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Man Booker Prize Winner 2018
The Reading Desk is pleased to welcome Barbara De Garcia as our Guest, to provide us with her wonderful review of Milkman.
An unconventional book about an unconventional girl, living in times where life was highly conventionalized within the respective communities (working class Catholic and working-class Protestant). The vision…
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Narcissism
Beauty is only Skin Deep! But to what extent can it mask the evil that lies beneath?
Skin Deep is a breath-taking, expressive and ultimately heart-breaking novel. The title reflects on the ever-increasing preoccupation we have on image over substance. The story portrays the lack of normal reciprocal human relationships, masked…
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Serendipity
The Misremembered Man is a captivating and very endearing story of 2 mature people dealing with a harsh past, a lonely present and a hope for a renewed future. Jamie McCloone and Lydia Devine are, both strangers, both seeking companionship, and both hoping for something meaningful in their autumn years….
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Exposé
“Oh Truheart. You little motherfucker. What have you done?! That’s before she reads the worst of it … When she gets to the bloodstained sheets, she fumbles for the phone. Babe answers on the first ring. ‘Well?’ ‘I feel like I just got punched in the gut.’ ‘Yes, but…
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Fragile
Elizabeth Strout has written a remarkable book that communicates 9 different, but intertwined stories. There are various fascinating threads running between each story and the dialogue is superbly written to create a telling glimpse into the characters’ lives. Anything is Possible presents a wonderful range and balance between character variety, believability…
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Transformation
This is the first epic instalment of the IBIS Trilogy. The story starts in 1838 on the eve of the first opium wars. Deeti is the initial character introduced to the story and she is the widow of an opium-addicted husband and avoids the immolation pyre (a tradition she…
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Discrimination
Sing Unburied Sing is an exposure of aspects in American society that are uncomfortable to acknowledge but are told with a pointed, honest and heartfelt sense of purpose. Jesmyn Ward airs these issues in an unabbreviated depiction of poverty, drug abuse, and racial discrimination in the USA’s Southern states.
The…
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Compulsion
Lydia Syson’s Mr Peacocks Possessions is a wonderfully poetic and unrestrained book of family and community struggles, survival, and division. Mr Peacock has a burning desire to own and manage his own place, to be self-sustainable, and master of his own domain. Swiss Family Robinson may be the dream, the reality…
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Deception
At the onset of the black plague in 1348, a group of travellers band together to seek refuge against the disease and journey to a safe location. Each member of the group has a hidden secret and one, in particular, has something more sinister to conceal. The secrets they…
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Unconventional
I came across this book quite by chance in a general store that didn’t typically sell books, so I was already in the mood for something unique and off-the-wall. East of Nowhere is a book that introduces characters that are bizarre, situations that are damaging and a lifestyle that…
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