The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price

January 1946 and writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a man in Guernsey, who has found her name written inside a book. As they exchange letters, she is drawn into the eccentric world of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which boasts a charming cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

Heartbroken and alone, Boston art curator Sarah West is grieving the recent deaths of her parents and the end of her marriage. Ultrasensible by nature, she's determined to stay the course to get her life back on track. But fate has something else in mind. While cleaning out her father's closet, she finds a letter from the famous Parisian courtesan Marthe de Florian, dated 1895. The subject? Sarah's great-great-aunt Louisa's death. Legend has it Louisa committed suicide but this letter implies there's more to that story.

Lev is on his way from Eastern Europe to Britain, seeking work. But Lev has an outsider's vision of the place we call home. Lev begins with no job, little money, and few words of English. He has only his memories, his hopes, and a certain skill preparing food.

Gustav Perle grows up in a small town in Switzerland where the horrors of the Second World War seem distant. He adores his mother, but she treats him with bitter severity, disapproving especially of his intense friendship with Anton, the Jewish boy at school. A gifted pianist, Anton is tortured by stage fright; only in secret games with Gustav does his imagination thrive. But Gustav is taught that he must develop a hard shell, 'like a coconut', to protect the softness inside - just like the hard shell perfected by his country to protect its neutrality.

Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories is a brilliant collection of short stories, personally chosen by Andrea Camilleri, following Inspector Montalbano from his very first case in Vigàta, in which he stumbles upon a young girl lurking outside a courthouse with a pistol in her handbag. When she is taken in for questioning and won't utter a single word, Montalbano must find another way to learn whom she is trying to kill and why.... Other cases include a missing woman who has run away from the love of her life, an old married couple who appear to be rehearsing their suicides and a crime so dark there's only one person the inspector can call for help.