As the new year starts and we are all focusing on new things, I thought we’d take a look at some new books out at the moment.
There Was A Time by Frank White
There was a time is a novel set in an English village at a turning point of the Second World War.
The Telegraph calls it “A wonderful read, packed with incident, colour and detail.”
Frank White was born in Manchester in 1927. White now lives with his wife June in Lincolnshire, midway between Cleethorpes and Louth. White is a veteran of the wartime British Pacific Fleet.
Frank White has contributed essays and short fiction to numerous magazines and is the author of two novels and a short book on the First World War. Other work includes a dozen plays for stage and radio, and material for BBC television. In 2013, realising that the world was no longer full of people who could write at first-hand about the Second World War, he spent the summer working on There Was a Time.
How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret.
He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he’s been alive for centuries. Always changing his identity to stay alive, Tom has the perfect cover – working as a history teacher at a London comprehensive. Here he can teach the kids about wars and witch hunts as if he’d never witnessed them first-hand. He can try to tame the past that is fast catching up with him. The only thing Tom must not do is fall in love.
How to Stop Time is a wild and bittersweet story about losing and finding yourself, about the certainty of change and about the lifetimes it can take to really learn how to live.
Published by Canongate Books, How To Stop Time is Matt Haig newest book. His other novels include The Radleys and The Humans as well as children’s books including A Boy Called Christmas and The Girl Who Saved Christmas.
Stephen Fry apparently called it “A fabulous book.” while Graham Norton said it was “Absolutely terrific.”
Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon
There are three things you should know about Elsie.
- The first thing is that she’s my best friend.
- The second is that she always knows what to say to make me feel better.
- And the third thing… might take a little bit more explaining.
84-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat at Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly. As she waits to be rescued, Florence wonders if a terrible secret from her past is about to come to light; and, if the charming new resident is who he claims to be, why does he look exactly a man who died sixty years ago?
Three Things About Elsie is due out on Thursday the 11th January 2018.