Newsletter #37
Hello lovely people! Now, when you've been in the bookselling game as long as we have, you develop an instinct for which of the latest releases are going to be absolute smashes. With that in mind, we have to say that this issue's crop are going to be hard to beat. You hear that, publishers?
While we wait to see if that experiment in operant conditioning pays off, lets get into the corkers we've found on our shelves these past couple of weeks, including: a Booker nominee, some queer gothic fiction, a foraging cook book, a local feminist history, dragons, and a whole lot more!
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New this week
Elizabeth Zott is fairly unique as protagonists go: an expert in an obscure branch of chemistry, she is sidelined by her male colleagues at an upper-crust research lab, spins her career as a homemaker into nationwide fame as a TV chef utilising her scientific knowledge, and inspires a feminist revolution in sixties America. That makes Lessons in Chemistry, the off-beat novel she stars in, pretty special to boot. Jo loved this deceptively breezy, wittily written debut from Bonnie Garmus, its hidden depths plumbing everything from molecular gastronomy to abiogenesis, gender politics and local government.
NoViolet Bulawayo follows up her dynamite debut We Need New Names with Glory, a Zimbabwean take on Animal Farm. Here, the political lives of the anthropomorphic cast stand in for the fall of Robert Mugabe — an allegory not short of comedy, nor of insight. Shortlisted for this year’s Booker, Anuk Arudpragasam’s A Passage North is a stream-of-consciousness meditation on the Sri Lankan civil war, its narrator returning from study in India and finding himself overwhelmed by the ever-present trauma evident in his family and his country alike.
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Julia Armfield’s Salt Slow was a deserved bestseller, a collection of slow-burn, modern gothic short stories. She continues to plough that fertile furrow in her debut novel Our Wives Under the Sea, the scariest love story you’ll read this year. Shades of Jeff van der Meer’s Annihilation abound in its premise: Miri’s wife miraculously returns from a deep sea expedition gone wrong, but Leah’s not quite herself. Memories begin to slip away, strange occurrences disrupt their attempts at tranquillity, and Miri begins to wonder if Leah brought something back with her…
Award-winning historian Yasmin Khan turns her attention to fiction in the superb Edgware Road. A decade-hopping family epic set in West London, Khan brings her intimate knowledge of South Asia’s colonial past to bear as she blends an immigrant’s life story with a gripping historical mystery. Folk horror writer par excellence Adam Scovell returns with Nettles, his latest offering. A young man returns to his countryside hometown, looking to exorcise painful memories of violent bullying and a bizarre communion with a local legend…but can his recollection of these events be trusted?
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Rebecca Lowe provides a reliably novel perspective on familiar terrain in The Slow Road to Tehran, her telling of a cross-country bike ride through Europe and the Middle East. Her 7,000-mile trip takes her through Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, and the UAE, amidst the then-raging Syrian conflict and attendant refugee crisis. Spurred on by a desire to educate both herself and others on what was actually happening in these regions, Lowe proves an amiable, thoughtful narrator, giving as much space on the page for the experiences of those she meets as she does her own.
As with his late Guardian column and current fantastic newsletter (take it from us!), Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks offers an intelligent, robust take on the self help genre. He ably curates vital advice offered from philosophers, psychologists and thinkers of ancient and modern times in a frank assessment of how we might best spend our finite lives. Ocean Vuong's second poetry collection Time Is A Mother further expands his palette of thoughtful verse and playful presentation. Following the death of his own mother, he expounds on grief, tenderness, and carrying on in the face of violence with lyrical grace.
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Musician Martha Wainwright has always been pretty candid when discussing her personal life in public, as the (extremely Not Safe For Work) title of a song dedicated to her father, Loudon, will attest. Stories I Might Regret Telling You, her autobiography, suggests she’s lost none of that candour. A heartfelt memoir of finding the powerful and rebellious voice she’s become known for, and coming to terms with her tumultuous family of musical royalty, it’s a must-read both for fans and those who appreciate a good story, told with no shortage of colourful language.
Closer to home is the remarkable anthology Write Women into History, produced by the Hackney-based History of Women’s Liberation (or Hackney HOWLers!) collective. Its fourteen contributors provide a positive, potted history of grassroots women’s activism in the borough — with an eye on the work that still needs to be done. Africa Is Not A Country by Dipo Faloyin is a vital, comprehensive intervention, rejecting stereotypes by painting a fully-rendered portrait of each African nation in term. Funny, insightful, and surprising, Faloyin is an ideal guide through topics as varied as colonial history, dictatorial coups, and intra-state rivalries over who makes the best jollof.
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As those stolen hours, sunlit evenings and industrious farmworkers will attest: spring has sprung! And about time, too! We thought we’d take the opportunity to highlight some seasonally-apt recommendations. Ben Dark’s The Grove is a fascinating potted (ahem) history of front gardens from the host of The Garden Log podcast, losing none of his enthusiasm or insight in the move to the printed word.
Wild and Sweet is a cookbook with a twist. Alongside mouth-watering dessert recipes, author Rachel Lambert also provides advice on how to forage for ingredients — who knew you could make preserves, cakes, and cordials with things you find growing in city gardens and countryside laybys? For the green-fingered and youthful, Riz Reyes and Sara Boccaccini Meadows’ Grow offers an accessible, easy-to-follow first-timers’ guide to gardening.
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A welcome exception to the rule of judging books by their covers, Ajay and the Mumbai Sun more than matches the superb illustrations of Sònia Albert. Varsha Shah’s debut is an ineffably imaginative, charming coming-of-age story which vividly captures its setting. Orphaned Ajay is a wannabe journalist, tired of waiting for adulthood to chase his dreams — so when he and his friends find an abandoned printing press, they decide to start their own paper. Soon they find the complex life of adults all-too-present, as they uncover stories of political corruption and the proposed bulldozing of the slums they call home. A high-stakes adventure as heartfelt as it is thrilling.
Libby loves reading about mysteries in her favourite series of books, but how will she deal when faced with her own investigation? That’s the winning premise of Jo Clarke’s Libby and the Parisian Puzzle, as a trip to the French capital sees her aunt framed for a jewel heist and Libby has to prove her innocence. Sarah is excited to get her teeth into City of Dragons: The Awakening Storm, the first in a new series of graphic novels from Jaimal Yogis and Vivian Truong. When Grace moves to Hong Kong for boarding school, she expects making friends to be the biggest challenge; that’s until she’s gifted a dragon egg on a trip, swiftly followed by some powerful forces who would love to get their hands on her newly-hatched friend…
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Japanese author-illustrator Shinsuke Yoshitake has an eye for everyday eccentricities and youthful imagination, rendered in brilliantly bold, clear cartoons. It's My Rubber Band! is his latest picture book for children, and very much a development on his favourite themes. A little girl desires something that’s just hers — not a present, or a hand-me-down — and is delighted when her mum lets her keep a discarded elastic band. Her new treasure is a catalyst for flights of fancy, her daydreams of catapulting herself into the sky and hanging out with animals in the rainforest rendered in colourful, kinetic fashion.
Shop favourite Joe Todd-Stanton returns with The Comet, a gorgeously-illustrated hardback storybook fable. Having grown up in the countryside, Nyla has trouble adjusting when her family moves to the city. Then a comet crash lands nearby, and a forest begins growing out of it, offering her a small oasis she can call her own in this busy landscape. Speaking of lovely artwork, Lily Murray and Jenny Løvlie’s A Dress With Pockets is as immensely delightful to look at as it is strident. Adventurous Lucy is taken to a frock shop by her aunt, but struggles to find the titular garment of her dreams amongst the frills and fancies on offer.
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We'd remiss not to acknowledge the forthcoming Easter Holiday in some way, so: chickens. They're either the originator of the egg, or the other way round, depending on your point of view. Rather than spending your time getting to the bottom of that age-old conundrum, might we recommend this 1,000 piece Chickenology jigsaw, depicting all manner of feathered fowl in colourfully cartoonish fashion?
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What we're reading
- Always keeping up with the times, Tom is reading 'Salem's Lot, the slow-burn vampire novel that made Stephen King's name — in part because the master of horror takes the time to flesh out the inhabitants of the titular town before nasty stuff starts happening them; and because when it does, it's really nasty
- Josh adored Firekeeper's Daughter, a young adult murder mystery with a Native American Nancy Drew protagonist bringing some much needed diversity of character, culture and setting to the genre
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We told you they were good, didn't we? Well, our bookseller's instinct tells us that in a couple of weeks, we're going to have even more top-tier books to recommend you. We'll meet you back here then to see if we're right. Meanwhile, our opening hours, contact and ordering information are below!
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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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