The Bibliophile's Compass

1893  English author Beatrix Potter first writes the story of Peter Rabbit for a 5-year-old boy (UK) 2018 Summer Brother by Jaap Robben  Thirteen-year-old Brian lives in a trailer on a forgotten patch of land with his divorced and uncaring father. His older brother Lucien, physically and mentally disabled, has been institutionalized for years. While Lucien's home is undergoing renovations, he is sent to live with his father and younger brother for the summer. Their detached father leaves Brian to care for Lucien's special needs. But how do you look after someone when you don't know what they need? How do you make the right choices when you still have so much to discover? Longlisted for The International Booker Prize 2021

1998 The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary Mantel (UK) It is a fictionalised account of Irish giant Charles Byrne (O'Brien) and Scottish surgeon John Hunter. 2018 Trust Me When I Lie by Benjamin Stevenson Eliza Dacey was murdered in cold blood. Four years later, the world watched it unfold again on screen. 2019  Unknown text by John Locke “Reasons for tolerateing Papists equally with others” (1667-68), an argument for religious toleration announced discovered at St John’s College, Annapolis 2019 Dominicana by Angie Cruz  Fifteen-year-old Ana Cancion never dreamed of moving to America, the way the girls she grew up with in the Dominican countryside did. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. Shortlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction 2020 The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (UK)  A group of pensioners set about solving the mystery of the murder of a property developer  in the luxu...

2009 Heaven by Mieko Kawakami It is told in the voice of a 14-year-old student who subjected to relentless torment for having a lazy eye. Winner of the 2010 Murasaki Shikibu Prize Shortlisted for the 2022  International Booker Prize 2014 The Children Act  by Ian McEwan (UK) A fiercely intelligent, well-respected High Court judge in London faces a morally ambiguous case while her own marriage crumbles in a novel that will keep readers thoroughly enthralled until the last stunning page. 2014 The Bone Clocks  by David Mitchell (UK) The novel is divided into six sections with five first-person point-of-view narrators. They are loosely connected by the character of Holly Sykes, a young woman from Gravesend who is gifted with an "invisible eye" and semi-psychic abilities, and a war between two immortal factions, the Anchorites, who derive their immortality from murdering others, and the Horologists, who are naturally able t...

1651 Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe Crusoe runs away to sea and is promptly shipwrecked 1652 Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe Crusoe captured by Turkish pirates and enslaved for two years at Salé, on the Barbary Coast. 1659 Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe Crusoe leaves Brazil on his disastrous slaving voyage. 1773 "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" by American slave Phillis Wheatley published in the UK - first known book of poetry published by a Black woman 1913 George Bernard Shaw's play "Androcles and the Lion" premieres in London The play is Shaw's retelling of the tale of Androcles, a slave who is saved by the requiting mercy of a lion. 1982 Naira Power by Buchi Emecheta is published (Uk-Nigeria) It is a narrative about corruption in which the main character Ramonu wielded power over justice due to his riches. Everything went wrong when the power went off. 2003 The King of Capri by Jeanette Winterson is published (UK) When a greedy king wakes ...