The Last Gift

One day, long before the troubles, he slipped away without saying a word to anyone and never went back. And then another day, forty-three years later, he collapsed just inside the front door of his house in a small English town. It was late in the day when it happened, on his way home after work, but it was also late in the day altogether. He had left things for too long and there was no one to blame for it but himself. Abbas has never told anyone about his past-before he was a sailor on the high seas, before he met his wife Maryam outside a Boots in Exeter, before they settled into a quiet life in Norwich with their children, Jamal and Hanna. Now, at the age of sixty-three, he suffers a collapse that renders him bedbound and unable to speak about things he thought he would one day have to. Jamal and Hanna have grown up and gone out into the world. They were both born in England but cannot shake a sense of apartness. Hanna calls herself Anna now, and has just moved to a new city to be near her boyfriend. She feels the relationship is headed somewhere serious, but the words have not yet been spoken out loud. Jamal, the listener of the family, moves into a student house and is captivated by a young woman with dark-blue eyes and her own, complex story to tell. Abbas's illness forces both children home, to the dark silences of their father and the fretful capability of their mother Maryam, who began life as a foundling and has never thought to find herself, until now.

By the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 'One scarcely dares breathe while reading it for fear of breaking the enchantment' The Times 'Gurnah is a master storyteller' Financial Times _______________ On a late November afternoon Saleh Omar arrives at Gatwick Airport from Zanzibar, a far away island in the Indian Ocean. With him he has a small bag in which lies his most precious possession - a mahogany box containing incense. He used to own a furniture shop, have a house and be a husband and father. Now he is an asylum seeker from paradise; silence his only protection. Meanwhile Latif Mahmud, someone intimately connected with Saleh's past, lives quietly alone in his London flat. When Saleh and Latif meet in an English seaside town, a story is unravelled. It is a story of love and betrayal, seduction and possession, and of a people desperately trying to find stability amidst the maelstrom of their times.

Twenty-first-century scientists make shocking discoveries on an expedition to the prehistoric age in the Hugo Award–winner’s “mystery within a mystery” (Wired). In 2070 AD, anthropologist John Gribardsun assembles a team of scientists to travel back in time to the prehistoric world of 12,000 BC. Their unprecedented mission—one that could never be repeated—is to learn about the primitive Magdalenian culture. They are willing to risk anything to finally uncover the origins of human civilization. But they could never have imagined what their findings reveal . . . or the effects they will have on the future. After emerging from their timeship, the other members of the crew begin to suspect something out of the ordinary about their enigmatic leader. As Gribardsun adapts to their primitive surroundings with remarkable ease, it is almost as if he belongs . . . Time’s Last Gift is set in Philip José Farmer’s expansive fantasy world that interweaves the lives of Sherlock Holmes, Jack the Ripper, James Bond, Flash Gordon, and other larger-than-life characters.

In May 2007, while on a family holiday, BEBHINN Ramsay's husband Alastair woke in the middle of the night with a fever. Just over forty-eight hours later, he died in a San Francisco hospital from a rare complication to a common infection. At the age of thirty-one, BEBHINN had not only lost her soulmate and the father of her two young sons, but also her faith in life. From walking the Camino del Santiago with her two sons, to spiritual retreats and self-reflection, we discover how BEBHINN eventually finds peace, happiness and acceptance by opening her mind, and her heart.

In this moving and compassionate classic—now updated with new material from the authors—hospice nurses Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley share their intimate experiences with patients at the end of life, drawn from more than twenty years’ experience tending the terminally ill. Through their stories we come to appreciate the near-miraculous ways in which the dying communicate their needs, reveal their feelings, and even choreograph their own final moments; we also discover the gifts—of wisdom, faith, and love—that the dying leave for the living to share. Filled with practical advice on responding to the requests of the dying and helping them prepare emotionally and spiritually for death, Final Gifts shows how we can help the dying person live fully to the very end.

When a young woman finds herself lost and at a crossroads, one last gift from her brother just might give her another chance at life and at love in this epic holiday romance from the author of Always, in December “Heartbreaking, romantic and full of warmth . . . waterproof mascara recommended!”—Sarah Morgan, author of The Christmas Sisters ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar Sometimes the best gifts in life are the ones you don’t expect. Cassie and Tom lost their parents at a young age and relied on each other—as well as a community of friends—to cope. They were especially close with Tom’s best friend, Sam, who always made sure that Tom and Cassie were surrounded with love. But, twenty years later, Cassie has lost Tom as well. And in a way, she’s also lost Sam; over the years they’d drifted apart, and now the man she always had a crush on is someone she doesn’t even recognize anymore. She’s never felt more alone. Then Cassie finds an envelope with her name on it, written in Tom’s terrible handwriting, and she knows immediately what it is. It’s the first clue in the Christmas scavenger hunt that Tom made for her every year; he’d promised her for months that this year’s would be the grandest one yet. At first, she’s too scared to open the envelope—what if she can’t figure out the clues without his help? Or what if she does figure them all out and her last connection to Tom is gone? Tom’s present sets Cassie on a heart-wrenching and beautiful journey that will change her life—if she lets it. And as she travels from London to the Welsh mountains to the French countryside, she reconnects with old friends, rekindles a lost love, and, most important, rediscovers herself. But once she’s solved the final clue, will she be brave enough to accept the gift her brother has given her—and the love it’s led her to?

'One of the most beautiful and profound novels I've read in ages' Washington Post 'A magical take on Africa before the arrival of the Atlantic slave ships' Independent 'Takes on the great riddles of existence' New York Times By a riverbank in Africa, two lovers meet for the first time. They make a promise to meet again the next day, same time, same place, but only one of them shows up. This sounds like the beginning of a love story, but it's more than that, for this breathtaking tale takes the reader into the heart of a vibrant world, a complex and intriguing civilisation of warriors and kings, philosophers and artists, parents and lovers. A world and culture which is about to end for, glimpsed on the horizon, seen but unsuspected, beautiful ships with white sails are waiting...

By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021 'The elegance and control of Gurnah's writing, and his understanding of how quietly and slowly and repeatedly a heart can break, make this a deeply rewarding novel' Kamila Shamsie, Guardian For seven-year-old Salim, the pillars upholding his small universe – his indifferent father, his adored uncle, his treasured books, the daily routines of government school and Koran lessons – seem unshakeable. But it is the 1970s, and the winds of change are blowing through Zanzibar: suddenly Salim's father is gone, and the island convulses with violence and corruption the wake of a revolution. It will only be years later, making his way through an alien and hostile London, that Salim will begin to understand the shame and exploitation festering at the heart of his family's history. 'Riveting ... The measured elegance of Gurnah's prose renders his protagonist in a manner almost uncannily real' New York Times 'Glittering ... Each work is different from the last, yet they build into a powerfully evocative oeuvre that keeps coming back to the same questions, in spare, graceful prose, about the ties that bind and the ties that fray' Telegraph 'A colourful tale of life in a Zanzibar village, where passions and politics reshape a family... Powerful' Mail on Sunday