Newsletter #27
Hello lovely people! Darkness is falling across the land, the midnight hour is close at hand, and gourd sales are up 700% on last month. All of that must mean that Halloween is almost upon us, and we've got a super-sized Samhain special edition of the newsletter for you! Along with our usual picks of the latest releases, we're also sharing some of the best recent spooky titles that have been haunting our shelves.
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New this week
Following Olive Kitteridge's encore a couple of years back, Elizabeth Strout has now turned her attention to the star of My Name is Lucy Barton with much-anticipated sequel Oh William! Now a successful novelist living in New York, Lucy is dealing with the second half of her life: older, wiser, and dealing with the loss of husbands and loved ones. Typically for Strout it's a mature, complex meditation on the shifting sands of adult life.
Speaking of welcome returns, Penelope Lively's Metamorphosis is an impeccably-curated selection of short stories from across the writer's career...selected by Lively herself! A veritable treasure trove, including never-before-seen work excusive to this collection. Meanwhile, Kevin Wilson is a much-ballyhooed new writer, and his debut short story collection Tunnelling to the Centre of the Earth has won comparisons to George Saunders for its Southern Gothic surrealism.
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Courttia Newland impressed with his alternate-history sci-fi novel A River Called Time earlier this year; hot on its heels comes Cosmogramma, his debut short story collection. In keeping with the sharper soothsayers in speculative fiction, Newland's future worlds reflect contemporary issues. From wars fought by robots who start to become self-aware, to a matriarchal society of mer-people who are dependant on dangerous interactions with human men, they're all told with a freshness and stylistic panache.
Before My Actual Heart Breaks is the first novel from Northern Irish journalist Tish Delaney, drawing on her own experiences of The Troubles. The conflict is deftly woven, thanks in no small part to Delaney's energetic prose, into the redemptive story of a young woman's search for escape — from her mother, the church, and an abusive husband. New in paperback is John Banville's Snow, the first in a new series whose sequel just came out in hardback! It's an elegant, twist-filled murder mystery set in the sprawling Dublin manor of a secretive, aristocratic family.
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Adapted from his best-selling essay of the same name, Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny gets the graphic novel treatment courtesy of Nora Krug. As with her tremendously affecting graphic memoir Heimat, Krug uses a mixed-media approach of bold illustrations and collage, incorporating Snyder's text — which utilises examples from recent European history to explain the turn towards authoritarianism in the US — into her artwork.
The fourth of his books mapping the lost poets buried in London's "Magnificent Seven" cemeteries, Chris McCabe's Buried Garden brings him to familiar territory. Our very own Abney Park is explored, guided by the likes of Iain Sinclair and Arthur Machen, with surprising results. Travis Elborough's Atlas of Forgotten Places is the latest in his series of gorgeously produced, impeccably researched collaborations with cartographer Martin Brown. This edition explores everything from ghost towns to abandoned islands, and we have a limited number of signed copies!
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Leave it to Rebecca Solnit to provide a fresh take on one of the most written about public intellectuals this country has produced. Orwell's Roses begins with the garden Orwell planted before heading into the maelstrom of the Spanish Civil War. From there, Solnit argues passionately for the joy he found in small things, and how these pleasures reflect his reason for raging against the political evils of his time — something we might all try when things look bleak.
Speaking of finding the good in a bad situation, the wonderful Painting the Beauty Queens Orange: Women's Lives in the 1970s is an illuminating and entertaining survey of women's experiences in the decade of discontent: pushing boundaries, asserting identities, and weathering the rise of Thatcherism. Last but by no means least, actor Stanley Tucci wanders off the beaten track of celebrity memoirs with his Taste, where he recounts his life story through the medium of the food he ate, with a dry wit and gimlet eye.
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Adapted from the work of Tove Jansson, the Moomin Very Big Moominhouse Lift-the-Flap Book encourages exploration, with new characters, words and numbers to find on every page. With gentle rhymes and bold illustrations, Natasha Durley's 5 Wild Homes is a pleasingly chunky interactive board book. Explore a quintet of habitats by putting your (or a little one's) finger on the disc and tracing the shape on each page!
Carter Higgins's Circle Under Berry is a bold, minimalist children's book in the Hervé Tullet mould. By comparing colours, shapes, and objects young readers discover that everything can be seen from innumerable different perspectives: a triangle that is over a square is also under a circle, and a circle that is pink might also be a flower. Wonderfully designed and conceived, this has the making of a future classic!
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In the children's non-fiction stakes we have Philip Parker and Liz Kay's The History of Everywhere, with a premise sure to entice parents and sprogs alike: reaching back from ancient history to the present day, it explores all the stuff you never knew happened at the same time! Did you know that woolly mammoths were still around when the Egyptians built their pyramids? Or that Leonardo Da Vinci lived at the same time as Henry VIII? I didn't, and I did alright at school!
Prepare yourself: Emily Hawkins's Frozen Mountain will make you jealous that a book this cool wasn't around when we were young. It's choose-your-own-adventure with a "survival spinner" on the cover to see if you make it through a treacherous journey, and Tintin-esque art from R Fresson. A more relaxing read is Everyone Sang: A Poem for Every Feeling, where poems selected by Poetry Pharmacy author William Sieghart are illustrated by Emily Sutton and thoughtfully divided into themes such as "Poems to Make You Smile" and "Poems to Give You Hope."
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A note to the 'fraidy cats in the audience: you should probably just scroll straight past this section. No shame, meet you at the outro. Are those wusses gone? Good, because we have some tremendously terrifying titles to share with you! The Haunting Season sees eight authors — including Bridget Collins, Jess Kidd and Elizabeth Macneal! — pen chilling, seasonal ghost stories in the mode of such masters of the form as Dickens and MR James.
Roger Luckhurst's Gothic: An Illustrated History is a gorgeously-rendered journey through the weird and the eerie in architecture, literature, film, art, video games, and more. New in paperback is Doireann Ni Ghriofa's utterly unique, wonderfully weird A Ghost in the Throat, a blend of autofiction and essay which links the tragic life of a blood-drinking 18th century noblewoman and a present-day writer who discovers the poetry she composed while fuelled by her unnatural libations.
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We've a trio of chilling children's books suitable for the season, too! A long-time shop favourite just recently released in paperback, Mason Mooney: Paranormal Investigator is Seaerra Miller's gloriously colourful (seriously, have a look inside) supernatural romp. Our hero is keen to prove his worth to the Paranormal Society, and so sets about attempting to lift a curse on his hometown's most haunted house. Turns out that's easier said than done for the charmingly arrogant Mason...
On the more wholesome side of Halloween, Flavia Z Drago's Gustavo the Shy Ghost uses some adorable, Day of the Dead-inspired artwork to tell the sweet story of an introverted ghoul finding his voice. For older readers, Jen Campbell's deliciously macabre The Sister Who Ate Her Brothers And Other Gruesome Tales is a diverse anthology of authentically grim(m) stories with vivid illustrations from Adam de Souza.
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We've had the cosy pleasures of the World of Shakespeare and the World of Jane Austen. Now it's Transylvania's turn, as our jigsaw pick is the 1,000 piece World of Dracula! With a delectably gothic design courtesy of Adam Simpson, this puzzle follows the theme of the series by being jam-packed with references to and cameo appearances by the stars of Bram Stoker's immortal (undead?) story.
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What we're reading
- Paul is full of praise for The Dawn of Everything: a weighty, accessible tome wherein David Graeber (1961-2020) and David Wengrow offer up abounding imagination with regards to alternative democratic organisational practises
- Anya loved Mizuki Tsujimura's Lonely Castle in the Mirror, a slow, touching and Ghibli-esque read
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How does trick or treating work in the age of social distancing? Probably much safer that you get books instead. We're biased, but we're also looking out for you. All the information you require about shop opening hours, ordering and exorcisms are below. Take care of yourselves and we'll see you soon!
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| We are open for browsing 10-6 Monday to Saturday, and 11-5 on Sunday. You can also email or call (020 7249 2808) to place an order, then pick up your items from the shop. If you're unable to get to the shop for any reason, you can order books to be delivered to you through our friends at Bookshop.org (and we receive a decent commission!) |
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