The novel is set in Vienna in the 1960’s, in a café that becomes the gathering place for a varied and initially unconnected group of people, who eventually grow into a community. The story begins when Robert Simon, a young man, who spent years working in the market stalls takes a leap of faith to open his own cafe...

David Sedaris is one of my favourite writers. He has the rare ability to write comedy and pathos with equal skill. His writing is autobiographical and deeply personal. He writes about his family, his complicated and somewhat difficult relationship with his father, his middle-class upbringing in the American South, growing up gay in the seventies, his partner, Hugh and their life together, the years he spent living as an expat in France and England, and more...

Penelope Lively's novel Heat Wave offers a psychologically astute portrayal of a family grappling with the destructive cycle of infidelity, set against the backdrop of a long, hot English summer...

This is a story about time travel, and it is set in the now almost forgotten Paris of the 1950’s. Laurain indulges himself and his readers by writing about the city as it was then. He writes about the people of the day, both the famous and the perfectly ordinary, as well the places that have since disappeared or have changed so much as to be unrecognisable...

This is a memoir, a meditation on life for a single person in a couple-dominated world, the generally accepted but questionable notion that having a spouse and kids is the only path to happiness, the role of friendship, the necessity of solitude, and the importance of building a true acquaintance with oneself...

Ursula Le Guin is one of the most influential writers of the  20th century. She wrote twenty-three novels, twelve volumes of short stories, five collections of essays, eleven volumes of poetry, thirteen children’s books and four works of translation. She won numerous awards and honours, including multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, the National Book Award, and the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters...

In this poignant and hilarious memoir, the author recalls his childhood in Northern Ireland after the death of his mother when he was just five years old. Raised by his beloved but often overwhelmed father alongside his ten siblings (divided into three classes - the Big Ones, the Middle Ones, and the Wee Ones ), O'Reilly, one of the Wee Ones, paints a vivid picture of growing up in a large, grief-stricken, eccentric, and fiercely loving family during the tail end of the Troubles...

This is a book about Ben Franklin. It’s a biography, but the writer focuses not just on what Franklin said and did in his life, but on what he thought about life, and how it should be lived, so it is philosophy as well. What makes it even better is that Eric Weiner doesn’t just write about Franklin, he engages with his ideas and tries to apply them to his own life...

This is a remarkable and very necessary book that is not so much about idleness as it is a call to examine our lives and our choices, and to do a better job of living than we currently do. Hodgkinson’s definition of idleness is not that we sit around and do nothing, but that we build enough down-time into our lives that we can make the time to think, to read, to reflect, to appreciate art, and to engage in rewarding and hands-on activities like cooking, gardening, engaging with the natural world, and having good times with friends and family, doing things that truly bring us joy...

This is a brilliant book. It’s so good that I can’t help but gush about it to everyone I know and tell them to do themselves a favour and read it. Of course, not everyone is interested in science-fiction, but if you are, this is a must read. Project Hail Mary is based on a couple of classic science fiction tropes, a threat to humanity, and first contact with an alien species. This is in no way a criticism. I love tropes, particularly huge, overarching themes like this...

Reading this book was an experience. So much about it was unexpected and wonderful. This is my first time reading Mary Stewart and I think I've found a new favourite writer...

E.C.R. Lorac is one of the pen-names of Edith Caroline Rivett, who also wrote under the pseudonyms, Carol Carnac and Mary Le Bourne. She was a prolific writer who wrote more than seventy murder mysteries. She was well-known in literary circles and she was successful in her lifetime. Her novels were both popular and critically acclaimed, but unlike some of her better known contemporaries, her books were forgotten after her death...