World Book Day 2022

The Suna team offer you the pick of their reading crop for World Book Day 2022. No dressing up required.

Everything from dystopian fiction to historical novels, from thrillers to literary classics, from football to mindfulness, there’s something here for everyone.
And in the spirit of sustainability, if you click the image then, where possible, you will be taken to a charitable or second hand bookseller to buy.

HELEN FEWSTER, DIRECTOR

The Kingdom, by Jo Nesbo

Renowned for his page turning crime novels, this one lives up to Jo Nesbo’s reputation at the top of the book charts.

“When Roy and Carl's parents die suddenly, sixteen-year-old Roy is left as protector to his impulsive younger brother. But when Carl decides to travel the world in search of his fortune, Roy stays behind in their sleepy village, satisfied with his peaceful life as a mechanic.

Some years later, Carl returns with his charismatic new wife, Shannon - an architect. They are full of exciting plans to build a spa hotel on their family land. Carl wants not only to make the brothers rich but the rest of the village, too.”

REBECCA TUCKER, DIRECTOR

The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood

The long awaited follow up to The Handmaids Tale, and joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize, The Testaments ties up all the strings left hanging since 1985.

“More than fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results.

“As Atwood unfolds The Testaments, she opens up the innermost workings of Gilead as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes.”

OLAMIDE OSOBA

How They Stole The Game, by David Yallop

Known as ‘The book that Sepp Blatter wanted to ban’,
David Yallop investigates ‘How Fifa sold football’.

“What's wrong with Football today? In June 2011, Sepp Blatter was elected - uncontested - as president of Fifa once more. Despite attempts to halt the vote amidst allegations and accusations of corruption, the show went on.

As How They Stole The Game, David Yallop's classic expose of the dark heart behind the beautiful game showed when it was first published, Football was rotten from the top down. In the book Yallop reveals the story of Joao Havelenge, Fifa President from 1974 to 1998, the Godfather of football, and how he turned a religion to millions of fans into a multi-billion dollar business, riven with suspicious deals and unexpected payments.”

ANNA VON WERTHERN-GRAY,
SENIOR DESIGNER

The Tsar of Love and Techno, by Anthony Marra

“Winner of the Granta Best of Young American Novelists 2017, The Tsar of Love and Techno begins in 1930s Leningrad, where a failed portrait artist employed by Soviet censors must erase political dissenters from official images and artworks.

“One day, he receives an antique painting of a dacha inside a box of images due to be altered. The mystery behind this painting threads together the stories that follow, which take us through a century and introduce a cast of characters including a Siberian beauty queen, a young soldier in the battlefields of Chechnya, the Head of the Grozny Tourist Bureau, a ballerina performing for the camp director of a gulag and many others.”

ALYSHA DAVIES,
INTERIOR DESIGNER

Cultish, by Amanda Montell

“The author of the widely praised Wordslut analyzes the social science of cult influence: how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power."

“Through juicy storytelling and cutting original research, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities cultish, revealing how they affect followers of groups as notorious as Heaven's Gate, but also how they pervade our modern start-ups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram feeds. Incisive and darkly funny, this enrapturing take on the curious social science of power and belief will make you hear the fanatical language of cultish everywhere.”

LETTY WALTON,
INTERIOR DESIGNER

Tracks, by Robyn Davidson

“'I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back.'

“So begins Robyn Davidson's perilous journey across 1,700 miles of hostile Australian desert to the sea with only four camels and a dog for company. Davidson emerges as an extraordinarily courageous heroine driven by a love of Australia's landscape, an empathy for its indigenous people, and a willingness to cast away the trappings of her former identity.

“Tracks is the compelling, candid story of her odyssey of discovery and transformation.”

SHARON FITT,
FINANCE MANAGER

The Lady of the Rivers, by Philippa Gregory

”1435. Rouen. Jacquetta of Luxembourg is left a wealthy young widow when her husband, the Duke of Bedford, dies. Her only friend in the great household is Richard Woodville, the Duke's squire, and it is not long before the two become lovers and marry in secret.

”A sweeping, powerful novel rich in passion and legend, The Lady of the Rivers tells the story of the real-life mother to the White Queen.”

TAL WILSON,
OPERATIONS PROJECT MANAGER

Mindfulness, by Mark Williams and Danny Penman

“Mindfulness is based on mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). Co-developed by Professor Mark Williams of Oxford University, MBCT is recommended by the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and is as effective as drugs for preventing depression. But, equally, it works for the rest of us who aren't depressed but who are struggling to keep up with the relentless demands of the modern world.”

NICOLA SAYERS,
OPERATIONS MANAGER

The Immortalists, by Chloe Benjamin

It's 1969, and holed up in a grimy tenement building in New York's Lower East Side is a travelling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the date they will die. The four Gold children, too young for what they're about to hear, sneak out to learn their fortunes.

Such prophecies could be dismissed as trickery and nonsense, yet the Golds bury theirs deep. Over the years that follow they attempt to ignore, embrace, cheat and defy the 'knowledge' given to them that day - but it will shape the course of their lives forever.

FREYA PATTERSON,
INTERIOR DESIGNER

Celebration of Discipline, by Richard Foster

Arguably the most established contemporary spiritual classic by our most profound living religious writer. This timeless classic has helped well over a million people discover a richer spiritual life.

The book explores the 'classic disciplines' of Christian faith: the inward disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study; the outward disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission and service and the corporate disciplines of confession, worship, guidance and celebration.