You don’t need a passport to go on the adventure of a lifetime. From astronauts in space contemplating what it means to be human, to aliens on earth searching for the same answer, these paperbacks will transport you to new places from the comfort of home.
It’s written in the stars that these magical reads are destined to become your new favourites this summer.
Winner of the 2024 Booker Prize.
A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe.
The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part - or protective - of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?
Meet Adina: a woman who has never felt at home on Earth. Born at the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space, Adina is a baby of unusual perception. Tiny and jaundiced, she reaches for warmth and light. As a child, she recognises she is different, not least because of her strange knowledge of a faraway planet. Then a fax machine arrives at home. Her mission is clear: she must report on the oddities of humankind.
As Adina grows up, she dispatches transmissions on the terrors and delights of human existence. But then she starts to wonder. Is there a chance there are others like her out there?
Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits – torn between their religion and their desire to explore the world. But their friendship is ruptured by the arrival of love.
Over the course of twenty years, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as a devastating story of passion and scientific adventure unfolds and Aldleigh’s unique mysteries are revealed.
After a grave mistake, Henry Talbot has been forced to take a position as village doctor in remote Wales where he can't speak the language and belief in myth and magic is rife.
When Henry discovers his predecessor died in mysterious circumstances, and starts to notice a cryptic symbol appearing in odd places, he sets out to find answers.
PARIS, 1885. On an otherwise ordinary night, Aubry Tourvel – spoiled, stubborn and nine years old – is suddenly struck down by a mysterious illness at the family dinner table.
When a visit to a doctor only makes her worse, Aubry flees to the outskirts of the city, where she realises that it is this very act of movement that keeps her alive.
She has no choice: she must run from this curse. And so begins her incredible lifelong journey across the world. But with risk at every turn, what will it take for Aubry to survive?
