Fig Tree

"You give a girl a taste of fresh air and then you take it away-she'll grow fierce and wild to get it back." Oxford, Mississippi, 1933. Eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one. Ever since her beloved mother failed to come home last Christmas Eve, she's been one of the 'unadoptable' girls at the town's orphanage, where she fights each day to keep her wits sharp and her spirit unbowed. When she meets Birdie, a young woman who has come to Oxford determined to remind her socialite sister of the impoverished family she left behind, for the first time in a long while it seems someone else might care about Meg's future. But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie begins to suspect her sister's charmed life may be founded on a tapestry of lies. Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman haunted by loss who has been pushed to the brink with nothing left to lose. Drawn together by circumstance, they find unexpected kinship among a disreputable, determined band of women. But in a town steeped in hypocrisy, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences …

Juno Isabella Flock is a dancer and performance artist who spends her days caring for her ailing husband, and her nights chatting to love scammers online. She's aware of the risks these men pose - she's watched a documentary about them - but she's also discovered a heady freedom in these online conversations, and the things they allow her to say. When Juno meets Owen_Wilson223 - or, to use his real name, Benu - she senses an immediate connection between them, even though they're separated by thousands of miles. Gradually, they reveal more and more about themselves to each other: about their real selves, and about who they really want to be. And just as Juno sees through Benu's lies, he sees through hers too. Hey, Good Morning, How Are You? is a whirlwind of a novel. It's about yearning to stay young while age marches on; it's about how to stay truthful while the internet changes everything; it's about love and desire in all their many, conflicting forms. And most of all, it's a novel about the way we are all connected, by the same constellations and the same night sky, however different our circumstances.

Los Angeles, 2001. Sonia is raising her daughter, Mila, alone in the sunny but somnolent suburbs of LA. Her days are a blur of not-quite-illegal business activities, avoiding other moms, and baking birthday cakes laced with rum: minor mistakes that nevertheless remind her she doesn't belong. Mila, meanwhile, is juggling violin and swimming lessons and navigating the treacherous social politics of school - all the while trying to get her mother to share something, anything, about her past. But there are just too many things that Mila doesn't know: She doesn't know that her mother grew up in Soviet Hungary (where getting your hands on a banana was one of the greatest thrills in life) She doesn't know that her mother has a sister called Rina (whom she hasn't spoken to in 10 years) The only thing she does know about her father is that he was a 'good time' (according to her mother) Crucially, she doesn't know that there is a very good reason why her mother dodges everyone, from traffic cops to vice principals. So, Mila concocts a scheme to get her mother, and the man Mila is kind of sure must be her father to reconnect. It involves corralling Sonia into chaperoning an orchestra of ten-year-olds (most of whom seem to be called Megan) on a road trip from LA to San Francisco, and it may just cause their carefully constructed lives to implode. Moving between Budapest before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Washington, DC in the tense years of the Cold War and the bright sunshine of early 2000s Los Angeles, Porcupines is an irresistible novel about mothers and daughters, belonging and reinvention, the things we carry with us, and those we tell ourselves we've left behind.

Independence seems to be drifting away from Misty. Just months ago, she was living with her fiancé and planning their life together. Now she’s single, back in her childhood bedroom, on crutches from knee surgery, and relying on her mother to help her with the smallest of tasks. This isn’t how thirty-two was meant to look. When Misty turns to dating apps, she's she’s immediately intrigued by charismatic, handsome Christopher – so intrigued that she doesn't doesn’t even notice the acronym ‘ENM’ on his profile. By the time she discovers that it stands for ‘ethical non-monogamy' – and that he’s in a long-term open relationship – she already feels such undeniable, dizzying chemistry that she decides to give things a go. And so Misty makes a pact with herself to date Christopher for the next six weeks while his partner is away. It’s all part of her plan: she wants to learn to become less attached, and to prepare herself for her next ‘real’ relationship. But is what she wants really what she needs?

Introducing an outstanding new voice in literary fiction: a sensual, sharp, and utterly compelling campus novel about grief, reinvention, and the ripple effects of telling lies If I ever woke up with an ungodly dread - that I could change it all now, turn around, and confess - I ignored it. I had never been good, and there was no point in trying now. On a small liberal arts campus in upstate New York, Charlotte begins her final year with a lie. Her father died over the summer, she says. Heart attack. Very sudden. Charlotte had never been close with her classmates but as she repeats her tale, their expressions soften into kindness. And so she learns there are things worth lying for: attention, affection, and, as she embarks on a relationship with fellow student Katarina, even love. All she needs to do is keep control of the threads that hold her lie - and her life - together. But six thousand miles away, alone in the grey two-up-two-down Staffordshire terrace she grew up in, her father is very much alive, watching television and drinking beer. Charlotte has always kept difficult truths at arm's length, but his resolve to visit his distant daughter might just be the one thing she can't control.

A heartstopping story of friendship, thrill-seeking and defying expectations: the explosive second novel from the bestselling author of My Absolute Darling Dan and Tamma are two Californian teenagers growing up dirt poor in the shadows of the Joshua Tree National Park, one of the world's great rock climbing meccas. Their mothers had once been teenage waitresses and best friends until their paths diverged. Now Dan's mother spends her days locked in her room, her dreams squandered and all her hopes pinned on getting her precociously clever son out of town and away to university. Tamma's mother holds no such ambition for her mouthy, queer, truant-playing, snaggle-toothed daughter, who everyone but Dan believes to be a troublemaker and no-hoper. But Tamma and Dan are fuelled by dreams of becoming legendary rock climbers, of devoting their lives to summiting the most challenging climbs and defying all the expectations, both good and bad, that others have for them. Climbing at sun-up, on cliff faces that test their bodies to the limit, is where their friendship is forged. It's also the one thing that gives them hope. But as their final year of high school unfolds and their climbs become ever more dangerous, and their home lives ever more extreme, it's inevitable that something is going to snap...

I'm fizzing. I love not being his son. Yes. I can feel it in my whole body. A great thrill - as if an adventure has begun. As if I'm the boy in a book about a boy who finds out his dad is the king of a magical and distant land. Christmas, 1983. In the aftermath of yet another furious argument, seven-year-old Andrev's mother lets him in on a secret: his father is, in fact, not his father. And so begins a new kind of childhood, in which fathers come and go, arriving in red Volvos and sweeping his mother off her feet. Fathers can be magicians or murderers, artists or thieves, and, like growing pains, or the weather, they appear uninvited and leave without warning. Fathers are drawn to his mother like moths to a flame - but even she can't control how they behave. Vivid and joyful, raw and tender, Bloody Awful in Different Ways is a novel about growing up in the chaos of social change; about how love begins and ends; and above all, about men. Because after all, you learn an awful lot about this strange species when you have seven fathers in seven years.

An irresistible and achingly relatable debut novel for anyone who has ever had to let go of what they thought their life would look like and open themselves up to the dizzying possibilities of chance. Elliot. Joe. Tommy. Nathanael. Wren. Oliver. Malik. Zach. Frank. Patrick. Noah. These are the men Margot has loved, liked, lusted over. Since she was seventeen, she’s pictured them like stepping stones – each one bringing her closer to finding someone to share her life with and, eventually, father the children she’s always imagined in her future. From her first sexual encounter, to her first love, from grown-up dilemmas to spontaneous thrills, she’s soaked up every experience available to her, discovering friendship, joy and despair. Through all of this she’s refined her search until she believes she’s arrived at ‘the ending’ to her story. So how did she find herself here, single at thirty-four, and about to make the biggest decision of her life?

A celebration of our female friendships, of our messy years, and of growing up together. Glittering with wit, heart, and humour, it’s a book to share with every woman you’ve ever been lucky enough to call a friend. “Nearly everything I know about love, I've learnt from my long-term friendships with women.” I know that love can be loud and jubilant. It can be dancing in the swampy mud and the pouring rain at a festival and shouting “YOU ARE AMAZING” over the band. It’s laughing until you wheeze. It’s walking along the street together on a Saturday night and feeling an entire city is yours. I also know that love is a pretty quiet thing. It’s lying on the sofa together drinking coffee, talking about where you’re going to go that morning to drink more coffee. It’s folding down pages of books you think they’d find interesting. I know that love happens under the splendour of fireworks and sunsets, but also happens when you’re lying on blow-up airbeds in a childhood bedroom, sitting in A&E or in the queue for a passport.

FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF EAST, MADE IN INDIA AND FRESH INDIA ‘The ability to put a good dinner on the table has become my superpower and I want it to be yours too.' Dinner is a fresh and joyful celebration of the power of a good meal all created to answer the question: What's for dinner? in an exciting and delicious way. Discover 120 vibrant, easy-to-make vegetarian and vegan main dishes bursting with flavour, including baked butter paneer, kimchi and tomato spaghetti, and aubergines roasted in satay sauce. There are also mouthwatering desserts, such as coconut and cardamom dream cake and bubble tea ice cream, and exciting side dishes, such as salt and vinegar potato salad and asparagus and cashew thoran. From quick-cook recipes to one-pan wonders and delectable dishes you can just bung in the oven and leave to look after themselves, Dinner is the essential companion for the most important meal of the day.

An English teacher's love letter to reading and the many ways literature can make us, and our lives, better. How can a Victorian poem help teenagers understand YouTube misogyny? Can Jane Eyre encourage us to speak out? What can Lady Macbeth teach us about empathy? Should our expectations for our future be any greater than Pip’s? And why is it so important to make space for these conversations in the first place? In a career spanning almost three decades, English teacher Carol Atherton has taught generations of students texts that will be familiar to many of us from our own schooldays. But while the staples of exam syllabuses and reading lists remain largely unchanged, their significance – and their relevance – evolves with each class, as it encounters them for the first time. Each chapter of Reading Lessons invites us to take a fresh look at these novels, plays and poems, revealing how they have shaped our beliefs, our values, and how we interact as a society. As she recalls her own development as a teacher, Atherton emphasizes the vital, undervalued role a teacher plays, illustrates how essential reading is for developing our empathy and makes a passionate case for the enduring power of literature.

Diana touched your elbow, your arm, covered your hand with hers. It was alluring. And she was disarmingly confiding. "Can I ask you something? Nicholas, please be frank..." Over his thirty-year career at Conde Nast, Nicholas Coleridge has witnessed it all. From the anxieties of the Princess of Wales to the blazing fury of Mohamed Al-Fayed, his story is also the story of the people who populate the glamorous world of glossy magazines. With relish and astonishing candour, he offers the inside scoop on Tina Brown and Anna Wintour, David Bowie and Philip Green, Kate Moss and Beyonce; on Margaret Thatcher's clothes legacy, and a surreal weekend away with Bob Geldof and William Hague. Cara Delevingne, media tycoons, Prime Ministers, Princes, Mayors and Maharajas - all cross his path. His career in magazines straddles the glossies throughout their glorious zenith - from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s to the digital iterations of the 21st century. Having cut his teeth on Tatler, and as Editor-in-Chief of Harpers & Queen, he became the Mr Big of glossy publishing for three decades. Packed with surprising and often hilarious anecdotes, The Glossy Years also provides perceptive insight into the changing and treacherous worlds of fashion, journalism, museums and a whole sweep of British society. This is a rich, honest, witty and very personal memoir of a life splendidly lived.

There was nothing to do but tell stories. Tell this story. And then? Asked Cora. And then everything, said Finn. Newfoundland, Canada, 1992. When all the fish vanish from the waters, and the cod industry abruptly collapses, it's not long before the people begin to disappear from the town of Big Running as well. As residents are forced to leave the island in search of work, ten-year-old Finn Connor suddenly finds himself living in a ghost town. There's no school, no friends and whole rows of houses stand abandoned. And then Finn's parents announce that they too must separate if their family is to survive. But Finn still has his sister, Cora, with whom he counts the dwindling boats on the coast at night, and Mrs Callaghan, who teaches him the strange and ancient melodies of their native Ireland. That is until his sister disappears, and Finn must find a way of calling home the family and the life he has lost.

"This book is full of real charm, personality, love and garlic. The best Indian food is cooked (and eaten) at home". (Yotam Ottolenghi). Real Indian food is fresh, simple and packed with flavour and in this book, Meera Sodha introduces Britain to the food she grew up eating here every day. Unlike the stuff you get at your local curry house, her food is fresh, vibrant and surprisingly quick and easy to make. In this collection, Meera serves up a feast of over 130 delicious recipes collected from three generations of her family: there's everything from hot chappatis to street food (chilli paneer and beetroot and feta samosas), fragrant curries (spinach and salmon or perfect cinnamon lamb curry), to colourful side dishes (pomegranate and mint raita, kachumbar salad), and mouth-watering puddings (mango, lime and passion fruit jelly and pistachio and saffron kulfi). MADE IN INDIA will change the way you cook, eat, and think about Indian food, forever.

A new biography of Michelangelo by Martin Gayford, the acclaimed author of Constable in Love and The Yellow House. There was an epic sweep to Michelangelo's life. At 31 he was considered the finest artist in Italy, perhaps the world; long before he died at almost 90 he was widely believed to be the greatest sculptor or painter who had ever lived (and, by his enemies, to be an arrogant, uncouth, swindling miser). For decade after decade, he worked near the dynamic centre of events: the vortex at which European history was changing from Renaissance to Counter Reformation. Few of his works - including the huge frescoes of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, the marble giant David and the Last Judgment - were small or easy to accomplish. Like a hero of classical mythology - such as Hercules, whose statue Michelangelo carved in his youth - he was subject to constant trials and labours. In Michelangelo Martin Gayford describes what it felt like to be Michelangelo Buonarroti, and how he transformed forever our notion of what an artist could be. 'One of our most distinguished writers on what makes modern artists tick . . . It is very difficult to cut through the thicket of generations of scholarship and say anything new about David, the Sistine Chapel, The Last Judgement, the Basilica of St Peter's or many of Michelangelo's other masterpieces, but Gayford manages to do so by encouraging us to think - and look - at both the obvious and the overlooked' Sunday Telegraph. 'Only the most ambitious biographer can take on the talent of Michelangelo Buonarroti' The Times. Martin Gayford has been art critic of the Spectator and the Sunday Telegraph. He is currently Chief European art critic for Bloomberg. Among his publications are: The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles, The Penguin Book of Art Writing, of which he was co-editor, Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud, and contributions to many catalogues. He lives in Cambridge with his wife and two children.

Marina Lewycka explores the clash of the generations in one extremely colourful family in her comic novel Various Pets Alive and Dead. For twenty years Doro and Marcus lived in a commune, convinced lentils and free love would change the world. They didn't. What they did do was give their children a terror of radicalism, dirt, cooking rotas and poverty. Their daughter Clara wants nothing less conformist than her own, clean bathroom. Their son Serge hides the awkward fact that he's a banker earning loadsamoney. So when Doro and Marcus spring a surprise on their kids - just as the world is rocked in ways they always wished for - the family is forced to confront some thorny truths about themselves . . . 'Made me laugh at least once every chapter. Lewycka's fiction is unlike anything else around at present. The warmth of its zest, its blend of quirky, humane comedy and intellectual seriousness make this a novel to treasure' New Statesman