Black Swan The Book of Negroes Hill Lawrence

For centuries, scientists had only one way to study the brain: wait for misfortune to strike - strokes, seizures, infections, lobotomies, horrendous accidents, phantom limbs, Siamese twins - and see how the victims changed afterwards. In many cases their survival was miraculous, and observers marvelled at the transformations that took place when different parts of the brain were destroyed. Parents suddenly couldn't recognise their children. Pillars of the community became pathological liars and paedophiles. Some people couldn't speak but could still sing. Others couldn't read but could write • The stories of these people laid the foundations of modern neuroscience and, century by century, key cases taught scientists what every last region of the brain did

What do our possessions say about us? Why do we project such meaning onto them? What becomes of the things we leave behind? • Only after her mother's death does Susannah Walker discover how much of a hoarder she had become. Over the following months, Susannah has to sort through a dilapidated house filled to the brim with rubbish and treasures - filling bag after bag with possessions. But what she's really in search of is a woman she'd never really known or understood in life. This is her last chance to piece together her mother's story and make sense of their troubled relationship • What emerges from the mess of scattered papers, discarded photographs and an extraordinary amount of stuff is the history of a sad and fractured family, haunted by dead children, divorce and alcohol

London, 1996. Robin and Ruth meet in the staff room of an East London school. Robin, desperate for a real connection, instantly falls in love. Ruth, recently bereaved and fragile, is tentative • When Robin introduces Ruth to his childhood friend, Joseph, a tortured and talented artist, their attraction is instant. Powerless, Robin watches on as the girl he loves and his best friend begin a passionate and turbulent affair • Dublin 2017. Robin and Ruth are married and have a son, Sid, who is about to emigrate to Berlin. Theirs is a marriage haunted by the ghost of Joseph and as the distance between them grows, Robin makes a choice that could have potentially devastating consequences • The Weight of Love is a beautiful exploration of how we manage life when the notes and beats of our existence, so carefully arranged, begin to slip off the stave

What he experienced that day wasn’t life-changing . . . It was life-making • Tomura is startled by the hypnotic sound of a piano being tuned in his school. It seeps into his soul and transports him to the forests, dark and gleaming, that surround his beloved mountain village. From that moment, he is determined to discover more • Under the tutelage of three master piano-tuners – one humble, one jovial, one ill-tempered – Tomura embarks on his training, never straying too far from a single, unfathomable question: do I have what it takes? • Set in small-town Japan, this warm and mystical story is for the lucky few who have found their calling – and for the rest of us who are still searching. It shows that the road to finding one’s purpose is a winding path, often filled with treacherous doubts and, for those who persevere, astonishing moments of revelation

How Far Would You Go to Get the Life You Can't Have? • Shyama, aged forty-eight, has fallen for a younger man. They want a child together • Meanwhile, in a rural village in India, young Mala, trapped in an oppressive marriage, dreams of escape • When Shyama and Mala meet, they help each other realise their dreams. But will fate guarantee them both happiness? • Brimming with warmth, wit and indignation, Meera Syal immerses us in a devastating story of friendship, family and the lengths we will go to have a perfect life. THE HOUSE OF HIDDEN MOTHERS is her long-awaited third novel and shows Meera Syal at the height of her literary powers

William Cody grows up surrounded by his father's tales of Buffalo Bill, to whom he is distantly related, and his fantasies of the Wild West • Though he escapes his heritage by fleeing abroad and starting a new life for himself, he finds that he is always drawn back to England and to his ancestry • When his father proposes that together they should recreate Buffalo Bill's stage show, "The Congress of Rough Riders of the World" for a contemporary audience, William refuses to have any part of it. When tragedy strikes, however, it is to his father that he must eventually return

Does 'friends' ever really mean just 'friends'? • Gina and Laurence have been the best of friends ever since they were teenagers. Love has never been a factor • Now, Gina is married to the exquisitely tasteful Fergus and lives in stylish perfection in a huge house; Laurence is married to down-to-earth Hilary and lives in the Bee House, a home and hotel • When, with elegant disdain, Fergus announces that he is leaving Gina and their teenage daughter, Gina's misery ricochets through the two homes and she turns for emotional support to Laurence, her dearest friend • And as Laurence gives comfort, so his own marriage and the stability of his children edges towards destruction

This novel from the Sunday Times bestselling Trisha Ashley will more than satisfy romantic comedy fans. And it also contains recipes! • When Carey Revell unexpectedly becomes the heir to Mossby, his family’s ancestral home, it’s rather a mixed blessing. The house is large but rundown and comes with a pair of resentful relatives who can’t be asked to leave • Still, newly dumped by his girlfriend and also from his job as a TV interior designer, Carey needs somewhere to lick his wounds. And Mossby would be perfect for a renovation show. He already knows someone who could restore the stained glass windows in the older part of the house… • Angel Arrowsmith has spent the last ten years happily working and living with her artist mentor and partner. But suddenly bereaved, she finds herself heartbroken, without a home or a livelihood

A prime number is inherently a solitary thing: it can only be divided by itself, or by one; it never truly fits with another. Alice and Mattia also move on their own axes, alone with their personal tragedies. As a child Alice's overbearing father drove her first to a terrible skiing accident, and then to anorexia. When she meets Mattia she recognises a kindred spirit, and Mattia reveals to Alice his terrible secret: that as a boy he abandoned his mentally-disabled twin sister in a park to go to a party, and when he returned, she was nowhere to be found • These two irreversible episodes mark Alice and Mattia's lives for ever, and as they grow into adulthood their destinies seem irrevocably intertwined. But then a chance sighting of a woman who could be Mattia's sister forces a lifetime of secret emotion to the surface

Январь 1939 года. Германия. Страна, затаившая дыхание. Никогда еще у смерти не было столько работы. А будет еще больше. Мать везет девятилетнюю Лизель Мемингер и ее младшего брата к приемным родителям под Мюнхен, потому что их отца больше нет - его унесло дыханием чужого и странного слова "коммунист", и в глазах матери девочка видит страх перед такой же судьбой. В дороге смерть навещает мальчика и впервые замечает Лизель. Так девочка оказывается на Химмельштрассе - Небесной улице. Кто бы ни придумал это название, у него имелось здоровое чувство юмора. Не то чтобы там была сущая преисподняя. Нет. Но и никак не рай • "Книжный вор" - недлинная история, в которой, среди прочего, говорится: об одной девочке; о разных словах; об аккордеонисте; о разных фанатичных немцах; о еврейском драчуне; и о множестве краж

Магия принимает множество форм. Древние египтяне объясняли появление ночи предположением, что богиня Нут проглотила солнце. Викинги верили, что радуга - это мост богов на землю. Это волшебные, необыкновенные сказки. Но есть и другой вид волшебства, и оно заключается в радостном возбуждении от поиска реальных ответов на эти вопросы. Это магия науки о реальности • Наполненная вдохновляющими объяснениями пространства, времени и эволюции, приправленная юмором и умными мысленными экспериментами, "Магия реальности. Как мы узнаем, что на самом деле правда" Ричарда Докинза исследует потрясающе широкий спектр природных явлений. Из чего сделан материал? Сколько лет вселенной? Что вызывает цунами? Кто был первым мужчиной или женщиной? Это захватывающая, вдохновляющая детективная история, которая не только использует все науки в поисках разгадок, но и побуждает читателя мыслить как ученый