BOOK CLUB
BARRY THE PENGUIN’S BLACK AND WHITE CHRISTMAS BY RACHEL BELLMAN (2010) Rachel Bellman has published a musical picture book with an accompanying CD, Barry the Penguin’s Black and White Christmas, featuring original songs and narration by Christopher Eccleston Barry is a penguin detective with enough gumption to carry him from one end of the earth to the other and back again. When Father Christmas is kidnapped by the evil Bedbug Queen it looks like Christmas will be destroyed forever. Only the chosen one, a girl called Phoebe, can save him. The book was adapted from the original musical by Lesley Ross and John-Victor, and developed by Perfect Pitch.
MY HUSBAND’S WIFE BY JANE CORRY (1974) An eye for an eye. A wife for a wife. Lily is a newly-married, freshly-qualified solicitor in the year 2000. Her first case is to handle an appeal by a renowned murderer. Fast forward fifteen years, and Lily is asked to handle another case. To defend her first husband’s wife. Is her successor innocent? Or could her first client really be the culprit? Most important of all, is this Lily’s chance to wreak revenge?
To be published by Penguin on 26 August 2016, follow her on Twitter: @janecorryauthor
MISS CAVELL WAS SHOT: THE DIARIES OF AMY HODSON, 1914–1920 BY MONICA KENDALL (1972) In August 1914, thirteen-year-old Amy was trapped on the Belgian seacoast as war was declared with Germany. British, resilient and feisty, she got back to occupied Brussels and began her war diaries. Amy knew Nurse Cavell and Ada Bodart, members of the secret network
who worked to get Allied soldiers across the frontier. She writes of zeppelins, food shortages, constant gunfire and spies. ‘The teenage Amy is at once observant, resilient and poignant in her daily recordings of the deprivations and small joys, the horrors and the mundaneness of an adolescence lived in a time of war. I loved this book.’ Vanessa Furse Jackson, Times Higher Education
Published by SilverWood Books 2015
CREATIVE, SUCCESSFUL, DYSLEXIC: 23 HIGH ACHIEVERS SHARE THEIR STORIES BY MARGARET ROOKE (1979) Darcey Bussell CBE, David Bailey CBE, Eddie Izzard and 20 other prominent personalities with dyslexia have told their stories in this new book. It aims to encourage today’s school children who have this common but challenging condition. Sir Richard Branson says dyslexia taught him to delegate; Prime Suspect creator Lynda La Plante CBE says she uses the way her brain is programmed to help her to move plots forward, Scotland and Everton footballer Steven Naismith says he believes the different way his brain is wired helps him with his game. The book’s author Margaret Rooke remembers her shock and concern when her 13-year-old daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia. No one else in the family had struggled with their education. ‘I decided to write the book to show my daughter that she could still pursue her dreams,’ she says. ‘All the stories in the book are incredibly inspiring. Before I started the book, I had no idea how many hugely successful people are dyslexic and the degree to which they put their success down to dyslexia.’
THE BOOK OF JOBS BY LUCY TOBIN (2004) Lucy Tobin, now working in journalism, is always interviewing people in interesting jobs, so she decided to compile her own careers guide. The Book of Jobs contains ‘a day in the life’ style diaries from people doing a huge range of jobs, from a cabinet minister to Tim Peake, Britain’s first European Space Agency Astronaut. Also included are chef Antonio Carluccio, designer Kelly Hoppen, footballer Michael Owen and author Tracy Chevalier plus bankers, actuaries, publishers, fashion designers, barristers, zookeepers, app developers and lots more.
CHAINS OF SAND BY JEMMA WAYNE (1998) He has always been good at tracking down things that are hidden, like cockroaches in his mother’s kitchen cupboard, or tunnels in Gaza. At 26, Udi is a veteran of the Israeli army and has killed five men. He wants a new life in a new place. He has a cousin in England. Daniel is 29, a Londoner, an investment banker and a Jew. He wants for nothing, yet he too is unable to escape an intangible yearning for something more. And for less. He looks to Israel for the answer. But as the war with Hamas breaks out, Daniel cannot know that the star-crossed love of a Jewish girl and an Arabic man in Jerusalem a decade earlier, will soon complicate all that he thinks has become clear. Chains of Sand is the eagerly awaited second novel from Jemma Wayne. Her first novel After Before was long-listed in 2015 for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, shortlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award, and long-listed for the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize.
Creative, Successful, Dyslexic will raise funds for Dyslexia Action.
2016 | ONLINE
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