Bridge Street Books

Wicklow

Book Club Recommendations
We read, we love, then we recommend!

All books that we suggest for book clubs, have been tried & tested, either by us or by other book clubs around Wicklow.  If you can suggest any other titles, that your book club has found particularly good for discussion, please let us know.

Remember:  We offer €1 off your book club book.
Lean on Pete:  Willy Vlautin 15 yr old Charley Thompson wants a home and some structure to his life. But as the son of a single father working at warehouses across the Pacific Northwest, he's been pretty much on his own for some time. This book opens as he and his father arrive in Portland, Oregon and Charley takes a stables job, illegally, at the local race track The Blasphemer: Nigel Farndale  An ambitious and compelling novel, a story about conditional love, cowardice and the possibility of redemption that sweeps from the trenches of Passchendaele to the terrorist-besieged streets of London today   The Postmistress: Sarah Blake  It is 1940, and bombs fall nightly on London. In the thick of the chaos is young American radio reporter Frankie Bard. She huddles close to terrified strangers in underground shelters, and later broadcasts stories about survivors in rubble-strewn streets. But for her listeners, the war is far from home. 
Child 44: Tom Rob Smith  Debut novel set in Soviet Russia in 1953. Although crime does not exist, millions live in fear of being sent to their death.  Officer Leo Demidov believes in what he is doing, but when he witnesses the interrogation of an innocent man, he begins to question his loyalties.   One Day: David Nicholls  Emma and Dexter meet for the first time on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year that follows? Twenty years, two people, ONE DAY  Burnt Out Town of Miracles: Roy Jacobsen  Set in Finland in 1939, this is the story of one man who remains in his home town, when everyone else has fled the invading Russians. A powerful but understated novel about the lives of ordinary people dragged into war. 
A Fair Maiden: Joyce Carol Oates  A short, gripping suspense novel in which an elderly aristocrat becomes obsessed with a young girl. The Hand that first held mine: Maggie O’Farrell  Winner of the Costa Novel Award 2011   No & Me: Delphine de Vigan  a schoolgirl who becomes friends with a homeless girl 
Brixton Beach: Roma Treane  Opening dramatically with the horrors of the 2005 London bombings, this is the profoundly moving story of a country on the brink of civil war and a child's struggle to come to terms with loss. Brooklyn: Colm Toibin  It is Ireland in the early 1950s and for Eilis Lacey,as for so many young Irish girls, opportunities are scarce. So when her sister arranges for her to emigrate to New York, Eilis knows she must go,leaving behind her family and her home for the first time. Serena: Ron Rash  Features a newlywed couple who go to live in the North Carolina mountains. When Serena, the bride, discovers she can't have children, things take a sinister turn
Outlander: Gil Adamson   Sea of Poppies: Amitav Ghosh   Rough Music: Patrick Gale 
De Niro’s Game: Rawi Hage   Senator’s Wife: Sue Miller   Cloudstreet: Tim Winton 
Remarkable Creatures: Tracy Chevalier  set in the 19th century, following the life of a female fossil hunter and scientist. Based on the real life of Mary Anning, who was an eminent scientist whose work influenced Darwin, but who faced prejudice in the male-dominated society she worked in The Children’s Book: A.S. Byatt  Although shortlisted, A.S. Byatt's acclaimed new novel didn't actually win the Man Booker Prize 2010, but with its fantastic reviews it is sure to be a bestseller in this paperback edition. It is an unashamedly literary novel, a panoramic exploration of family secrets, about predators and innocents, war and peace  The Other Hand: Chris Cleave The story starts on an African Beach, but the book doesn't. And it's what happens afterwards that is most important.
The Good Parents: Joan London  A novel of loss and longing featuring parents who search for their missing teenage daughter whilst recollecting her and their own lives   Shantaram: Gregory David Roberts  A gripping adventure story,superbly written meditation on good and evil and an authentic evocation of Bombay life. This is an epic tale of slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison torture, mafia gang wars and Bollywood films.   Sister:  Rosamund Lupton  What would you do if your sister disappeared without a trace?  This is an emotionally fraught and at some times terrifying story about two sisters and the strength that binds them. 
The Betrayal: Helen Dunmore  Leningrad, 1952. Andrei, a young hospital doctor, and Anna, a nursery school teacher, are forging a life together in the postwar, postsiege wreckage. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Shaffer Solar:  Ian McEwan  A compulsive womaniser, Michael Beard finds his fifth marriage floundering. When Beard's professional and personal worlds collide in a freak accident, an opportunity presents itself for Beard to extricate himself from his marital mess, reinvigorate his career and save the world from environmental disaster.

 
Room: Emma Donoghue  Jack is five. He lives with his Ma. They live in a single, locked room. They don't have the key. Jack and Ma are prisoners. Booker shortlisted 2010  Book Thief: Markus Zarkus  The story of a young German girl who steals books, her family and the Jewish boxer hidden in their basement as they struggle to survive in Nazi Germany  Snowdrops*: A.D. Miller  Englishman & lawyer living in Russia, Nicholas falls in love with Masha. This is novel of moral ambiguity, uncertainty and corruption  
The Long Song: Andrea Levy  Set in Jamaica during the last turbulent years of slavery and the early years of freedom that followed. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010  I Know This Much is True: Wally Lamb   Sweeping up Glass: Carolyn Wall 
Lacuna: Barbara Kingsolver  Secret Scripture: Sebastian Barry  Last Train from Liguria: Christine Dwyer Hickey  
Secret Intensity of Everyday Life: William Nicholson   The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter & Jam: Lauren Liebenberg  Book of Negroes: Lawrence Hill  An epic novel about slavery  
Mayor Pettigrew’s Last Stand: Helen Simonson  When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: Peter Godwin Twin: Gerbrand Bakker 
Help: Kathryn Stockett Water for Elephants: Sara Gruen   White Girl on a Green Bicycle: Monique Roffey
The Housekeeper & the Professor: Yoko Ogawa  An enchanting Japanese novel about a brilliant mathematician who only has 80 minutes of short term memory, and the young housekeeper entrusted to look after him. Mornings in Jenin: Susan Abulhawa  A heart-wrenching, powerfully written novel, Spans 5 countries and 4 generations to explain one of the most intractable conflicts of our lifetime The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: David Wroblewski  A coming-of-age story set in the remote wilderness of northern Wisconsin. The mute Edgar is convinced his uncle killed his father, but when the time comes to prove it, he must choose between revenge and preserving the family legacy.

* indicates large sized paperback