BOOKMARK January 2025 Book recommendations
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January Titles
All books are available from Adventure Into Books in Blairgowrie.
Think Twice by Harlan Coban
(Cornerstone, 2024)
Crime Fiction
Think Twice by Harlan Coban (ISBN: 9781804943410, paperback) Sports agent Myron Bolitar has an unexpected visit from the FBI, who want to question him about his former client and rival, Greg Downing after Greg’s DNA puts him at the scene of a double murder. Only trouble is, Greg died three years ago. Truly a web of secrets and lies.
Killing Time by Alan Bennett
(Faber & Faber, 2024)
Fiction
Killing Time by Alan Bennett (ISBN: 9780571394814, hardback). Set in a home for the elderly (Hill Topp House, not to be confused with its near neighbour, Low Moor – a far less desirable residence), it abounds with deliciously drawn characters. As Covid lays the staff low, the rules begin to slip and the residents make a (slow-paced) bid for freedom.
The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
(Simon & Schuster, 2024)
Fiction
The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali (ISBN: 9781398534759, paperback) is an epic of friendship and betrayal, upheaval and dreams. Forced to leave Tehran, seven-year old Ellie meets the irrepressible Homa on her first day at her new school. They become firm friends until life takes Ellie back to Tehran and her memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later Homa enters Ellie’s privileged world, changing the course of both their lives.
Thunderclap by Lara Cumming
(Vintage Publishing, 2024)
Non-Fiction
Thunderclap by Lara Cumming (ISBN: 9781529922530, paperback). Part memoire, part exploration, part philosophy, if you are interested in art and the Dutch Masters (in particular, the painter Carel Fabritius, who died in 1654 when a gunpowder explosion devasted the city of Delft), this could be the book for you. I don’t always agree with the blurb, but on this occasion, I do: ‘This is a book about what a picture may come to mean, how it can enter your life and change your thinking in a thunderclap.’
The Unknown Warrior by John Nichol
(Simon & Schuster, 2024)
History
The Unknown Warrior by John Nichol (ISBN: 9781398509443, hardback) is harrowing, moving, compelling and, according to one of our customers: ‘Should be compulsory reading in every high school.’ Nichol, a former Tornado navigator and prolific writer on military history, tells the story of how the idea of the ‘unknown soldier’ came about, and how one dead, unnamed soldier came to be chosen to represent so many of the missing. Moved from the battlefields to be buried at Westminster Abbey, the unknown soldier gave a focus for the grief of a nation that was heart-broken at the loss of their sons.
Spice by Roger Crowley
(The History Press, 2024)
History
Spice by Roger Crowley (ISBN: 9780300267471, hardback). The search for the spices of the East motivated Europe’s explorers for centuries, saw the rise and fall of colonial powers, and set in train a new era of global trade. This book tells that story, seasoned with eyewitness accounts and peppered with adventure (sorry – had to be done!)