Take a look at these brand-new eBooks on Libby for October, free to read with your library card! Includes titles by Jennie Godfrey, Paige Toon, Ben Reeves and more.
New to Libby? Find out cum să începi or check out our other eLibrary recommendations.
Freddie Mercury: A Life in Lyrics
Freddie Mercury and Mary Austin
Freddie Mercury was one of the greatest showmen of the twentieth century. With his unparalleled voice and searing on-stage energy, he was a great pretender, a killer queen and a champion of the world.
But behind the glamour lived a musician and lyricist talented beyond measure, and the creative force behind one of the most culturally significant and musically diverse bands the world has ever seen.
Accompanied by stories, memories, and anecdotes from his lifelong companion, and illustrated with photographs from Freddie’s personal collection, many of which have never been published before, A Life in Lyrics is the definitive creative record of one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
I Deliver Parcels in Beijing
Hu Anyan
Hu AnYan has held nineteen different jobs since he graduated. He’s been a convenience store clerk, a bicycle salesman, a security guard and a delivery driver (among many other things). Every time the work gets punishing or the bosses too bossy, he moves on, from city to city, carrying with him nothing but his copies of Chekhov and Carver. This is his story.
A runaway bestseller in China, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing is about what it’s like to try and make a living – and stay sane – in the gig economy. From the pecking order on a parcel-sorting factory floor to the perfect alcohol dose to get some daylight shut-eye before a punishing night shift, from the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the hiring departments to the ideal layout of a delivery route, Hu illuminates the hidden lives behind the roles that keep our world going.
Quietly radical, brimming with humanity and humour, this book asks: what does work really mean? What should it mean? And do any of us really know how to live?
Some Sort of Justice
Peter Grainger
When Caroline Thorpe succeeded in casting doubt on the verdict of the inquest into her brother’s death, she could not have anticipated what would follow.
Freddie was Earl Thorpe of Burnham, and as the Kings Lake detectives soon begin to realise, influential people have gone to considerable lengths to cover up a potential scandal surrounding the young man’s death.
Led by DCI Cara Freeman, their investigation will take them from Norfolk into the capital, and from idealistic young campaigners to people at the heart of government. The stakes have never been higher for the detectives from Kings Lake Central.
The Barbecue at No. 9
Jennie Godfrey
It’s the summer of 1985 and the residents of Delmont Close are preparing a neighbourhood barbecue to watch the biggest music event in history: Live Aid. A day like no other that will end having reached millions and changing the lives of all who attend.
House-proud Lydia Gordon, whose idols are Princess Di and Delia Smith, is determined to put on a show that will impress everyone – with her posh garden and state-of-the-art television, and her sweet husband and two children, Hanna and David.
But as the guests flood into number nine, so do all of the secrets that have been kept in the close.
Rita, a new neighbour from Australia, is hoping for a fresh start but harbours a shocking event in her past; Steve, a young Falklands veteran, battles his own demons; and Mr Wilson is surely too good-looking to ever be trusted.
But as the hours count down to the last performance of the night, it’s Lydia who faces the heart-breaking truth that her immaculate home and flawless family might not be so perfect after all.
And if each of their neighbours is guilty of hiding something, so are the Gordons at number nine…
Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt
Ben Reeves
Travis lives an unassuming life with his cat in a small English town. Travis also happens to be the cosmic force of Death, visiting people in their final days and hours of life, before shepherding them into whatever happens next.
He listens to their stories, doesn’t judge, and never tries to change anyone’s fate… until he meets a young, single midwife called Dalia and her boisterous eight-year-old daughter, Layla. As he gets closer to this small, seemingly unremarkable family, Travis begins to learn what it is that makes life so worth living, and so what it is that is irrevocably lost in death.
Full of compassion and deep magic, Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt might be a novel about Death, but it’s also about the joy of being alive – appreciating each day we have, from the people around us to the strange wonder of our spinning world.
Diavola
Jennifer Thorne
Anna only has one rule for the annual Pace family vacations: tread lightly, and survive.
It isn’t easy when she’s the only who doesn’t seem to fit in. Her twin brother Benny goes with the flow so much he’s practically dissolved, and her high-strung older sister Nicole is so used to everyone—including her blandly docile husband and two young daughters—falling in line that Anna often ends up chastised for simply asking a question. Her Mom is baffled by Anna’s life choices (why waste her artistic talent at an ad agency?), and her Dad—well, he just wants a little peace and quiet.
The gorgeous villa outside a remote Tuscan town seems like the perfect place to endure so much family time—not to mention Benny’s demanding new boyfriend, Christopher. If her family becomes too much to handle, then at least Anna can wander off to a wine tasting or lose herself in an art gallery. That is, until strange things start to happen—strange noises at night, food rotting within hours, dreams that feel more like memories. Then, the unsettling warnings from the locals: don’t open the tower door.
But Anna does open it. And what she releases threatens to devour her family—that is, if her family doesn’t tear itself apart first.
Only Love Can Hurt Like This
Paige Toon
When Wren realises her fiancé is in love with someone else, she thinks her heart will never recover.
On the other side of the world, Anders lost his wife four years ago and is still struggling to move on.
Wren hopes that spending the summer with her dad and step-family on their farm in Indiana will help her to heal. There, amid the cornfields and fireflies, she and Anders cross paths and their worlds are turned upside-down again.
But Wren does not know that Anders is harbouring a secret, and if he acts on any feelings he has for Wren it will have serious fall-out for everyone.
Walking away would hurt Wren more than she can imagine. But, knowing the truth, how can she possibly stay?
Romanian 
English 
Polish 
Lithuanian 
Portuguese 
Bengali