Reading Groups Collection Multiple-Copy Titles Available for Loan Master list revised May 2019 Susan ABULHAWA - Mornings in Jenin (2011, 352 pages) Palestine, 1948. A mother clutches her six-month-old son as Israeli soldiers march through the village of Ein Hod. In a split second, her son is snatched from her arms and the fate of the Abulheja family is changed forever. Forced into a refugee camp in Jenin , the family struggles to rebuild their world. Their stories unfold through the eyes of the youngest sibling, Amal, the daughter born in the camp who will eventually find herself alone in the United States; the eldest son who loses everything in the struggle for freedom; the stolen son who grows up as an Israeli, becoming an enemy soldier to his own brother. Mornings in Jenin is a novel of love and loss, war and oppression, and heartbreak and hope, spanning five countries and four generations of one of the most intractable conflicts of our lifetime. Ayobami ADEBAYO - Stay with me (2017, 298 pages) Yejide is hoping for a miracle, for a child. It is all her husband wants, all her mother-in-law wants, and she has tried everything - arduous pilgrimages, medical consultations, dances with prophets, appeals to God. But when her in- laws insist upon a new wife, it is too much for Yejide to bear. It will lead to jealousy, betrayal and despair. Unravelling against the social and political turbulence of '80s Nigeria, Stay with Me sings with the voices, colours, joys and fears of its surroundings. Ayobami Adebayo weaves a devastating story of the fragility of married love, the undoing of family, the wretchedness of grief and the all-consuming bonds of motherhood. It is a tale about our desperate attempts to save ourselves and those we love from heartbreak. Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize 2017, and the Wellcome Prize 2018. Chimamanda ADICHIE – Half of a Yellow Sun (2007, 448 pages) This is a heartbreaking, literary masterpiece. set in Nigeria during the 1960s, at the time of a vicious civil war in which a million people died and thousands were massacred in cold blood. The three main characters in the novel are swept up in the violence during these turbulent years. As these people's lives intersect, they have to question their own responses to the unfolding political events. This extraordinary novel is about Africa in a wider sense: about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race; and about the ways in which love can complicate all of these things. Chimamanda ADICHIE – Purple Hibiscus (2003, 307 pages) A haunting tale of an Africa and an adolescence undergoing tremendous changes. The limits of fifteen-year-old Kambili's world are defined by the high walls of her family estate and the dictates of her repressive and fanatically religious father. Her life is regulated by schedules: prayer, sleep, study, and more prayer. When Nigeria begins to fall apart during a military coup, Kambili's father, involved mysteriously in the political crisis, sends Kambili and her brother away to live with their aunt. In this house, full of energy and laughter, she discovers life and love – and a terrible, bruising secret deep within her family. Chimamanda ADICHIE – Americanah (2014, 400 pages) A story of love and race centred around a young woman and man from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home. Ifemelu - beautiful, self-assured - departs for America to study, and achieves success as a writer of an eye- opening blog about race in America. Obinze - the quiet, thoughtful son of a professor – 1 grows to be a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria. But when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion - for their homeland and for each other - they will face the toughest decisions of their lives. A richly told story of love and expectation set in today's globalized world. Mitch ALBOM – Tuesdays with Morrie (Non-Fiction) (2003, 212 pages) Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher or a colleague; someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, and gave you sound advice. For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly 20 years ago. Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you? Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying Morrie visited Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final "class": lessons in how to live. Louisa May ALCOTT – Little Women (2012, [1868], 432 pages) Christmas won't be the same this year for Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, as their father is away fighting in the Civil War, and the family has fallen on hard times. But thought they may be poor, life for the four March sisters is rich with colour, as they play games, put on wild theatricals, make new friends, argue, grapple with their vices, learn from their mistakes, nurse each other through sickness and disappointments, and get into all sorts of trouble. Naomi ALDERMAN – The power (2016, 340 pages) In The Power the world is a recognisable place: there's a rich Nigerian kid who larks around the family pool; a foster girl whose religious parents hide their true nature; a local American politician; a tough London girl from a tricky family. But something vital has changed, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power - they can cause agonising pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, the world changes utterly. Winner of the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for fiction Kitty ALDRIDGE – A trick I learned from dead men (2013, 224 pages) The narrator of the book is twenty-something Lee Hart. He's not the sharpest tool in the box, but his life has been tough; his father left when he was young and his mother has recently died of cancer leaving him, his step-father a sofa-bound television make-over show addict and his deaf and wayward younger brother, Ned, to fend for themselves. Lee lands a job as a trainee at the local funeral home helping Derek prepare the dead for burial or cremation. Far from being a dead end job though, it is here that he learns, ironically, about life, and love in the form of the delivery girl from the local florists. Monica ALI – Brick Lane (2003, 491 pages) Still in her teenage years, Nazneen finds herself in an arranged marriage with a disappointed man who is twenty years older. Away from the mud and heat of her Bangladeshi village, home is now a cramped flat in a high-rise block in London's East End. Nazneen is forced to depend on her husband, but unlike him she is practical and wise. She keeps in touch with her sister Hasina back in the village, but the rebellious Hasina has kicked against cultural tradition and run off in a 'love marriage' with the man of her dreams. When he suddenly turns violent, she is forced into the degrading job of garment girl in a cloth factory. Confined in her flat by tradition and family duty, Nazneen also sews furiously for a living until the radical Karim steps unexpectedly into her life. On a background of racial conflict and tension, they embark on a love affair that forces Nazneen finally to take control of her fate. 2 Isabel ALLENDE – House of the Spirits (1982, 490 pages) Spanning four generations, Isabel Allende's magnificent family saga is populated by a memorable, often eccentric cast of characters. Together, men and women, spirits, the forces of nature, and of history, converge in an unforgettable, wholly absorbing and brilliantly realised novel that is as richly entertaining as it is a masterpiece of modern literature. Maya ANGELOU – I Know why the Caged Bird Sings (Biography) (1969, 281 pages) Maya Angelou's six volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a Black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement and celebration. In this first volume, Maya Angelou beautifully evokes her childhood with her grandmother in the American south of the 1930s. She learns the power of the white folks at the other end of town and suffers the terrible trauma of rape by her mother's lover. 'I write about being a Black American woman, however, I am always talking about what it's like to be a human being. This is how we are, what makes us laugh, and this is how we fall and how we somehow, amazingly, stand up again'. Simon ARMITAGE – Walking home (Non-Fiction) (2012, 250p) In summer 2010 Simon Armitage decided to walk the Pennine Way. Through beautiful and bleak terrain, across lonely fells and into the howling wind, he would be walking home, towards the Yorkshire village where he was born. Travelling as a 'modern troubadour' without a penny in his pocket, he stopped along the way to give poetry readings in village halls, churches, pubs and living rooms. His audiences varied from the passionate to the indifferent, and his readings were accompanied by the clacking of pool balls, the drumming of rain and the bleating of sheep.