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.
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
This 2014 novel is set during World War II. It revolves around the characters Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind French girl who takes refuge in her great-uncle's house in Saint-Malo after Paris is invaded by Nazi Germany, and Werner Pfennig, a bright German boy who is accepted into a military school because of his skills in radio technology.
The book alternates between paralleling chapters depicting Marie-Laure and Werner, framed with a nonlinear structure. The novel has a lyrical writing style, with critics noting extensive sensory details. The story has ethical themes, portraying the destructive nature of war and Doerr's fascination with science and nature.
Recommended by Directory Member Lottie Berk Exercise Method by Nicky Whiteford
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Mother's Boy by Patrick Gale
Liz Berman who owns and runs CK Rock in Rock,Cornwall recommends Mother's Boy by Patrick Gale which she is reading at the moment and really enjoying. The book is set in Cornwall and as the Times Literary Supplement says... 'A tender, evocative retelling of the life of the poet Charles Causley . . . Patrick Gale's descriptions of the power of ordinary things in two very different lives make Mother's Boy a moving biographical tribute'.
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Vesper Flights – New and Collected Essays by Helen Macdonald (Author of H is for Hawk)
"Most of what I read is about people – it’s always all about us. But Helen Macdonald opened a door to another world in Vesper Flights. She took me to the Empire State Building below the Atlantic Flyway, ‘the route used by hundreds of millions of birds to fly north every spring to their breeding grounds and back again in the fall.’ She put me straight on boxing hares and she made me want to read more about ants. She wrote about nests. ‘Watching birds, I felt I shared in their freedom. But nests and eggs tied birds down. They made them vulnerable’. Swifts are breathtaking in the book’s title essay, Vesper Flights. I loved this book – it is a nature book and it is also about us but from a different perspective."
Review by former parent and Directory Reader, Cordelia Barbour
Find out more on Waterstone's HERE
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This Must Be The Place by Maggie O'Farrell
A Sunday Times top ten bestseller, this dazzling novel from Costa Novel Award-winner Maggie O'Farrell crosses time zones and continents to reveal an extraordinary portrait of a marriage, the forces that hold it together and the pressures that drive it apart.
Waterstones writes... Meet Daniel Sullivan, a man with a complicated life.
A New Yorker living in the wilds of Ireland, he has children he never sees in California, a father he loathes in Brooklyn and a wife, Claudette, who is a reclusive ex-film star given to shooting at anyone who ventures up their driveway.
He is also about to find out something about a woman he lost touch with twenty years ago, and this discovery will send him off-course, far away from wife and home.
Will his love for Claudette be enough to bring him back?
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Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
Paul Lynch’s fifth novel is the winner of the Booker Prize 2023. A mother faces a terrible choice, in his exhilarating, propulsive and confrontational portrait of a society on the brink.
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her doorstep. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police want to speak with her husband.
Things are falling apart. Ireland is in the grip of a government that is taking a turn towards tyranny. And as the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a collapsing society – assailed by unpredictable forces beyond her control and forced to do whatever it takes to keep her family together.
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Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
This book tells the story of two friends who come together to design video games. Success brings them fame, joy, tragedy and a kind of immortality. Once you start reading this book you may find it impossible to stop!
Waterstones say "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow takes us on a dazzling imaginative quest, examining identity, creativity and our need to connect."
Pandora Sykes said 'This blew me away -- I've never read anything like it.'
Stylist says 'Anyone who reads Tomorrow can'ts stop talking about it. The story of Sam and Sadie and the worlds they create is something truly special.'
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How to Love your Daughter by Hila Blum
Thousands of miles from home, a woman stands on a dark street, looking through lit windows at two little girls. They are the daughters of her only daughter, the grandchildren she's never met. At the centre of this fascinating story is the woman's need to understand how a relationship that began in bliss - a mother besotted with her only child - arrived at a point of such unfathomable distance.
As Waterstones say "What damage do we do in the blindness of love?"
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Go As A River by Shelley Read
It is 1940s, Colorado. Young Victoria Nash is the sole surviving woman in a family of troubled men, and she runs the household on her family's peach farm. Wilson Moon is a young drifter with a mysterious past, displaced from his tribal land, who wants to believe one place is just like another. When Victoria and Wil meet on a street corner, their unexpected connection ignites as much passion as danger and as many revelations as secrets. Tragedy strikes and Victoria flees into the beautiful but harsh wilderness of the nearby mountains. Struggling to survive in unforgiving conditions, with no clear notion of what her future will be, she is forced to make a decision that will change the course of her life forever.
'Shelley Read's lyrical voice is a force of nature and when she lends it to a woman leading a hardscrabble life in rural Colorado, the result is tragic, uplifting and completely unforgettable.'
Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry.
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The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain
This wonderfully crafted book is all about solving perplexing puzzles. The book begins with the bookseller Laurent trying to find Laure as he has something which belongs to her and ends with Laure trying to find Laurent. It is set in Paris where the charm of the city sings through and is an easy read so is ideal for the summer holidays. If you have already read and enjoyed this book Antoine Laurain has a new book out “An Astronomer in Love” which you may enjoy. Let us know if you do and would like to review it for us.
“A clever, funny novel… a masterpiece of Parisian perfection.” Her Majesty Queen Camilla, who featured it in her book club.
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A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Published in 2015, this book has been thrown into the limelight again, with the London opening of the play A Little Life, featuring James Norton.
The 720 page novel has been described as "profound", "moving", "unforgettable", "compelling", "extraordinary", "impossible to put down", "devestating" and many other superlatives. It is an incredible read, telling the story of 4 men who meet at college and how their lives differed before they met and develop after they meet. At its heart is love and friendship but at times it is also a very harrowing read.
If you read this book, we would be interested to know what you think of it.
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Battersea Girl: Tracing a London Life by Martin Knight
Based on the author's elderly grandmother, Ellen Tregent who was born in 1888 and died in 1988. Her lifetime encompassing an unprecedented century of social change and world upheaval. She was born into a poor working-class family in Battersea. Her grandfather had arrived from Ireland 40 years earlier to escape almost certain death as potato famine ravaged his country.
"A very readable social history which would appeal to people who know Battersea and those with an interest in how society changes, or doesn’t because some of the challenges Nell and her family face are still very relevant." Emily Standring, KLS
Recommended by Directory Member and Battersea based charity, Katherine Low Settlement
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The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
An inspirational and uplifting account of an incredible walk along the 630 mile South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset via Devon and Cornwall. The walk was undertaken on impulse by Raynor Winn and her husband, Moth, days after they had become homeless, had lost their livelihood and Moth had been told he was terminally ill.
'An astonishing narrative of two people dragging themselves from the depths of despair along some of the most dramatic landscapes in the country, looking for a solution to their problems and ultimately finding themselves." Independent
Recently recommended by Directory Member Glass Door Homeless Charity
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Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Lessons in Chemistry follows Elizabeth Zott: a one-of-a-kind scientist in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV cooking show.
Nigella Lawson, former Thomas’s Battersea parent, says... “I loved Lessons in Chemistry and am devastated to have finished it”.
Waterstones says... "Smart, funny, joyous and powerful, Garmus' 60s set debut featuring an unconventional female scientist with a quiet game-plan to change the world has won the hearts and minds of our booksellers and is undoubtedly one of 2022's most gloriously enjoyable debuts."
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Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
This award-winning book is beautifully written and in just over 100 pages Claire Keegan makes us believe we are in Ireland in 1985 in the run up to Christmas experiencing the joys and pitfalls of living in a small community.
Highly recommended and it would make a wonderful Mother's Day gift.
Shortlisted for The Booker Prize 2022.
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Coffee with Hitler by Charles Spicer
Telegraph and Spectator History Book of the Year.
How the British might have handled Hitler differently remains one of history's greatest 'what ifs'.
A former Thomas's Battersea parent says... "Just finished this excellent book by first time author Charles Spicer. It's brilliantly written, painstakingly researched and absolutely fascinating. Highly recommended."
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Lessons by Ian McEwan
In his longest novel so far, McEwan looks at the span of a man’s life from Suez to Covid, considering the effects of global events and personal trauma.
The Guardian describes Lessons as Ian McEwan’s “most epic book to date”.
In stock at Chelsea bookshop John Sandoe
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The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson
It was a journey they would always remember for a friend they'd never forget. Norman and Jax are a legendary comedic duo in waiting, with a five-year plan to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe by the time they're fifteen. But when Jax dies before they turn twelve, Norman decides a tribute act for his best friend just can't wait, so he rewrites their plan: 1. Look after Mum | 2. Find Dad | 3. Get to the Edinburgh Fringe
'One of those gorgeous books that completely lifts your spirits and restores your faith in humanity' - Ruth Jones, co-creator of Gavin and Stacey and bestselling author of Us Three
'As moving as it is funny. And it's very funny' - Romesh Ranganathan~
When We Cease To Understand The World by Benjamin Labatut
"An extraordinary ‘nonfiction novel’ weaves a web of associations between the founders of quantum mechanics and the evils of two world wars." The Guardian
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
"A passionate condemnation of the misogyny Jack the Ripper's victims have been held in for over a century, The Five tells an engrossing group biography of Victorian womanhood, blighted by poverty and powerless against casual and constant abuse." Waterstones
Full Tilt, Ireland to India with a Bicycle by Dervla Murphy
Shortly after her tenth birthday, inspired by an atlas she was given, Dervla Murphy decided that she would one day cycle to India. Almost twenty years later she set out to achieve her ambition on her bicycle, Roz. Here she describes her journey and experiences.
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The Year of Miracles Recipes About Love + Grief + Growing Things by Ella Risbridger
This book was recommended to us and it charts a year in Ella's kitchen, including reflections on loss and love together with must-try recipes. As the cook Nigel Slater says 'An extraordinary, heartwarming book with gorgeous recipes. I loved it.'
And as Waterstones say -'This cookbook is about a year in the kitchen (and in the garden under the fire-escape steps). A year of grief and hope and change; of fancy fish pie, cardamom-cinnamon chicken rice, chimichurri courgettes, quadruple carb soup, blackberry miso birthday cake, and sticky toffee Guinness brownie pudding.
A year of loss, and every kind of romance, and fried jam sandwiches. A year of seedlings and pancakes. A year of falling in love. A year of recipes. A year, in other words, of minor miracles.'
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The People on Platform 5 by Clare Pooley
Nobody speaks to strangers on the train. But what would happen if they did? Every day Iona Iverson boards the train to go to work. Every day, she sees the same people and makes assumptions about them, even giving them nicknames. But they never speak. Obviously.
Then, one morning, Smart-but-Sexist-Surbiton chokes on a grape right in front of Iona. Suspiciously-Nice-New Malden steps up to help and saves his life, and this one event sparks a chain reaction...
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Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
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”.”
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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
Contact: Please send your book recommendations and reviews to: Katie and Sarah
