Steve Roud was Local Studies Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon and served as Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society for over fifteen years. He has been researching British folklore for over thirty years and is the joint author of the Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore, plus other books on traditional drama and folk song, and the Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland, which won the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award in 2004. His publications include London Lore (2008) and The Lore of the Playground (2010). He also compiles the Folk Song Index and the Broadside Index, two internationally acclaimed computer databases of traditional folk and popular song. He lives in Sussex.

Steve Roud

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Sophie Kinsella

Three women, smart and successful, working in the fast and furious world of magazines, meet for cocktails and gossip once a month. 
 
Roxanne: glamorous, self-confident, with a secret lover - and hoping that one day he will leave his wife and marry her. 
 
Maggie:capable and high-achieving, until she finds the one thing she can't cope with - motherhood. 
 
Candice:honest, decent, or so she believes - until a ghost from her past turns up, and almost ruins her life. 
 
A chance encounter in the cocktail bar sets in train an extraordinary set of events which upsets all their lives and almost destroys their friendship...

Cocktails For Three

John Boyne

1867. On a dark and chilling night Eliza Caine arrives in Norfolk to take up her position as governess at Gaudlin Hall. As she makes her way across the station platform, a pair of invisible hands push her from behind into the path of an approaching train. She is only saved by the vigilance of a passing doctor. 
 
It is the start of a journey into a world of abandoned children, unexplained occurrences and terrifying experiences which Eliza will have to overcome if she is to survive the secrets that lie within Gaudlin’s walls…

This House is Haunted

Lissa Evans

In 1940, every draft of every film script had to be approved by the Ministry of Information. Cast and crew were waiting to be called up at any moment, travel was restricted and filming was interrupted by regular bombing raids. And so it is that we find a disparate group of characters whose paths would never have crossed in peacetime: Ambrose Hilliard, a washed up old ham from the golden era of silent movies; Catrin Cole, formerly an advertising copywriter drafted in to 'write women' for the Ministry of Information; Edith Beadmore, a wardrobe assistant at Madame Tussauds; and Arthur Frith, peacetime catering manager turned wartime Special Military Advisor. 
 
This distinct group find themselves thrown together in the wilds of Norfolk to 'do their bit' on the latest propaganda film - a heart-warming tale of derring do, of two sisters who set out in a leaking old wooden boat to rescue the brave men trapped at Dunkirk. All completely fabricated, of course, but what does that matter when the nation's morale is at stake? Newly crowned actor, script-writer, costumier and military attaché must swallow their mutual distaste, ill-will and mistrust and unite for the common good, for King and country, and - in one case - for better or worse...

Their Finest Hour and a Half

Gavin Chait

Why do we tell stories? To hold on to what has been loved and lost, to create new myths, to explain and teach in ways that seep into memory. 
Shakiso Collard leads the evacuation from Benghazi as jihadis overwhelm the refugee camp where she works. On arrival in Paris, she is betrayed by her boss, Oktar Samboa, and watches in despair as those she illegally helped escape are deported back to the warzones of Libya. 
Elsewhere, Farinata Uberti – strongman CEO of Rosneft, the world’s largest energy company – arrives in London after triggering a violent insurrection in Tanzania to destroy a potential rival in the oil market. In the Sahara, an air convoy on its way to deliver billions of dollars of drugs and weapons to Ansar Dine jihadis crashes and is lost. 
A year later, having spent months in hiding, Shakiso travels to West Africa. She is there to lead the relief effort that are hoping to stop the 200 million refugees fleeing war and environmental collapse heading for a fortified and fragmented Europe. 
As the myths of these millions seeking new lives across the Mediterranean intrude into reality, Shakiso is drawn into the brutal clandestine fight against Rosneft’s domination of European energy supplies being conducted by the mysterious Simon Adaro. And, deep within the disorienting Harmattan storms of the desert, a group of jihadis have gone in search of the crashed convoy of planes - and a terror that could overwhelm them all.

Our Memory Like Dust

Willy Russell

The hilarious, bittersweet novel from the playwright behind EDUCATING RITA, SHIRLEY VALENTINE and award-winning musical BLOOD BROTHERS. 
 
Dear Morrissey, 
I'm feeling dead depressed and down. Like a streetlamp without a bulb or a goose at the onset of Christmas time. 
Anyroad, I thought I'd pen a few lines to someone who'd understand... 
 
It's 1991. Raymond Marks is a normal boy, from a normal family, in a normal northern town. Only lately, he's been feeling dead down. His dad left home after falling in love with a five-string banjo. His fun-hating grandma believes she should have married Jean-Paul Sartre: 'I could never read his books, but y' could tell from his picture, there was nothing frivolous about John-Paul Sartre.' Felonious Uncle Jason and Appalling Aunty Paula are lusting after the satellite dish. 
 
And so he turns to the one person who'll understand what he's going through: Morrissey. Told through a series of heartfelt letters to the frontman of The Smiths, this is a laugh-out-loud funny, incredibly poignant tale from a character you can't help but love. 
 
'Big-hearted, wonderfully funny and engrossing' THE MIRROR 
 
'A warm, funny, poignant story. I loved The Wrong Boy - and so will you' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 
 
'A comic masterpiece' BEL MOONEY, MAIL ON SUNDAY

The Wrong Boy

Ben Elton

Chart Throb.The ultimate pop quest. 
 
Ninety five thousand hopefuls. Three judges. Just one winner. 
And that's Calvin Simms, the genius behind the show. 
 
Calvin always wins because Calvin writes the rules. But this year, as he sits smugly in judgement upon the mingers, clingers and blingers whom he has pre-selected in his carefully scripted 'search' for a star, he has no idea that the rules are changing. The 'real' is about to be put back into 'reality' television and Calvin and his fellow judges (the nation's favourite mum and the other bloke) are about to become ex-factors themselves. 
 
Ben Elton, author of Popcorn and Dead Famous returns to blistering comic satire with a savagely hilarious deconstruction of the world of modern television talent shows. 
 
Chart Throb. One winner. A whole bunch of losers.

Chart Throb

Jane Yardley

It is the summer of 1965. Annie Cradock, the only child of exacting parents who run the village school, is an imaginative girl with a head full of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Annie whiles away the school holiday with her friends: Ollie the rag-and-bone man (and more importantly his dog); the beautiful piano-playing Mrs Clitheroe who turns Beethoven into boogie-woogie (and like Annie sees music in colour); and Annie's best friend Babette - streetwise, loyal, and Annie's one solid link with common sense. But everything changes when the village is rocked by a series of murders and the girls know something they've no intention of telling the police. 
 
In the present day, adult Annie is a successful singing coach in a stifling marriage. Her ambitious American husband, impatient with his quirky wife, is taking a job in New York - but is she staying with him? As Annie struggles with her future, she first has to come to terms with the bizarre events of 1965.

Painting Ruby Tuesday

Rhys Thomas

Craig Bartlett-Taylor was always trying to kill himself, but when he took an overdose at the back of Mrs Kenna's classroom, Richie thought he'd finally succeeded: it was a real-life Worst Case Scenario. But then the new kid, Freddy, steps in and saves Craig's life, and for Richie the lure of this mysterious newcomer is irresistible. 
 
Freddy is like nobody Richie has ever met. Dark, sardonic and dangerous, he gives flight to Richie's imagination, introducing him to a way of life he'd never thought possible. But when a night-time prank goes gut-wrenchingly wrong, Richie begins to question Freddy's motives, and all too soon he finds himself committed to a sinister pact, with inescapably tragic consequences. It's true that Freddy saved a life - but could he take one, too? 
 
With great wit and an unflinching eye for the muddle and drama of adolescence, The Suicide Club is a pitch-perfect portrait of teenage disaffection that sets boy against boy, imagination against reason - and, ultimately, life against death.

The Suicide Club

Vikas Swarup

The bestselling book behind the Oscar-winning film SLUMDOG MILLLIONAIRE directed by Danny Boyle 
 
'An absorbing and richly entertaining read' Times 
 
Former tiffinboy Ram Mohammad Thomas has just got twelve questions correct on a TV quiz-show to win a cool one billion rupees. But he is brutally slung in prison on suspicion of cheating. Because how can a kid from the slums know who Shakespeare was, unless he is cheating? 
 
In the order of the questions on the show, Ram tells us which incredible adventures in his life on the streets gave him the answers. From orphanages to brothels, gangsters to beggar-masters, and into the homes of Bollywood's rich and famous, Ram's story is brimming with the chaotic comedy, heart-stopping tragedy and joyousness of modern India. 
 
'Popular fiction at its best and brightest' Guardian 
'Colourful' Sunday Telegraph 
'Poignant, funny, rich' MEG ROSOFF, bestselling author of HOW I LIVE NOW 
'Not to be missed' Observer

Q & A

The International Bestseller Filmed as Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire

Carl Hiaasen

Honey Santana -self-proclaimed queen of lost causes - has a Plan. 
 
She's working on a scheme to help rid the world of irresponsibility, indifference and dinner-time telemarketers. She's also taking part-time telephonist Boyd Shreve and his less-than-enthusiastic mistress to Dismal Key - one of the Everglades' Ten ThousandIslands - for a gentle lesson in civility. 
 
What Honey doesn't know is that lurking in the island's undergrowth is Sammy Tigertail, half-blood Seminole Indian and wholly failed alligator wrestler, with death on his mind; and Honey's deranged co-worker, Louis Piejack, now with most of his fingers surgically mis-attached to the wrong knuckles, and intent on revenge. 
 
A holiday to die for? In Hiaasen's extraordinary universe, anything can happen ...

Nature Girl

The hilarious romantic comedy from NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR Sophie Kinsella 
 
I’ve lost it :( 
 
The only thing in the world I wasn’t supposed to lose. My engagement ring. It’s been in Magnus’s family for three generations. And now, the very same day his parents are coming, I’ve lost it. The very same day. Do not hyperventilate, Poppy. 
 
Stay positive!! :) 
 
A couple of glasses of bubbly with the girls and Poppy’s life has gone into meltdown. Not only has she lost her engagement ring, but in the panic that followed, she’s lost her phone too. When she spots an abandoned phone in a bin it seems it was meant to be . . . Finders Keepers! 
 
Except the phone’s owner, elusive businessman Sam Roxton, doesn’t agree. He wants his phone back, and doesn’t appreciate Poppy reading all his messages and wading into his personal life. Can things get any more tangled? 
 
***** EVERYBODY LOVES SOPHIE KINSELLA: ***** 
 
'Funny, fast and farcical. I loved it' JOJO MOYES 
 
'I couldn’t put it down.' LOUISE PENTLAND (SprinkleofGlitter) 
 
'I almost cried with laughter' DAILY MAIL 
 
'Life doesn't get much better than a new Sophie Kinsella novel' RED 
 
'Hilarious . . . you'll laugh and gasp on every page' JENNY COLGAN 
 
[Cover may vary]

I've Got Your Number

Meet Rebecca Bloomwood. She's a financial journalist who spends all day writing articles on how to manage money wisely. Her own method of managing money is to hide her Visa bills under the bed and hope they'll disappear. 
Becky just can't stop shopping, whether it's stocking up on 3 for 2 offers, or buying an essential grey cardigan, or falling in lust with a pair of dreamy shoes. 
She knows she has to stop. Her bank manager is sending her sterner and sterner letters, her credit cards are being declined, her Mum and Dad have no idea . . . what is she going to do? 
Will Becky ever take control of her life, find love and regain the use of her credit card? 
The Shopaholic series begins with The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella.

To Las Vegas . . . and beyond! 
 
Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) is on a major rescue mission! Hollywood was full of surprises, and now she's on a road trip to Las Vegas to help her friends and family. 
 
She's determined to get to the bottom of why her dad has mysteriously disappeared, help her best friend Suze and even bond with Alicia Bitch Long-legs (maybe...). 
 
As Becky discovers just how much her friends and family need help, she comes up with her biggest, boldest, most brilliant plan yet! So can she save the day just when they need her most? 
 
Becky is setting out to make things right in this laugh-out-loud, feel-good conclusion to her American adventure that began with SHOPAHOLIC TO THE STARS.

Shopaholic to the Rescue

(Shopaholic Book 8)

The hilarious romantic comedy from NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR Sophie Kinsella . . . soon to be a major motion picture! 
 
Emma is like every girl in the world. She has a few little secrets. 
 
Secrets from her mother: 
1. I lost my virginity in the spare bedroom to Danny Nussbaum while Mum and Dad were downstairs watching TV. 
 
… From her boyfriend: 
2. I’m a size twelve. Not a size eight, like Connor thinks. 
3. I’ve always thought Connor looks a bit like Ken. As in Barbie and Ken. 
 
… From her colleagues: 
4. When Artemis really annoys me (which is pretty much every day), I feed her plant orange juice. 
5. It was me who jammed the copier that time. In fact, all the times. 
 
…Secrets she wouldn’t share with anyone in the world: 
6. My G string is hurting me. 
7. I faked my Maths GCSE grade on my CV. 
8. I have no idea what NATO stands for. Or even what it is… 
 
…until she spills them all to a handsome stranger on a plane. After all, she’ll never see him again. 
 
But on Monday morning, Emma’s office is abuzz about the arrival of Jack Harper, the company’s elusive CEO. Suddenly Emma is face-to-face with the stranger from the plane, a man who knows every single humiliating detail about her. 
 
Things couldn’t possibly get worse... Until they do. 
 
 
***** EVERYBODY LOVES SOPHIE KINSELLA: ***** 
 
'Funny, fast and farcical. I loved it' JOJO MOYES 
 
'I couldn’t put it down.' LOUISE PENTLAND (SprinkleofGlitter) 
 
'I almost cried with laughter' DAILY MAIL 
 
'Life doesn't get much better than a new Sophie Kinsella novel' RED 
 
'Hilarious . . . you'll laugh and gasp on every page' JENNY COLGAN

Can You Keep A Secret?

Liz and Jonathan are in trouble. They can't sell their old house.Here they are, stuck with two mortgages, mounting debts and a miserable adolescent daughter who hadn't wanted to move anyway. Then it seems Marcus Witherstone will solve all their problems. He knows the perfect tenants from London who will rent their old house - glamorous PR girl Ginny and almost-famous Piers. Everything is going to be OK. 
 
Or is it? As Marcus starts to become involved with Liz, while her teenage daughter develops a passion for the lodgers, it seems that some deceptions are too close to home... 
 
Everybody loves Sophie Kinsella: 
"I almost cried with laughter" Daily Mail 
"Hilarious . . . you'll laugh and gasp on every page" Jenny Colgan 
"Properly mood-altering . . . funny, fast and farcical. I loved it" Jojo Moyes 
"A superb tale. Five stars!" Heat

A Desirable Residence

Debbie Carbin

Beth Sheridan likes her life the way it is. OK, so her job's a little dull and her social life leaves a lot to be desired. But none of that really matters because Beth is in love with Richard. And one day they will be together. Yes, there are a few teeny obstacles, like the fact that Richard has been Beth's boss for eight years and that he is currently living in Portugal with another woman. But these are just minor details because Beth just knows that one day, the scales will fall from Richard's eyes and he will realise that it is Beth that he has always wanted. 
 
Beth's feisty flatmate Vini doesn't harbour any such illusions and decides that Beth needs to give up on Richard and find love elsewhere. Reluctantly Beth agrees to Vini's (at times extreme) plan of action. Following a puppeteers convention, a speed dating event, a chance encounter in a shopping mall and some pretty flirtatious email banter, Beth is suddenly dealing with three new men. There's the lovely down-to-earth Brad, who she just can't quite pin down, and the charming, millionaire Rupert. She's never actually met Rupert but judging from his emails, he seems to just get her. What's more, there's also sleazy Sean from the office who's suddenly seeming not-so-sleazy ... 
 
And just when things couldn't get more complicated, the gorgeous Richard waltzes back into her life. What's a girl to do?

Three Men and a Maybe

Stephen Clarke

Paul West is in deep financial merde. His only way out of debt is to accept a decidedly dodgy job: 
 _________________ 
 
It involves him touring America in a Mini, while pretending to be typically British. 
 
Also in the car is Paul's French girlfriend, Alexa, and his American poet friend, Jake, whose main aim in life is to sleep with a woman from every country in the world. Preferably in the back of Paul's Mini. 
 
But as the little car battles from New York to Miami, leg-room turns out to be the least of Paul's troubles. His work is being sabotaged, his tour plans are in tatters, and his love life becomes a Franco-American war zone. 
 
And as Paul knows better than anyone, when you mix love and war - merde happens...

Merde Happens

Hell is an American road trip with a French passenger

Like mother, like daughter...! 
 
Shopaholic Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood)'s two-year-old is ... spirited. She knows what she wants, whether it's a grown-up Prada handbag or a toy pony (40% off, so a bargain, surely?) When yet another shopping trip turns to mayhem, Becky decides it's time to give Minnie her own pocket money. Is it a bad sign when Minnie goes instantly overdrawn? 
 
Minnie isn't the only one in financial crisis. As the Bank of London collapses, people are having to Cut Back. Everyone needs cheering up, so what better way to do it than to throw a fabulous surprise party? A thrifty party, of course. Except economising and keeping a secret have never been Becky's strong points ... 
 
Everybody loves Sophie Kinsella: 
"I almost cried with laughter" Daily Mail 
"Hilarious . . . you'll laugh and gasp on every page" Jenny Colgan 
"Properly mood-altering . . . funny, fast and farcical. I loved it" Jojo Moyes 
"A superb tale. Five stars!" Heat

Mini Shopaholic

(Shopaholic Book 6)

Marius Brill

Do you hold on to your memories? Or do they hold on to you? 
 
Magicov the Magnificent, grand illusionist, earns his living entertaining the geriatrics of Lotus House Care Home. But Mr Magicov (also known as Peter) envies them - they've mastered a trick that eludes him. They can forget. 
 
Peter yearns to forget. But memories haunt him: the shameful moment an eight-year-old wrecked his life; the FBI agent who hunted him like a dog; that suitcase stuffed with a million pounds. More than anything Peter wants to forget Kate, the expert con woman. The one he loved and left. 
 
For renowned bain-scientist Dr Chris Tavasligh, Peter's craving to escape makes him the perfect candidate for a bold experiment in changing minds - forever. Faced with such an opportunity, will Peter go through with it? And if he does, who will he become?

How to Forget

Julia Widdows

Carol has always resented her family - her mother, endlessly knitting, her father and his obsession with next door's encroaching garden hedge, and her brother, ever silent and scheming. 
 
So when she is invited to meet the vibrant, bohemian family next door in their messy house full of books and paintings and empty of rules, Carol soon begins a secret double life over the much-hated garden hedge. Here Carol voices her greatest fantasy and tells her first major lie...that she is adopted. 
 
But on her 16th birthday Carol receives the shock of her life when her wish comes true. And as, years later, Carol frenetically narrates her story from a psychiatric unit, we realise how it affected her and those around her in the darkest of ways...

Living In Perhaps

Becky's life is blooming! She's working at London's newest fashion store The Look, house-hunting with husband Luke (her secret wish is a Shoe Room)... and she's pregnant! She couldn't be more overjoyed - especially since discovering that shopping cures morning sickness. 
 
Everything has got to be perfect for her baby: from the designer nursery...to the latest, coolest pram...to the celebrity, must-have obstetrician. But when the celebrity obstetrician turns out to be her husband Luke's glamorous, intellectual ex-girlfriend, Becky's perfect world starts to crumble. She's shopping for two...but are there three in her marriage? 
 
Everybody loves Sophie Kinsella: 
"I almost cried with laughter" Daily Mail 
"Hilarious . . . you'll laugh and gasp on every page" Jenny Colgan 
"Properly mood-altering . . . funny, fast and farcical. I loved it" Jojo Moyes 
"A superb tale. Five stars!" Heat

Shopaholic & Baby

(Shopaholic Book 5)

James Crumley

Milo Milodragovitch is a once-successful divorce lawyer, who now prefers to spend his days drinking and staring out the window. That all changes when Helen Duffy walks into his office and asks him to find her missing brother. 
 
Though it's not his usual line of work, Milo agrees to help - he needs the money, and he wants to spend more time with this beautiful woman. But this is far from a routine case, and whispers of a long-past crime haunt Milo's every move . . . 
 
'As sweetly profane a poet as American noir could have asked for' Ian Rankin 
 
'Like James Ellroy, he is a master of American vernacular, turning tough-guy slang into something like poetry' Independent

The Wrong Case

Tim Davys

Eric Bear thinks he has escaped his violent past, but when crime boss Nicholas Dove threatens Eric's beloved wife Emma Rabbit, Eric has no choice but to do what he asks: find a way to remove Dove's name from the Death List. Problem is, no one knows if the Death List really exists. Nevertheless, Eric gathers his old team together - sadistic male prostitute Sam Gazelle, sweet but dangerous Tom-Tom Crow, and wily Snake Marek - and they set off to find the elusive list. 
 
What Eric learns will forever change the way he thinks about his life, his family, and his town.

Amberville

For Rebecca Bloomwood, life is peachy. She has a job on morning TV, her bank manager is actually being nice to her, and when it comes to spending money, her new motto is Buy Only What You Need - and she's really (sort of) sticking to it. The icing on the brioche is that she's been offered a chance to work in New York. 
 
New York! The Museum of Modern Art! The Guggenheim! The Metropolitan Opera House! And Becky does mean to go to them all. Honestly. It's just that it seems silly not to check out a few other famous places first. Like Saks. And Bloomingdales. And Barneys. And one of those fantastic sample sales where you can get a Prada dress for $10. Or was it $100? Is Becky too dazzled to care? 
 
Everybody loves Sophie Kinsella: 
"I almost cried with laughter" Daily Mail 
"Hilarious . . . you'll laugh and gasp on every page" Jenny Colgan 
"Properly mood-altering . . . funny, fast and farcical. I loved it" Jojo Moyes 
"A superb tale. Five stars!" Heat

Shopaholic Abroad

(Shopaholic Book 2)

Johan Theorin

'Powerful' Guardian 
 
'Haunting' Independent 
 
How close can you get to the truth...before you become the target? 
 
Jerry Morner lives quietly in a cabin by the old quarry, hurting no one. Or that’s what he wants people to believe. It takes one spark and a can of petrol to expose the truth. 
 
The fire is deadly. Not for Jerry, but for the two strangers found burnt to death inside. 
 
His son starts to search for answers. But he soon realises that some secrets are better left to the dead.

The Quarry

Oland Quartet series 3

Guy Burt

It was the end of term at Our Glorious School. Most of the pupils were preparing to return home; some were going away on a geography field trip. But for five members of the sixth form, it sounded more fun to embark upon what their friend and mentor Martyn called 'an experiment with real life' - to spend three days together in The Hole, a windowless cellar room in an unfrequented part of the school buildings. Martyn was to lock them in, and in three days he would come and let them out again. 
 
At first, it all seemed quite a laugh - eating and drinking, jokes and banter. Solid Mike and dependable Liz, Geoff with his secret supplies of booze, irritating Frankie and delicate Alex - what a story they would have to tell when Martyn came to release them! How surprised and admiring their friends would be! 
 
But three days passed, and Martyn did not return... 
 
The Hole is a dark and menacing first novel, written when the author was still at school. Compulsive and claustrophobic in quality, it has been compared to John Fowles's The Collector.

The Hole

Chetan Bhagat

A comedy of romance and crossed lines 
 
Six friends are selling home appliances to the US from a call centre in India. Each one has an issue with love. Call agent Sam works right beside the girl who's just dumped him. He's dating someone he can't stand, just to get over her. 
 
Esha is just short of becoming a model. Two inches, to be precise. 
 
Vroom wants to change the world. 
 
Radikha's trying to manage her mother-in-law, and hold down her job. 
 
Tonight is Thanksgiving in America, and customers are queueing up to complain about white goods going wrong. On this night of a thousand phone calls, when life couldn't look more dismal, one unique caller gets on the line. And that call is going to change everything ... 
 
A romantic comedy of six friends kicking against the system, against their boss, and against each other. Something's got to give ...

One Night At The Call Centre

Armistead Maupin

Maybe the Moon, Armistead Maupin's first novel since ending his bestselling Tales of the City series, is the audaciously original chronicle of Cadence Roth -- Hollywood actress, singer, iconoclast and former Guinness Book of Records holder as the world's shortest woman. 
 
All of 31 inches tall, Cady is a true survivor in a town where -- as she says -- 'you can die of encouragement'. Her early starring role as a lovable elf in an immensely popular American film proved a major disappointment, since moviegoers never saw the face behind the stifling rubber suit she was required to wear. Now, after a decade of hollow promises from the Industry, she is reduced to performing at birthday parties and Bar Mitzvahs as she waits for the miracle that will finally make her a star. 
 
In a series of mordantly funny journal entries, Maupin tracks his spunky heroine across the saffron-hazed wasteland of Los Angeles -- from her all-too-infrequent meetings with agents and studio moguls to her regular harrowing encounters with small children, large dogs and human ignorance. Then one day a lanky piano player saunters into Cady's life, unleashing heady new emotions, and she finds herself going for broke, shooting the moon with a scheme so harebrained and daring that it just might succeed. 
 
Her accomplice in the venture is her best friend, Jeff, a gay waiter who sees Cady's struggle for visibility as a natural extension of his own war against the Hollywood Closet. As clear-eyed as it is charming, Maybe the Moon is a modern parable about the mythology of the movies and the toll it exacts from it participants on both sides of the screen. It is a work that speaks to the resilience of the human spirit from a perspective rarely found in literature.

Maybe The Moon

Paolo Giordano

A prime number is inherently a solitary thing: it can only be divided by itself, or by one; it never truly fits with another. Alice and Mattia also move on their own axes, alone with their personal tragedies. As a child Alice's overbearing father drove her first to a terrible skiing accident, and then to anorexia. When she meets Mattia she recognises a kindred spirit, and Mattia reveals to Alice his terrible secret: that as a boy he abandoned his mentally-disabled twin sister in a park to go to a party, and when he returned, she was nowhere to be found. 
 
These two irreversible episodes mark Alice and Mattia's lives for ever, and as they grow into adulthood their destinies seem irrevocably intertwined. But then a chance sighting of a woman who could be Mattia's sister forces a lifetime of secret emotion to the surface. 
 
A meditation on loneliness and love, The Solitude of Prime Numbers asks, can we ever truly be whole when we're in love with another?

The Solitude of Prime Numbers

Frank Schaeffer

Calvin Becker's strict fundamentalist upbringing means he's never seen a film, watched television or danced. He even has to hide his five second-hand copies of Mad magazine in the attic. 
Now he and his family - his embarrassingly devout missionary parents and his sisters, the tyrannical 18 year-old Janet and the angelic Rachael - are on their modest annual skiing holiday in Switzerland. For the Beckers, the Hotel Riffelberg had always provided a safe haven from the jazz-loving sinners who congregate further down the mountain in Zermatt, but this is 1966, the year of peace, love and the Beatles, and the world is changing. As is the irrepressible Calvin... 
In his innocent 14 year-old body the hormones are raging, awakening a volcanic sexual 
curiosity and he willingly succumbs to the ample charms of Eva, the young waitress who introduces him to ecstasies beyond his wildest dreams. But then Calvin's mother catches him supposedly in the act and things start to go awry, triggering a climactic end to his childhood (and the family holiday).

Zermatt

Becky Brandon (nee Bloomwood) is in Hollywood! She's hanging out with celebs . . . or at least she will be, once her husband Luke introduces her to his new A-list client Sage Seymour. 
 
Becky sets her heart on a new career – she's going to be a stylist to the stars! And when a chance encounter thrusts her into the limelight, she grabs her opportunity. But in between choosing clutch bags and chasing celebrities, Becky loses touch with her family and her best friend . . . 
 
Caught up in the whirlwind of Tinseltown, has Becky gone too far this time? 
 
Everybody loves Sophie Kinsella: 
"I almost cried with laughter" Daily Mail 
"Hilarious . . . you'll laugh and gasp on every page" Jenny Colgan 
"Properly mood-altering . . . funny, fast and farcical. I loved it" Jojo Moyes 
"A superb tale. Five stars!" Heat

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