The January Competition
The first monthly competition of 2012 has a lovely selection of new reads for three Bookhugger readers… courtesy of Faber & Faber, Simon & Schuster, Bloomsbury and Headline.
Titles to be won this month include:
The Emperor of Lies, by Steve Sem Sandberg
In February 1940 the Nazis established what would become the second largest Jewish ghetto in Poland, in the city of Lodz. A wire fence was built around the Old City, completely separating Jewish families, some quarter of a million people, from the rest of the population. The fence was patrolled by police ordered to shoot on sight should anyone attempt to escape.
The ghetto’s chosen leader was Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, a sixty-three-year-old Jewish businessman. Mysterious, ambiguous, monarchical, ‘King Chaim’ was motivated by a titanic ambition. Realising that his survival rested upon his ability to make the ghetto indispensable, he sought to transform it into a productive industrial complex, forcing adults and children alike to work punishing hours in workshops to provide supplies for the German military.
Was Rumkowksi a ruthless opportunist – an accessory to the Nazi regime driven by a lust for power? Or was he a pragmatic strategist who managed to save Jewish lives through collaboration? Steve Sem-Sandberg’s extraordinary novel draws on genuine chronicles of life in the Lodz ghetto to ask the most difficult questions about survival and oppression.
Now published in over twenty languages, The Emperor of Lies is one of the great Holocaust novels of the twenty-first century by one of Scandinavia’s most admired authors.
Tideline, by Penny Hancock
One winter’s afternoon, voice coach Sonia opens the door of her beautiful riverside home to fifteen-year-old Jez, the nephew of a family friend. He’s come to borrow some music. Sonia invites him in and soon decides that she isn’t going to let him leave.
As Sonia’s desire to keep Jez hidden and protected from the outside world becomes all the more overpowering, she is haunted by memories of an intense teenage relationship, which gradually reveal a terrifying truth. The River House, Sonia’s home since childhood, holds secrets within its walls. And outside, on the shores of the Thames, new ones are coming in on the tide…
Cairo, by Ahdaf Soueif
Over the past few months I have delivered lectures, presentations and interviews on the Egyptian Revolution. I have had overflowing houses everywhere, been stopped by old ladies in the street and had my hand shaken by numerous taxi drivers and shopkeepers. And all because I’m Egyptian and the glitter of Tahrir is upon me.
They wanted me to talk to them, to tell them stories about it, to tell them how, on the 28th of January when we took the Square and The People torched the headquarters of the hated ruling National Democratic Party, The (same) People formed a human chain to protect the Antiquities Museum and demanded an official handover to the military; to tell them how, on Wednesday, February 2nd, as The People defended themselves against the invading thug militias and fought pitched battles at the entrance to the Square in the shadow of the Antiquities Museum, The (same) People at the centre of the square debated political structures and laughed at stand-up comics and distributed sandwiches and water; to tell them of the chants and the poetry and the songs, of how we danced and waved at the F16s that our President flew over us. People everywhere want to make this Revolution their own, and we in Egypt want to share it.
Ahdaf Soueif – novelist, commentator, activist – navigates her history of Cairo and her journey through the Revolution that’s redrawing its future. Through a map of stories drawn from private history and public record Soueif charts a story of the Revolution that is both intimately hers and publicly Egyptian.
Ahdaf Soueif was born and brought up in Cairo. When the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 erupted on January 25th, she, along with thousands of others, called Tahrir Square home for eighteen days. She reported for the world’s media and did – like everyone else – whatever she could.
The Flying Man, by Roopa Farooki
Meet Maqil – also known as Mike, Mehmet, Mikhail and Miguel – a chancer and charlatan.
A criminally clever man who tells a good tale, trading on his charm and good looks, reinventing himself with a new identity and nationality in each successive country he makes his home, abandoning wives and children and careers in the process. He’s a compulsive gambler – driven to lose at least as much as he gains, in games of chance, and in life. A damaged man in search of himself
From the day he was delivered in Lahore, Pakistan, alongside his stillborn twin, he proved he was a born survivor. He has been a master of flying escapes, from Cairo to Paris, from London to Hong Kong, humbled by love, outliving his peers, and ending up old and alone in a budget hotel in Biarritz some eighty years later. His chequered history is catching up with him: his tracks have been uncovered and his latest wife, his children, his creditors and former business associates, all want to pin him down. But even at the end, Maqil just can’t resist trying it on; he’s still playing his game, and the game won’t be over until it’s been won.
The Questions:
To win, answer four simple questions, the answers to which can be found in recent Bookhugger book extracts…
- Question 1: In The Emperor of Lies, on 10 December 1939 how many Jews were living in the city of Łódź?
- Question 2: What is the name of Sonny’s mother, in The Flying Man?
- Question 3: Sonia’s story in Tideline is written in which point of view?
- Question 4: Where was Ahdaf Soueif staying when she realised something was happening in Cairo?
Terms and conditions
- Closing date for entries: 4th February 2012.
- Open to residents of the United Kingdom only.
- Entry to the competition is by completion of the above form only. Anyone submitting multiple entries will be disqualified.
- The winners will be selected from those correct entries received before the closing date. Our decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
- Only the winning entrants will be contacted by Bookhugger.
- The winner’s name(s) may be published on the Bookhugger website after the closing date of the competition.
- The competition is not open to Bookhugger employees and their families, or to employees of Bookhugger publishers and their families.
January 22nd, 2012 at 10:14 pm
wow, I want to read ALL of these!
January 23rd, 2012 at 3:50 pm
If this set of books matches previous selections, the winner will be delighted.
January 28th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Thank you, Bookhugger for presenting an excellent selection of books that I was unaware of.
January 30th, 2012 at 10:51 am
what an amazing selection of great literature and thank you for such a fantastic book competition. xx
January 31st, 2012 at 7:10 pm
Great book collection, A mix of everything there. The Tideline sounds really good i will have to keep an eye out for that one!