Tooting Book Club - current book list
Here is the list of books on the current list - if you would like to add a book to the list please bring your suggestion to the next meeting.
The Stationery Shop of Tehran by Marjan Kamali (320 pages)
Kindle £2.99 Paperback £9.19
1953, Tehran. In a small shop in a country on the brink of unrest, two people meet for the very first time.
Roya loves nothing better than to while away the hours in the stationery shop run by Mr Fakhri. The store, stocked with fountain pens, shiny ink bottles, and thick wads of writing paper, also carries translations of literature from all over the world. Bahman, with his burning passion for justice, is like no one else she has ever met.
But all around them, as their relationship blossoms, life in Tehran is changing.
Suddenly, shockingly, violence erupts: a coup d'etat that forever changes their country's future, as well as their own.
Aerth by Deborah Tomkins (160 pages)
Kindle £4.99 Paperback £9.95
Magnus lives on Aerth, which is currently moving into an Ice Age, with a strange virus limiting the population. When the planet Urth is discovered, he vows to become an astronaut and travel there, but on arriving he finds it hot, crowded, corrupt and violent, despite it being initially welcoming. Slowly Magnus realises he will not find what he's looking for, but there seems to be no way back…..
Ragnarok by AS Byatt (192 pages)
Kindle £5.99 Paperback £9.19
As the bombs rain down in the Second World War, one young girl is evacuated to the English countryside. Struggling to make sense of her new wartime life, she is given a copy of a book of ancient Norse myths and her inner and outer worlds are transformed.
Satantango by Laszlo Krasznahorkai (288 pages)
Kindle £5.99 Paperback £10.99
In the darkening embers of a communist utopia, life in a desolate Hungarian town has come to a virtual standstill. Flies buzz, spiders weave, water drips and animals root desultorily in the barnyard of a collective farm.
But when the charismatic Irimias - long thought dead- returns, the villagers fall under his spell. Irimias sets about swindling the villagers out of a fortune that might allow them to escape the emptiness and futility of their existence. He soon attains a messianic aura as he plays on the fears of the townsfolk and a series of increasingly brutal events unfold.
The Names by Florence Knapp (352 pages)
Kindle £5.49 Amazon Paperback £4.99
It is 1987, and in the wake of a great storm, Cora sets out with her young daughter to register the birth of her son. Her husband expects her to follow tradition and call the baby after him - but is it right for her child to inherit his name from generations of domineering men? Her choice will shape the course of their lives.
Seven years later, her son is Bear, a name chosen by his sister, hoping he will grow up to be brave and big-hearted. Or he is Julian, the name his mother set her heart on, keen for him to become his own person. Or he is Gordon, named after his father and raised in his cruel image - but is there still a chance to break the mould?
Powerfully moving and full of hope, this is the story of three names, three versions of a life, and the infinite possibilities that a single decision can spark.
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (318 pages)
Kindle £5.99 Amazon Paperback £7.99
A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A storm gathering force.
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny weather-lashed island that is home to the world’s largest seed bank. As Shearwater risks being lost to rising sea levels, the island’s researchers have fled, and only the Salts remain.
Until, during the worst storm in living memory, a stranger washes ashore. The family nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, but it seems she isn’t telling the whole truth about why she’s there. And when Rowan stumbles upon sabotaged radios and a recently dug grave, she realises that she’s not the only one on the island with a secret.
The Will Of The Many - James Islington (720 pages) - WARNING; OVER 400 PAGES
Kindle £5.99 Amazon paperback £8.47
Fantasy Novel. The story follows the orphaned Vis Telimus as he is recruited for the prestigious Catenan Academy and tasked with rising through the cutthroat competition to uncover the secret behind a mysterious accident. But Vis has his own shadowed past, and it threatens to follow him even into the heart of the Republic.
A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles (440 pages) WARNING; OVER 400 PAGES
Kindle £8.99 Amazon paperback £9.49
A Bolshevik Tribunal sentences Count Rostov to lifelong house arrest in the opulent Hotel Metropol in Moscow. Stripped of his wealth, he lives through decades of political and social upheaval within the hotel's walls, ultimately discovering profound purpose, lifelong friendships, and unexpected love.
Yesteryear - Caro Claire Burke (390 pages)
Kindle £9.99 Amazon paperback £9.99
Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle (‘trad wife’)– and her followers are sick with envy. Her charming farmhouse on her working ranch is artfully cluttered, her husband is a handsome cowboy, her homemade sourdough boules are each more beautiful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers and industrial-grade ovens behind the scenes? What her followers don’t know won’t hurt them.
Then, one morning, Natalie wakes up in a strange, horrible version of reality. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Is this a hoax? A reality show? A test from God? Natalie knows just two things for sure: this isn't her perfect life, and she must escape, by any means possible.
As darkly funny as it is shocking and gripping, Yesteryear is an electrifying examination of tradition, fame, faith and the grand performance of womanhood, from a thrilling new talent in fiction.
The Coin - Yasmin Zaher (240 pages)
Kindle £4.99 Amazon paperback £8.95
The Coin's narrator is a wealthy Palestinian woman with impeccable style and meticulous hygiene. And yet the ideal self, the ideal life, remains just out of reach: her inheritance is inaccessible, her homeland exists only in her memory, and her attempt to thrive in America seems doomed from the start.
In New York, she strives to put down roots. She teaches at a school for underprivileged boys, where her eccentric methods cross boundaries. She befriends a homeless swindler, and the two participate in an intercontinental scheme reselling Birkin bags.
But America is stifling her--her willfulness, her sexuality, her principles. In an attempt to regain control, she becomes preoccupied with purity, cleanliness, and self-image, all while drawing her students into her obsessions. In an unforgettable denouement, her childhood memories converge with her material and existential statelessness, and the narrator unravels spectacularly.
