Village Books

Highly praised by Robert Macfarlane and a Sunday Times bestseller, Entangled Life is a fascinating insight into the fungal world. Neither plant nor animal, they are found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. In fact, nearly all life relies in some way on fungi. This book is a mind-altering journey into a spectacular and neglected world, and shows that fungi provide a key to understanding both the planet on which we live, and life itself.

In A Promised Land, Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency—a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.

From his earliest political aspirations to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he became the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office, this book offers a unique and intimate insight into both the dynamics of U.S. politics and Obama’s personal journey.

In Troy, Stephen Fry brings to life the legendary kidnapping of the beautiful Helen, for whom the Greeks launched a thousand ships and lay siege for ten bloody years; king of the gods Zeus, who triggered war when he asked Trojan prince Paris to judge the fairest goddess of all; and the terrible, brutal war with casualties on all sides.

Following his bestsellers Mythos and Heroes, in this new novel Stephen shares tales of heroism and hatred, revenge and regret, and desire and despair – and showing how these human passions still speak to us today.

Tracey is a big fan of Jonathan Coe and this is another tremendously pleasurable read. In the heady summer of 1977, a naïve young woman finds herself working on a Greek island for the famed Hollywood director Billy Wilder. While Calista is thrilled with her new adventure, Wilder himself is living with the realisation that his star may be on the wane. In Mr Wilder and Me, Jonathan Coe turns his gaze on the nature of time and fame, of family and the treacherous lure of nostalgia.

Like lots of people, our bookseller Sophie is a big fan of David Sedaris. Now, for the first time collected in one volume, Sedaris brings us his funniest and most memorable work. From a spectacular career spanning almost three decades, these stories have become modern classics. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside.

In these stories, he shops for rare taxidermy, hitchhikes with a lady quadriplegic, and drowns a mouse in a bucket. A hilarious, joyful anthology which will have belly laughing.

Warning: not to be read on an empty stomach. In this wonderful new memoir from Grace Dent, she traces her own story from growing up eating beige food to becoming one of the much-loved voices on the British food scene. Warm, funny and joyous, Hungry is also about love and loss, the central role that food plays in all our lives, and how a Cadbury’s Fruit ‘n’ Nut in a hospital vending machine can brighten the toughest situation.

Since Nunez’s bestselling book The Friend was first published in the UK, Sophie has been reading her avidly and was delighted by this new offering, What Are You Going Through, in which a woman describes a series of encounters she has with various people in the ordinary course of her life. Nunez brings her trademark wit and insight to this moving story about human connection and the meaning of life and death.

Just out in paperback from the bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring comes another heartfelt and enthralling tale. It is 1932 and Violet Speedwell, unlikely to marry, resolves to escape her suffocating mother and start a new life in Winchester where she falls in with the broderers, a disparate group of women charged with embroidering kneelers for the Cathedral. Tracey read A Single Thread and was totally captivated by it!

‘A poignant, funny tale of early-thirties love and loss’ Sunday Times

Ella really enjoyed this gentle, funny novel from the writer of the bestselling Everything I Know About Love. Nina Dean has arrived at her thirties as a successful food writer with loving friends and family, plus a new home and neighbourhood. But now friendships are fading, she is haunted by the ghosts of non-committal boyfriends, and, worse, everyone’s moving to the suburbs.