2312

by Kim Stanley Robinson

Congratulations to Kim Stanley Robinson on winning the prestigious Nebula Award!

The year is 2312. Scientific advances have opened gateways to an extraordinary future. Earth is no longer our only home; new habitats have been created throughout the solar system, on moons, planets and in between. But in 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront our past, present and future. The first event takes place on Mercury, in the city of Terminator, itself a miracle of engineering on an unprecedented scale. For Swan Er Hong, it will change her life. Once a designer of worlds, now Swan will be led into a plot to destroy them. 2312 is a bold vision of humanity's future and a compelling portrait of those individuals who will shape its events.

Mateship With Birds

by Carrie Tiffany

Congratulations to Carrie Tiffany, winner of the inaugural Stella Prize in 2013.

On the outskirts of an Australian country town in the 1950s, a lonely farmer trains his binoculars on a family of kookaburras that roost in a tree near his house. Harry observes the kookaburras through a year of feast, famine, birth, death, war, romance and song. As Harry watches the birds, his next door neighbour has her own set of binoculars trained on him. Ardent, hard-working Betty has escaped to the country with her two fatherless children. Betty is pleased that her son, Michael, wants to spend time with the gentle farmer next door. But when Harry decides to teach Michael about the opposite sex, perilous boundaries are crossed. Mateship with Birds is a novel about young lust and mature love. It is a hymn to the rhythm of country life - to vicious birds, virginal cows, adored dogs and ill-used sheep. On one small farm in a vast, ancient landscape, a collection of misfits question the nature of what a family can be.

Mateship with Birds is also available as an eBook.

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The Orphan Master's Son

by Adam Johnson

You know you are in the hands of someone who can tell a story ...fantastic . (Zadie Smith). Pak Jun Do knows he is special. He knows he must be the son of the master of the orphanage, not some kid dumped by his parents - it was obvious from the way his father singled him out for beatings. He knows he is special when he is picked as a spy and kidnapper for his country, the glorious Democratic Republic of North Korea. He knows he must find his true love, Sun Moon, the greatest opera star who ever lived, before it's too late. He knows he's not like the other prisoners in the camp. He's going to get out soon. Definitely.

The Garden Of Evening Mists

by Tan Twan Eng

Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng has won the 2012 Man Asian Literary Prize for The Garden of Evening Mists (Myrmidon Books). This is the second time the Man Asian Literary Prize has been won by a novel originally written in English. Tan’s novel explores the aftermath of the Japanese occupation of Malaya and the postwar insurgency against the British rule, and was described by Man Asian Literary Prize executive director David Parker as a novel ‘achieved with the seemingly effortless poise of a remarkable fictional artistry’.

Malaya, 1949. After studying law at Cambrige and time spent helping to prosecute Japanese war criminals, Yun Ling Teoh, herself the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks solace among the jungle fringed plantations of Northern Malaya where she grew up as a child. There she discovers Yugiri, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the enigmatic Aritomo, exiled former gardener of the Emperor of Japan. Despite her hatred of the Japanese, Yun Ling seeks to engage Aritomo to create a garden in Kuala Lumpur, in memory of her sister who died in the camp. Aritomo refuses, but agrees to accept Yun Ling as his apprentice 'until the monsoon comes'. Then she can design a garden for herself. As the months pass, Yun Ling finds herself intimately drawn to her sensei and his art while, outside the garden, the threat of murder and kidnapping from the guerrillas of the jungle hinterland increases with each passing day. But the Garden of Evening Mists is also a place of mystery. Who is Aritomo and how did he come to leave Japan? Why is it that Yun Ling's friend and host Magnus Praetorius, seems to almost immune from the depredations of the Communists? What is the legend of 'Yamashita's Gold' and does it have any basis in fact? And is the real story of how Yun Ling managed to survive the war perhaps the darkest secret of all.

Also available in eBook

Argo

by John Goodman, Bryan Cranston, Tate Donovan and others

Based on real events, the dramatic thriller "Argo" chronicles the life-or-death covert operation to rescue six Americans, which unfolded behind the scenes of the Iran hostage crisis, focusing on the little-known role that the CIA and Hollywood played-information that was not declassified until many years after the event. On November 4, 1979, as the Iranian revolution reaches its boiling point, militants storm the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage. But, in the midst of the chaos, six Americans manage to slip away and find refuge in the home of Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor. Knowing it is only a matter of time before the six are found out and likely killed, the Canadian and American governments ask the CIA to intervene. The CIA turns to their top "exfiltration" specialist, Tony Mendez, to come up with a plan to get the six Americans safely out of the country. A plan so incredible, it could only happen in the movies.

Argo also won Best Adapted Screenplay & Best Film Editing at the Oscars. Ben Afleck also picked up Best Director Awards at the Golden Globes & the BAFTA's but was controversially snubbed for an Oscars nomination.

Bring Up The Bodies

by Hilary Mantel

COSTA BOOK PRIZE WINNER (Book of the Year & Novel Catergory Winner) 'My boy Thomas, give him a dirty look and he'll gouge your eye out. Trip him, and he'll cut off your leg', says Walter Cromwell in the year 1500. 'But if you don't cut across him he's a very gentleman. And he'll stand anyone a drink.' By 1535 Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith's son, is far from his humble origins. Chief Minister to Henry VIII, his fortunes have risen with those of Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife, for whose sake Henry has broken with Rome and created his own church. But Henry's actions have forced England into dangerous isolation, and Anne has failed to do what she promised: bear a son to secure the Tudor line. When Henry visits Wolf Hall, Cromwell watches as Henry falls in love with the silent, plain Jane Seymour. The minister sees what is at stake: not just the king's pleasure, but the safety of the nation. As he eases a way through the sexual politics of the court, its miasma of gossip, he must negotiate a 'truth' that will satisfy Henry and secure his own career. But neither minister nor king will emerge undamaged from the bloody theatre of Anne's final days. In BRING UP THE BODIES, sequel to the Man Booker Prize-winning 'Wolf Hall', Hilary Mantel explores one of the most mystifying and frightening episodes in English history: the destruction of Anne Boleyn. From history's darkroom, this novel offers a speaking picture to the modern world, a vision of Tudor England so recognizable it defies archaism. It is the work of one of our great writers at the height of her powers.

The Yellow Birds

by Kevin Powers

WINNER OF THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD 2012 

An unforgettable depiction of the psychological impact of war, by a young Iraq veteran and poet, THE YELLOW BIRDS is already being hailed as a modern classic. Everywhere John looks, he sees Murph. He flinches when cars drive past. His fingers clasp around the rifle he hasn't held for months. Wide-eyed strangers praise him as a hero, but he can feel himself disappearing. Back home after a year in Iraq, memories swarm around him: bodies burning in the crisp morning air. Sunlight falling through branches; bullets kicking up dust; ripples on a pond wavering like plucked strings. The promise he made, to a young man's mother, that her son would be brought home safely. With THE YELLOW BIRDS, poet and veteran Kevin Powers has composed an unforgettable account of friendship and loss. It vividly captures the desperation and brutality of war, and its terrible after-effects. But it is also a story of love, of great courage, and of extraordinary human survival. Written with profound emotional insight, especially into the effects of a hidden war on families at home, THE YELLOW BIRDS is one of the most haunting, true and powerful novels of our time. 'THE YELLOW BIRDS is the All Quiet on the Western Front of America's Arab Wars.' (Tom Wolfe, author of The Bonfire of the Vanities ) 'Kevin Powers has conjured a poetic and devastating account of war's effect on the individual.' (Damian Lewis, star of Homeland and Band of Brothers ) 'Inexplicably beautiful'. (Ann Patchett, Orange Prize-winning author of Bel Canto and State of Wonder)

Bring Up The Bodies

by Hilary Mantel

The sequel to the Man Booker-winning Wolf Hall.

'My boy Thomas, give him a dirty look and he'll gouge your eye out. Trip him, and he'll cut off your leg,' says Walter Cromwell in the year 1500. 'But if you don't cut across him he's a very gentleman. And he'll stand anyone a drink.'

By 1535 Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith's son, is far from his humble origins. Chief Minister to Henry VIII, his fortunes have risen with those of Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife, for whose sake Henry has broken with Rome and created his own church. But Henry's actions have forced England into dangerous isolation, and Anne has failed to do what she promised: bear a son to secure the Tudor line. When Henry visits Wolf Hall, Cromwell watches as Henry falls in love with the silent, plain Jane Seymour. The minister sees what is at stake: not just the king's pleasure, but the safety of the nation. As he eases a way through the sexual politics of the court, its miasma of gossip, he must negotiate a 'truth' that will satisfy Henry and secure his own career. But neither minister nor king will emerge undamaged from the bloody theatre of Anne's final days.

In 'Bring up the Bodies', sequel to the Man Booker Prize-winning 'Wolf Hall', Hilary Mantel explores one of the most mystifying and frightening episodes in English history: the destruction of Anne Boleyn. This new novel is a speaking picture, an audacious vision of Tudor England that sheds its light on the modern world. It is the work of one of our great writers at the height of her powers.

Also available as an eBook       |      Visit More Man Booker Winners Man Booker Prize.

Behind The Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, And Hope In A Mumbai Undercity

by Katherine Boo

From Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo comes a landmark work of narrative non-fiction that tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the world's most lively but treacherous cities

Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport. As India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees 'a fortune beyond counting' in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood spent in rural poverty, has identified and alternative route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter – Annawadi's 'most-everything girl' – will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, such as Kalu, a 15-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves to be inching closer to the good lives and good times they call 'the full enjoy'.

But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi.

With intelligence, humour, and deep insight into what connects human beings in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the 21st century's hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget.

'It might surprise you how completely enjoyable this book is, as rich and beautifully written as a novel. In the hierarchy of long-form reporting, Katherine Boo is right up there.' David Sedaris

'This book blew me away . . . One of the most powerful indictments of economic inequality I've ever read.' Barabara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed

'The best book yet written on contemporary India, and the best work of narrative non-fiction I've read in 25 years.' Ramachandra Guha, author of India After Gandhi