Raymond Chander was a failed oil industry executive who turned to writing pulp detective fiction to make ends meet. The Big Sleep was his first novel, produced by combining several of his previously published stories and introduced his private investigator, Philip Marlowe, to the world. It has since become one of the corner stones of noir crime literature and was memorably filmed in 1949 by Howard Hawkes with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. The novel has a labyrinthine plot in which characters have multiple secrets and double cross each other. Marlowe is called in by the elderly General

Mary Stewart’s tales of adventure featuring intrepid heroines and square-jawed heroes have all but been forgotten now, and were probably even considered out-dated back when my mother passed on her dog-eared copies to me as a young teenager. But rereading them recently (as part of my on-going nostalgia kick) I felt again something of the thrill they once invoked in me. Long before I had ever been on a plane these books filled me with wanderlust and a determination to one day visit the locations of her most exotic thrillers.

This intriguingly titled one begins with our protagonist, Charity

When Oscar Dunleavy’s bike is found in the sea, his community marks a great loss. However, for Meg, Oscar’s best friend and his brother Stevie, things just don’t add up. In Meg’s eyes Oscar was a well liked student with a special gift for helping those in need, making this tragedy so confusing. As they search for answers, hope leads the way.

Overall the tone, pace, characterisation and structure of this work make for a truly rewarding read. In the first instance, Oscar is a wonderful character and protagonist with whom the reader can so easily empathise. This is galvanized as each strand of the

Meg Rosoff’s beautifully written coming of age story echoes classical literature. We follow a family on their annual holiday to the seaside full of sun, Great Gatsby styled summer lunches and spending time outdoors. The yearly holiday is halted when a serpent enters Eden, with the arrival of two visitors. Kit and Hugo are distant family friends who are abandoned by their mother for the summer and left with the family during their holiday. Kit and Hugo are opposites in every way. Kit is beautiful, golden and charismatic. Hugo is shy, silent, often resisting all overtures with his talent for

The book opens in Paris 1940, after the fall of the city when it was declared an open city and the Germans (or the Boots in the characters’ slang) rolled in. Central to the story are a heterogeneous mix of men who previously played jazz together in Berlin nightclubs. The ‘Hot-Time Swingers’ jazz band was made up of a couple of black Americans from Baltimore, Sidney Griffiths and Chip Jones; two white Germans, Ernst ‘The Mouth’ von Haselberg and Big Fritz Bayer; Paul Butterstein a German Jew and a young black German, Hieronymous Falk. The jazz scene has been branded as degenerate by the Nazis

Decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War the threat of nuclear conflict has receded from public consciousness despite the continued existence of vast arsenals of nuclear weapons around the world which are ready to be fired if the orders are given. Schlosser traces the origin of nuclear doctrine after 1945 through the course of the confrontation between the US and USSR while focusing on “broken arrows" – incidents when nuclear weapons were accidentally lost – and major accidents that almost resulted in catastrophe.

After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the US

If you have a passion for gardens and for the wildlife that you find therein then this is the perfect book for you. In fact, I will guarantee that no matter how knowledgeable you think you are about what lives above and beneath the soil, you will discover much that you didn’t know before. Dave Goulson writes in an engaging and accessible way, with a determination to spread the word about how we can all have a positive influence on the environment.

Goulson devotes chapters to moths, bees, ants, earwigs and other creatures as well as discussing peat use, garden centres and invasive (or not?)

When ten-year-old Violet Brown moves to Perfect with her parents, she soon discovers that there’s something strange about the place. For one thing, all the inhabitants have an eye defect, which means they can’t see without the help of special rose-tinted glasses. Violet’s father, an eye specialist, has been head-hunted by the mysterious Archer brothers to find a solution to the town’s vision problems. But when her mother starts acting out of character and her father goes missing it is up to Violet and her friend Boy to uncover the truth about Perfect.

This is the debut novel from Helena Duggan

Adopted from Vietnam at three days old but raised as a proud Kerrywoman in an Irish speaking household, Úna-Minh exquisitely explains what life is like in Ireland as a non-white Irish person. Úna-Minh’s mother is Noreen who raises her as a single mother in Tralee. Both Noreen and Úna-Minh’s grandfather Paddy are driving forces in her life from a young age. Noreen and Paddy’s support and especially Noreen’s willingness to listen to her daughter help Úna-Minh to grow up safe, secure and proud to be an Irish-speaking Kerrywoman. But racism in Ireland, like most places is an inevitable aspect of