You can also check out the reading list on languages , biographies or PressReader with magazines from all around the world in OverDrive Magazines .
The link to the digital copy can be found below the description and most of these can be found in our book catalogue or in branches.
Read more from this series of blog posts covering Europe, Asia, African and the Americas .
So get your library card ready!
Adrift: A Secret Life of London's Waterways
by Helen Babbs, 2016.
After ten years renting expensive rooms in small flats, Helen Babbs swapped bricks and mortar for a boat called 'Pike'. She now calls London's canals and rivers her home. Without a permanent mooring, she cruises ever-onwards. We travel with Helen as she takes us on a tour of London's canal and river flora, fauna, people and history, revealing intricate details and taking us to places only accessible by boat.
by Helen Babbs, 2016.
After ten years renting expensive rooms in small flats, Helen Babbs swapped bricks and mortar for a boat called 'Pike'. She now calls London's canals and rivers her home. Without a permanent mooring, she cruises ever-onwards. We travel with Helen as she takes us on a tour of London's canal and river flora, fauna, people and history, revealing intricate details and taking us to places only accessible by boat.
Copies
OverDrive: Adrift
OverDrive: Adrift
Girl On Fire
Tony Parsons, 2018.
From the number one bestselling crime-writer comes a brilliant, page-turning new DC Max Wolfe thriller that will keep you gripped and guessing until the very last page.
When terrorists use a drone to bring down a plane on one of London's busiest shopping centres, it ignites a chain of events that will draw in the innocent and guilty alike.
DC Max Wolfe finds himself caught in the crossfire in a city that seems increasingly dangerous and hostile.
But does the danger come from the murderous criminals that Max is tracking down? Or the people he's trying to protect?
Or does the real threat to Max lie closer to home?
Tony Parsons, 2018.
From the number one bestselling crime-writer comes a brilliant, page-turning new DC Max Wolfe thriller that will keep you gripped and guessing until the very last page.
When terrorists use a drone to bring down a plane on one of London's busiest shopping centres, it ignites a chain of events that will draw in the innocent and guilty alike.
DC Max Wolfe finds himself caught in the crossfire in a city that seems increasingly dangerous and hostile.
But does the danger come from the murderous criminals that Max is tracking down? Or the people he's trying to protect?
Or does the real threat to Max lie closer to home?
Londoners : the days and nights of London now - as told by those who love it, hate it, live it, left it and long for it
By Craig Taylor, 2013.
Five years in the making, Londoners is a fresh and compulsively readable view of one of the world's most fascinating cities a vibrant narrative portrait of the London of our own time, featuring unforgettable stories told by the real people who make the city hum.
Acclaimed writer and editor Craig Taylor has spent years traversing every corner of the city, getting to know the most interesting Londoners, including the voice of the London Underground, a West End rickshaw driver, an East End nightclub doorperson, a mounted soldier of the Queen's Life Guard at Buckingham Palace, and a couple who fell in love at the Tower of London and now live there.
With candor and humor, this diverse cast: rich and poor, old and young, native and immigrant, men and women (and even a Sarah who used to be a George)shares indelible tales that capture the city as never before. Together, these voices paint a vivid, epic, and wholly original portrait of twenty-first-century London in all its breadth, from Notting Hill to Brixton, from Piccadilly Circus to Canary Wharf, from an airliner flying into London Heathrow Airport to Big Ben and Tower Bridge, and down to the deepest tunnels of the London Underground. Londoners is the autobiography of one of the world's greatest cities.
By Craig Taylor, 2013.
Five years in the making, Londoners is a fresh and compulsively readable view of one of the world's most fascinating cities a vibrant narrative portrait of the London of our own time, featuring unforgettable stories told by the real people who make the city hum.
Acclaimed writer and editor Craig Taylor has spent years traversing every corner of the city, getting to know the most interesting Londoners, including the voice of the London Underground, a West End rickshaw driver, an East End nightclub doorperson, a mounted soldier of the Queen's Life Guard at Buckingham Palace, and a couple who fell in love at the Tower of London and now live there.
With candor and humor, this diverse cast: rich and poor, old and young, native and immigrant, men and women (and even a Sarah who used to be a George)shares indelible tales that capture the city as never before. Together, these voices paint a vivid, epic, and wholly original portrait of twenty-first-century London in all its breadth, from Notting Hill to Brixton, from Piccadilly Circus to Canary Wharf, from an airliner flying into London Heathrow Airport to Big Ben and Tower Bridge, and down to the deepest tunnels of the London Underground. Londoners is the autobiography of one of the world's greatest cities.
Copies
OverDrive eAudio: Londoners
OverDrive eAudio: Londoners
Why mummy swears : the struggles of an exasperated mum
By Gill Sims, 2018.
Welcome to Mummy's world.
TheBoy Child Peter is connected to his iPad by an umbilical cord, The Girl Child Jane is desperate to make her fortune as an Instagram lifestyle influencer, while Daddy is constantly off on exotic business trips.
Mummy's marriage is feeling the strain, her kids are running wild and the house is steadily developing a forest of mould. Only Judgy, the Proud and Noble Terrier, remains loyal as always.
Mummy has also found herself a new challenge, working for a hot new tech start-up.
But not only is she worrying if, at forty-two, she could actually get up off a bean bag with dignity, she's also somehow (accidentally) rebranded herself as a single party girl who works hard, plays hard and doesn't have to run out when the nanny calls in sick.
Can Mummy keep up the facade while keeping her family afloat? Can she really get away with wearing 'comfy trousers' to work? And, more importantly, can she find the time to pour herself a large G+T?
Probably effing not.
By Gill Sims, 2018.
Welcome to Mummy's world.
TheBoy Child Peter is connected to his iPad by an umbilical cord, The Girl Child Jane is desperate to make her fortune as an Instagram lifestyle influencer, while Daddy is constantly off on exotic business trips.
Mummy's marriage is feeling the strain, her kids are running wild and the house is steadily developing a forest of mould. Only Judgy, the Proud and Noble Terrier, remains loyal as always.
Mummy has also found herself a new challenge, working for a hot new tech start-up.
But not only is she worrying if, at forty-two, she could actually get up off a bean bag with dignity, she's also somehow (accidentally) rebranded herself as a single party girl who works hard, plays hard and doesn't have to run out when the nanny calls in sick.
Can Mummy keep up the facade while keeping her family afloat? Can she really get away with wearing 'comfy trousers' to work? And, more importantly, can she find the time to pour herself a large G+T?
Probably effing not.
Mr Loverman
Bernardine Evaristo, 2014.
'[Mr Loverman is] Brokeback Mountain with ackee and saltfish and old people' Dawn French
WINNER OF THE JERWOOD FICTION UNCOVERED PRIZE 2014 and FERRO GRUMLEY AWARD FOR LGBT FICTION 2015
Barrington Jedidiah Walker is seventy-four and leads a double life. Born and bred in Antigua, he's lived in Hackney since the sixties. A flamboyant, wise-cracking local character with a dapper taste in retro suits and a fondness for quoting Shakespeare, Barrington is a husband, father and grandfather - but he is also secretly homosexual, lovers with his great childhood friend, Morris.
His deeply religious and disappointed wife, Carmel, thinks he sleeps with other women. When their marriage goes into meltdown, Barrington wants to divorce Carmel and live with Morris, but after a lifetime of fear and deception, will he manage to break away?
His deeply religious and disappointed wife, Carmel, thinks he sleeps with other women. When their marriage goes into meltdown, Barrington wants to divorce Carmel and live with Morris, but after a lifetime of fear and deception, will he manage to break away?
Mr Loverman is a ground-breaking exploration of Britain's older Caribbean community, which explodes cultural myths and fallacies and shows the extent of what can happen when people fear the consequences of being true to themselves.
Praise for Bernardine Evaristo:
'One of Britain's most innovative authors . . . Bernardine Evaristo always dares to be different' New Nation
'Evaristo remains an undeniably bold and energetic writer, whose world view is anything but one-dimensional' Sunday Times
'Audacious genre-bending, in-yer-face wit and masterly retellings of underwritten corners of history are the hallmarks of Evaristo's work'
New Statesman
Bernardine Evaristo is the author of seven books including three critically acclaimed verse novels, Lara, The Emperor's Babe and Soul Tourists. Mr Loverman is her second prose novel, after 2008's Blonde Roots, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize and won the Orange Prize Youth Panel Award. Evaristo's other awards include the EMMA Best Book, Arts Council Award and the Big Red Read Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an MBE in 2009. She lives in London.
Bernardine Evaristo, 2014.
'[Mr Loverman is] Brokeback Mountain with ackee and saltfish and old people' Dawn French
WINNER OF THE JERWOOD FICTION UNCOVERED PRIZE 2014 and FERRO GRUMLEY AWARD FOR LGBT FICTION 2015
Barrington Jedidiah Walker is seventy-four and leads a double life. Born and bred in Antigua, he's lived in Hackney since the sixties. A flamboyant, wise-cracking local character with a dapper taste in retro suits and a fondness for quoting Shakespeare, Barrington is a husband, father and grandfather - but he is also secretly homosexual, lovers with his great childhood friend, Morris.
His deeply religious and disappointed wife, Carmel, thinks he sleeps with other women. When their marriage goes into meltdown, Barrington wants to divorce Carmel and live with Morris, but after a lifetime of fear and deception, will he manage to break away?
His deeply religious and disappointed wife, Carmel, thinks he sleeps with other women. When their marriage goes into meltdown, Barrington wants to divorce Carmel and live with Morris, but after a lifetime of fear and deception, will he manage to break away?
Mr Loverman is a ground-breaking exploration of Britain's older Caribbean community, which explodes cultural myths and fallacies and shows the extent of what can happen when people fear the consequences of being true to themselves.
Praise for Bernardine Evaristo:
'One of Britain's most innovative authors . . . Bernardine Evaristo always dares to be different' New Nation
'Evaristo remains an undeniably bold and energetic writer, whose world view is anything but one-dimensional' Sunday Times
'Audacious genre-bending, in-yer-face wit and masterly retellings of underwritten corners of history are the hallmarks of Evaristo's work'
New Statesman
Bernardine Evaristo is the author of seven books including three critically acclaimed verse novels, Lara, The Emperor's Babe and Soul Tourists. Mr Loverman is her second prose novel, after 2008's Blonde Roots, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize and won the Orange Prize Youth Panel Award. Evaristo's other awards include the EMMA Best Book, Arts Council Award and the Big Red Read Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an MBE in 2009. She lives in London.
This is London - Life and Death in the World City
by Ben Judah, 2016.
This is the new London: an immigrant city. Over one-third of Londoners were born abroad, with half arriving since the millennium. This has utterly transformed the capital, for better and for worse.
Ben Judah is an acclaimed foreign correspondent, but here he turns his reporter's gaze on home, immersing himself in the hidden world of London's immigrants to reveal the city in the eyes of its beggars, bankers, coppers, gangsters, carers and witch-doctors. From the backrooms of its mosques, Tube tunnels and nightclubs to the frontlines of its streets, Judah has supped with oligarchs and spent nights sleeping rough, worked on building sites and talked business with prostitutes; he's heard stories of heartbreaking failure, but also witnessed extraordinary acts of compassion.
This is London explodes fossilized myths and offers a fresh, exciting portrait of what it's like to live, work, fall in love, raise children, grow old and die in London now. Simultaneously intimate and epic, here is a compulsive and deeply sympathetic book on this dizzying world city from one of our brightest new writers.
Copies
OverDrive : This is London
OverDrive : This is London
Ordinary People
by Diana Evans, 2018.
You can take a leap, do something off the wall, something reckless. It's your last chance, and most people miss it.'
South London, 2008. Two couples find themselves at a moment of reckoning, on the brink of acceptance or revolution. Melissa has a new baby and doesn't want to let it change her but, in the crooked walls of a narrow Victorian terrace, she begins to disappear. Michael, growing daily more accustomed to his commute, still loves Melissa but can't quite get close enough to her to stay faithful. Meanwhile out in the suburbs, Stephanie is happy with Damian and their three children, but the death of Damian's father has thrown him into crisis - or is it something, or someone, else? Are they all just in the wrong place? Are any of them prepared to take the leap?
Set against the backdrop of Barack Obama's historic election victory, Ordinary People is an intimate, immersive study of identity and parenthood, sex and grief, friendship and aging, and the fragile architecture of love. With its distinctive prose and irresistible soundtrack, it is the story of our lives, and those moments that threaten to unravel us.
by Diana Evans, 2018.
You can take a leap, do something off the wall, something reckless. It's your last chance, and most people miss it.'
South London, 2008. Two couples find themselves at a moment of reckoning, on the brink of acceptance or revolution. Melissa has a new baby and doesn't want to let it change her but, in the crooked walls of a narrow Victorian terrace, she begins to disappear. Michael, growing daily more accustomed to his commute, still loves Melissa but can't quite get close enough to her to stay faithful. Meanwhile out in the suburbs, Stephanie is happy with Damian and their three children, but the death of Damian's father has thrown him into crisis - or is it something, or someone, else? Are they all just in the wrong place? Are any of them prepared to take the leap?
Set against the backdrop of Barack Obama's historic election victory, Ordinary People is an intimate, immersive study of identity and parenthood, sex and grief, friendship and aging, and the fragile architecture of love. With its distinctive prose and irresistible soundtrack, it is the story of our lives, and those moments that threaten to unravel us.
Copies
The Nothing
by Hanif Kureishi, 2017.
by Hanif Kureishi, 2017.
Waldo, a feted filmmaker, is confined by old age and ill health to his London apartment. Frail and frustrated, he is cared for by his lovely younger wife, Zee. But when he suspects that Zee is beginning an affair with Eddie, 'more than an acquaintance and less than a friend for over thirty years', Waldo is pressed to action: determined to expose the couple, he sets himself first to prove his suspicions correct - and then to enact his revenge .
Copies
OverDrive: The Nothing
OverDrive: The Nothing
London : 33 boroughs, 33 shorts. Volume 1 East by various authors, 2010.
"The Hackney Factor" by Ricky Oh
Bobby Nayyar "Hollywood"
Uchenna Izundu "Nne Biko."
Angela Clerkin "While The City Sleeps"
Emma Darwin "The Sugar
From Havering to Bromley, this is a unique anthology of London stories, featuring new writing from 16 writers, which include Stella Duffy, Kadija George, Susannah Rickards,
Kadija Sesay ,
Uchenna Izundu ,
Tabitha Potts,
Ricky Oh,
Charlotte Judet,
Emile West, Emma Darwin. There are acts of heroism in Hackney and Havering, a case of adultery in Lewisham, a surprise visit from a well known London character in the City, love on Wood Green High Road and even a haunted house in Tower Hamlets - a showcase of London at its most diverse and telling.
"The Hackney Factor" by Ricky Oh
Bobby Nayyar "Hollywood"
Uchenna Izundu "Nne Biko."
Angela Clerkin "While The City Sleeps"
Emma Darwin "The Sugar
From Havering to Bromley, this is a unique anthology of London stories, featuring new writing from 16 writers, which include Stella Duffy, Kadija George, Susannah Rickards,
Kadija Sesay ,
Uchenna Izundu ,
Tabitha Potts,
Ricky Oh,
Charlotte Judet,
Emile West, Emma Darwin. There are acts of heroism in Hackney and Havering, a case of adultery in Lewisham, a surprise visit from a well known London character in the City, love on Wood Green High Road and even a haunted house in Tower Hamlets - a showcase of London at its most diverse and telling.
Copies
Mary Gibson, 2018.
They call them custard tarts - the girls who work at the Pearce Duff custard and jelly factory. But now the custard tarts are up in arms, striking for better conditions. Among them is Nellie Clark, trying to hold her family together after the death of her mother. She has the most desperate struggle to make ends meet, often going hungry to feed her little brothers. Two men vie for Nellie's love.
One is flamboyant, confident and a chancer. The other is steady, truthful and loyal. But the choice is not as easy as it might seem. Looming over them all - over Bermondsey, over the factory, over the custard tarts and their lives and loves - is the shadow of the First World War. And that will change everything and everyone.
Killer Intent
by Tony Kent, 2017.
Britain's elite security forces seem powerless when an audacious attempt is made to assassinate a former US president in London. This becomes the spark which ignites a chain reaction of explosive events that will see old political sympathies rekindled and personal loyalties betrayed.
by Tony Kent, 2017.
Britain's elite security forces seem powerless when an audacious attempt is made to assassinate a former US president in London. This becomes the spark which ignites a chain reaction of explosive events that will see old political sympathies rekindled and personal loyalties betrayed.
Copies
OverDrive: Killer Intent
OverDrive: Killer Intent
Brick Lane
By Monica Ali, 2007.
In this tale of two Muslim sisters, Monica Ali explores how they live out their own personal tragedies.
One lives in a tower block in London's East End whilst the other lives in a Bangladeshi village.
By Monica Ali, 2007.
In this tale of two Muslim sisters, Monica Ali explores how they live out their own personal tragedies.
One lives in a tower block in London's East End whilst the other lives in a Bangladeshi village.
Copies
OverDrive : Brick Lane
OverDrive : Brick Lane
Umbrella
by Will Self, 2012.
For half a century Audrey Death has been in a state of semi-consciousness. Severed from the world of the living after falling victim to Encephalitis lethargica, she has languished in Friern Barnet Mental Hospital.
Then, in 1971, maverick psychiatrist Dr Zack Busner arrives. Audrey's experiences of a bygone Edwardian London: her socialist lover, her involvement with the Suffragists, and her work in a munitions factory during the First World War, alternate with Dr Busner's attempts to bring her back to life with a new and powerful drug.
His investigations lead to revelations that are both shocking and tragic, and which will return to haunt him decades later.
by Will Self, 2012.
For half a century Audrey Death has been in a state of semi-consciousness. Severed from the world of the living after falling victim to Encephalitis lethargica, she has languished in Friern Barnet Mental Hospital.
Then, in 1971, maverick psychiatrist Dr Zack Busner arrives. Audrey's experiences of a bygone Edwardian London: her socialist lover, her involvement with the Suffragists, and her work in a munitions factory during the First World War, alternate with Dr Busner's attempts to bring her back to life with a new and powerful drug.
His investigations lead to revelations that are both shocking and tragic, and which will return to haunt him decades later.
Copies
OverDrive : Umbrella
OverDrive : Umbrella
Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Lewisham & Deptford
by Dr Jonathan Oates, 2017.
In 'Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in Lewisham & Deptford', the chill is brought close to home as each chapter investigates the darker side of humanity in cases of murder, deceit and pure malice commited over the centuries in these areas of London.
by Dr Jonathan Oates, 2017.
In 'Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in Lewisham & Deptford', the chill is brought close to home as each chapter investigates the darker side of humanity in cases of murder, deceit and pure malice commited over the centuries in these areas of London.
Copies
OverDrive: Foul Deeds
OverDrive: Foul Deeds
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