Alix Dunmore

'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore. Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But they did not shut down. Not right away...'

For Leila, each minute after her death brings a sensuous memory: the taste of spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the long-awaited birth of a son; the sight of bubbling vats of lemon and sugar which the women use to wax their legs while the men attend mosque; the scent of cardamom coffee that Leila shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each memory, too, recalls the friends she made at each key moment in her life - friends who are now desperately trying to find her. . .

'If she was my double and I was hers, was it true that she was knowing, I was unknowing, she was sane, I was crazy, she was wise, I was foolish? That summer, the air was electric between us as we transmitted our feelings to each other across three countries.' Elsa M. Anderson is a classical piano virtuoso. In a flea market in Athens, she watches an enigmatic woman buy two mechanical dancing horses.

Is it possible that the woman who is so enchanted with the horses is her living double? Is she also looking for reasons to live? Chasing their doubles across Europe, the two women grapple with their preconceived conceptions of the world and each other, culminating in a final encounter in a fateful summer rainstorm. A vivid portrait of a long-held identity coming apart, August Blue expands our understanding of the ways in which we seek to find ourselves in others and create ourselves anew.

In an age of social media and selfies, of pixel-perfect pictures and surgically-enhanced celebrities, the pressure to change our bodies can often seem overwhelming. We are told we should conceal the signs of ageing and get our bodies back after pregnancy. We ought to perfect our complexions, build our biceps, trim our waistlines, cure our disabilities, conceal our quirks. More than ever before, we should contort our physical selves to prejudiced standards of beauty and acceptability.

In this thought-provoking work, acclaimed political philosopher Clare Chambers argues that the unmodified body is a key principle of equality. While defending the right of anyone to change their bodies, she argues that the social pressure to modify sends a powerful message: you are not good enough. The body becomes a site of political importance: a place where inequalities of sex, gender, race, disability, age, and class are reinforced.

Through a clear-sighted analysis of the power dynamics that structure our society, and with examples ranging widely from body-building to breast implants, makeup to male circumcision, Intact stresses that we must break away from the oppressive forces that demand we alter our bodies. Instead, it offers a vision of the human body that is equal without expectation: an unmodified body that is not an image of perfection or a goal to be attained, but a valued end in itself.

In a non-descript building in a gentrifying corner of London, Penny is doing daily battle with her mind. She is convinced that the world beyond her door is too dangerous for her, though her heart knows it isn't. Penny's neighbour, Carla, an American expat and single mother of two teens, has lived in a coercive relationship for many years, too worn down by her controlling husband to escape her situation. Mable, Penny's upstairs neighbour, an elderly Jamaican pensioner and devout Jehovah's Witness, has sacrificed everything for her faith, including her relationship with her family. And Woman, the housekeeper and nanny on the second floor, has been trafficked. When she is not cleaning and cooking, she works in the laundrette the landlord owns on the ground floor, a hidden slave in full view of the public. Through grocery deliveries, glimpses through windows, and overheard conversations in the stairwell, the women come to know each other. Their small acts of compassion help them each find a way to mend the broken paths in their lives.

Wry, compassionate, and glittering with wit, Penelope Lively's stories gets beneath the everyday to the beating heart of human experience. In intimate stories of growing up and growing old, chance encounters and life-long relationships, Lively explores with keen insight the ways that individuals can become tangled in history, and small acts ripple through the generations. From new and never-before-published stories to forgotten treasures, Metamorphosis showcases the very best from a literary master.

Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe were philosophy students at Oxford during the Second World War when most male undergraduates (and many tutors) were conscripted. Taught by refugee scholars, women and conscientious objectors, the four friends developed a philosophy that could respond to the war's darkest revelations.

When images of the concentration camps emerged, Foot wrote: 'We had thought something like this could not happen.' And when the atom bomb fell on Hiroshima, Anscombe saw a terrifying new possibility: by signing his name at the foot of an order, US President Harry Truman had been able to act on so vast a scale as to end the war by killing hundreds of thousands. How, they asked, do we find our way through the darkness of what we have created? Not even the great thinkers of the past or the logical innovators and Existentialists of the early twentieth century could make sense of this new human reality. So, in search of an answer, the four friends set out to bring philosophy back to life.

What is freedom? What is real? What is human goodness? As creatures who use language - as human animals - it is in our nature to ask these questions. We are metaphysical animals. And the answers we give shape what we will become.

Written with expertise and flair, Metaphysical Animals is a vivid blend of philosophy and recovered history - bringing back the women who shared ideas, as well as sofas, shoes and even lovers. Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman show how from the disorder and despair of the war, four brilliant friends brought philosophy back to life and created a way of ethical thinking that is there for us today.

'As a girl I witnessed the world I loved crumble and vanish, destroyed by senseless hatred, and with it, my best friend Anne'. Two best friends' lives were about to change for ever, neither would ever be forgotten... When Hannah's family flee from the Nazis to Amsterdam, she soon strikes up a friendship with a girl just like her freshly arrived from Germany. Precocious and outspoken, the girl's name is Anne Frank and for seven blissful years the inseparable pair navigate school, boys and coming of age. Then one day in 1942, as the Nazi occupation intensifies, they are separated without warning. Hannah calls on Anne and can't find a trace of her, breakfast dishes still in the sink, beds unmade.

Anne and her family have seemingly vanished. They are told the Franks have fled to Switzerland. As Hannah is tormented by the fate of her friend, hoping she is alive and well elsewhere, her own family's fate unfolds. After attempts to flee themselves, the SS finally come for them and they are taken to the transit camp Westerbork. Eventually Hannah, her father and younger sister Gabi are transported to Bergen-Belsen. Amid horrific conditions with death all around, it is during Hannah's darkest point at the concentration camp that she hears astonishing of news of Anne. Desperate to save her friend who is weak and struggling to survive, Hannah risks her life to help her. In an incredible memoir of hope, strength and defiance, Hannah shares the intimate, loving portrait of her friendship with the young diarist who would go on to capture the hearts of millions around the world.

Jenna is a wife, a mother, a doctor. She's also the victim of a stalker. Every time she leaves her house, she sees him. Disturbing gifts are left at her door. Cruel emails are sent to her colleagues. She has no idea who this man is but she feels powerless against him. Until the day he is brought into her hospital after a serious accident, and Jenna is given the chance to find out once and for all why this man is tormenting her. Now, the power is all hers. But how many lines is she willing to cross to take back control of her life?

Staring at the Sun charts the life of Jean Serjeant, from her beginning as a naive, carefree country girl before the war through to her wry and trenchant old age in the year 2020. We follow her bruising experience in marriage, her probing of male truths, her adventures in motherhood and in China and we cannot fail to be moved by the questions she asks of life and the often unsatisfactory answers it provides.

All Liam ever wanted was to help Cassie reach her full potential; to push her body to new extremes. Exercise, determination, being the optimum versions of themselves together forever. And Liam always knew what was best. Nothing could break their intense love for one another, not Liam’s obsessive desire for physical perfection or his relentless control of every aspect of Cassie’s life. Until the day he pushes Cassie far beyond her limits, and she walks out of their flat and away from their toxic relationship for good. Two years on and Cassie is stronger, fitter, healthier than ever before. And then she sees him – Liam – those green eyes, those stirring muscles. Something inside her flips. But she holds the power now. It’s Liam’s turn to sweat.

Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground - an old Polaroid of three young women and their university professor. A relic from a past - and a love - Peri had tried desperately to forget. The photograph takes Peri back to Oxford University, as an 18-year-old sent abroad for the first time and to her dazzling, rebellious professor and his life-changing course on God. It also takes her to her home with her two best friends, Shirin and Mona, and their arguments about Islam and femininity and, finally, to the scandal that tore them all apart.