Recommendations based on "Palace of the Peacock (Faber Editions)"

"Absorbing, stunning, and emotionally rich." --Locus The journey through M. R. Carey's "immersive, impeccably rendered world" (Kirkus) -- a world in which nature has turned against us -- continues in The Trials of Koli, book two of the Rampart Trilogy. The earth wants to swallow us whole... Koli never planned to set foot outside his small village. He knew that beyond its walls lay a fearsome landscape filled with choker trees, vicious beasts and Shunned men. But when he was exiled, he had no choice but to journey out into this strange world where every moment is a fight for survival. And it's not just Koli's life that is threatened. Whole villages just like his are dying out. But Koli heard a story, once. A story about lost London, and the mysterious tech of the Old Times that may still be there. If he can find it, there may still be a way for him to change his own fate - by saving the lives of those who are left. The Rampart Trilogy The Book of Koli The Trials of Koli The Fall of Koli For more from M. R. Carey, check out: The Girl With All the Gifts Fellside The Boy on the Bridge Someone Like Me By the same author, writing as Mike Carey: The Devil You Know Vicious Circle Dead Men's Boots Thicker Than Water The Naming of the Beasts

Review Archer is on top form Source: Daily TelegraphI enjoyed the book and marvelled at both its pace and the imaginative cliffhanger ending, whetting our appetite for volume two Source: Sunday ExpressThis is a cracker of a read. And quite 'unputdownable'. The whole thing about Jeffrey is that he has always had the knack of producing page-turners Author: Jerry Hayes Source: SpectatorThe ability to tell a story is a great – and unusual – gift

WINNER OF THE 2022 BRITISH BOOK AWARD FOR NARRATIVE NONFICTION***THE BOOK THAT INSPIRED THE CHANNEL 4 DOCUMENTARY 'EMPIRE STATE OF MIND'***THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'The real remedy is education of the kind that Sanghera has embraced - accepting, not ignoring, the past' Gerard deGroot, The Times_____________________________________________________EMPIRE explains why there are millions of Britons living worldwide.EMPIRE explains Brexit and the feeling that we are exceptional.EMPIRE explains our distrust of cleverness.EMPIRE explains Britain's particular brand of racism.Strangely hidden from view, the British Empire remains a subject of both shame and glorification. In his bestselling book, Sathnam Sanghera shows how our imperial past is from how we live and think to the foundation of the NHS and even our response to the COVID-19 crisis.At a time of great division, when we are arguing about what it means to be British, Empireland is a groundbreaking revelation - a much-needed and enlightening portrait of contemporary British society, shining a light on everything that usually gets left unsaid._______________________________________________________' Empireland takes a perfectly-judged approach to its contentious but necessary subject' Jonathan Coe'I only wish this book has been around when I was at school' Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London'This remarkable book shines the brightest of lights into some of the darkest and most misunderstood corners of our shared history' James O'Brien

Charles Mason (1728-1786) and Jeremiah Dixon (1733-1779) were the British surveyors best remembered for running the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland that we know today as the Mason-Dixon Line. Here is their story as re-imagined by Thomas Pynchon, featuring Native Americans and frontier folk, ripped bodices, naval warfare, conspiracies erotic and political, and major caffeine abuse. We follow the mismatched pair--one rollicking, the other depressive; one Gothic, the other pre-Romantic--from their first journey together to the Cape of Good Hope, to pre-Revolutionary America and back, through the strange yet redemptive turns of fortune in their later lives, on a grand tour of the Enlightenment's dark hemisphere, as they observe and participate in the many opportunities for insanity presented them by the Age of Reason.

Mutiny on the Bounty is an "astounding sea tale" (New York Times) that thrills readers young and old with its action-packed account of treachery and survival in the South Pacific.Cherished as one of the most thrilling sea adventures ever recorded, Mutiny on the Bounty has sold millions of copies and enthralled generations of readers around the world in the eight decades since its initial publication. The novel reprises a true story -- the strange, eventful, and tragic voyage of His Majesty's Ship Bounty in 1788-1789, which culminated in Fletcher Christian's mutiny against Captain Bligh -- and reaches peaks of narrative excitement that mark the book indelibly as a modern classic.The story of the Bounty continues in Men Against the Sea and Pitcairn's Island."A superb achievement...Here is what the historical novel should be -- a bit of history brought to life in a book." --New York Times

From the author of the internationally bestselling The Book of Doors, another fantastical, stand-alone novel in which a trio of seemingly everyday people are members of a secret society tasked with finding and protecting hidden magical objects—ordinary items with extraordinary properties.  The world of unknowable objects—magical items that most people have no idea possess powers—has been quiet for decades, but the three current members of a secret society have remained watchful, meeting every six months in the basement of a bookshop in London. They are pledged to protect their archive of magical items hidden away, safe from the outside world—and the world safe from them. But when Frank Simpson, the longest-standing member of the Society of Unknowable Objects, hears of a new artifact coming to light in Hong Kong, he sends Magda Sparks—author by day and newest member—to investigate. Within hours of arriving in Hong Kong, Magda is facing death and danger, confronted by a professional killer who seems to know all about unknowable objects, specifically one that was stolen from him a decade before. Magda is forced to flee, using an artifact that not even the rest of the Society knows about. Returning to London, Magda learns hers is not the only secret being kept from the other two members. And that the most pernicious secret is about the nature of the Society’s mission. Her discoveries will lead her on a perilous journey, across the Atlantic to the deep south of the United States, now in pursuit of not an unknowable object, but an unknowable person: the professional killer she first faced in Hong Kong. In doing so, Magda begins to understand that there are even more in the world who are chasing these magical items, and that her own family’s legacy is tied up in keeping all these secrets under wraps. Magic has always been too powerful to reveal to the world. But Magda will learn there might be something even more powerful: The truth.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2024 'One of the most original and brilliant debuts in years' Irish Times 'Bold and totally unexpected ... I was hooked from the first page' Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain 'Brilliant ... Hilarious, moving, and profound' R. F. Kuang, author of Yellowface *** Ancient Sicily. Enter GELON: visionary, dreamer, theatre lover. Enter LAMPO: lovesick, jobless, in need of a distraction. Imprisoned in the quarries of Syracuse, thousands of defeated Athenians hang on by the thinnest of threads. They're fading in the baking heat, but not everything is lost: they can still recite lines from Greek tragedy when tempted by Lampo and Gelon with goatskins of wine and scraps of food. And so an idea is born. Because, after all, you can hate the invaders but still love their poetry. It's audacious. It might even be dangerous. But like all the best things in life - love, friendship, art itself - it will reveal the very worst, and the very best, of what humans are capable of. What could possibly go wrong? *** 'Fierce, funny, fast-paced ... Brings the ancient world roaring to life' Joanna Quinn, author of The Whalebone Theatre 'Love, war, poetry, reckless ambition, terrible failure, and glorious triumph ... A delicious treat of a read. I loved it' Jon McGregor, author of Lean Fall Stand

“[Pynchon's] funniest and arguably his most accessible novel.” —The New York Times Book Review“Raunchy, funny, digressive, brilliant.” —USA Today“Rich and sweeping, wild and thrilling.” —The Boston GlobeSpanning the era between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, and constantly moving between locations across the globe (and to a few places not strictly speaking on the map at all), Against the Day unfolds with a phantasmagoria of characters that includes anarchists, balloonists, drug enthusiasts, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, spies, and hired guns. As an era of uncertainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them.

THE #2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'As gripping as any thriller. History doesn't get any better than this' BILL BRYSON 'A brilliant read ... Game of Thrones but in the real world' ANTHONY HOROWITZ PICKED AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 BY THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, THE GUARDIAN, THE DAILY MAIL AND THE DAILY EXPRESS. The sinking of the White Ship in 1120 is one of the greatest disasters England has ever suffered. In one catastrophic night, the king's heir and the flower of Anglo-Norman society were drowned and the future of the crown was thrown violently off course. In a riveting narrative, Charles Spencer follows the story from the Norman Conquest through to the decades that would become known as the Anarchy: a civil war of untold violence that saw families turn in on each other with English and Norman barons, rebellious Welsh princes and the Scottish king all playing a part in a desperate game of thrones. All because of the loss of one vessel - the White Ship - the medieval Titanic. 'Highly enjoyable' Simon Heffer 'Brilliant' Dan Jones 'Fascinating' Tom Bower The #2 Sunday Times bestseller on Sunday 18 June 2021