BOOKSIMO

Description Inspired Traveller’s Guides: Literary Places  takes you on an enlightening journey through the key locations of literature’s best and brightest authors, movements, and moments—brought to life through comprehensively researched text and stunning hand-drawn artwork. Travel journalist Sarah Baxter provides comprehensive and atmospheric outlines of the  history and culture of 25 literary places around the globe , as well as how they intersect with the  lives of the authors  and the works that make them significant.  Full-page color illustrations  instantly transport you to each location. You’ll find that these places are not just backdrops to the tales told, but characters in their own right. Travel to the sun-scorched plains of Don Quixote’s La Mancha, roam the wild Yorkshire moors with Cathy and Heathcliff, or view Central Park through the eyes of  J.D. Salinger ’s antihero. Explore the lush and languid backwaters of  Arundhati Roy ...

Description Fixie Farr has always lived by her father’s motto: “Family first.” And since her dad passed away, leaving his charming housewares store in the hands of his wife and children, Fixie spends all her time picking up the slack from her siblings instead of striking out on her own. The way Fixie sees it, if she doesn’t take care of her father’s legacy, who will? It’s simply not in Fixie’s nature to say no to people. So when a handsome stranger in a coffee shop asks her to watch his laptop for a moment, she not only agrees—she ends up saving it from certain disaster. To thank Fixie for her quick thinking, the computer’s owner, Sebastian, an investment manager, scribbles an IOU on a coffee sleeve and attaches his business card. Fixie laughs it off—she’d never actually claim an IOU from a stranger. Would she? But then Fixie’s childhood crush, Ryan, comes back into her life, and his lack of a profession pushes all of Fixie’s buttons. As always, she wants nothing for herself—but s...

Description ‘[Like] the self-help success  The Secret , but cooler and more sciencey.’  - Evening Standard Life-changing opportunities pass us by every day – now we can train our minds to seize them Self-help books like  The Secret  promise that we can tap into the 'law of attraction' to control our destiny, simply by changing our thoughts. If we strip away the mystique, at the heart of this idea is a fundamental truth that is backed up by the latest breakthroughs in neuroscience: most of the things we want from life – health, happiness, wealth, love -  are  governed by our ability to think, feel and act; in other words, by our brain. Dr Tara Swart, a neuroscientist and executive coach with a background in psychiatry, is convinced beyond all doubt of our ability to alter how our brains work - and transform our lives. In  The Source , she draws on the latest cognitive science and her experience coaching highly successful people to reveal the...

Description 'A passionate, provocative book. It isn't just a self-help book. It is a manifesto for a better society' Sunday Times 'One of the most rigorous articulations of the new mood of acceptance...a persuasive demolition of many of our cultural stories about how we ought to live' Oliver Burkeman, Guardian Paul Dolan, the bestselling author of Happiness by Design, shows us how to escape the myth of perfection and find our own route to happiness. Be ambitious; find everlasting love; look after your health ... There are countless stories about how we ought to live our lives. These narratives can make our lives easier, and they might sometimes make us happier too. But they can also trap us and those around us. In Happy Ever After, bestselling happiness expert Professor Paul Dolan draws on a variety of studies ranging over wellbeing, inequality and discrimination to bust the common myths about our sources of happiness. He shows that there can be many u...

Description A life-affirming debut, perfect for fans of Rowan Coleman and Lucy Diamond. You can lose your memory, but you never forget how to love… Lana Green has a talent for pushing people away. As a writer, she’s perfectly happy to be left alone with her books. But when she meets Jack Buchanan and Nancy Ellis Hall, Lana’s solitary life will change for ever. Nancy has dementia, and social services believe this makes her vulnerable. But Lana can see the funny, brilliant woman underneath the illness. As Lana and Jack struggle to keep Nancy out of a care home, Lana starts to question everything she ever thought mattered. Because what’s the point in stories, if there is no one to share them with? Review I wasn't really sure what this book was going to be about exactly - I was intrigued by the idea of Lana (28 yrs old) becoming a house mate with an 80 year old woman. Once I began to read this book I was just hooked straight in - it felt like coming home, I just i...

Description You always remember your first love. Don’t you…? ’I loved it! So funny and warm. A delicious read’ Marian Keyes ’Hilarious, warm and life affirming’ Jenny Colgan It began with four words. ‘I love your laugh. x’ But that was twelve years ago. It  really  began the day Georgina was fired from The Worst Restaurant in Sheffield (© Tripadvisor) and found The Worst Boyfriend in the World (© Georgina’s best friends) in bed with someone else. So when her new boss, Lucas McCarthy, turns out to be the boy who wrote those words to her all that time ago, it feels like the start of something. The only problem? He doesn’t seem to remember Georgina – at all… Review It seems like forever since I read a new Mhairi McFarlane book and now it will seem like it again. I loved reading it so much and would have read it in fewer sittings but the eyes aren't what they used to be and started to close down on me. I've said before that I don't really class Mhair...