After Hours | Books Abroad


	Wednesday November 9 ~ 6:00pm Sunday November 13 ~ 2:00pm The Sense of an Ending Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, but they all swore to stay friends for life. Now Tony is in middle age. He’s had a career and a single marriage. He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer’s letter is about to prove.
	Thursday December 8 ~ 6:00pm Sunday December 4 ~ 2:00pm Jamrach's Menagerie Jaffy Brown is running along a street in London’s East End when he comes face to face with an escaped circus animal. Plucked from the jaws of death by Mr Jamrach – explorer, entrepreneur and collector of the world’s strangest creatures – the two strike up a friendship. Before he knows it, Jaffy finds himself on board a ship bound for the Dutch East Indies, on an unusual commission for Mr Jamrach. His journey – if he survives it – will push faith, love and friendship to their utmost limits.
	Wednesday January 4 ~ 6:00pm Sunday January 8 ~ 2:00pm The Sisters Brothers This dazzlingly original novel is a darkly funny, offbeat western about a reluctant assassin and his murderous brother. Told in deWitt’s darkly comic style, The Sisters Brothers is the kind of western the Coen Brothers might write – stark, unsettling and with a keen eye for the perversity of human motivation. It is a novel about the things you tell yourself in order to be able to continue to live the life you find yourself in, and what happens when those stories no longer work.
	Wednesday February 1 ~ 6:00pm Sunday February 5 ~ 2:00pm Half-Blood Blues The aftermath of the fall of Paris, 1940. Hieronymous Falk, a rising star on the cabaret scene, was arrested in cafe and never heard from again. He was twenty years old. He was a German citizen. And he was black. Fifty years later, Sid, Hiero’s bandmate and the only witness that day, is going back to Berlin. Persuaded by his old friend Chip, Sid discovers there’s more to the journey than he thought when Chip shares a mysterious letter, bringing to the surface secrets buried since Hiero’s fate was settled.
	Wednesday March 7 ~ 6:00pm Sunday March 11 ~ 2:00pm Pigeon English Newly arrived from Ghana, eleven-year-old Harrison Opoku lives on the ninth floor of an inner-city housing estate. The second best runner in Year 7, Harri races through his new life blissfully unaware of the very real threat all around him. When a boy is knifed to death and a police appeal for witnesses draws only silence, Harri decides to start a murder investigation of his own. In doing so, he unwittingly endangers the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to try and keep them safe.
	Wednesday April 4 ~ 6:00pm Sunday April 8 ~ 2:00pm Snowdrops A.D. Miller’s Snowdrops is a riveting psychological drama that unfolds over the course of one Moscow winter, as a young Englishman’s moral compass is spun by the seductive opportunities revealed to him by a new Russia: a land of hedonism and desperation, corruption and kindness, magical dachas and debauched nightclubs; a place where secrets – and corpses – come to light only when the deep snows start to thaw.
All book descriptions from www.themanbookerprize.com


	Wednesday November 9 ~ 6:00pm Sunday November 13 ~ 2:00pm The Sense of an Ending Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, but they all swore to stay friends for life. Now Tony is in middle age. He’s had a career and a single marriage. He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer’s letter is about to prove.
	Thursday December 8 ~ 6:00pm Sunday December 4 ~ 2:00pm Jamrach's Menagerie Jaffy Brown is running along a street in London’s East End when he comes face to face with an escaped circus animal. Plucked from the jaws of death by Mr Jamrach – explorer, entrepreneur and collector of the world’s strangest creatures – the two strike up a friendship. Before he knows it, Jaffy finds himself on board a ship bound for the Dutch East Indies, on an unusual commission for Mr Jamrach. His journey – if he survives it – will push faith, love and friendship to their utmost limits.
	Wednesday January 4 ~ 6:00pm Sunday January 8 ~ 2:00pm The Sisters Brothers This dazzlingly original novel is a darkly funny, offbeat western about a reluctant assassin and his murderous brother. Told in deWitt’s darkly comic style, The Sisters Brothers is the kind of western the Coen Brothers might write – stark, unsettling and with a keen eye for the perversity of human motivation. It is a novel about the things you tell yourself in order to be able to continue to live the life you find yourself in, and what happens when those stories no longer work.
	Wednesday February 1 ~ 6:00pm Sunday February 5 ~ 2:00pm Half-Blood Blues The aftermath of the fall of Paris, 1940. Hieronymous Falk, a rising star on the cabaret scene, was arrested in cafe and never heard from again. He was twenty years old. He was a German citizen. And he was black. Fifty years later, Sid, Hiero’s bandmate and the only witness that day, is going back to Berlin. Persuaded by his old friend Chip, Sid discovers there’s more to the journey than he thought when Chip shares a mysterious letter, bringing to the surface secrets buried since Hiero’s fate was settled.
	Wednesday March 7 ~ 6:00pm Sunday March 11 ~ 2:00pm Pigeon English Newly arrived from Ghana, eleven-year-old Harrison Opoku lives on the ninth floor of an inner-city housing estate. The second best runner in Year 7, Harri races through his new life blissfully unaware of the very real threat all around him. When a boy is knifed to death and a police appeal for witnesses draws only silence, Harri decides to start a murder investigation of his own. In doing so, he unwittingly endangers the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to try and keep them safe.
	Wednesday April 4 ~ 6:00pm Sunday April 8 ~ 2:00pm Snowdrops A.D. Miller’s Snowdrops is a riveting psychological drama that unfolds over the course of one Moscow winter, as a young Englishman’s moral compass is spun by the seductive opportunities revealed to him by a new Russia: a land of hedonism and desperation, corruption and kindness, magical dachas and debauched nightclubs; a place where secrets – and corpses – come to light only when the deep snows start to thaw.
All book descriptions from www.themanbookerprize.com