Recommendations based on "You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty"

A rich, magical new book on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited - her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.A moving, beautifully written and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet.

*THE TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*'One of this summer's most buzzed about books (and one that might just change your life)' Sunday TimesAfter years of feeling that love was always out of reach, journalist Natasha Lunn set out to understand how relationships work and evolve over a lifetime. She turned to authors and experts to learn about their experiences, as well as drawing on her own, asking: How do we find love? How do we sustain it? And how do we survive when we lose it?In Conversations on Love she began to find the answers:Philippa Perry on falling in love slowlyDolly Alderton on vulnerabilityStephen Grosz on accepting changeCandice Carty-Williams on friendshipLisa Taddeo on the loneliness of lossDiana Evans on parenthoodEmily Nagoski on the science of sexAlain de Botton on the psychology of being aloneEsther Perel on unrealistic expectationsRoxane Gay on redefining romanceand many more...'A gorgeous, richly layered book about all forms of love. You can pick it up and turn to any page - literally any - and find a gem to soothe and fortify your soul' Pandora Sykes, Sunday Times bestselling author of 'How Do We Know We're Doing It Right?''Hopeful and uplifting... this deep dive into the human heart will expand and enrich your perspective on love' Evening Standard'This eclectic and heartwarming collection explores love in all its forms, from romantic and parental love to friendship and loss'Observer'Conversations on Love is a glorious celebration of human vulnerability and connection. It has made me laugh, shed tears, think deeply. I want every person I love to read this book' Dr Kathryn Mannix, Sunday Times bestselling author of WITH THE END IN MIND

A beautiful new planetA meaningful new lifeAre you ready?____________________________________________'Her writing is beautiful' Rachel Seiffert, author of Dark Room and A Boy in Winter'Uplifting, unputdownable and mordantly funny' Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti____________________________________________You wake up. You go to work. You don't go outside for twelve hours at a time. You have strategy meetings about how to use hashtags. After work you order expensive drink after expensive drink until you're so blackout drunk you can't remember the circumstances which have led you to waking up in bed with your colleague. The next day you stay in bed until the afternoon, scrolling through your social media feeds and wondering why everyone else seems to be achieving so much. Sometimes you don't get out of bed at all.Then you hear about Life on Nyx, a programme that allows 100 lucky winners the chance to escape it all, move to another planet and establish a new way of life. One with meaning and purpose. One without Instagram and online dating. There's one caveat: if you go, you can never come back.But you aren't worried about that.After all, what on Earth could there possibly be to miss?____________________________________________'I loved it' Megan Hunter'Daring and original' Laura Kaye'One of the most original and urgent novels I've read this year' Clare Fisher'I'd follow Sauma's voice down any wormhole' Rowan Hisayo Buchanan'Sublime' Otegha Uwagba'Beautifully written' Bookseller'Luiza Sauma takes us on a breathtaking voyage through both the farthest reaches of space and the innermost depths of the human soul' Peng Shepherd

Nina Dean has arrived at her early thirties as a successful food writer with loving friends and family, plus a new home and neighbourhood. When she meets Max, a beguiling romantic hero who tells her on date one that he's going to marry her, it feels like all is going to plan.A new relationship couldn't have come at a better time - her thirties have not been the liberating, uncomplicated experience she was sold. Everywhere she turns, she is reminded of time passing and opportunities dwindling. Friendships are fading, ex-boyfriends are moving on and, worse, everyone's moving to the suburbs. There's no solace to be found in her family, with a mum who's caught in a baffling mid-life makeover and a beloved dad who is vanishing in slow-motion into dementia.Dolly Alderton's debut novel is funny and tender, filled with whip-smart observations about relationships, family, memory, and how we live now.

'the Book Everyone Will Be Talking About' Louise O'neill 'a Package Of Dynamite' Stephen King A Stylist Best Book Of 2020 An Era-defining Novel About The Relationship Between A Fifteen-year-old Girl And Her Teacher All He Did Was Fall In Love With Me And The World Turned Him Into A Monster Vanessa Wye Was Fifteen-years-old When She First Had Sex With Her English Teacher. She Is Now Thirty-two And In The Storm Of Allegations Against Powerful Men In 2017, The Teacher, Jacob Strane, Has Just Been Accused Of Sexual Abuse By Another Former Student. Vanessa Is Horrified By This News, Because She Is Quite Certain That The Relationship She Had With Strane Wasn't Abuse. It Was Love. She's Sure Of That. Forced To Rethink Her Past, To Revisit Everything That Happened, Vanessa Has To Redefine The Great Love Story Of Her Life - Her Great Sexual Awakening - As Rape. Now She Must Deal With The Possibility That She Might Be A Victim, And Just One Of Many. Nuanced, Uncomfortable, Bold And Powerful, My Dark Vanessa Goes Straight To The Heart Of Some Of The Most Complex Issues Our Age.

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERBeautiful World, Where Are You is a new novel by Sally Rooney, the bestselling author of Normal People and Conversations with Friends.Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up, and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood.Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon are still young―but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They have sex, they worry about sex, they worry about their friendships and the world they live in. Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?

'A tender and touching love story, beautifully told' Observer 10 Best Debut Novelists of 2021'A beautiful and powerful novel about the true and sometimes painful depths of love' Candice Carty-Williams, bestselling author of QUEENIE'An unforgettable debut... it's Sally Rooney meets Michaela Coel meets Teju Cole' New York Times'A love song to Black art and thought' Yaa Gyasi, bestselling author of HOMEGOING and TRANSCENDENT KINGDOMTwo young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists - he a photographer, she a dancer - trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence.At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson has written the most essential British debut of recent years.'An amazing debut novel. You should read this book. Let's hear it for Caleb Azumah Nelson, also known as the future' Benjamin Zephaniah'A very touching and heartfelt book' Diana Evans, award-winning author of ORDINARY PEOPLE'A lyrical modern love story, brilliant on music and art, race and London life, I enjoyed it hugely' David Nicholls, author of ONE DAY and SWEET SORROW'Caleb is a star in the making' Nikesh Shukla, editor of THE GOOD IMMIGRANT and BROWN BABY'A stunning piece of art' Bolu Babalola, bestselling author of LOVE IN COLOUR'For those that are missing the tentative depiction of love in Normal People, Caleb Azumah Nelson's Open Water is set to become one of 2021's unmissable books. Utterly transporting, it'll leave you weeping and in awe.' Stylist'An exhilarating new voice in British fiction' Vogue'A poetic novel about Black identity and first love in the capital from one of Britain's most exciting young voices' Harper's Bazaar'An intense, elegant debut' Guardian

A BTS fan favorite! A WALL STREET JOURNAL STORIES THAT CAN TAKE YOU ANYWHERE PICK * ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY'S STAY HOME AND READ PICK * SALON'S BEST AND BOLDEST * BUSTLE'S MOST ANTICIPATEDThe Emissary meets The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime in this poignant and triumphant story about how love, friendship, and persistence can change a life forever.This story is, in short, about a monster meeting another monster.One of the monsters is me.Yunjae was born with a brain condition called Alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. He does not have friends—the two almond-shaped neurons located deep in his brain have seen to that—but his devoted mother and grandmother provide him with a safe and content life. Their little home above his mother’s used bookstore is decorated with colorful Post-it notes that remind him when to smile, when to say "thank you," and when to laugh.Then on Christmas Eve—Yunjae’s sixteenth birthday—everything changes. A shocking act of random violence shatters his world, leaving him alone and on his own. Struggling to cope with his loss, Yunjae retreats into silent isolation, until troubled teenager Gon arrives at his school, and they develop a surprising bond.As Yunjae begins to open his life to new people—including a girl at school—something slowly changes inside him. And when Gon suddenly finds his life at risk, Yunjae will have the chance to step outside of every comfort zone he has created to perhaps become the hero he never thought he would be.Readers of Wonder by R.J. Palaccio and Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig will appreciate this "resonant" story that "gives Yunjae the courage to claim an entirely different story." (Booklist, starred review)Translated from the Korean by Sandy Joosun Lee.

Teeming with life and crackling with energy - a love song to modern Britain, to black womanhood, to the ever-changing heart of LondonGirl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years.Joyfully polyphonic and vibrantly contemporary, this is a gloriously new kind of history, a novel of our times: celebratory, ever-dynamic and utterly irresistible.'A daring evocation of black British history... Sexy, punchy [and] fresh' Independent on Sunday on The Emperor's Babe

One of The New York Times Top 10 Books of the YearWinner of the An Post Irish Book of the Year, the Nero Gold Prize, and the Nero Book Award for FictionShortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Writers' Prize for FictionFinalist for the Kirkus Prize for FictionOne of The New Yorker's Essential Reads of 2023. One of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2023. One of TIME's 10 Best Fiction Books of the Year. Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, The Guardian, The Economist, New York Public Library, BBC, and more.From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart.The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under―but Dickie is spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay and half-heartedly dodging the attention of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike, while their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink her way through her final exams. As for twelve-year-old PJ, he’s on the brink of running away.If you wanted to change this story, how far back would you have to go? To the infamous bee sting that ruined Imelda’s wedding day? To the car crash one year before Cass was born? All the way back to Dickie at ten years old, standing in the summer garden with his father, learning how to be a real man?The Bee Sting, Paul Murray’s exuberantly entertaining new novel, is a tour de force: a portrait of postcrash Ireland, a tragicomic family saga, and a dazzling story about the struggle to be good at the end of the world.