October’s books include a reimagining of Huckleberry Finn’s Adventures from Jim’s viewpoint, a secretary encountering some of history’s greatest minds, and an ancient text inspiring interwoven tales.
Find out about each one below and remember to email your choice.
Mr Einstein's Secretary
by Matthew Reilly
A SECRETARY LIKE NO OTHER IN AN EPIC SPANNING 40 YEARS
All Hanna Fischer ever wanted to do was to study physics under the great Albert Einstein.
But when, as a teenager in 1919, her life is suddenly turned upside-down, she is catapulted into a new and extraordinary life – as a student, a secretary, a sister and a spy.
From racist gangs in Berlin to gangsters in New York City, Nazis in the 1930s and Hitler’s inner circle during the Second World War, Hanna will encounter some of history’s greatest minds and most terrible moments, all while desperately trying to stay alive.
She is a most unique secretary and she will work for many bosses – from shrewd businessmen to vile Nazis, to the greatest boss of them all, Mr Albert Einstein…
Spanning forty years, this is the thrilling tale of a young woman propelled through history’s most dangerous times. But read it carefully, because all may not be as it seems…
Amazon: Paperback $14.00, Kindle $12.99
Sutherland Library: Multiple copies
Kmart: Doesn’t stock
Big W: Paperback $14
Cloud Cuckoo Land
by Anthony Doerr
When everything is lost, it’s our stories that survive.
How do we weather the end of things? Cloud Cuckoo Land brings together an unforgettable cast of dreamers and outsiders from past, present and future to offer a vision of survival against all odds.
Constantinople, 1453:
An orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy with a love for animals risk everything on opposite sides of a city wall to protect the people they love.
Idaho, 2020:
An impoverished, idealistic kid seeks revenge on a world that’s crumbling around him. Can he go through with it when a gentle old man stands between him and his plans?
Unknown, Sometime in the Future:
With her tiny community in peril, Konstance is the last hope for the human race. To find a way forward, she must look to the oldest stories of all for guidance.
Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself. Like its predecessor All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr’s new novel is a tale of hope and of profound human connection.
Amazon: Paperback $17.24, Kindle $14.99
Sutherland Library: Multiple copies
Kmart: Doesn’t stock
Big W: Doesn’t stock
James
by Percival Everett
A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view.
When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.
Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim’s agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.
Amazon: Paperback $14.00, Kindle $4.99
Sutherland Library: eBook (Hoopla) & eAudiobook
Kmart: Doesn’t stock
Big W: Doesn’t stock