
Businesses Recommended by Families from Thomas's Schools
One of The Directory readers suggested we create a Book Club which we agree is a brilliant idea. Below is a list of books Directory readers have read recently and recommend. Please do send us your recommendations and we will add them to the list.
Like a caged bird who is desperate to fly, Miss Benson's Beetle is the story of a woman who breaks free from the confines of her ordinary, small life, in order to follow her dreams.
Highly recommended by Directory Member Alex Pearson, owner of Manuka Direct Manuka Honey - Alex says... "Was a bit dubious at the start but I absolutely loved it, it's a delightful take on female friendship."
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Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah
This fascinating book is set in German East Africa at the beginning of the 20th century when the major European powers are fighting over the land. It focuses on 2 men who both fought in the German army and the impact it had on their lives and families. It won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021 and is well worth a read.
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Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Recommended by Betsy Garrett
Waterstones say "The indie music star known as Japanese Breakfast delivers a complex, thought-provoking memoir of growing up mixed-race and how her mother's death brought her to a reckoning with her own heritage."
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“Filled with new revelations, it's a gripping and surprising story of an extraordinary woman in power. Using Chinese sources, totally untapped by western books, this reappraises one of the great monstresses of modern history...”
says Simon Sebag Montefiore, BBC History Magazine.
“If there is one woman who mattered in the history of modern China, it is the empress dowager Cixi. Her conventional image is queried in this detailed and beautifully narrated biography, which at long last restores the empress dowager to her rightful place...”
says Frank Dikotter, Sunday Times.
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Former Thomas's Parent Betsy Garrett writes... "Here is a list of my most recent favourite reads... I really loved them all and please feel free to use them in The Directory."
Betsy suggested 4 books - 2 are below and we will feature the other 2 in the next couple of weeks.
This is where one can find the best food in town, the best music, the best wine. But there is something else to the place: it makes one forget, even if for just a few hours, the world outside and its immoderate sorrows. In the centre of the tavern, growing through a cavity in the roof, is a fig tree... Read more
And Waterstones summarises Seven Days in June as follows - Eva Mercy is a single mother and bestselling erotica writer who is feeling pressed from all sides. Shane Hall is a reclusive, enigmatic, award-winning novelist, who, to everyone's surprise, shows up unexpectedly in New York. When Shane and Eva meet at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their buried traumas, but also the eyebrows of the Black literati. What no one knows is that fifteen years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. While they may be pretending not to know each other, they can't deny their chemistry - or the fact that they've been secretly writing to each other in their books through the years... Read more
Robbie Millen at The Times writes... “This was one of the surprise pleasures of the longlist. The Fortune Men is Nadifa Mohamed’s fictional take on a true crime. In 1952 Mahmood Mattan is accused of murdering a Jewish shopkeeper in Cardiff. Mattan, a Somali sailor who set up home in Tiger Bay, is a chancer, a no-good boyo, an occasional paternal presence in the lives of his two sons, born to his Welsh wife. The police soon alight on him as the likely suspect. Mohamed, with two previous novels under her belt, does a superb job of evoking the atmosphere of the shifting and occasionally shifty multicultural community of Cardiff’s docks. Sometimes the flashbacks get in the way of the forward momentum and jeopardy of the story — can he clear his name? Will he hang for the crime? — but as The Times reviewer Siobhan Murphy wrote, that Mohamed had created “an intriguing snapshot of an era and a complex main character you can’t help but root for”.”
~Summer reads: The best new fiction books coming out this July
Whether you’re lying on a beach or in your back garden, these are the new releases to read this summer:
Jess Kelham-Hohler from The Glossary writes...
"Longer, warmer days are perfect for diving into a new read. Whether you’re heading out of the city on a staycation, going abroad on holiday or lounging in a park, this month’s new fiction books offer a much-needed dose of escapism. From Killing Eve-esque murderous satires to romantic dramas, July is packed with impressive debuts and follow-ups from bestselling authors. Here, we’ve rounded up the best new fiction books to add to your reading list this month."
Read a review of each book HERE
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Few places are as familiar as the shore - and few as full of mystery and surprise.
How do sandhoppers inherit an inbuilt compass from their parents? How do crabs understand the tides? How can the death of one winkle guarantee the lives of its companions? What does a prawn know?
In The Sea is Not Made of Water, Adam Nicolson explores the natural wonders of the intertidal and our long human relationship with it. The physics of the seas, the biology of anemone and limpet, the long history of the earth, and the stories we tell of those who have lived here: all interconnect in this zone where the philosopher, scientist and poet can meet and find meaning.
In this blend of fascinating, surprising ecology and luminous human history, Adam Nicolson gives an invitation to the shoreline. Anyone who chooses can look beyond their own reflection and find the marvellous there, waiting an inch beneath their nose.
New Yorkers Graham and Audra have a life that looks pretty perfect from the outside. He’s an attorney. She’s a part-time graphic designer and full-time mom to their gifted ten-year-old son, Matthew. Their apartment is lovely, their schedules are full, and they even seem to (mostly) find each other charming after twelve years of marriage.
But, of course, in Katherine Heiny’s novel Standard Deviation, it doesn’t take long to discover that all is not, in fact, perfect.
Recommended by Directory Reader Karen (@phenecakes)
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"A brilliant concept transformed into a brilliant and revelatory book. Completely fascinating and engrossing"
- William Boyd
"Juliet Nicolson has done something incredibly clever in her book Frostquake. She has written living history. It is stunning." - Joanna Lumley
A stunning new departure for Maggie O'Farrell's fiction, Hamnet is the heart-stopping story behind Shakespeare's most famous play.
On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?
Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London. Neither parent knows that one of the children will not survive the week.
Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright. It is a story of the bond between twins, and of a marriage pushed to the brink by grief. It is also the story of a kestrel and its mistress; a flea that boards a ship in Alexandria; and a glovemaker's son who flouts convention in pursuit of the woman he loves. Above all, it is a tender and unforgettable reimagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.
~How can Britain plan for war with Germany without knowing Stalin's intentions? The Baltic States hold the key and in particular Russia's old Grand Duchy, Finland. One man can make a difference and Alex Carlton is recruited by MI2 (the division of Military Intelligence that deals with Russia and Scandinavia) to go undercover in Finland to gain insight into Finnish intentions; but will Alex's past be a help or hindrance? As he progresses through training and prepares for his mission, Alex's life becomes complicated by love and intrigue that nearly derails his assignment and that would upset Winston Churchill himself!"
Easter Reading Review by Book Luver
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"A gentle book I couldn’t put down about the author’s family secrets, the answers to which are uncovered only by forensically looking through old black and white photos. The pre-war Lincolnshire coast was so vividly described I almost felt the sand between my toes and it’s remoteness echoed the submissive isolation of one of the central characters."
"Most people will know John Boyne from his hard-hitting book The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, but this book is something else entirely. A big, sweeping novel about love, identity and acceptance. One of my favourite books."
“I loved this book. Honest, sad, laugh-out-loud funny, touching.” Author, Sandra Danby
“A masterpiece”. Goodreads
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Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid"A gripping novel about the whirlwind rise of an iconic 1970s rock group and their beautiful lead singer, revealing the mystery behind their infamous break up."
“incredible, intoxicating, unforgettable”. Goodreads
“The characters were beautifully layered and complex”. Reece Witherspoon
Reviews of The Heart's Invisible Furies and Daisy Jones and The Six by Directory reader, Annabel Dearlove
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No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
Recommended by former Thomas's pupil Alex.
'I really admire and love this book. Patricia Lockwood is a completely singular talent and this is her best, funniest, weirdest, most affecting work yet.’ Author and screenwriter Sally Rooney
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Contact: Please send your book recommendations and reviews to: Katie and Sarah