The Escapist’s BookshelfLike this list

40 items

• The Ten Thousand Doors of January

  Harrow, Alix E,

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  In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Juliet, Naked

  Hornby, Nick

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  Annie's put fifteen years into safe, slightly obsessive Duncan, and now she'd like her money back, please. It's time to move on. But she lives in Gooleness, the north's answer to a question nobody asked. Is she really going to find real, proper,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Once Upon a River

  a Novel

  Setterfield, Diane

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  On a dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the river Thames, an extraordinary event takes place. The regulars are telling stories to while away the dark hours, when the door bursts open on a grievously wounded stranger. In his arms is the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Beautiful Ruins

  a Novel

  Walter, Jess, 1965-

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  Beautiful Ruins is the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962 and resurfaces fifty years later in Hollywood. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to the back lots of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• All Creatures Great and Small

  Herriot, James

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  In All Creatures Great and Small, we meet the young Herriot as he takes up his calling and discovers that the realities of veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire are very different from the sterile setting of veterinary school. Some visits are…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Family Happiness

  Colwin, Laurie

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  Polly is a happy wife and mother from a remarkable strong and attractive family—until one day she finds herself entangled in a completely unexpected, sweet, yet painful, love affair with a painter named Lincoln Bennett. All of Polly's beliefs about…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Gown

  Robson, Jennifer, 1970-

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  London, 1947: Besieged by the harshest winter in living memory, burdened by onerous shortages and rationing, the people of postwar Britain are enduring lives of quiet desperation despite their nation’s recent victory. Among them are Ann Hughes and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

  Waxman, Abbi,

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  The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Other Bennet Sister

  a Novel

  Hadlow, Janice,

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  Mary, the bookish ugly duckling of Pride and Prejudice’s five Bennet sisters, emerges from the shadows and transforms into a desired woman with choices of her own. What if Mary Bennet’s life took a different path from that laid out for her in Pride…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

  See, Lisa

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  In their remote mountain village, Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. For the Akha people, ensconced in ritual and routine, life goes on as it has for generations—until a stranger appears at the village…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Night Circus

  a Novel

  Morgenstern, Erin

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  The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Paris Library

  a Novel

  Skeslien Charles, Janet,

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  Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet has it all: her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. When the Nazis march into Paris, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Golem and the Jinni

  a Novel

  Wecker, Helene,

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  Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic, created to be the wife of a man who dies at sea on the voyage from Poland. Chava is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Midnight Library

  a Novel

  Haig, Matt, 1975-

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  Between life and death there is a library. When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The House in the Cerulean Sea

  Klune, TJ,

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  A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret. Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Beach Read

  Henry, Emily,

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  A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Rosie Project

  [a Novel]

  Simsion, Graeme C.

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  Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Stardust

  Gaiman, Neil

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  Young Tristran Thorn will do anything to win the cold heart of beautiful Victoria—even fetch her the star they watch fall from the night sky. But to do so, he must enter the unexplored lands on the other side of the ancient wall that gives their…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Keeper of Lost Things

  a Novel

  Hogan, Ruth, 1961-

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  Lime green plastic flower-shaped hair bobbles—Found, on the playing field, Derrywood Park, 2nd September. Bone china cup and saucer—Found, on a bench in Riveria Public Gardens, 31st October. Anthony Peardew is the keeper of lost things. Forty…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

  Shaffer, Mary Ann

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  "I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers." January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is…Read moreRead more of this annotation