Reading for Pleasure: Big Jubilee Read

The Lonely Londoners follows a group of West Indian men who arrive in London on the SS Windrush. We see them as they struggle to be accepted in London and form their own communities and social relationships in a land far away from home. Told by a collection of men through a series of vignettes, the book has not plot but simply paints a picture of what it must have been like for these young men to leave their families and start a new life.

A stunning portrait of the multicultural beginnings of London in the 1950s, the book almost serves as a historical document as Sevlon himself came to London from Trinidad in 1950. It serves as a classic snapshot of Britain at the very beginning of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign.

Recommended by Emily, Library Officer

Written by Mancunian author, Anthony Burgess, this dark and disturbing dystopian novel follows our narrator, Alex, and his gang of troubled youths. Set in a near future where violence is everywhere and the police rule the streets, Alex and his gang of ‘droogs’ spend their youth committing crime and hanging out in so called ‘milk bars’. Their good time is cut short when Alex is convicted of a terrible crime, and is left completely at the mercy of the totalitarian police state.

This book was also the basis for the 1971 Stanley Kubrick film of the same name, A very clever piece of satire, which is well beyond its time, Burgess’ short but lingering novel is one that continues to be relevant and will staying in your thoughts for a long while after you turn the last page.

Recommended by Emily, Library Officer

John Le Carre’s gritty spy thriller Tinker, tailor, solider, spy follows the story of agent George Smiley who is brought out of retirement to catch and uncover a soviet double agent in the British intelligence services. As the USA and USSR fight to become the dominant superpower Britain and the rest of Europe are reduced to becoming a spy’s playground! Can George and his colleagues be trusted to find the traitor, but more importantly can they trust one another in a deadly game of cat and mouse. An amazingly suspenseful thriller with twists and turns from start to finish and with Le Carre’s wonderful style of demonstrable realism not just in narrative but characters make this a true classic that will stand the test of time!

Recommended by Alex, Library Officer

This comedy-science-fiction classic famously begins with the main character waking up one Thursday to find his house being bulldozed with him still inside it. He escapes, only to find out the Earth itself will shortly be demolished to make way for a new galactic superhighway. Fortunately his best friend is secretly an alien who is able to hitch them a ride off-planet.

Douglas Adams' trademark wit makes for a quick but memorable read, in which the reader is rocketed from one zany space adventure to the next, and the smallness of the individual in the vast uncaring universe is contemplated (with jokes).

Read if you enjoyed: Terry Pratchett, Guardians of the Galaxy, Good Omens, The Good Place

Recommended by Jodika, Library Officer

Margaret Atwood’s most famous work tells the tale of Offred, a ‘handmaid’ living in a near future dystopian version of the United States where mass infertility has rendered the world as we know it null and void. Women have been rendered sex workers, slaves or if they’re lucky ‘wives’. Offred is a handmaid, a fertile women who is forced to help a commander and his wife have a baby, and in a world where she has no way of knowing who to trust, how will Offred ever escape? A must read feminist novel, asking relevant questions about womens reproductive rights and giving modern day readers a bleak perspective on the amount of progress women have made in the past forty years since Atwood’s novel.

A terrifying read, that speaks to the gender politics of today’s world, and leaves us fearing that we are closer to a dystopian world than ever before. Read the book that inspired the hit television series (available on Channel 4) starring Elizabeth Moss.

Recommended by Emily, Library Officer

At the center of this invigorating novel are two unlikely friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. Hapless veterans of World War II, Archie and Samad and their families become agents of England’s irrevocable transformation. A second marriage to Clara Bowden, a beautiful, albeit tooth-challenged, Jamaican half his age, quite literally gives Archie a second lease on life, and produces Irie, a knowing child whose personality doesn’t quite match her name (Jamaican for “no problem”). Samad’s late-in-life arranged marriage (he had to wait for his bride to be born), produces twin sons whose separate paths confound Iqbal’s every effort to direct them, and a renewed, if selective, submission to his Islamic faith. Set against London’s racial and cultural tapestry, venturing across the former empire and into the past as it barrels toward the future, White Teeth revels in the ecstatic hodgepodge of modern life, flirting with disaster, confounding expectations, and embracing the comedy of daily existence.

Recommended by Emily, Library Officer

[Yesterday 16:48] Alex Macormac
The book Thief by Markus ZusakA beautifully heart- wrenching and powerful tale set in Nazi Germany during World War Two. Telling the story of a girl named Liesel.  Liesel and her brother are taken in by a new family as her mother through no fault of her own could not afford to give them the love and care they so desperately need. This leads to Liesel stealing her first book, Grave-Diggers handbook.  A task is then set by her new ‘papa’ to not only read this book but to acquire many more in the quest for knowledge and a very wanted distraction from the carnage of war on their own doorstep! Philosophical and beautifully brilliant in its delivery and perspective. The book Thief will have you crying one minute and laughing the next taking the reader on a truly emotional roller-coaster but also encouraging a stark realization about the gruesome reality of war. A highly recommended read!

Recommended by Alex, Library Officer

Wolf Hall is so compelling and glamourous that you could believe Hilary Mantel invented Thomas Cromwell, and the Tudor court, and London.

But she didn’t, and Wolf Hall is a Booker Prize winning work of fiction, with all the drama, violence and romance you could want. Cromwell is a surprisingly likable and rational politician, and has a cute dog named Bella. Unlike Game of Thrones, noone’s fate should come as a surprise, but you will be heartbroken anyway. Don’t be put off by the length, Wolf Hall is a very fun read.

Recommended by Kiera, Library Officer

Available at St Johns Campus Library

Coming Soon to the Manchester College Libraries

Available at Harpurhey and Northenden Campus Libraries

Coming soon to the Manchester College Campus Libraries

Coming soon to the Manchester College Libraries

Available at Shena Simon Campus Library

Available at Wythenshawe Campus Library

Available at Wythenshawe Campus Library

Available at St Johns Campus Library

Available at St Johns Campus Library

Coming soon to the Manchester College Libraries

Coming soon to the Manchester College Libraries

Coming soon to the Manchester College Libraries

Coming soon to the Manchester College Libraries