London, 1923. Virginia Woolf is writing Mrs. Dalloway and struggling with her own deteriorating mental health. Los Angeles, 1949. Mrs. Brown is reading Mrs. Dalloway and planning her husband's birthday party. New York, 1999. Clarissa Vaughan is going out to buy flowers for a party she is hosting for a dying friend. Unfolding in the space of a single day, The Hours explores the lives of three women, infusing every moment of their ordinary day with something extraordinary.
Recommendation
Recommendations from
Victoria Hislop
Victoria Hislop is an English bestselling novelist. She started her career working in publishing, PR and as a journalist. In 2005, she published her first novel, The Island, which sold over two million copies worldwide and was adapted into a Greek television series, one of the most expensive television productions in Greece. Her books have been translated into more than 30 languages.
2
Selected Poems
By CP Cavafy
A unique voice in the literary landscape of 20th-century Europe, Cavafy has the extraordinary ability to explore his interior world of passions and emotions in lyrical evocations of beautful men and illicit rendezvous, such as 'One Night', 'I Have Gazed So Much', and 'The Café Entrance', as well as establish a dialogue with the ancient past, such as in 'Anna Comnena', 'You Did Not Understand', 'Ides Of March', 'The God Abandoning Antony', and 'Nero's Deadline'.
3
Machines Like Me
By Ian McEwan
Charlie, Miranda, and Adam are in a love triangle. But Adam is not human, he is a synthetic android whose personality has been co-designed by the couple. Set in an alternative 1980s London, Machines Like Me explores the depths of what makes us human through a subversive and provocative plot, warning the reader of the dangers of creating things beyond our control.
4
Barcelona Dreaming
By Rupert Thomson
On the eve of the 2008 financial crash, three interconnected stories are told by three characters, an English woman who runs a gift shop, an alcoholic jazz pianist, and a translator tormented by unrequited love. Looming over them, a crime committed against a young Moroccan immigrant...
5
War And Peace
By Leo Tolstoy
Against the backdrop of the Napoleonic march on Russia in 1805, the lives of Pierre, Andrey, and Natasha collide with a cast of characters from the upper echelons of society to peasants and soldiers, and Napoleon himself. A great epic of humanity, War and Peace explores the grand themes of love and death, free will and faith, creating a tapestry of nineteenth-century Russian society through his mastery of realism and psychological analysis.
6
Wuthering Heights
By Emily Brontë
A tale of passion, torment, and revenge, Wuthering Heights is set in the Yorkshire Moors, where a supernatural occurrence will prompt Heathcliff to tell the tragic story of his love for Catherine, her marriage to the well-meaning Edgar, and his return to exact revenge and be reunited with his beloved, albeit in death.
7
I Am David
By Anne Holm
Children's book.
David is a 12-year-old boy who has lived his entire life in a concentration camp in an unnamed Eastern European country. With the help of a guard, he manages to escape, fleeing first to Greece and then to Italy, in search of a way up north to Denmark. Alone and utterly unfamiliar with the world outside the camp, David will learn to fend for himself and eventually find his mother.
8
The Borrowers
By Mary Norton
Children's book.
The Borrowers live in quiet, hidden places in old houses, behind the mantelpiece, inside the harpsichord, under the kitchen clock. They don't own anything and borrow from humans. But girls are not supposed to go borrowing, and when Arrietty's father breaks the rules, something surprising happens: she makes friends with the human boy living in the house...
9
The Butterfly Lion
By Michael Morpurgo
Children's book.
Bertie rescues an orphaned white lion cub from the African veld. The two are inseparable, until Bertie is sent to England for boarding school, and the lion is sold to a circus. But their bond will prove too strong to be forgotten...
10
Moonbeam On A Cat’s Ear
By Marie-Louise Gay
Children's book.
One night, Roise and Toby Toby figure out how to steal the moon, and so they do, with the help of a plump white cat and a mouse in pajamas. As they embark on a moonlight adventure, you may ask 'Are they really sailing through the clouds? Or is it just a dream?'
11
Children's book.
Victoria Hislop returns to Spinalonga with this compelling story told by Maria Petrakis, one of the children from the novel The Island. Maria tells us about leprosy, the stigma and shame associated with the disease, exploring how we treat and how we should treat those who are different.