THE BOOK THIEF - SECOND HAND

'The screaming ambulance slows down a fraction as it hits the junction of parkway and Camden High Street. It feels as if my bladder is in my head, and any minute now it will explode, and blast piss and blood at a million-foot-pounds pressure out of my coke-scarred nostrils.' Noah Arkwright has experienced too much. A filmmaker and now a dry alcoholic, he's lived life to the full - sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll his relentless backdrop - but now the stakes are even higher. In his struggle to survive, Noah's cancer forces him to evaluate his chequered past life, and as a picture builds of a brave and incredibly foolish man, gradually it becomes clear that he's a modern-day hero of truly epic proportions.

"Terrific stories...Just about perfect" ( Entertainment Weekly ): Brownsville is the collection that established Oscar Casares as one of the leading voices in the literature of the modern Southwest.



At the country's edge, on the Mexican border, Brownsville, Texas, is a town like many others. It is a place where people work hard to create better lives for their children, where people bear grudges against their neighbors, where love blossoms only to fade, and where the only real certainty is that life holds surprises.



In his sparkling debut, Oscar Casares creates a cast of unforgettable characters confronting everyday possibilities and Diego, an eleven-year-old whose job at a fireworks stand teaches him a lesson in defiance; Bony, a young man whose discovery of a monkey's head on his lawn drives a wedge between him and his parents; Lola, whose stolen bowling ball offers an unlikely chance for change. The achievement of Brownsville lies in its remarkably honest portrayal of these lives -- the lives of people whose dreams and yearnings and regrets are at once unique and universal.




"Marvelous... Brownsville resembles early Steinbeck work more than anything else." --Carolyn See, Washington Post

Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most surprising ways. “I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb…. As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all. Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever. Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.