WINNER OF THE 2014 UK PEOPLE'S BOOK PRIZE My name is Simon Spittle and I think - no, I know, I murdered Miss Belcher. I don't carry a gun. Or a knife. Or even a toothpick, but yesterday, in French, I wished for her to be run over by a bus and, later that very day, she was. A big, red double-decker with yellow wheels and a picture of a clown on the bonnet. A Billy Smart's Circus bus. Simon is very different to Isabella. He is all elbowy and clumsy. She, on the other hand, is elegant and cool. He's the school chess champ and has the IQ of a chemistry professor. She thinks flowers grow better if you feed them Bic Macs and play them Elvis songs. He has a 1/500 scale model of the Starship Enterprise NCC-1701 in his bedroom. She thinks it's a frying pan. Isabella has a secret. Simon, well, he IS the secret... BILLY BOB BUTTONS was shortlisted for the RUBERY BOOK AWARDS and was the winner of THE 2014 UK PEOPLE'S BOOK PRIZE. Comments (Birchwood Primary School) 'This is the best book I have read this year. Amazing!' John, 10 years old. 'Billy Bob Buttons' books keep getting better and better.' Stephen, 11 years old. 'This book is sooooooo funny. I laughed and laughed and laughed.' Sara, 10 years old. 'I Think I Murdered Miss is so good, I skipped Doctor Who to finish it.' Benjamin, 9 years old.

My body is not the body I had before I travelled to China. Teeth now crowd my jaw, I can spot deer from half a mile away, and to me, the tiny feet of mice no longer patter, they boom like trampling elephants. I am changing. A volcano of fury is stirring, trapped only by the thinnest crust of skin and willpower. The spirit of the hamrammr is in my blood... EVIL BECKONS 'A jaw-dropping, cracker of a book.' Eclipse Magazine

A seemingly ordinary village participates in a yearly lottery to determine a sacrificial victim.

Three Newbery Medal winners—Christopher Paul Curtis’s Bud, Not Buddy, Clare Vanderpool’s Moon Over Manifest, and Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me—come together in this collection that’s perfect for catching up on old favorites and discovering new ones. Whether you’re looking for an escape or eager to catch up on some summer reading, the three award-winning titles in this collection will stay with you. Titles featured include: · Bud, Not Buddy: It’s 1936, in Flint, Michigan, and a motherless boy named Bud decides to hit the road to find his father in this Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award-winning classic from Christopher Paul Curtis, author of The Watsons Go To Birmingham—1963. · Moon Over Manifest: Armed only with a few possessions, Abilene Tucker jumps off the train in Manifest, Kansas, aiming to learn about the boy her father once was. What she discovers sends her and some new friends on an honest-to-goodness spy hunt. · When You Reach Me: Shortly after a fall-out with her best friend, sixth grader Miranda starts receiving mysterious notes that seem to predict the future. If that's the case, then Miranda has a big problem—because the notes tell her that someone is going to die, and she might be too late to stop it. Turn to this three-book collection for the classics you remember and the stories you’ll never forget.

After the death of Joanie Holzer Schirm’s parents in 2000, she found hundreds of letters, held together by rusted paperclips and stamped with censor marks, sent from Czechoslovakia, Great Britain, China, and South and North America, along with journals, vintage film, taped interviews, and photographs. In working through these various materials documenting the life of her father, Oswald “Valdik” Holzer, she learned of her family history through his remarkable experiences of exile and loss, resilience and hope. In this posthumous memoir, Schirm elegantly re-creates her father’s youthful voice as he comes of age as a Jew in interwar Prague, escapes from a Nazi-held army unit, practices medicine in China’s war-ravaged interior, and settles in the United States to start a family. Introducing us to a diverse cast of characters ranging from the humorous to the menacing, Holzer’s life story is an inspirational account of survival during wartime, a cinematic epic spanning multiple continents, and ultimately a tale with a twist—a book that will move readers for generations to come. Purchase the audio edition.

Originally published: New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., c1935.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction Winner of the 2022 Asian/Pacific American Award in Literature A TIME and NPR Best Book of the Year in 2021 This evocative memoir of food and family history is "somehow both mouthwatering and heartbreaking... [and] a potent personal history" (Shelf Awareness). Grace M. Cho grew up as the daughter of a white American merchant marine and the Korean bar hostess he met abroad. They were one of few immigrants in a xenophobic small town during the Cold War, where identity was politicized by everyday details—language, cultural references, memories, and food. When Grace was fifteen, her dynamic mother experienced the onset of schizophrenia, a condition that would continue and evolve for the rest of her life. Part food memoir, part sociological investigation, Tastes Like War is a hybrid text about a daughter’s search through intimate and global history for the roots of her mother’s schizophrenia. In her mother’s final years, Grace learned to cook dishes from her parent’s childhood in order to invite the past into the present, and to hold space for her mother’s multiple voices at the table. And through careful listening over these shared meals, Grace discovered not only the things that broke the brilliant, complicated woman who raised her—but also the things that kept her alive. “An exquisite commemoration and a potent reclamation.” —Booklist (starred review) “A wrenching, powerful account of the long-term effects of the immigrant experience.” —Kirkus Reviews

Combining archival research, critical theory, and gender- and disability-analysis, Nate Holdren argues that Progressive Era reform to employee injury law created new employment discrimination against disabled people and a new injury culture that treated employees and their injuries instrumentally.

The thrilling international bestseller from Australia's favourite novelist, author of the Scarecrow series and Jack West Jr series with new novel Mr Einstein's Secretary out now. "Reilly hurls readers into an adrenaline-drenched thrill ride ... impossible to put down." Orlando Sentinel "Reilly ... can inspire awe. Speed demons, take note." Publishers Weekly The New York State Library. A silent sanctuary of knowledge; a 100-year-old labyrinth of towering bookcases, narrow aisles and spiralling staircases. For Doctor Stephen Swain and his eight-year-old daughter, Holly, it is the site of a nightmare. For one night, the State Library is to be the venue for a contest. A contest in which Stephen Swain is to compete - whether he likes it or not. The rules are simple: seven contestants will enter, only one will leave. With his daughter in his arms, Swain is plunged into a terrifying fight for survival. He can choose to run, to hide or to fight - but if he wants to live, he has to win. Because in a contest like this, unless you leave as the victor, you do not leave at all. Fans of Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton will love Matthew Reilly.