LATEST TITLES

A GALAXY OF HER OWN: AMAZING STORIES OF WOMEN IN SPACE by Libby Jackson, Century, £16.99 (ebook £9.99)

A GALAXY Of Her Own tells how women have contributed to advance scientific knowledge – from mathematicians Ada Lovelace and Katherine Johnson, to geologist Frances Westall, aerospace engineer Anita Sengupta and expert seamstresses Ellie Foraker, Madeleine Ivory, Bert Pilkenton and Cecil Webb, who designed and made the suits the astronauts wore for lunar missions.

Author Libby Jackson, who is an astronaut flight programme manager for the UK space agency, writes: “The women, regardless of the period they were living in, refused to be limited by any barriers that society tried to place upon them.”

SING, UNBURIED, SING by Jesmyn Ward, Bloomsbury, £16.99 (ebook £8.99)

JESMYN Ward’s third novel follows a journey made by a black mother, Leonie, with her family, to visit the prison where her children’s white father, Michael, is about to be released.

Themes of drug addiction and child abuse feature in this powerful tale, with ghostly figures from the past returning to admonish Leonie for the choices she has made in her life. The civil liberty struggles faced by many Americans today, and the country’s controversial history, are reflected in Ward’s deeply affecting prose.

MYTHOS: THE GREEK MYTHS RETOLD by Stephen Fry, Michael Joseph, £20 (ebook £9.99)

FRY’S lively writing conveys his enthusiasm for Greek myths as he regales us with tales of petulant, selfish gods, bitter family feuds, lust, sex and extreme violence. It’s a rollicking good read.

Fry says readers don’t need to know anything before they tackle Mythos and he hopes to introduce to new people the stories which have enthralled him.