An inspirational, uplifting experience that will leave you feeling that anything is possible. For anyone who has had a pet; who has loved and lost; who has hoped for the future, this is an enchanting story of an unlikely journey that will stay with you for a long time.
As a present the author Lauren Watt was given Gizelle, an English Mastiff, which grew to be 160 pounds. Gizelle became Lauren's best friend, moved with Lauren from college to her tiny apartment in New York and shared her highs and lows. When Lauren learns Gizelle has cancer she gives up her life and takes her best friend on an interstate road trip to complete Gizelle's bucket list.
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2
Year of Yes - Shonda Rhimes
Simon & Schuster
Life will always take unexpected turns but it's how you confront them that will make the difference. This deeply poignant and hilarious memoir is a Sister's call to arms to be better, braver, bolder.
Shonda Rimes has created some of television's biggest hits and in this book she teaches us how saying yes, changed her life and how we can change ours too. Shonda is an introvert by nature, with three hit shows (Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice and Scandal) and three kids it was easy to say no to the point where she was reclusive. In 2014 Shonda vowed to say yes to everything and takes us on a romp of how one little word can be so powerful.
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3
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Penguin
The most miraculous of all children's books. Matilda will make you laugh, cry and feel in awe of the power and strength in one so small.
Matilda's parents are so horrid to her it's hard to believe they could have had such a genius child. Pushed to the edge by family and her dreadful headteacher Miss Trunchbull, Matilda displays magnificent super powers that has everyone quaking in their boots.
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4
Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple
Weidenfeld & Nicholson
This smash hit of a book exploring childhood, womanhood and motherhood will make you laugh out loud and want go back to the beginning and start again.
Told in a series of documents (emails, texts, memos), Where'd You Go Bernadette is the story of an agoraphobic architect mother Bernadette who goes missing before a family trip and her 15-year old daughter Bee who will go to any length to find her.
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5
The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter
Virago
A foray into magical realism from an original and revered voice that will have you in otherworldly bliss. Reading this as a teenager was enchanting and has never been far from my mind.
Playful Melanie runs through the garden at night in her mother's wedding dress, ruining it. When she wakes up she discovers her parents have been killed in a plane crash and she and her siblings are forced to leave their childhood home and move in with relatives they have never met. Aunt Margaret who is mute and Uncle Phil, a puppeteers, have created a mysterious world of life size dolls and clockwork roses that Melanie and her brother need to find their way around.