Love letters by Katie Fforde

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Genre - Romance


Shy Laura is about to lose her dream job in a bookshop where she’s been responsible for organizing successful author events & bookclubs. She finds herself agreeing to help run a new literary festival at the stately home of Fenella & Rupert. When she reveals her admiration for the writing of reclusive Irish novelist, Dermot Flynn, she finds herself on the way to Ireland to convince him to appear at the festival. This is a lovely romantic comedy about first love, literature & friendship. Dermot is an engagingly scruffy, sexy hero & there’s a lot of humour in Laura & Dermot’s growing relationship.

---- Reviewed by Lyn, Headquarters

Jane's fame by Claire Harman

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Genre - Non Fiction


This is a witty & informative account of Jane Austen’s reputation since her death in 1817. Although the recent TV & movie adaptations have made Austen one of the most famous authors in the world, her books were out of print for several years after her death. Her reputation was only revived with the publication of the first biography written by her nephew in the 1870s. That was when the cult of dear Aunt Jane, the refined, elegant spinster, began. Austen’s reputation in the 20th century was enhanced by the scholarly editions of the novels published by R W Chapman which was the beginning of the academic critics’ interest in her work. The explosion of popular interest which began with the BBC’s Pride & Prejudice in 1995 has led to hundreds of websites, blogs, movies, sequels & prequels of the novels. Harman explores everything from chick lit & the internet to serious academic works in this exploration of how Jane Austen conquered the world.

---- Reviewed by Lyn, Headquarters

People of the book by Geraldine Brooks

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Hanna Heath is a book conservator working in Sydney. She receives an urgent phone call asking her to go to war torn Sarajevo to work on a rare and beautiful haggadah, a medieval Jewish prayer book. Hanna’s journey to Sarajevo and her discoveries about the manuscript alternate with chapters about the history of the book. When Hanna finds a butterfly’s wing trapped in the pages, or wine and blood stains, we’re taken back to 1890’s Vienna or 17th century Venice, to discover what happened. Hanna also has to deal with her less than satisfactory personal life, her fraught relationship with her mother, and the tentative relationship she develops with Ozren, the young librarian who is the manuscript’s latest saviour.

---- Reviewed by Lyn, Headquarters