Great book club reads to enjoy this month

Small Miracles A charming, heart-warming story about three nuns who play the lottery to save their failing convent. It’s a story of friendship, community, faith and love. The 1990s are proving tough for the convent. The order of the Sisters of Saint Philomena is down to its three last nuns. The place that Sisters Margaret, Bridget and Cecilia call home is in dire need of repairs and, with no savings and no new recruits, they are facing the prospect of having to sell up and leave behind the friends and neighbours in the parish community that they love. That is, until ninety-year-old Cecilia decides to play the newly launched National Lottery and a series of small miracles begins to unfold. Author: Anne Booth

Oh William! An exquisite new novel by the Pulitzer Prizewinning, Number One New York Times bestselling author of My Name is Lucy Barton
Lucy Barton is a successful writer living in New York, navigating the second half of her life as a recent widow and parent to two adult daughters. A surprise encounter leads her to reconnect with William, her first husband – and longtime, on-again-off-again friend and confidante. Recalling their college years, the birth of their daughters, the painful dissolution of their marriage, and the lives they built with other people, Strout weaves a portrait, stunning in its subtlety, of a decades-long partnership. Oh William! is a luminous novel about the myriad mysteries that make up a marriage, about discovering family secrets, late in life, that rearrange everything we think we know about those closest to us, and the way people continue to live and love, against all odds. At the heart of this story is the unforgettable, indomitable voice of Lucy Barton, who once again offers a profound, lasting reflection on the mystery of existence. ‘This is the way of life,’ Lucy says. ‘The many things we do not know until it is too late.’ Author: Elizabeth Strout

Glory An effervescent, punchy, piercingly funny novel exploring the fall of Robert Mugabe from Bookershortlisted Zimbabwean novelist NoViolet Bulawayo. Glory is an energy burst, an exhilarating ride. A bold, vivid chorus of animal voices calls out the dangerous absurdity of contemporary global politics, and helps us see our human world more clearly.
Glory tells the story of a country seemingly trapped in a cycle as old as time. And yet, as it unveils the myriad tricks required to uphold the illusion of absolute power, it reminds us that the glory of tyranny only lasts as long as its victims are willing to let it. History can be stopped in a moment. With the return of a long-lost daughter, a #freefairncredibleelection, a turning tide – even a single bullet. Author: NoViolet Bulawayo

Sons of Mud At an army base close to Voortrekkerhoogte in Pretoria, at the height of summer and South Africa’s Border War, 18-year-old recruits endure an appalling drill sergeant bent on
turning them into killing machines for the SADF. They are sleep deprived, and tension mounts in this group of disparate individuals – boys from all walks of life – expected to function as a unit. Andrew Howard-Smythe, a surfer from Durban, is the first to notice the giant Afrikaans boy Reghardt Jurgens, whom he describes as a cross between a heavyweight wrestler and an orangutan.
After a particularly gruelling training session on a shooting range, it is Reghardt who snaps, severely injuring three officers before he is restrained. The investigation that follows is suspicious right from the start. It turns out that, instead of being prosecuted, Reghardt will be recruited for a sinister military outfit when his propensity
for violence is recognised. Thus, this short, hard-hitting novel tracks the making of a henchman.
Written in staccato, pointillist prose, Sons of Mud is deeply poetic and original, and a powerful anti-war manifesto. Author: Johan Vlok Louw

Carrie Soto is back Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular. By the time Carrie retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Slam titles. And if you ask her, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father as her coach.
But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning, British player named Nicki Chan. At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record. Even if the sports media says that they never liked the ‘Battle-Axe’ anyway. Even if her body doesn’t move as fast as it did. And even if it means swallowing her pride to train with a man she once almost opened her heart to: Bowe Huntley. Like her, he has something to prove before he gives up.
In spite of it all: Carrie Soto is back, for one epic final season. In this riveting and unforgettable novel, Taylor Jenkins Reid tells a story about the cost of greatness and a legendary athlete attempting a comeback. Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid

For more great reads, head over to www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za