman is one of our most surprising and delightful public intellectuals, and this book grapples wonderfully with our current schisms and their historical precedents

How fortunate we are to have Naomi Alderman as our companion in these confusing, challenging and dangerous times. Don't Burn Anyone at the Stake Today is a serious — and also very funny — history of how we go ...

Brisk, insightful, thought-provoking and powerfully empathetic: I started laughing and learning things on the first page and didn't stop until I hit the last one. Don't Burn Anyone at the Stake Today is the p ...

Books by Naomi Alderman

Series by Naomi Alderman

Doctor Who

Articles featuring Naomi Alderman

What to read after The Handmaid’s Tale

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