No Relation

The Man Who Forgot His Wife

John O'Farrell · 351 pages

Wandering around a busy railway station, a confused man realises he has suffered a total memory loss. When he is eventually rescued, he is told that his breakdown has probably been triggered by his marital problems. But then he comes face to face with the stranger he is supposed to be divorcing and promptly falls head over heels in love with her.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Mark Haddon · 240 pages

This is Christopher's murder mystery story. There are no lies in this story because Christopher can't tell lies. Christopher does not like strangers or the colours yellow or brown or being touched. On the other hand, he knows all the countries in the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7507. When Christohper decides to find out who killed the neighbour's dog, his mystery st

Emotionally Weird

Kate Atkinson · 352 pages

On a peat and heather island off the west coast of Scotland, Effie and her mother Nora take refuge in the large mouldering house of their ancestors and tell each other stories. Nora, at first, recounts nothing that Effie really wants to hear, like who her father was - variously Jimmy, Jack, or Ernie. Effie tells of her life at college in Dundee, the land of cakes and William Wallace, where she liv

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Jesse Andrews · 304 pages

Seventeen-year-old Greg has managed to become part of every social group at his Pittsburgh high school without having any friends, but his life changes when his mother forces him to befriend Rachel, a girl he once knew in Hebrew school who has leukemia.

Terms & Conditions

Robert Glancy · 272 pages

Frank has been in a car accident*. The doctor tells him he lost his spleen, but Frank believes he has lost more. He is missing memories - of those around him, of the history they share and of how he came to be in the crash. All he remembers is that he is a lawyer who specialises in small print**. In the wake of the accident Frank begins to piece together his former life - and his former self. But

We're All Damaged

Matthew Norman · 268 pages

Andy Carter was happy. He had a solid job. He ran 5Ks for charity. He was living a nice, safe Midwestern existence. And then his wife left him for a handsome paramedic down the street. We're All Damaged begins after Andy has lost his job, ruined his best friend's wedding, and moved to New York City, where he lives in a tiny apartment with an angry cat named Jeter that isn't technically his. But be

Joe College

Tom Perrotta · 313 pages

For many Ivy League college students, spring break means a raucous road trip to a spot in the sun. For Danny, a Yale junior, the spring of 1982 means two weeks in central New Jersey behind the wheel of his dad's lunch truck, the *Roach Coach*. But Danny can use the time with the coffee urn to try to make sense of a love life that's gotten a little complicated.There's loyal and patient hometown hon

Cooking with Fernet Branca

James Hamilton-Paterson · 292 pages

Wobegon Boy

Garrison Keillor · 336 pages

A comedy on John Tollefson, a 40-something bachelor from Minnesota working in a college in New York State as manager of its radio station. The college caters to academically challenged children of financially gifted parents. A spoof on academia.

In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash

Jean Shepherd

A Year in the Merde

Stephen Clarke · 320 pages

Self-published in France, and a subsequent bestseller, the hilarious story of a year in the life of a young Englishman abroad.Paul West, a young Englishman, arrives in Paris to start a new job – and finds out what the French are really like.They do eat a lot of cheese, some of which smells like pigs' droppings. They don't wash their armpits with garlic soap. Going on strike really is the second na

The Rosie Project

Graeme Simsion · 329 pages

Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a "wonderful" husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probabilit

Heartburn

Nora Ephron · 192 pages

Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. For in this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of *Sleepless in Seattle* reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter. Seven months into her pre

How to Build a Girl

Caitlin Moran · 341 pages

After she shames herself on local television, Johanna Morgan reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde--a fast-talking, hard-drinking Gothic hero--until two years later, while eviscerating bands as a music critic, she realizes she's built Dolly with a fatal flaw.

Snuff

Chuck Palahniuk · 208 pages

**From the master of literary mayhem and provocation, a full-frontal Triple X novel that goes where no American work of fiction has gone before** Cassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera. With six hundred men. Snuff unfolds from the perspectives of Mr. 72, Mr. 137, and Mr. 600, who await their turn on camer

Therapy

David Lodge · 320 pages

To all appearances, Laurence Passmore is sitting pretty. True, he's almost bald and his nickname is "Tubby," but the TV sitcom he writes keeps the money coming in, he has an exclusive house in Rummidge, a state-of-the-art car, a vigorous sex life with his wife of thirty years, a flat in London, and a platonic mistress to talk shop with on his regular business trips. What his money can't buy, and

High Fidelity

Nick Hornby · 256 pages

Nick Hornby's first novel, an international bestseller and instantly recognized by critics and readers alike as a classic, helps to explain men to women, and men to men. Rob is good on music: he owns a small record shop and has strong views on what's decent and what isn't. But he's much less good on relationships. In fact, he's not at all sure that he wants to commit himself to anyone. So it's har

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

Judy Blume · 120 pages

Any fourth grader would agree that Peter Hatcher has a terrible problem—his little brother, Fudge. But the grown-ups in his life just can't see that there is something wrong with a two-year-old who breaks his front teeth try- ing to fly, decides that he is a dog, goes on a no-eat strike, and scribbles all over his brother's homework. Peter is always asked to perform so that Fudge will be less of

King Dork

Frank Portman · 344 pages

Tom Henderson (a.k.a. King Dork, Chi-mo, Hender-fag, and Sheepie) is a typical American high school loser until he discovers the book, The Catcher in the Rye, that will change the world as he knows it. When Tom discovers his deceased father's copy of the Salinger classic, he finds himself in the middle of several interlocking conspiracies and at least half a dozen mysteries involving dead people,

The Pleasure of My Company

Steve Martin · 163 pages

Medicine River

Thomas King · 264 pages

An Evening of Long Goodbyes

Paul Murray · 437 pages

Acclaimed as one of the funniest and most assured Irish novels of recent years: An Evening of Long Goodbyes is the story of Dubliner Charles Hythloday and the heroic squandering of the family inheritance. Featuring drinking: greyhound racing: vanishing furniture: more drinking: old movies: assorted Dublin lowlife: eviction and the perils of community theatre: Paul Murray's debut novel is a tour de

Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years

Sue Townsend · 320 pages

Adrian Mole is back. He's older, no wiser and possibly even funnier than before ... When we last heard from Adrian, he had fallen in love with Daisy Flowers and they had embarked on a new life with their baby, Gracie. Fast-forward four years and Adrian's life is in turmoil again.

I See You've Called in Dead

John Kenney · 294 pages