New Additions
New fiction & non-fiction titles that came into the library earlier this year..
For the full list of our April new additions, click here.
The Improbability of Love
Every painting has a story –and if it could speak, what would it tell us?
Hannah Rothschild, writer, film director and Chair of the National Gallery’s first novel. This absolutely beautiful hardback was published by Bloomsbury last year and is now available at the library.
Impishly wicked, ruthlessly frank, touchingly percipient and sometimes laugh aloud funny to boot. Hannah Rothschild captures the contradiction between art as money and art as the soul of humanity really well. – Rachel Campbell-Johnston, Art Critic for The Times
Morrab Library volunteer Pat Boddy’s thoughts –
A fascinating and wonderfully descriptive book with an intricate plot and very colourful characters. I really enjoyed it.
The Fishermen -Chigozie Obioma
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, this tale of Nigeria in the 1990s is a mighty fry-up of pop-culture, fable and verbal invention… -Click here for the full review in the New Statesman***
A short review by Morrab Library and book selection committee member, Pamela Priske-
Four sons of a Nigerian father who has the highest hopes for each of them -‘professor’, ‘government minister’, etc. are confronted by a village madman prophesying violence and death for the brothers. This story is a metonymy for Nigeria’s promise, undermined by superstition and corruption. A grim, but rewarding, read.
The Book of Memory -Petina Gappah
Petina Gappah powerfully probes the tricksy nature of memory through the story of Memory, or Mnemosyne, an albino woman consigned to Chikurubi prison in Harare, Zimbabwe, convicted of murdering a wealthy white man, Lloyd, her adopted father. She is the first woman in more than 20 years to be sentenced to death. As part of her appeal, she begins writing down her memories of what happened; her notebooks form the novel. Gappah, who won the Guardian first book award in 2009, is also a lawyer, her knowledge brought to bear in this story about the struggle for justice. –The Guardian
Morrab Library member Pamela Priske’s thoughts-
A more conventional novel in that important information is held back till the final chapters -why is the female narrator held in prison under sentence of death?
Again, superstition affects behaviour. Memory is an albino, regarded with abhorrence because such people can only bring bad luck.
Gives insight into Zimbabwe’s horrifying prisons.
The Wallcreeper -Nell Zink
A short review by Pamela Priske, Morrab Library and book selection committee member-
The Wallcreeper is a novel about bird-watching, adultery, drugs, philosophy, conservation and rivers.
Nell is a fifty year old American writer who lives in Berlin and has a wry sense of humour.
My favourite part of the book is liberating the River Elbe.
New November Titles
Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations. — Vladimir Nabokov
A selection of our immersing new fiction for long winter evenings
…and of our illuminating non-fiction books.
For a full list of our most recent acquisitions, click here for fiction, and here for non-fiction.