Welcome to the weekly news, reviews, and ‘all-things-books’ latest from the team at Waterstone’s Ballymena!
Top 10 this week…
1 Solitaire - Alice Oseman
2 Great Circle - Maggie Shipstead
3 Heartstopper Volume 2 - Alice Oseman
4 Sorrow and Bliss - Meg Mason
5 The Spanish Love Deception - Elena Armas
6 Lily's Promise - Lily Ebert, Dov Forman
7 The Dark Hours - Michael Connelly
8 The Hairy Dieter's Simple Healthy Food - The Hairy Biker's
9 It Ends With Us - Colleen Hoover
10 The Power of Hope - Kate Garraway
THIS WEEK’S HALF PRICE OFFERS…
Hope - Tom Parker
The Murder at Fleet House - Lucinda Riley
Lion - Conn Iggulden
Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before - Dr Julie Smith
Treehouse Tales - Andy Griffiths, Terry Denton
JUNE BOOKS OF THE MONTH…
The start of June means great new books of the month.
The fiction book of the month is Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead.
Mapping the lives of a fearless female aviator and an actor who portrays her on screen decades later, Great Circle is an expansive tale of passion and ambition. This is a great read for anyone who loved Life After Life by Kate Atkinson.
The non-fiction book of the month is Free by Lea Ypi.
Questioning the true nature of freedom in moving, thoughtful prose, Ypi's unflinching memoir documents a childhood in the shadow of the oppressive Stalinist Albanian regime and an adulthood in the uncertainty and tumult that followed the fall of Communism.
If you liked Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick or My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante then you will love this. The thriller of the month is The Maidens by Alex Michaelides.
From the bestselling author of The Silent Patient comes another sophisticated and hugely original literary thriller revolving around Cambridge classicists and secret societies. If you liked The Secret History by Donna Tartt or If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio then you will love this.
The children's book of the month is Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun by Tola Okogwu.
A debut children's novel packed full of memorable characters, Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun is the effervescent story of a British-Nigerian girl who discovers her curls have psychokinetic abilities and the thrilling adventures she undertakes with her new-found superhero friends.
The Irish Book of the Month is Between Two Hells by Diarmaid Ferriter.
An absorbing new history of the Irish Civil War that brings home both the devastation wrought by the conflict and its troubled and complex legacy in gripping and highly informative prose.
SATURDAY STORYTIME… Don't forget that every Saturday we do Saturday Storytime with a picture book story and colouring activities. On Saturday 11th June we will be reading Ginny's Big Adventure by Matt Carr.
BOOK CLUB… Our next book club will be Thursday 9th June at 7pm.
This time we are discussing The Trouble With Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon. Everyone is welcome to come along for coffee, cake and lots of book chat!
