People Like Us is Jason Mott’s electric new novel. It is not memoir, yet it has deeply personal connections to Jason’s life. And while rooted in reality, it explodes with dreamlike experiences that pull a reader in and don’t let go, from the ability to time travel to sightings of sea monsters and peacocks, and feelings of love and memory so real they hurt.

In People Like Us, two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. And as their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds.

People Like Us is wickedly funny and achingly sad all at once. It is an utter triumph bursting with larger-than-life characters who deliver a very real take on our world. This book contains characters experiencing deep loss and longing; it also is buoyed by riotous humor and characters who share the deepest love.

It is the newest creation of a writer whose work amazes, delivering something utterly new yet instantly recognizable as a Jason Mott novel. Finishing the novel will leave you absolutely breathless and, at the same time, utterly filled with joy for life, changed forever by characters who are people like us.

The Old Wives' Tale is a superb novel by Arnold Bennett, first published in 1908. It tells the story of the Baines sisters—shy, retiring Constance and defiant, romantic Sophia—over the course of nearly half a century.

Bennett traces the lives of the sisters from childhood in their father's drapery shop in provincial Bursley, England, during the mid-Victorian era, through their married lives, to the modern industrial age, when they are reunited as old women.

The setting moves from the Five Towns of the Staffordshire Potteries to exotic and cosmopolitan Paris. The narrative beautifully captures the transition from the subdued domestic routine of the Baines household to the dramatic events of the modern age, such as the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.

This novel was inspired by Bennett's observation of an old lady in a café, sparking a reflection on how her life might have been lived. The Old Wives' Tale is a testament to the integrity of ordinary lives, making it as readable and enjoyable today as it was over a century ago.

The misty sea spray caressing Catherine's face portends the unclear path ahead as she contemplates the beginning of her new life in California. Her ten-year journey will include a new relationship, a trek to the highest summit in the contiguous United States, and a poignant hospice experience that will challenge her to rise from the ashes of despair.

Catherine decides to leave Boston when a company from the Silicon Valley presents an offer for her very successful website design company. After accepting the buyout, she signs a contract with a Los Angeles based health care corporation to work as a consultant and thus begins her decade-long stay on the west coast. As time passes in her sunny new environment, Catherine grows increasingly homesick despite the thrill of falling in love and her passion for hiking the Southern California trails.

Conflicts arise when the desire to return to her native New England dominates her thoughts and she meets Kenny, a young man who is facing his final days. As Catherine sits at Kenny's bedside, she helps him work through his struggles to understand love and devotion while facing the fear of a completed life's journey. Their conversations inspire her to reflect deeply upon her own life, the decisions she has made, and the path she must follow.

From her prison cell, Firdaus, sentenced to die for having killed a pimp in a Cairo street, tells of her life from village childhood to city prostitute.

Society's retribution for her act of defiance - death - she welcomes as the only way she can finally be free.

This powerful narrative takes you through the struggles and triumphs of a woman who defies all odds to find her freedom.

Vicky is desperate to make her mark, in a world which just doesn't seem to notice her.

Silence and smiles hide the pain that Nell is keeping to herself.

Sarah's dreams of having a family seem hopeless. And then there's Shannon, who's in trouble at school yet again.

But what these four women don't know is that someone - or something - is watching them. A much-recycled soul, suspended between one life and the next, realises that Vicky, Nell, Sarah and Shannon are embarking on their journey towards Motherhood. As memories from past incarnations return to this Soul, it becomes clear that one of these women will be chosen to guide it once more.

Soul to Take explores what it is to become a parent and considers the possibility that actually, our children are the ones who carefully select us.

After a long and eventful life, Allan Karlsson ends up in a nursing home, believing it to be his last stop. The only problem is that he’s still in good health, and one day, he turns 100. A big celebration is in the works, but Allan really isn’t interested (and he’d like a bit more control over his alcohol consumption). So he decides to escape. He climbs out the window in his slippers and embarks on a hilarious and entirely unexpected journey.

It would be the adventure of a lifetime for anyone else, but Allan has a larger-than-life backstory: Not only has he witnessed some of the most important events of the twentieth century, he has actually played a key role in them. Quirky and utterly unique, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared has charmed readers across the world.

Buddy is a good dog. After searching for his purpose through several eventful lives, Buddy is sure that he has found and fulfilled it. Yet as he watches curious baby Clarity get into dangerous mischief, he is certain that this little girl is very much in need of a dog of her own.

When Buddy is reborn, he realizes that he has a new destiny. He's overjoyed when he is adopted by Clarity, now a vibrant but troubled teenager. As Clarity navigates the ups and downs of adolescence, Buddy is there to protect, cheer, rescue, and love her unconditionally. When they are suddenly separated, Buddy despairs—who will take care of his girl?

More than just another endearing dog tale, A Dog's Journey is the moving story of unwavering loyalty and a love that crosses all barriers, that asks the question: Do we really take care of our pets, or do they take care of us?

When God Was a Rabbit is an incredibly exciting debut from an extraordinary new voice in fiction. Spanning four decades, from 1968 onwards, this is the story of a fabulous but flawed family and the slew of ordinary and extraordinary incidents that shape their everyday lives.

It is a story about childhood and growing up, loss of innocence, eccentricity, familial ties and friendships, love and life. Stripped down to its bare bones, it’s about the unbreakable bond between a brother and sister.

From Essex and Cornwall to the streets of New York, from 1968 to the events of 9/11, it follows the evolving bond of love and secrets between Elly and her brother, Joe, and her increasing concern for her best friend, Jenny Penny, who has secrets of her own. Funny, quirky, utterly compelling, and poignant, too, When God Was a Rabbit heralds the start of a remarkable new literary career.

In a world of presumptuous people, irony is alive and well, concludes James Morrison, the narrator of this touching coming of age novel. A view Shannie Ortolan - James’s longtime friend, sometimes lover, and full-time obsession - wouldn’t argue. From their first encounter as teenagers until Shannie’s death, experience the twists, turns, and enthralling characters that populate Cemetery Street.

On the cusp of the new millennium, James fulfills a promise. Reenacting a childhood ritual, he places a mud pie upon a grave. This simple act triggers powerful memories.

Meet the people that shaped James’s life. Shannie, who among other things, introduces him to the sport of dodging freight trains. Count, the cemetery caretaker's son, helps James navigate the minefields of adolescence until destiny is met in Desert Storm. Russell, an aging blind African-American, guards a horrifying secret behind a cloud of cigar smoke. Diane, Shannie’s mother, a college professor, dispels the notion of tweed jackets and elbow patches. Steve Lucas, a mortician’s son, who despite bizarre obsessions, stands by James during his most challenging times.

Laugh, cry, and blush as James recounts events of late twentieth-century American life.

Get this, I'm supposed to be starting a journal about "my journey." Please. I can see it now: Dear Diary, As I'm set adrift on this crazy sea called "life"... I don't think so.

It's been seventy-five days. Amy's sick of her parents suddenly taking an interest in her. And she's really sick of people asking her about Julia. Julia's gone now, and she doesn't want to talk about it. They wouldn't get it, anyway. They wouldn't understand what it feels like to have your best friend ripped away from you. They wouldn't understand what it feels like to know it's your fault.

Amy's shrink thinks it would help to start a diary. Instead, Amy starts writing letters to Julia. But as she writes letter after letter, she begins to realize that the past wasn't as perfect as she thought it was—and the present deserves a chance too.

A Dog's Life: The Autobiography of a Stray is a captivating tale by Newbery Honor author Ann M. Martin. This heartwrenching yet heartwarming story follows the journey of a stray dog named Squirrel.

Squirrel and her brother, Bone, begin their lives in a toolshed behind a summer house. Their mother lovingly nurtures them and imparts the essential skills needed to survive as stray dogs. However, their world is shattered when their mother is taken from them too soon.

Faced with the harsh realities of life, the puppies must navigate a world filled with humans who are both gentle and brutal, busy highways, other animals, and the ever-changing seasons. When Bone and Squirrel are separated, Squirrel must rely on her instincts to fend for herself.

In her journey of survival, Squirrel forms two friendships that, in very distinct ways, come to define her fate.

La suma de los días es una obra al tiempo emotiva y escrita en el tono irónico y apasionado que caracteriza a la autora, Isabel Allende. Nos entrega la suma de sus días como mujer y como escritora.

En las páginas de este libro, Isabel Allende narra con franqueza la historia reciente de su vida y la de su peculiar familia en California. Viven en una casa abierta, llena de gente y de personajes literarios, y protegida por un espíritu. El libro abarca hijas perdidas, nietos y libros que nacen, éxitos y dolores, un viaje al mundo de las adicciones y otros a lugares remotos del mundo en busca de inspiración. Además, trata de divorcios, encuentros, amores, separaciones, crisis de pareja y reconciliaciones.

También es una historia de amor entre un hombre y una mujer maduros, que han salvado juntos muchos escollos sin perder ni la pasión ni el humor. Es una mirada a una familia moderna, desgarrada por conflictos y unida, a pesar de todo, por el cariño y la decisión de salir adelante.

Sheer Abandon is an all-consuming story revolving around the consequences of a desperate act. Martha, Clio, and Jocasta meet by chance at Heathrow airport in 1985 as they are starting off on separate backpacking adventures. They decide to spend the first few days of their trips together in Thailand. When they go their separate ways, they vow to get together in London the following year.

But many years pass before the three cross paths again, and the once-capricious, carefree girls now all have thriving careers. One of them, however, harbors a terrible secret: on her return from her pre-college excursion, she abandoned her just-born daughter at Heathrow.

Clio has fulfilled her ambition of becoming a doctor, only to find herself trapped in a marriage to an arrogant surgeon who belittles her and her professional achievements. Martha is a highly paid corporate lawyer, just embarking on a political career. Dedicated to her job, she has had little time for personal relationships and lives a busy, but lonely life. Jocasta, a tabloid newspaper reporter with an infallible instinct for the big story, is in love with a charming colleague who can’t make the permanent commitment she longs for.

The infant abandoned at Heathrow has grown up under the loving care of her adoptive family. Now a beautiful teenager named Kate, she sets out to find her birth mother—a quest that unexpectedly brings the women together and exposes the secret buried so many years before.

Having been a songwriter most of my life, condensing my ideas and emotions into short rhyming couplets and setting them to music, I had never really considered writing a book. But upon arriving at the reflective age of fifty, I found myself drawn, for the first time, to write long passages that were as stimulating and intriguing to me as any songwriting I had ever done.

And so Broken Music began to take shape. It is a book about the early part of my life, from childhood through adolescence, right up to the eve of my success with the Police. It is a story very few people know.

I had no interest in writing a traditional autobiographical recitation of everything that’s ever happened to me. Instead, I found myself drawn to exploring specific moments, certain people and relationships, and particular events which still resonate powerfully for me as I try to understand the child I was, and the man I became.

Secrets, lies and coincidences abound in this story of a young girl looking for her father. Alice, now twenty-one years old, is determined to find her father who left home when she was just a baby, despite a warning from her mother that she should not look for him.

Her mother's secretiveness over the subject is because of the guilt she feels about keeping the truth from Alice. It will take all of Alice's courage to persevere in her search. There are doubts and uncertainties at every turn.

Coincidences is a story about following your dreams and staying on the path no matter how difficult the circumstances may become.

John Turner, a young man with a checkered past, has been told he has just one year to live. He decides to use his remaining time in search of three very different men he met in the hospital during the war, each of them in trouble of some kind: a pilot whose wife had betrayed him, a young corporal charged with killing a civilian in a brawl, and a black G.I. wrongly accused of the attempted rape of a white English girl.

As Turner discovers where these men have landed on the checkerboard of life, he learns about compassion, tolerance, and second chances, and overcomes his fear of death. Underlying the novel is the Buddhist belief in reincarnation and redemption. Despite his shady past, Turner, through his attempts to help his fellow patients and his acceptance of his death, moves closer to Nirvana.

Beachcombing at Miramar: The Quest for an Authentic Life is a profound exploration of one man's journey to uncover the truth about his life.

Richard Bode retreats to a California beach, where he spends time contemplating the sea and the shore. Tuning into the rhythms of the tides, he observes, experiences, and remembers. Through these reflections, Bode shares insights that have the power, much like the sea, to reshape our lives.

This book invites readers to embark on their own quest for authenticity, encouraging a deeper connection with nature and oneself.

Krishna, an English teacher in the town of Malgudi, is constantly nagged by the feeling that he's doing the wrong work. Despite this, he is delighted by his domestic life, where his wife and young daughter wait for him outside the house every afternoon.

Devastated by the death of his wife, Krishna comes to realize what he truly wants to do. He makes a decision that will change his life forever.