Origin
Author: Dan Brown
Symbology and religious iconology professor Robert Langdon arrives at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to attend the unveiling of a discovery that “will change the face of science forever”. The evening’s host is his friend and former student, Edmond Kirsch, a tech magnate, who claims to reveal a scientific breakthrough that challenges the fundamentals of human existence. But the meticulously orchestrated evening is blown apart before Kirsch’s discovery can be revealed. With his life under threat, Langdon is forced to escape, along with the museum’s director, Ambra Vidal. Together they flee to Barcelona on a perilous quest to locate a cryptic password that will unlock Kirsch’s secret.
Uncommon Type: Some Stories
Author: Tom Hanks
A collection of seventeen wonderful short stories showing that two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as he is an actor. A gentle Eastern European immigrant arrives in New York City after his family and his life have been torn apart by his country’s civil war. A man who loves to bowl rolls a perfect game – and then another and then another and then many more in a row until he winds up ESPN’s newest celebrity, and he must decide if the combination of perfection and celebrity has ruined the thing he loves. An eccentric billionaire and his faithful executive assistant venture into America looking for acquisitions and discover a down and out motel, romance, and a bit of real life. These are just some of the tales Tom Hanks tells in this first collection.
Sleeping Beauties
Stephen King and Owen King
In a future, so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep; they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent; and while they sleep they go to another place. The men of our world are abandoned, left to their increasingly primal devices. One woman, however, the mysterious Evie, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Evie a medical anomaly to be studied? Or is she a demon who must be slain? Set in a small Appalachian town whose primary employer is a women’s prison, this book is a wildly provocative and gloriously absorbing.
Fairytale
Author: Danielle Steele
A twenty-first century Fairytale for readers of all ages, by the ever-magical Danielle Steel. Camille Lammenais has grown up in the beauty of the Napa Valley surrounded by acres of her family’s vineyards. Her parents, Christophe and Joy, still deeply in love after two decades of marriage, have built a renowned winery and chateau modelled after Christophe’s ancient family estate in his native Bordeaux. Camille has had a perfect childhood, safe in her parents’ love. After graduating from Stanford, she returns to help manage Chateau Joy, her lifetime goal. But their fairytale ends suddenly with her mother’s death.
Deep Freeze
Author: John Sandford
The night after the fourth of July, Layton Carlson Jr., of Red Wing, Minnesota, finally got lucky. And unlucky. He’d picked the perfect spot to lose his virginity to his girlfriend, an abandoned farmyard in the middle of cornfields. The only problem was…something smelled bad. He mentioned it to a county deputy he knew, and when the cop took a look, he found a body stuffed down a cistern. And then another, and another. By the time Lucas Davenport was called in, the police were up to fifteen bodies and counting. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, when Lucas began to investigate, he made some disturbing discoveries of his own.
Leonardo Da Vinci
Author: Walter Isaacson
Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life, showing why we have much to learn from him. His combination of science, art, technology and imagination remains an enduring recipe for creativity. So, too, was his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted and at times heretical. His relentless curiosity should remind us of the importance of instilling, both in ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it – to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think differently.
Endurance
Author: Scott Kelly
From the Nasa astronaut who spent a record-breaking year aboard the International Space Station – what it’s like out there and what it’s like now, back here. Enter Scott Kelly’s fascinating world and dare to think of your own a little differently. Kelly’s humanity, compassion, humour and passion shine as he describes navigating the extreme challenge of long-term spaceflight, both existential and banal.
