Everyone loves to receive a good book at Christmas. Whether you like a traditional hardback or paperback or prefer to read a book electronically, nothing beats the pleasure of escaping into another world – without leaving the comfort of your home. Here’s a selection of books to suit a variety of tastes and ages
Squeezed by David Atkinson
Published by Buried River Press
Paperback, £9.99, ebook, £3.47
Although born in Glasgow, author David Atkinson now enjoys a hectic life in Edinburgh with his wife and two young daughters. The book poses several amusing and ice-breaking questions such as, if your wife organised a threesome for you on your honeymoon, what would you do?
Scott is shocked by his wife Hannah’s suggestion, but hesitantly agrees to go along with it. Back home, both feel a little guilty about their encounter with a Thai prostitute called Marilyn, but soon put it behind them when they discover Hannah is pregnant. They must both fight to keep their family together when Marilyn turns up on their doorstep, six months pregnant, and Scott comes to realise that in life there is often a price to pay for indiscretion. Squeezed is a story about family, and how sometimes we don’t appreciate what we’ve got until it’s gone.
The Lives Between Us by Theresa Rizzo
Published by Rizzo Publishing
Paperback, £15.95, ebook £2.99
Award-winning American author Theresa Rizzo’s latest outing is all about family and love. It’s about desperate people doing what they need to, to save the ones they love. It’s part love story and part social commentary and poses the universal question; how far would you go to save the one you love?
Reporter Skylar Kendall has run from commitment all her life, pushing people away before they leave her, until her niece worms her way into Sky’s heart and settles in tight. Skylar relaxes into a career she enjoys and relishes being a doting aunt. Then her niece becomes gravely ill. Unable to bear yet another loss, she is determined to find a cure, but the girl’s only hope lies in the embryonic stem cell therapy Michigan Senator Edward Hastings repeatedly opposes. When Skye fails to find alternative treatment in time, she vows to end the senator’s political career.
Curious about the woman behind the scathing articles on his best friend, Mark Dutton pursues Sky. Dating Mark gives her access to Hastings’s life and secrets that would launch her career and satisfy her need for retribution. Only she hadn’t counted on falling in love. Can she avenge the lives lost to politics at the expense of her new love and friends?
The House With The Lilac Shutters by Gabrielle Barnby
Published by ThunderPoint Publishing
Paperback, priced £8.99, ebook, £3.99
Irma Lagrasse has taught piano to three generations of villagers, whilst slowly twisting the knife of vengeance; Nico knows a secret; and M. Lenoir has discovered a suppressed and dangerous passion. Revolving around the Café Rose, opposite The House with the Lilac Shutters, this collection of contemporary short stories link a small town in France with a small town in England, traces the unexpected connections between the people of both places and explores the unpredictable influences that the ripples of the past can have on the present.
The book is written by Orkney-based mum of four, Gabrielle, who is a member of the Stromness Writing Group, and works in a variety of genres including poetry and children’s fiction. With a keenly observant eye, she illustrates the everyday tragedies, sorrows, hopes and joys of ordinary people in this vividly understated and unsentimental collection of short stories. The characters in the book weave in and out of each other’s stories; secrets are concealed and new connections are made.
A Natural History of Lighthouses by John A. Love
Published by Whittles Publishing
Hardback priced £30
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This beautiful book which has more than 200 illustrations, will appeal to ornithologists, pharologists and those with an interest in the natural world, maritime history and who enjoys an informative read. The book’s author is a writer, illustrator and lecturer and formerly Scottish National Heritage area officer for Uist, Barra and St. Kilda.
It tells the story of lightkeepers’ contributions to the natural history of lighthouses in conjunction with the history and maintenance of the manned navigation beacons their primary function of course ‘for the safety of all’. Since keepers were first engaged to maintain lighthouses around our coast they have encountered wildlife, and in some cases developed a keen interest and expertise on the subject. Towards the end of the 19th century keepers were encouraged to submit annual returns of bird movements enabling reports on bird migration and several authoritative books to be compiled.
The book highlights the contribution made by lighthouse keepers made to the study of natural history and much of this is discussed in the words of the keepers themselves, set in the context of lighthouse history and tells the story of Scotland’s lighthouses and the Stevenson dynasty.
Sedation for the Nervous: The Adventures of Claude the Cat
by Euan A Baird
Euan A Baird, is very familiar as he’s known for organising a number of film courses and runs a well attended weekly music and film quiz night in the city. This time he’s shining the spotlight on the written word with his debut novel following the adventures of Claude the Cat.
Described as a book for those who like cats as well as those who don’t it’s been receiving rave reviews. In , Claude reveals what really happens when your cat goes outside. You may assume you pet spends its day trying to catch birds or mice but readers soon learn, there’s much more to feline lives that they could possibly imagine.
Sedation for the Nervous, tells the adventures and ordeals of a cat as it makes its way through the world, from an early life out on the street, to leafy suburbia and everything in between, also taking into account the extreme highs and lows of human and animal contact. Graphic in parts, but told with humour, the book takes the reader on a journey that touches many emotions, and examines many forms of animal cruelty asking just what is and what is not acceptable, while exploring the importance, and at times capricious, nature of friendship.
Miller’s Antiques Handbook & Price Guide 2016-2017
by Judith Miller
Published by Mitchell Beazley
Hardback, £30
If you want to know how to identify, date and value your antiques, the world’s best-selling antiques price guide is the place to look. Miller’s Antiques Handbook & Price Guide remains the essential and trusted guide to the antiques market. It has earned the reputation of being the book no collector, dealer or auctioneer should be without. It is compiled by Judith Miller, world-renowned antiques expert and co-founder of the book, who selects the guide’s all-new 8000-plus featured antiques.
The only full-colour, fully illustrated antiques price guide in the world it’s a must-have for those considering buying items online, at auction or in an antiques store. Although the term is a little cliched, it’s also a perfect coffee table book, and one people struggle not to pick up if you leave it lying around!