Enriching Reads For The Weeks Ahead
A book brings up strong emotions and gives you a break from dumb scrolling and screen times. Here are some enriching reads for the weeks ahead.
Only Love Can Hurt Like This
Neither of them expected to fall in love. But sometimes life has other plans. When Wren realizes her fiancé is in love with someone else, she thinks her heart will never recover. On the other side of the world, Anders lost his wife four years ago and is still struggling to move on. Wren hopes that spending the summer with her dad and stepfamily on their farm in Indiana will help her to heal. There, amid the cornfields and fireflies, she and Anders cross paths and their worlds are turned upside-down again. But Wren does not know that Anders is harboring a secret, and if he acts on any feelings, he has for Wren it will have serious fall-out for everyone. Walking away would hurt Wren more than she could imagine. But, knowing the truth, how can she possibly stay?
The Devil’s Flute Murders
An ingenious and highly atmospheric classic whodunit from Japan’s master of crime. Amid the rubble of post-war Tokyo, inside the grand Tsubaki house, a once-noble family is in mourning. The old viscount Tsubaki, a brooding, troubled composer, has been found dead. When the family gather for a divination to conjure the spirit of their departed patriarch, death visits the house once more, and the brilliant Kosuke Kindaichi is called in to investigate. But before he can get to the truth Kindaichi must uncover the Tsubakis’ most disturbing secrets, while the gruesome murders continue…
Other Peoples Husbands
Sometimes friendship crosses a line . . . A group of close friends, their bonds forged at the nursery gates two decades ago, have celebrated, commiserated, and grown together: they thought they all knew each other so well. Until the affair. Now a crack appears in everything.
Could one betrayal really destroy it all?
Much Ado About Nada
Once they were sweethearts, now they’re strangers. Worse than strangers – practically enemies.
But will a chance encounter offer Nada and Baz a second chance at love? Nada Syed is stuck. At twenty-eight, she’s living with her parents and mourning the failure of her start-up baby, which failed because of a double-crossing business partner.
Nada’s best friend Haleema is determined to pry her from her shell – and what better place than at the giant annual Muslim conference? And did Haleema mention that Baz would be there? What Haleema doesn’t know is that Nada and Baz have a secret history. And in their chance encounter at the conference, that history comes hurtling at Nada, bringing a moment of reckoning. Will Nada find a way to let go of the past but hold onto her dreams?
The House of Doors
It is 1921 and at Cassowary House in the Straits Settlements of Penang, Robert Hamlyn is a well-to-do lawyer and his steely wife Lesley a society hostess. Their lives are invigorated when Willie, an old friend of Robert’s, comes to stay.
Willie Somerset Maugham is one of the greatest writers of his day. But he is beleaguered by an unhappy marriage, ill-health and business interests that have gone badly awry. He is also struggling to write. The more Lesley’s friendship with Willie grows, the more clearly, she sees him as he is – a man who has no choice but to mask his true self.
As Willie prepares to leave and face his demons, Lesley confides secrets of her own, including how she came to know the charismatic Dr Sun Yat Sen, a revolutionary fighting to overthrow the imperial dynasty of China. And more scandalous still, she reveals her connection to the case of an Englishwoman charged with murder in the Kuala Lumpur courts – a tragedy drawn from fact, and worthy of fiction.
From Man Booker Prize-shortlisted Tan Twan Eng, The House of Doors is a masterful novel of public morality and private truth a century ago. Based on real events it is a drama of love and betrayal under the shadow of Empire.
