Tooting Book Club - current book list
Here is the list of books on the current list - if you would like to add a book to the list please bring your suggestion to the next meeting.
Educated - Tara Westover (381 pages) - NON-FICTION
Kindle: £0.99: Amazon paperback £8.99
A memoir By Tara westover, a woman who grows up as the youngest of 7 in a rural Idaho Mormon community. She and her siblings were all born at home and are home schooled, and her parents are deeply suspicious of the government. The story is told in three parts. Part 1 details her childhood, and describes her father’s radicalisation.In Part 2, Westover ventures to college. She describes the culture shock of having to learn about such events as slavery and the Holocaust. Part 3, whe goes to Cambridge for her phD, attempts to confront her family about their issues and brings us up to date with her life now.
The Oceans between Us - Gill Thompson (448 pages)
Kindle £1.99: Amazon paperback £9.19
A woman is found wandering injured in London after an air raid. She remembers nothing of who she is. Only that she has lost something very precious. As the little boy waits in the orphanage, he hopes his mother will return. But then he finds himself on board a ship bound for Australia, the promise of a golden life ahead, and wonders how she will find him in a land across the oceans. In Perth, a lonely wife takes in the orphaned child. But then she discovers the secret of his past. Should she keep quiet? Or tell the truth and risk losing the boy who has become her life?
Still Life - Sarah Winman (448 pages)
Kindle £5.49: Amazon paperback £6.29
Recounts a chance encounter between a young British soldier, Ulysses Temper, and a 64 year old art historian, Evelyn Skinner, in a ruined wine cellar in Tuscany in 1944. She has come to salvage paintings from the wreckage of war and relive memories of her youth when her heart was stolen by an Italian maid in a particular room with a view. Ulysses' chance encounter with Evelyn transforms his life - and all those who love him back home in London - forever.
Shy Creature by Clare Chambers (400 pages)
Kindle £11.49 Amazon Paperback £6.76
Croydon, 1964. Helen Hansford is in her thirties and an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital where she has been having a long love affair with Gil: a charismatic, married doctor.
One spring afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance from a derelict house not far from Helen's home. A thirty-seven-year-old man called William Tapping, with a beard down to his waist, has been discovered along with his elderly aunt. It is clear he has been shut up in the house for decades, but when it emerges that William is a talented artist, Helen is determined to discover his story.
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (320 pages)
Kindle £5.99 Amazon Paperback £8.49
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother of four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist. Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and when her husband disappears, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a society that is quickly unravelling. How far will she go to save her family? And what – or who – is she willing to leave behind? Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Prophet Song is a work of breathtaking originality, offering a devastating vision of a country at war and a deeply human portrait of a mother’s fight to hold her family together.
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami (224 pages)
Kindle £7.47 Amazon Paperback £9.39
Tsukiko is in her late 30s and living alone when one night she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, 'Sensei', in a bar. He is at least thirty years her senior, retired and, she presumes, a widower.
After this initial encounter, the pair continue to meet occasionally to share food and drink sake, and as the seasons pass - from spring cherry blossom to autumnal mushrooms - Tsukiko and Sensei come to develop a hesitant intimacy which tilts awkwardly and poignantly into love.
A Ladder to the sky - John Boyne (448 pages)
Kindle £5.99: Amazon paperback £9.39
Maurice Swift is a young and charming man who wants to be a successful novelist, but lacks the creativity and talent to achieve his goal. Instead of giving up he decides to manipulate and exploit others to further his own career. His first victim is Erich Ackermann, a renowned author. Maurice befriends Erich and learns about a dark secret from his past. He then uses this secret as the basis for his first novel, which becomes a bestseller. Maurice’s success is built on a foundation of lies and deceit, and he is willing to go to any lengths to maintain his facade - including manipulating his wife into writing a novel that he publishes under his name. Eventually, his carefully constructed world begins to unravel when his past catches up with him, with his ruthless pursuit of success leaving him finally isolated and despised with no-one to turn to.
The Vanishing of Margaret Small - Neil Alexander (336 pages)
Kindle £3.99: Amazon paperback £9.41
Margaret Small is a woman who receives mysterious packages after the death of her idol, Cilla Black.To solve the mystery of her benefactor, Margaret must go back in her memories almost 70 years to the time when she was ‘vanished ‘ to a long stay institution for children with learning difficulties. Moving and uplifting.
NOT YET AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK
The Last Murder at the End of the World - Stuart Turton (352 pages)
Kindle £9.38: Amazon paperback £9.99 (pre-order price for Jan 2025))
Outside the island there is nothing: the world destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the island it is idyllic. 122 villagers and 3 scientists, living in peaceful harmony.The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew and do what they are told by the scientists. Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder is not solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island - and everyone on it. But the security system has also wiped everyone’s memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer - and they don’t even know it.
