De Vere x Bloomsbury Book Club
The Book Club allows guests visiting our hotels to loan a book during their stay with a choice of four books to choose from, refreshed on a bimonthly basis to include a variety of recent launches, topical reads, and modern classics. Guests can join the conversation and share their favourite reads on social media using #DeVerexBloomsbury.
Our second selection of Book Club books are available at the properties from 1st May until 30th June. Guests can choose to borrow one of the following:
Afterlives
By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021, Abdulrazak Gurnah.
Abdulrazak Gurnah’s four-decade career has established him as one of the most distinguished voices in contemporary literature.
About Afterlives: While he was still a little boy, Ilyas was stolen from his parents by the German colonial troops. After years away, fighting in a war against his own people, he returns to his village to find his parents gone, and his sister Afiya given away. Another young man returns at the same time. Hamza was not stolen for the war, but sold into it; he has grown up at the right hand of an officer whose protection has marked him life. With nothing but the clothes on his back, he seeks only work and security – and the love of the beautiful Afiya. As fate knots these young people together, as they live and work and fall in love, the shadow of a new war on another continent lengthens and darkens, ready to snatch them up and carry them away…
I Know What I Saw
The gripping new thriller from the author of BBC1’s YOU DON’T KNOW ME, Imran Mahmood
I Know What I Saw is a gripping, timely exploration of grief, wealth, and trauma from an emerging master of unreliable narration - for fans of Tana French, Jane Harper, Kate Atkinson, and S J Watson.
About I Know What I Saw: A woman strangled in a Mayfair flat. A man fleeing the scene. Xander Shute saw it all – but the police won’t believe someone who lives on the streets. Determined to find justice for the murdered woman, Xander searches for answers. But as his recollection of the crime comes under increasing scrutiny, he is forced to confront other memories, including those from his long-buried, troubled, wealthy past. How much will he risk to understand the brutal truth?
We Are Bellingcat - An Intelligence Agency for the People
A thrilling story of an organisation that has defied authorities and scooped countless stories by Eliot Higgins, founder and pioneer of the Bellingcat network platform.
About We Are Bellingcat: How did a collective of self-taught internet sleuths end up solving some of the biggest crimes of our time? Bellingcat, the home-grown investigative unit, is redefining the way we think about news, politics, and the digital future. Here, their founder – a high school dropout on a kitchen laptop – tells the story of how they created a whole new category of information gathering, galvanising citizen journalists across the globe to expose war crimes and pick apart disinformation, using just their computers. From the downing of Malaysia Flight 17 over Ukraine to the sourcing of weapons in the Syrian Civil War and the identification of the Salisbury poisoners, We Are Bellingcat digs deep into some of Bellingcat’s most successful investigations. It explores the most cutting-edge tools for analysing data, from virtual-reality software that can build photorealistic 3D models of a crime scene, to apps that can identify exactly what time of day a photograph was taken. In our age of uncertain truths, Bellingcat is what the world needs right now – an intelligence agency by the people, for the people.
The Book of Trespass - Crossing the Lines that Divide Us
By artist and writer, Nick Hayes a hugely exciting new voice in the nature space. A passionate defence of the natural world and a consideration of the relationship between politics and the land, The Book of Trespass is for readers of George Monbiot, James Rebanks and Owen Jones
About The Book of Trespass: The vast majority of our country is entirely unknown to us because we are banned from setting foot on it. By law of trespass, we are excluded from 92 per cent of the land and 97 per cent of its waterways, blocked by walls whose legitimacy is rarely questioned. But behind them lies a story of enclosure, exploitation, and dispossession of public rights whose effects last to this day. The Book of Trespass takes us on a journey over the walls of England, into the thousands of square miles of rivers, woodland, lakes, and meadows that are blocked from public access. By trespassing the land of the media magnates, Lords, politicians, and private corporations that own England, Nick Hayes argues that the root of social inequality is the uneven distribution of land. Weaving together the stories of poachers, vagabonds, gypsies, witches, hippies, ravers, ramblers, migrants and protestors, and charting acts of civil disobedience that challenge orthodox power at its heart, The Book of Trespass will transform the way you see the land.
Whilst De Vere properties are impeccably connected by road, rail or air, the hotels are also surrounded by acres of green space, parkland, and beautiful countryside, making them the perfect place to enjoy some quiet time away while getting lost in a book.
Main image: The Library Bar at De Vere Tortworth Court
