Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie FordSet in Seattle, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is the story of Chinese AmericanHenry and Japanese American Keiko. At the height of the war in the 1940’s, Henry and Keiko, scholarship students at the all white Rainier Elementary School become friends and allies. Their innocent love for each other transcends the prejudice of their oldSet in Seattle, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is the story of Chinese world ancestors and, after Keiko and her family are sent to an internment camp in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, they can only hope that the war will end and that they can be reunited.
Forty years later, during the renovation of the Old Panama Hotel, the belongings of the many Japanese families sent to the camps are discovered. Henry begins to search for a long lost object belonging to Keiko and in doing so is finally able to come to terms with the choices he made so long ago.
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope, married with the power of forgiveness.
State of Wonder by Ann Pratchett. Dr Annick Swenson, an enigmatic scientist working in the Brazilian Rio Negro, is developing a drug that could alter the lives of women for ever. But her research work is clouded in mystery, and the death of one of her researchers adds to the confusion.
Now Marina Singh, a former student of Dr Swenson, decides to travel to South America and discover the truth. She leaves the snowy plains of Minnesota and travels to the heart of the South American darkness, determined to track down Dr. Swenson and uncover the secrets being jealously guarded among the remotest tribes of the rainforest.
Heart of Darknessmeets The Poisonwood Bible in the most ambitious and mesmeric book yet from the Orange prize-winning author of Bel Canto.
GO THE F**K TO SLEEP is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing blissfully off to dreamland.
Profane, affectionate, and radically honest, California Book Award-winning author Adam Mansbach’s verses perfectly capture the familiar—and unspoken—tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night. In the process, they open up a conversation about parenting, granting us permission to admit our frustrations, and laugh at their absurdity.
One Day by David Nicholls. "'I can imagine you at forty," she said, a hint of malice in her voice. 'I can picture it right now.' He smiled without opening his eyes. 'Go on then.' Emma and Dexter met for the first time on the night of their graduation. The next day they go their separate ways.
So where will they be on this one day the following year? And the year after that? And every year that follows? Twenty years, two people, ONE DAY. From the author of the massive bestseller STARTER FOR TEN.
"A book about friendship - and more - that will strike a chord with many." GRAZIA
The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Enter a vanished world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren't trusted not to steal the silver . . . There's Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son's tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue; and white Miss Skeeter, home from College, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared.
Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny. No one would believe they'd be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another. Each is in a search of a truth. And together they have an extraordinary story to tell . . .
Red Dog by Louis De Bernieres . Red Dog is a West Australian, a lovable friendly red kelpie who found widespread fame as a result of his habit of travelling all over Western Australia, hitching rides over thousands of miles, settling in places for months at a time and adopting new families before heading off again to the next destination and another family - sometimes returning to say hello years later.While visiting Australia, Louis de Bernieres heard the legend of Red Dog and decided to do some research on this extraordinary story. After travelling to Western Australia and meeting countless people who'd known and loved Red Dog, Louis decided to spread Red Dog's fame a little further. The result is an utterly charming tale of an amazing dog with places to go and people to see. Red Dog will delight readers and animal lovers of all ages.The 13-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths
.Who wouldn't want to live in a treehouse? Especially a 13-storey treehouse that has a bowling alley, a see-through swimming pool, a tank full of sharks, a library full of comics, a secret underground laboratory, a games room, self-making beds, vines you can swing on, a vegetable vaporiser and a marshmallow machine that follows you around and automatically shoots your favourite flavoured marshmallows into your mouth whenever it discerns you're hungry. Two new characters – Andy and Terry – live here, make books together, and have a series of completely nutty adventures. Because: ANYTHING can happen in a 13-storey treehouse.
by Tea Obrecht As Natalia and a friend travel across the former Yugoslavia, immunising villagers, the body of her grandfather turns up in a hospital in the middle of nowhere. She and her family have no idea why. Recalling stories he told her as a child, she becomes convinced that he went in search of the Deathless Man, a mythical figure, that her grandfather claimed to have met a number of times in his life. In her quest to find out how her grandfather, a man of hard fact and science, could turn to this fantasy, she discovers something particular about his childhood: a tiger escaped from a zoo during World War II bombings and wandered deep into the woods, settling just outside his peasant village. It terrorized the town, the devil incarnate to everyone, except for her grandfather and 'the tiger's wife.(Reviewed Sydney Morning Herald 
