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The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay    First with your head and then with your heart . . . So says Hoppie Groenwald, boxing champion, to a seven-year-old boy who dreams of being the welterweight champion of the world. Read more

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them bigger than a matchbox: Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in his great uncle Iggie’s Tokyo apartment. When he Read more

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë   “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.” From its haunting first line to its famous closer, “Reader, I married him”, Charlotte Brontë takes her audience by the throat with a fierce Read more

We are all completely beside ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler Rosemary is now an only child, but she used to have a sister the same age as her, and an older brother. Both are now gone – vanished from her life. Read more

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2014 Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless Read more

Dombey & Son by Charles Dickens Mr Dombey is a man obsessed with his firm. His son is groomed from birth to take his place within it, despite his visionary eccentricity and declining health. But Dombey also has a daughter, Read more

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd The struggle of 19th-century abolitionist and women’s rights pioneer Sarah Grimké is at the heart of Sue Monk Kidd’s powerful new historical novel. Set – like her bestselling debut, The Secret Life Read more

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho   Santiago, a young shepherd living in the hills of Andalucia, feels that there is more to life than his humble home and his flock. One day he finds the courage to follow his dreams Read more