June 28, 2022
by Team Riverside
Hardback, Granta, £12.99, out now
A Norwegian woman inherits a tiny cabin in a remote location. There’s no running water, but there is a river. There’s no electricity, but there is a woodburning stove. And there’s no toilet, but there is Siri Helle’s determination to make a loo in a hut, with her own two hands.
Don’t be put off by the ‘mindfulness’ in the title: I like mindfulness probably much more than the next person, but there is enough discussion of chainsaw technique and what proper tool sharpening consists of to make it clear that this is not a ‘wellness’ book. It really is about building a toilet shed, and learning how to do it along the way.
Helle is a journalist and agronomist in Norway. There are thoughtful reflections on the lack of practical and manual skills taught in formal education, and what this might mean about our relationship to making and to our hands.
I am not really sure how to classify this book – it is nature writing, crafts, travel? Culture or philosophy? Probably all of these things. I do like a genre-defying book. I borrowed it from the library on spec and really enjoyed it as a good holiday read. It’s very relaxing to read about other people working hard outdoors!
This is definitely one that I will be buying for multiple people come Christmas. It’d be great for anyone who: is a maker or who wants to be one; has a love of the outdoors; is thinking about their relationship with their own body, and how they use it.
Review by Bethan
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June 19, 2022
by Team Riverside
Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and The Sun
Bella Mackie – How To Kill Your Family
Ruth Ozeki – The Book of Form and Emptiness
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Tee Dobinson – The Tower Bridge Cat
Richard Osman – The Man Who Died Twice
Pat Barker – The Women of Troy
Elif Shafak – The Island of The Missing Trees
Sally Rooney – Normal People
The Secret Barrister – Nothing But The Truth
Kotaro Isaka – Bullet Train
Tom Chivers – London Clay
Tom Burgis – Kleptopia
Bernadine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other
John le Carre – Silverview
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June 12, 2022
by Team Riverside
Pat Barker – The Women of Troy
Jonathon Lee – The Great Mistake
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Sally Rooney – Beautiful World, Where Are You?
Oliver Burkeman – Four Thousand Weeks
Malcolm Gladwell – The Bomber Mafia
Richard Osman – The Man Who Died Twice
Elif Shafak – The Isand of The Missing Trees
Miranda Cowley Heller – The Paper Palace
Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and The Sun
Alice Oseman – Heartstopper: Volume One
Phil Knight – Shoe Dog
Marion Billet – Busy London
Elizabeth Mcneal – Circus of Wonders
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June 9, 2022
by Team Riverside
Hardback, Picador, £14.99, out now
A complexly wrought debut novel by Julia May Jonas, Vladimir is the story of an unnamed female professor whose husband is facing allegations of sexual harassment from his students when she develops an obsession with Vladimir, a promising writer in his own right, who has recently joined the department.
Vladimir forms part of a spring of recent American campus novels along with Lee Cole’s Groundskeeping and Elif Batuman’s Either/Or. The campus setting is alternately lampooned as a greenhouse for elitists and treated as a microcosm for wider society. At first, I was wary of the already well-trod subject matter, abuse of power in academic settings, campus debates over free speech, writer’s feelings of envy towards each other. But Vladimir’s morally ambiguous narrator is far from a cliché. She refuses to see herself as a victim of her husband’s actions, speaks dismissively of his accusers and act manipulatively towards Vladimir, playing on his vulnerability as a man with a troubled wife and a young child.
As an unreliable and, at times unlikeable, narrator she is incredibly well drawn. As the novel develops her ideas and behaviour become increasingly horrifying and last third of Vladimir was wild and unpredictable. Vladimir is complex and surprising debut and I highly recommend it for fans of Ottessa Moshfegh and Rachel Cusk.
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June 7, 2022
by Team Riverside
Paperback, Nosy Crow, £7.99, out now
Granny Came Here on the Empire Windrush is a completely gorgeous picture book for young primary school age children. The story is by Riverside favourite Patrice Lawrence (we are particular fans of her young adult mystery, Eight Pieces of Silva).
Ava loves spending time with her Granny. They sing together and love to spend time with each other. When Ava needs help to decide which admirable person to dress up as for school, it’s obvious that Granny should help her work this out. Granny tells Ava all about wonderful women like Mary Seacole, Rosa Parks and Winifred Atwell.
She starts to talk about her own life, coming to the UK from Trinidad and making her life here. Ava realises that maybe she doesn’t have to look very far to find someone who has shown real courage.
As Granny looks through her memory box, we learn her story, and the courage that it takes to go so far from your first home and make a new life for yourself. I loved the emphasis here on family storytelling, and Sucre’s thoughtful illustrations bring the emotions of the narrative to life. The colour contrasts between the muted new place when Granny is homesick, compared to the vivid colours of her remembered island home, become extra important when she meets her future husband and her new city becomes colourful for her.
I loved the romance of Granny’s relationship: “I met your grandad. He was the conductor on the bus that took me to work every day. At first, we would just smile at each other. Then it was ‘good morning’. Soon, in spite of the noise in the factory, I looked forward to my morning journey… And my journeys home, when he would cross the whole of London just to come and meet me”.
This reminded me that there is an exhibition I’m keen to go to at the London Transport Museum right now called Legacies: London Transport’s Caribbean Workforce. The webpage has lots of lovely links to music and other resources which would complement Granny Came Here on the Empire Windrush too.
This is a sensitive and relatable book, tied to the lives of the Windrush generation and their families, but clearly speaking to timeless themes of making new lives and families far from home. I loved the author’s dedication, which shone through the story too: “To those that come from across the world. I hope you find love and peace.”
Review by Bethan
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June 5, 2022
by Team Riverside
Bob Mortimer – And Away…
Elif Shafak – The Island of The Missing Trees
Akwaeke Emezi – You Made A Fool of Death With Your Beauty
Mieko Kawakami – All The Lovers In The Night
Douglas Stuart – Young Mungo
Lea Ypi – Free
Elizabeth Day – Magpie
Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half
Kazuo Ishiguro – The Remains of The Day
Meg Mason – Sorrow and Bliss
Kotaro Isaka – Bullet Train
Alice Oseman – Loveless
Tom Burgis – Kleptopia
Mary Wollstonecraft – A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Bella Mackie – How to Kill Your Family
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June 1, 2022
by Team Riverside
Hardback, Simon and Schuster, £20, out now
This autobiography of an outstanding civil rights lawyer, who has specialised in inquests, doubles as an incisive and detailed account of many of the most important human rights cases of the last 30 years. Thomas always puts the people involved at the heart of his account. I felt that the book, while being candid about his own story including his legal learning curves and sometime errors, was an opportunity for him to foreground the lives of those whose stories are often ignored.
This is the story of a South London working class Black man who gets to the top of his profession doing cutting edge legal work. Much of Thomas’s early life was lived in Battersea, Clapham and Balham, and Riverside readers will find many places they know. As a Queen’s Counsel (senior barrister) Leslie Thomas has represented bereaved families in inquests in many deaths in custody and police shootings. His work includes landmark cases such as those of Azelle Rodney and Mark Duggan. He has also played a critical part in legal examinations of disasters including such as the Grenfell Tower fire and Hillsborough, as well as developing a practice in the Caribbean, and all of this work is discussed in detail. The chapter dealing with the second inquest into the New Cross Fire, moving in itself, also shows a moment of revelation for Thomas: “…it made me realise that what mattered wasn’t the lawyers’ political spin on the case, which is sometimes very easy to do, but what was best for the clients”.
One of the things I liked most about Do Right and Fear No One was its accessibility. Areas that may be unfamiliar to readers, such as what the articles of the European Convention on Human Rights are and how they apply to real life, or how inquests work and what they are for, are explained clearly and concisely without this feeling patronising. I found this so useful. Demystifying the law is vital, particularly areas that people may feel no connection with until they erupt into their own lives – for example when they suddenly have to attend an inquest for someone close to them.
Thomas gives due credit to families, colleagues and others who he has worked alongside, placing his legal work in context. For anyone who visited the outstanding ICA exhibition War Inna Babylon – the Community’s Struggle for Truths and Rights last year, Do Right and Fear No-one will be an essential read (see https://www.ica.art/exhibitions/war-inna-babylon).
Thomas’s mother Pearl sounds like a truly remarkable woman, working all hours and supporting her children to do their best. Talking about his father Godfrey, who he had a difficult relationship with at times, his account reminded me at times of David Harewood’s story in Maybe I Don’t Belong Here (https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/david-harewood/maybe-i-dont-belong-here/9781529064131). Both men reflect on the racism their fathers faced, and the long-lasting effects this had on their health, especially in later life.
My one criticism of the book is that the publisher did not include an index. This detailed book should be widely read and easily searchable. Publisher: please commission an index for the paperback. If anyone needs convincing of why indexes are great, see my review of Dennis Duncan’s excellent book on just this subject.
On a lighter note, I really liked Thomas noting that he used to talk fast “as South Londoners do” – this is definitely true of me. This is a great read.
Review by Bethan
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May 29, 2022
by Team Riverside
Meg Mason – Sorrow and Bliss
Richard Osman – The Man Who Died Twice
Sally Rooney – Normal People
Kotaro Isaka – Bullet Train
Tom Burgis – Kleptopia
Douglas Stuart – Young Mungo
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Natasha Brown – Assembly
Akwaeke Emezi – You made a Fool of Death with your Beauty
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May 28, 2022
by Team Riverside
Thursday 2nd June 11.00 – 17.00
Friday 3rd June 11.00 – 17.00
Saturday 4th June 10.00 – 18.00
Sunday 5th June 11.00 – 17.00
We look forward to seeing you!
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May 26, 2022
by Team Riverside
Hardback, Faber and Faber, £16.99, out now
Groundskeeping is a beautifully written debut novel that contends with questions of class, family and love. Cole’s protagonist Owen is working as a groundskeeper at a university when he meets Alma, a writer who has taken up a prestigious fellowship. Over the course of their relationship Owen is forced to better understand his relationship to his family, his home state and what role he will play in his changing life.
The novel is set in 2016, and Cole handles the political differences between the characters thoughtfully. Owen vehemently disagrees with his mother and stepfather, both Trump supporters, but they show a great deal of kindness to Owen and Alma. Their political views sit in stark contrast with the hospitality they show to Alma, who is Muslim. Cole renders rural Kentucky complexly; this is a contemporary novel that handles the subject of class with such intelligence and care. The rift that develops in Owen and Alma’s relationship is founded in her classism, even though she is a second-generation immigrant she has a comparatively privileged background, she went to an Ivy League college, she mocks Owen when he is accepted to a lesser-known writing fellowship.
The prose is dazzling, the world of the novel is created through gorgeous sensory detail, this is one of the best written debut novels I have read this year.
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May 24, 2022
by Team Riverside
Paperback, Repeater Books, £12.99, out now
The editors of Welsh Plural have gathered some of the most interesting and relevant writers from Wales to consider what Welsh identity means today. This is anything but niche: for anyone thinking about what identity, belonging and borders mean or could come to mean, this is helpful. It is no surprise that this anthology has won praise from Nikesh Shukla and Gary Younge.
The book’s cover illustrates a willingness to engage in critical thinking that characterises this collection. It shows a beautiful section of the Wrexham Quilt, made by a military tailor in the mid-nineteenth century. “Like this book, it conveys a patchwork of experiences, from religious scenes to tributes to the industrial heritage of Wales. Other motifs show giraffes, elephants and palm trees – souvenirs of Wales’ part in the conquests of the British Empire, made possible by armies clothed by tailors such as James Williams”.
The range of topics covered and approaches make this a compelling read. There is a Choose Your Own Adventure style guide to being a Welsh novelist by Gary Raymond. Charlotte Williams, who is examining outcomes for children of colour in Welsh education for the Welsh Government, discusses this alongside her own experience of being the only child of colour in her Welsh classroom in the 1960s. Darren Chetty explores Welsh pubs called The Black Boy, both their history and how they handle their name now. And there is much more.
I felt I had been given a gift of original and challenging thoughts. Some themes came out strongly for me, particularly the intersection of racialised people and Welshness. Several writers give valuable and vital accounts related this. There are also conflicts and disagreements between the pieces, which suggests that the editors intended to allow space for complexity, nuance and difference. I found this approach invigorating, and helpful. I was grateful that the book was in English, allowing me as a non-Welsh speaker access. Diolch yn fawr iawn, pawb.
Reading this on holiday in Wales at the time of the local elections felt important. I am most envious of anyone who got to attend the related event in Machynlleth (which I heard about from colleagues at the smashing Pen’rallt Gallery Bookshop – it sounded like an excellent evening). Reading Welsh Plural also brought the small publisher Repeater Books to my attention, whose range looks well worth digging into.
By coincidence, I followed this up by reading Nick Hayes’ The Book of Trespass (paperback, Bloomsbury, £9.99). Hayes’ investigation into what the idea and law of trespass means in the UK now also engages with the issues of land, walls and identities. As in Welsh Plural, there are moments of joy and celebration among the sometimes difficult content. Hayes and his dog see a row of deer appear by magic as they walk through a wood: “This kind of moment is only available off the path. It is prosaic, but it feels like a miracle, it feels meaningful, and it leaves me with my heart thumping in my throat… I would swap a hundred nice walks along a pretty Right of Way for this one moment of magic”.
Review by Bethan
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May 22, 2022
by Team Riverside
Elizabeth Strout – Oh William!
Elizabeth Day – Magpie
Elif Shafak – The Island of The Missing Trees
Meg Mason – Sorrow and Bliss
Marion Billet – Busy London
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Tom Burgis – Kleptopia
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Natasha Brown – Assembly
Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and The Sun
Maggie O’Farrell – Hamnet
Mieko Kawakami – All The Lovers In The Night
Douglas Stuart – Young Mungo
Kotaro Isaka – Bullet Train
Flann O’Brien – The Third Policeman
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May 13, 2022
by Team Riverside
Elizabeth Strout – Oh William!
John Le Carre – Silverview
Elif Shafak – The Island of The Missing Trees
Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and The Sun
Cecily Gayford – Murder by The Seaside
Elizabeth Day – Magpie
Sally Rooney – Conversations With Friends
Daisy Buchanan – Insatiable
Rutger Bregman – Humankind
Meg Mason – Sorrow and Bliss
Marion Billet – Busy London
bell hooks – All About Love
Colm Toibin – The Magician
Bernadine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other
Chris Power – A Lonely Man
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May 8, 2022
by Team Riverside
Elizabeth Strout – Oh William!
John Le Carre – Silverview
Emily St. John Mandel – Sea of Tranquility
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
bell hooks – All About Love
Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and The Sun
Meg Mason – Sorrow and Bliss
Kotaro Isaka – Bullet Train
Oliver Burkeman – Four Thousand Weeks
Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women
M.H. Eccleston – The Trust
Min Jin Lee – Pachinko
Clara Vulliamy – Marshmallow Pie: The Cat Superstar
Oliver Jeffers – Here We Are
Elizabeth Day – Magpie
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May 3, 2022
by Team Riverside
Paperback, Nosy Crow, £6.99, out now
What should you do if your best friend always wants to play hide and seek but never wins? Frank the fox faces just this dilemma with his bear friend Bert.
In this simple and funny picture book for young children, we explore ideas about what makes a good friend. Frank gives Bert an extra-long count so that he can hide really well… but Bert’s unravelling scarf gives him away. Should Frank stick strictly to the rules of the game, and tell Bert he’s been found, or should he let Bert have a moment of glory?
This is a cheerful story but is also a useful introduction to the complexities of friendships. For little children who are starting out on friendships, it might be useful to know that the kind thing to do isn’t always the same as the rule-based thing to do. Reading this made me realise how much social interaction of this type is not obvious at all, but has to be learnt.
I approve strongly of another of Frank’s expressions of friendship, which is re-knitting Bert’s unravelled scarf so that the friends can play hide and seek together again (it looks like a chevron stitch pattern to me). Friendship, kindness and knitting – what’s not to love?
Review by Bethan
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May 1, 2022
by Team Riverside
Meg Mason – Sorrow and Bliss
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Daisy Buchanan – Insatiable
Marion Billet – Busy London
Caleb Azumah Nelson – Open Water
Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and The Sun
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Alice Oseman – Heartstopper Volume 2
Douglas Stuart – Young Mungo
Joseph Hone – The Paper Chase
Nicholas Nassim Taleb – Antifragile
Shirley Jackson – The Missing Girl
Catherine Belton – Putin’s People
Tom Burgis – Kleptopia
Emily Danforth – Plain Bad Heroines
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April 30, 2022
by Team Riverside
Hardback, Macmillan, £12.99, out now
Epic Adventures is a pleasingly large non-fiction picture book for children about great train journeys. From the Shinkansen bullet train in Japan to the Trans-Siberian express, this colourfully illustrated book inspires the wish to jump on a train and head off on an adventure. As we are just opposite London Bridge station, this urge is particularly strong just now!
You can tell this was written by a real train fan, as it has excellent facts and is suffused with enthusiasm. Sedgman is also author of train-based adventure stories for children including The Highland Falcon Thief, and the accessible prose in Epic Adventures shows that he is used to writing for children. He addresses the colonial heritage of some of the railways concerned, and the displacement they caused, which is important. I also appreciated the emphasis on rail as a more environmentally friendly form of travel.
My favourite of the many colourful illustrations is the northern lights overhead as the Arctic Sleeper speeds through to Norway.
As a fan of armchair rail travel (see The World’s Most Scenic Rail Journeys and Mighty Trains, on television) this inspires me to do some actual rail travel as soon as possible. Good for perhaps age 7 and up, Epic Adventures has history and geography, festivals and food. A nicely exciting gift for a young would-be traveller.
Review by Bethan
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April 26, 2022
by Team Riverside
So excited to have all these new signed copies in the shop…
Jessie Greengrass – The High House
Jeremy Atherton Lin – Gay Bar
Emily St. John Mandel – Sea of Tranquility
Maddie Mortimer – Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies
Catherine Prasifka – None of This is Serious
Laura Price – Single Bald Female
Ali Smith – Companion Piece
Nina Stibbe – One Day I Shall Astonish the World
Douglas Stuart – Young Mungo
Charmaine Wilkerson – Black Cake
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April 25, 2022
by Team Riverside
This bank holiday, Monday 2 May, we will be open 11am to 5pm.
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April 25, 2022
by Team Riverside
Hardback, Picador, £14.99, out now
Three people, separately and at different points over three hundred years, experience an anomaly. In the middle of their ordinary lives, there is an instant of blackness, a violin, a strange sound. Then everything reverts to normal. One of these is an exile from England in Canada in 1812; one a novelist visiting Earth on a book tour; one is Vincent, a young woman walking through a wilderness. Also linking them is the detective Gaspery-Jacques Roberts from the 25th century, who is investigating this glitch in time and space.
Sea of Tranquility follows St. John Mandel’s outstanding novel The Glass Hotel (see https://riversidebookshop.co.uk/2020/08/05/the-glass-hotel-by-emily-st-john-mandel/). Several characters, including Vincent and Mirella, appear here. I shouted out loud, I was so delighted to see Vincent again. The humanity and relatability of the characters is clear, so much so that their extraordinary circumstances came to seem normal to me as I read. Off world colonies and multiple worlds are made familiar to us by the concerns of those living in them: fear in the face of danger, suspicion of overarching authorities, affection for home, and the pull of those you love. Olive, visiting Earth and more specifically Salt Lake City, says: “There’s something to be said for looking up at a clear blue sky and knowing that it isn’t a dome”.
Like Octavia E. Butler, whose novels I am belatedly discovering, St. John Mandel uses her futuristic work to explore ideas about ethics and responsibility. If you knew what was going to happen to everyone you met, would you be able to resist intervening in their lives? Who gets to decide what is the ‘right’ world, the ‘correct’ timeline, and why?
The novelist Olive Llewellyn speaks of pandemics to her book tour audiences, and the Covid-19 pandemic features as a historical incident. But as a new virus pops up on the news during the tour, her reactions to it feel very familiar to us. As do her feelings, in 2203, being asked about being away from her young daughter for work. A woman praises Olive’s husband for looking after her daughter. “Forgive me,” Olive said, “I fear there’s a problem with my translator bot. I thought you said he was kind to care for his own child”.
I enjoyed this novel so much. There is also a good cat in this book.
Review by Bethan
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April 24, 2022
by Team Riverside
Kotaro Isaka – Bullet Train
Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and The Sun
Eliot Higgins – We Are Bellingcat
Jeremy Atherton Lin – Gay Bar
Tim Marshall – Prisoners of Geography
Julian Barnes – Elizabeth Finch
Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451
Catherine Belton – Putin’s People
Sarah Winman – Still Life
Bella Mackie – How to Kill Your Family
Emily Danforth – Plain Bad Heroines
Tom Burgis – Kleptopia
Luke Kennard – The Answer to Everything
Albert Camus – The Plague
Sathnam Sanghera – Empireland
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April 19, 2022
by Team Riverside
Thank you to Jeremy Atherton Lin for visiting to sign copies of Gay Bar! Nab one before they go.
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April 18, 2022
by Team Riverside
Elif Shafak – The Island of The Missing Trees
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Stanley Tucci – Taste
Ali Smith – Companion Piece
Douglas Stuart – Young Mungo
Bella Mackie – How To Kill Your Family
Patrick Radden Keefe – Empire of Pain
Michael Lewis – The Premonition
Sathnam Sanghera – Empireland
Caleb Azumah Nelson – Open Water
Frank Tallis – The Act of Living
Adam Hargreaves – Mr. Men in London
Eliot Higgins – We Are Bellingcat
Kotaro Isaka – Bullet Train
Mary Lawson – A Town Solace
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April 13, 2022
by Team Riverside
Thanks to Laura Price for popping in to sign her new novel, Single Bald Female. Good luck with the book, Laura!
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April 13, 2022
by Team Riverside
Paperback, Nosy Crow, £6.99, out now
All Through the Night is a cheerful and entertaining picture book for young children about “people who work while we sleep”. We find out about cleaners and paramedics, journalists and bakers, and all kinds of folk who make our lives possible. It is a friendly and useful explanation about busy life carrying on even while we sleep.
The narrator’s mum goes out every evening to work, driving her big orange bus, and helping people get about. She is the one who helps everyone get to work and get home again. There is also a shout out for mums and dads of newborn babies who have to stay up before their babies have learned to sleep at night. The police are called to a noisy street but it is only a fox family rampaging through the bins.
All Through the Night is a treat for repeated re-reading. Children will love to spot the bus on every page; the delivery driver from the previous page dropping flour and sugar to the baker; the fox cubs who’ve been at the bins disappearing behind a bush while the railway repair worker use their digger.
For children whose caregivers work nights, I think this will be an affirming thing – to see their person’s work in a story book.
I love that the author and illustrator in their book dedications both thank people who work at night. This fits with the very personal and sincere feel of the book, which has the same joy as the classic Richard Scarry book What do People Do All Day? (https://uk.bookshop.org/books/what-do-people-do-all-day/9780007353699) but it is much more realistic!
Review by Bethan
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April 11, 2022
by Team Riverside
Happy Easter!
We will be open:
Good Friday 15 April – 11 to 5
Easter Saturday 16 April – 10 to 6
Easter Sunday – CLOSED
Easter Monday – 11 to 5
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April 10, 2022
by Team Riverside
Elif Shafak – Island of The Missing Trees
Michael Lewis – The Premonition
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Bella Mackie – How To Kill Your Family
Tom Burgis – Kleptopia
Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Eliot Higgins – We Are Bellingcat
Kotaro Isaka – Bullet Train
Damon Galgut – The Promise
Michael Bond – Paddington
Stanley Tucci – Taste
Colm Toibin – The Magician
Dave Eggers – The Every
David Baddiel – Jews Don’t Count
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April 5, 2022
by Team Riverside
Hardback, Bloomsbury, £6.99, out now
This is an excellent new short story from the author of Circe and The Song of Achilles. I’ve not read those yet but I will do now, having read Galatea.
Galatea is being kept a virtual prisoner in hospital on the wishes of her husband, with the complicity of the medical staff. Her husband, a sculptor, created her out of stone to be his perfect woman: compliant, beautiful, and with no will or wishes of her own. But Galatea is developing a secret plan for her own freedom, and that of her young daughter Paphos.
The story is Miller’s response to Ovid’s telling of the Pygmalion myth: “…others (myself included) have been disturbed by the deeply misogynist implications of the story. Pygmalion’s happy ending is only happy if you accept a number of repulsive ideas: that the only good woman is one who has no self beyond pleasing a man, the fetishization of female sexual purity, the connection of ‘snowy’ ivory with perfection, the elevation of male fantasy over female reality”.
Miller offers a sharp take on abuse and control in relationships, and specifically men’s control of, and ideas about, women. As Galatea says: “The thing is, I don’t think my husband expected me to be able to talk”.
Accordingly here, some of the content is challenging. This is appropriate given the subject. I don’t always find fiction with mythical or fantasy elements convincing, but the ease and confidence with which this is written makes Galatea feel very real. I felt like Galatea herself was demanding that I witness her struggle, her cleverness, and her courage.
Issued in a beautiful small blue hardback form, it would make a great gift for the right person. I immediately reread it on finishing and it was even better the second time around. A vital read.
Review by Bethan
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April 2, 2022
by Team Riverside
Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and The Sun
Kae Tempest – On Connection
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Marion Billet – Busy London
Tom Burgis – Kleptopia
Colm Toibin – The Magician
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half
Matthew Green – Shadowlands
Daisy Buchanan – Careering
Tom Chivers – London Clay
Susanna Clarke – Piranesi
Kotaro Isaka – Bullet Train
Agatha Christie – Miss Marple and Mystery
Michael Lewis – The Premonition
Posted in Fiction, Kids books, London, Non fiction |
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March 31, 2022
by Team Riverside
Paperback, Fitzcarraldo Editions, £10.99, out now
The second of Fernanda Melchor’s novels to be translated into English and also longlisted for the International Booker Prize, Paradais is a slight volume nonetheless packed with violence and tension. Polo, the protagonist, is a teenage alcoholic stuck in a dead-end job working as a gardener for a luxury housing complex. He is abused by his mother and his boss and his only real friend is the spoilt Franco, an overweight internet addict with a dangerous obsession with his neighbour, an attractive married woman. Polo’s anger and frustration with his family, his employer sends him spiralling towards destruction.
I haven’t read such a brilliant and horrifying study of the extremes of capitalism and machismo since American Psycho. Melchor’s description is rich and visceral, the oppressive heat outside and claustrophobic house where Polo lives are rendered in complex claustrophobic detail.
Paradais is a shocking and brilliant follow-up to Hurricane Season, I highly recommend this novel for fans of Ottessa Moshfegh and Bret Easton Ellis.
Review by Phoebe
Posted in Fiction, Reviews |
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