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May Book News | | | 
| Breath
When paramedic Bruce Pike arrives too late to save a boy found hanged in his bedroom he senses immediately that this lonely death is an accident. Pike knows the difference between suicide and misadventure. He understands only too well the forces that can propel a kid toward oblivion. Not just because he's an ambulanceman but because of the life he's lived, the boy he once was, addicted to extremes, flirting with death, pushing every boundary in the struggle to be extraordinary, barely knowing where or how to stop. So begins a story about the damage you do to yourself when you're young and think you're immortal. In his first novel for seven years, Tim Winton has achieved a new level of mastery. Breath confirms him as one of the world's finest storytellers, whose work is both accessible and profound, relentlessly gripping and deeply moving. 
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| The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Things have never been easy for Oscar. A ghetto nerd living with his Dominican family in New Jersey, he's sweet but disastrously overweight. He dreams of becoming the next J. R. R. Tolkien and he keeps falling hopelessly in love. Poor Oscar may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fuku - the curse that has haunted his family for generations. With dazzling energy and insight Diaz immerses us in the tumultuous lives of Oscar his runaway sister Lola their beautiful mother Belicia and in the family's uproarious journey from the Dominican Republic to the US and back. Rendered with uncommon warmth and humour, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a literary triumph, that confirms Junot Diaz as one of the most exciting writers of our time. |
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| The Last Lecture
Did 'Tuesdays With Morrie' move and inspire you? Then you'll love 'Last Lecture', the story of Dr Randy Pausch, a 47-year-old computer science lecturer diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer...Dr Pausch gave his 'Last Lecture' to an audience of 400 people at Carnegie Mellon University on 'Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams'. He talked about the most important things he'd learnt throughout his life and the message he wanted to leave his children, aged 1, 2, and 5. At the end of the lecture they gave him a standing ovation, but he had no idea how many people would be affected by his words. Through the power of the internet his lecture has now been seen by over 6 million people online and Randy's appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show attracted millions of television viewers in the US. Randy's fate in the weeks and months after the lecture will be woven into his book and the man who has already touched so many will leave another legacy that will allow us all to treasure his words, wisdom and experience long after he is gone. |
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| Bill Bryson's Dictionary
What is the difference between cant and jargon, or assume and presume? What is a fandango? What's the new name for Calcutta? How do you spell supersede? Boutros Boutros-Ghali? Is it hippy or hippie? These questions really matter to Bill Bryson, ever since his days as a rookie subeditor on The Times back in the 1970s: as they do to anyone who cares about the English language.Originally published as The Penguin Dictionary for Writers and Editors, Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors has now been completely revised and updatedfor the twenty-first century by Bill Bryson himself. Here is a very personal selection of spellings and usages, covering such head-scratchers as capitalization, plurals, abbreviations and foreign names and phrases. Bryson also gives us the difference between British and American usages, and miscellaneous pieces of essential information you never knew you needed, like the names of all the Oxford colleges, or the new name for the Department of Trade and Industry - or the correct spelling of Brobdingnag.
An indispensable companion to all those who write, work with the written word, or who just enjoy getting things right, it gives rulings that are both authoritative and commonsense, all in Bryson's own inimitably good humoured way. |
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| The Woman in the Lobby
The normally naive Violet beds an international tennis star in a luxury Melbourne hotel room on the same day that her middle-class marriage comes apart at the seams. When the tennis star gives her a first-class ticket to Paris and promises a rendezvous Violet thinks the world has fallen into her lap. But it is not to be. |
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| My Reading Life
Carr is renowned for his erudition, but what are his favourite books and why does he read them? What does he believe all thinking citizens of the West should read? He speaks of his profound love of reading, examining the reasons why certain books have so captured his attention. |
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| The Case of the Imaginary detective
'Everyone turns out to be a writer', Addison said. 'Why? Why must everyone write? Why can't they just read?' Rima Lanisell is a young woman at a loose end, following the death of her father. Rima has a history of losing things: keys, sunglasses, family members. Now she has come to the coast of California to stay with her godmother, Addison Early, who once knew Rima's father well. Perhaps too well. Rima is on a mission to discover just what that relationship was really about. Addison is a best-selling mystery writer, secretive and feisty. Over the years, she has tried to protect her work and her privacy as her fans have become ever more intrusive: in the age of the internet, those fans have begun to take over the plot lines and the life of her famous fictional detective. For many, he is more real than Addison herself. As Rima becomes enmeshed in the life of Addison's eccentric household the mysteries surrounding her seem more complex. Who is the obsessive fan who stole a small object from Addison's house? Why did Addison name a murderer after Rima's father? And what is Addison's connection to a mysterious death that occurred twenty years before? |
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| Ritual
Just after lunch on a Tuesday in April, nine feet under water, police diver Flea Marley closes her gloved fingers around a human hand. The fact that there's no body attached is disturbing enough. Yet more disturbing is the discovery, a day later, of the matching hand. Both have been recently amputated, and the indications are that the victim was still alive when they were removed. DI Jack Caffery has been newly seconded to the Major Crime Investigation Unit in Bristol. He and Flea soon establish that the hands belong to a boy who has recently disappeared. Their search for him - and for his abductor - lead them into the darkest recesses of Bristol's underworld, where drug addiction is rife, where street-kids sell themselves for a hit, and where an ancient evil lurks an evil that feeds off the blood - and flesh - of others ... |
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| Hold Tight
Number One bestselling author Harlan Coben has become an unstoppable force in crime fiction. His most recent novel, THE WOODS, was a SUNDAY TIMES top 2 bestseller and grew his audience by an impressive 20%. His latest page-turner, which is about just how far parents will go to protect their kids, is destined for the top of the charts. Tia and Mike Baye never imagined they'd become the type of overprotective parents who spy on their kids. But their sixteen-year-old son Adam has been unusually distant lately, and after the suicide of his classmate Spencer Hill-the latest in a string of issues at school-they can't help but worry. They install a sophisticated spy program on Adam's computer, and within days they are jolted by a message from an unknown correspondent addressed to their son: Just stay quiet and all safe. Meanwhile, browsing through an online memorial for Spencer put together by his classmates, Betsy Hill is struck by a photo that appears to have been taken on the night of her son's deathand he wasn't alone.She thinks it is Adam Baye standing just outside the camera's range, but when Adam goes missing, it soon becomes clear that something deep and sinister has infected their community.
For Tia and Mike Baye, the question they must answer is this: When it comes to your kids, is it possible to know too much? |
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Best Selling Non Fiction | | | 
| Underbelly
They called Carl Williams 'The Truth' but the truth was he was just a fat kid with a pill press and a taste for fast food, women and bucks. He got lucky the day Jason Moran shot him in the belly instead of the head. Carl didn't return the favour: one by one, Moran, his family, and friends were shot dead during an underworld war for extermination. |
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| Rupert's Adventures in China
Starting his foray into China in the mid-80s, Rupert Murdoch quickly discovered that the rules were different in the Middle Kingdom: unlike in the West, the China's Communist leadership didn't need the support of the media to retain power. Dover paints a personal picture of the man at work, with anecdotes of the impulsive billionaire in his prime. |
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| The Anatomist
Gray's Anatomy still sets the standard in medical textbooks even after 150 years. Little has been written about its author, Henry Gray and less is told about Henry Carter, the illustrator who brought the text to life. This is the true story of the lives of these two men, balancing biography with the author's own experience in anatomy class. |
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| The Whale Warriors
For two months Heller was part of the crew of a vegan pirate ship of eco-crusaders, the Farley Mowat, on a mission to stop Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic. As they plough through the Antarctic, weathering gale force winds and thirty-five foot seas, they find themselves at the centre of an international whaling war. |
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2006 Pulitzer Prize Winner! | | | 
| March
Brooks's luminous second novel, after 2001's acclaimed "Year of Wonders", imagines the Civil War experiences of Mr March. An idealistic abolitionist, March has gone to serve the Union cause as chaplain to the troops. But the war tests his faith, not only in the Union but in himself |
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