bookshop
(^2018) I SAGA.CO.UK/AUG-MAG 17
Bird Cottage
Eva Meijer
‘Birds are filled
with air... and light
and swiftness.’
They have
personality, and they flit
everywhere in this delightful,
poignant first-person tale
of the life of ‘Len’ (Gwendolen)
Howard, who opened her
Sussex home to wild birds,
sharing her wartime rations
as she studied them. Her
bestselling Birds as Individuals
and Living with Birds have
been largely forgotten. This
Dutch author’s own Animal
Languages will be published
here in 2019. Tweet about it!
Testament
Kim Sherwood
Famous artist
Joseph Silk was
born a Hungarian
Jew, but he
has disowned his past and
the horrors of the labour
camps. When Silk dies, his
granddaughter, Eva, finds
a letter that sends her on
a quest for truth. We are plunged
into the stuff of nightmare,
come up for air, join Eva as she
uncovers the ‘lies, lies, lies’.
A truly stunning, heartfelt debut.
So Much Life
Left Over
Louis de Bernières
In a mood of
peacetime ennui,
First World War
hero Daniel, with wife Rosie,
is making a new life as a tea
The birds and the bees
From an eccentric naturalist to the plight of the bumble bee, via summer visitors and the
best and worst of human nature, let your imagination take wing, says Rose Shepherd
planter in Ceylon. Back in
England, Rosie’s three sisters
are, one way or another,
romantically involved. There
are children – legitimate and
otherwise. Mother is certifiably
bonkers. Other wars break out
- between Rosie and Daniel,
between England and Germany.
This book made me laugh,
made me mad, made me cry.
Clock Dance
Anne Tyler
Oh, joy! We’re off
to Baltimore,
where Willa Drake
somehow finds
herself caring for her son’s
ex-girlfriend Denise, and
Denise’s endearing daughter,
Cheryl (complete strangers,
both). Denise has been shot in
the leg. Her neighbours are
a bunch of crocks, crackpots
and dreamers, described with
humour and spaciousness. Life,
in Tyler’s world, is a series of
mishaps. Just like the real world.A Long
Island Story
Rick Gekoski- It is hot
in Washington DC
- too hot for
lawyer (and communist) Ben,
who heads out with his
family to spend the summer
with his in-laws in their stifling
Long Island bungalow. Ben
wants to start again here. His
wife seethes. Their children
are troubled. Can they be
reconciled? A vivid evocation
of McCarthyite America.
Books Ta ke N o t e
Saga Bookshop
To buy these books
with a discount of
up to 30%, visit the
Saga Bookshop at
wordery.com/sagaFacts of life and flights of fancy
High fliers
RSPB Spotlight Swifts and Swallows
Mike Unwin
There is no bird more filled with air and
light than the swift, mating for life, living on the wing.
Swifts are more closely related to hummingbirds
than to swallows (one of many fascinating facts to
glean from this authoritative but engaging book),
however both are ‘icons of summer’, arriving in late
spring from sub-Saharan Africa, performing
impressive aerobatics, hoovering up ‘aerial plankton’
and inspiring poetry as they go.Non-fiction
book of
the month
Buzz
Thor Hanson
Masons, miners,
carpenters, leafcutters, wool-
carders... bees are industrious
and resourceful. They give us
honey and beeswax, but their
greatest gift is as nature’s most
prolific pollinators. Some 35%
of global crop production, from
alfalfa to zucchini, depends
heavily upon them. Their decline
should concern us all. Biologist
and conservationist Hanson
opens our eyes to a global task
force 20,000-species strong.GETTY IMAGES