There's nothing like getting immersed in a good book.

This novel, set in 1960s Nigeria during the Biafran conflict is immersive, informative, and engrossing. It is centred around Ugwu, a houseboy to a university professor, Odenigbo, and Odenigbo's lover Olanna, who has given up an 'easier' more privileged life to be with him. We witness the turbulence and violence of civil war through the lives of these characters alongside Richard, and English writer who falls in love with Olanna's sister, Kainene. It's a deeply human telling of an often ignored period of history.

This far-reaching novel follows generations of a family, beginning in a small fishing village in Korea in the early 20th century, and travelling onwards through the busy street markets and ghettoised boroughs of Osaka Japan, and beyond. It'a an emotive and thought-provoking read which focuses on familial loyalty, pride, and the complex history of the region during the early 1900s. 

This novel, spanning 300 years and two continents, follows the lives and subsequent generations of two half-sisters born in different villages in eighteenth century Ghana. We follow the sorrow-filled stories of each lineage, one staying in Ghana at the height of the slave trade, and the other sold off and shipped to America; where the decedents are raised in slavery. The magnitude of this novel is a feat of it's own, but the heartfelt stories are elegantly, and emotively told.

Set in a small town in Ireland in 1985 in the run up to Christmas, this heartfelt novella follows Bill Furlong, a coal merchant who has become introspective, dwelling on his life gone by. Bill is considering the love and kindness that was shown to him throughout his upbringing, and his own conscience is tested upon making an uncomfortable and damning discovery. 

This morbid, witty, and heartfelt novel follows the seven days (moons) that Sri Lankan war photographer Maali Almeida has in the purgatory realm (described as a sort of tax office) after his death. With his time, he strives to find his friend Jaki and her cousin and get them to retrieve his illuminating and exposing images that he has stashed in his family home, and share them around Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital, in order to expose the violence of the ongoing conflict. 

This is the powerful, hopeful story about the resilience of women in war, inspired by the real life of Eve's grandmother. This extraordinary story follows the mother and daughters' escape from the Communist army during the civil war in 1948 China. With the rest of the family abandoning the women, the mother having already been punished for not producing a male heir, the women must endure the punishment of the Communist cadres. We then follow their plan to escape and make the thousand-mile journey to confront the family who abandoned them.

Spanning three generations during the 20th century, The Covent of Water follows a Malayali family living in southwest India. It's a novel about hardship, love, faith, and progress, and a family lineage that is afflicted by one continual and mysterious 'condition'. The setting of Kerala, with it's aqueous residence on India's coast features prominently, and we get a wonderfully described view of the land and the people that inhabit it.

This novel is set during World War II, and is centred around the lives of two individuals, a blind French girl called Marie-Laure, and a German soldier, Werner. Their two paths become intertwined in the occupied town of Saint-Malo. It's a story of connection, as both attempt to navigate the horrors of war. Written with poetic elegance, the novel also manages to highlight small moments of beauty that manage to escape the wilderness of pain and darkness.