Marlena de Blasi
A Thousand Days In Tuscany

On a forgotten patch of earth where Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio collide, Marlena de Blasi settles with her Venetian husband, Fernando, in search of a new life. The routines they establish are not that different from those of villagers centuries earlier. They wake at dawn to harvest grapes, gather chestnuts, forage for wild mushrooms. And they climb trees in the cold of December to pick olives. Yet it is the friendship of the mesmeric Barlozzo, a self-styled village chieftain of sorts, that leads them deep into the heart of Tuscany. Barlozzo shares his knowledge of Italian farming traditions, ancient health potions and artisanal food makers. This real-life memoir (plus recipes) is the sequel to the acclaimed A Thousand Days in Venice.

Nick Hornby
A Long Way Down

New Year's Eve at Topper's House, North London's most popular suicide spot. Four strangers are about to discover that doing away with yourself isn't quite the private act they'd each expected. Perma-tanned Martin Sharp's a disgraced breakfast TV presenter. Loving mum Maureen can't cope with her disabled son. Jess is half-crazed with heartbreak and adolescent angst. Finally there's JJ, the cool American who looks like a rock star, who's weighed down with problems, and pizza. Four strangers, who were convinced that they were alone and going to end it all that way, share out the pizza and begin to talk. Funny, sad and deeply moving, this is a novel about life, death, strangers, friendship, love and pain.

Out of the Silent Planet forms the first part of C.S. Lewis's acclaimed Cosmic Trilogy, which continues in Perelandra and concludes in That Hideous Strength. Dr Ransom, a Cambridge academic, is abducted and taken on a spaceship to the red planet of Malacandra, which he knows as Mars. The creatures he meets there call Earth the Silent Planet, and Ransom discovers that the tragic story of his home world is known throughout the universe. Lewis's matchless imagination has created an exhilarating adventure which also attempts to answer some of life's great mysteries.