BookClub

BOOK OF THE WEEK with Linda Jennings. Percy Jackson And The Greek Heroes, Rick Riordan, ISBN 9780141360515 (Penguin) BD5.900 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members … plus an exclusive FREE Percy Jackson T-shirt for members only, while stocks last!

If you like poisonings, betrayals, mutilations, murders and flesh-eating farmyard animals, keep reading . . .

My name is Percy Jackson. I’m a modern-day demigod – the son of Poseidon. I’ve had some bad experiences in my time, but the heroes I’m going to tell you about were the original old-school hard luck cases.

So get your flaming spear. Put on your lion-skin cape. Polish your shield and make sure you’ve got arrows in your quiver. We’re going back about four thousand years to decapitate monsters, shoot a few gods in the butt, raid the underworld and steal loot from evil people.

In this gripping follow-up to Percy Jackson and the Greek Gods, demigod Percy Jackson tells the stories of 12 of the original Greek heroes in all their gory, bloodthirsty glory.

Want to know who cut off Medusa’s head? Which hero was raised by a she-bear? Who tamed Pegasus, the winged horse? Percy has all the answers.

Rick Riordan is an award-winning writer. He lives in Boston with his wife and two sons. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Rick’s first novel featuring the heroic young demigod, was the overall winner of the Red House Children’s Book Award in 2006 and is now a blockbuster film franchise, starring Logan Lerman.

Penguin books have sent us six fabulous black T-shirts, modelled above by my son, Robert, to give away to the first six Gulf Weekly Book Club members to come into The Bookcase and purchase a copy of the book (Budaiya Highway branch only).

Read it now in paperback
The Chosen Queen, Joanna Courtney, ISBN 9781447280781 (Panmacmillan BD4.500 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members

This is a beautifully written debut novel, and is the first in The Queens of the Conquest trilogy:1066. Three queens. One crown.

As a young woman in England’s royal court, Edyth, granddaughter of Lady Godiva, dreams of marrying for love. But political matches are rife while King Edward is still without an heir and the future of England is uncertain.

When Edyth’s family are exiled to the wild Welsh court, she falls in love with the charismatic King of Wales – but their romance comes at a price and she is catapulted onto the opposing side of a bitter feud with England. Edyth’s only allies are Earl Harold Godwinson and his handfasted wife, Lady Svana.

As the years pass, Edyth finds herself elevated to a position beyond even her greatest expectations. She enjoys both power and wealth but as her star rises the lines of love and duty become more blurred than she could ever have imagined. As 1066 dawns, Edyth is asked to make an impossible choice. Her decision is one that has the power to change the future of England forever.

The Chosen Queen by Joanna Courtney is the perfect blend of history, fast-paced plot and sweeping romance with a cast of strong female characters – an unforgettable read. Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Chadwick and Philippa Gregory. My favourite read of the week The Utopia Experiment, Dylan Evans, ISBN 9781447261308 (Picador) BD5 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members Imagine you have survived an apocalypse. Civilisation as you knew it is no more. What will life be like and how will you cope?

In 2006, Dylan Evans set out to answer these questions. He left his job in a high-tech robotics lab, moved to the Scottish Highlands and founded a community called The Utopia Experiment. There, together with an eclectic assortment of volunteers, he tried to live out a scenario of global collapse, free from modern technology and comforts.

Within a year, Evans found himself detained in a psychiatric hospital, shattered and depressed, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. In The Utopia Experiment he tells his own extraordinary story: his frenzied early enthusiasm for this unusual project, the many challenges of post-apocalyptic living, his descent into madness and his gradual recovery. In the process, he learns some hard lessons about himself and about life, and comes to see the modern world he abandoned in a new light.

Stranger than fiction – needs to be read!