Our Summer Reading Promotion is now on in store, get 4 books for the price of 3 (with the cheapest book free). We have titles available across Children’s, Fiction and Non-Fiction, see our full list of titles for purchase in the 4 for 3 promotion below:
Fiction Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
Girl Woman Other by Bernadine Evaristo
Troy by Stephen Fry
Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Islands of Mercy by Rose Tremain
I Am An Island by Tamsin Calidas
V For Victory by Lisa Evans
The Great Fortune by Olivia Manning
Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak
Us Three by Ruth Jones
Actress by Anne Enright
V2 by Robert Harris
All Adults Here by Emma Straub
Summer by Ali Smith
Non-Fiction The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk
Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read by Phillippa Perry
Agent Sonia by Ben Macintyre
Difficult Women by Helen Lewis
Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty
The Moth and the Mountain by Ed Caesar
Sicily ’43 by James Holland
Childrens The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charles Mackesy
The Unadoptables by Hana Tooke
Worst Holiday Ever by Charlie Higson
Rowley Jefferson’s Awesome Friendly Adventure by Jeff Kinney
Rosa has so many interesting questions that her dad suggests they visit the library to get the answers. But the library is closed and boarded up, because it’s going to be knocked down and replaced by a restaurant. There will be no library to provide answers.
In this striking picture book, Rosa and her family do their best to protest against the closure by reminding people of how useful and important libraries are. But no one seems to listen, as people are either too busy or think that the protest is beneath their notice.
But it turns out that more people care about the library than only Rosa’s family, and that all together they can make a difference.
We Want Our Books is a love letter to libraries and a believable story about the highs and lows of grassroots protest.
I still get a rush of joy whenever I walk into a public library, when I remember that I can find a book that might change my life and that I can borrow it for free. And if you need a reminder of how lovely libraries can be, treat yourself to a look here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/epic-libraries-around-the-world. Libraries need our support – support yours!
After a year of intermittent lockdowns, when I was lucky enough to have a lively local park near me and to be able to visit it, I am very ready to try out some new London green spots. London Green Spaces is one of a gorgeous new series of small London guidebooks, and this book makes it fun to start a day-out wishlist. Even looking at the photos cheered me up.
I thought I knew most of the cool parks and green bits in London, but there were several in here I’d never heard of. London Green Spaces offers an enticing reminder of the big places too, the ones that you know about but haven’t visited for a while, like Richmond Park or Epping Forest. Useful cover maps and suggested walks would help make a day of it.
The Red Cross Garden in London Bridge features, and I can vouch for its sanctuary-like feel as a respite from the Borough Market crowds at the weekend (https://www.bost.org.uk/). The book is good on these small places as well as the grand sweeping ones. I’d add the Crossbones Graveyard, just round the corner from the Red Cross Garden, though you always need to check the opening hours (https://crossbones.org.uk/).
Other craveable titles in the series include Vegan London, London Pubs, and Independent London. You’re in London (maybe)… it’s summer (sort of)… if you’re able to get out and about these books will help you lively up your plans.
This is the most instantly useful book I have read this year. The subtitle shows exactly what it is for: “Tools for opening up conversations when it matters most”.
Produced with the Samaritans and drawing on the experiences of their volunteers and service users, whose useful and detailed insights appear throughout the book, this is a straightforward guide to active listening. It is very easy to read and no special skills are needed.
“Have Courage” is very relevant. Often we would like to ask how someone is, but we are worried that we might make things worse or not be able to deal with that person’s distress. Samaritans service user James says: “It’s really not about being a specialist or having particular knowledge. It’s about being a compassionate human being. I wish people had the confidence to realise they are able to offer real help just by listening”.
How to Listen warns against giving advice or relaying your own experiences, suggesting instead that listeners prioritise giving people the space to express and explore their own problems and to come to their own solutions. This has been a revelation for me. It provides useful advice on spotting people who may be in distress and helps you listen to them properly without distractions. One thing to do the next time you’re talking to someone: put your phone away and really pay attention.
“…I loved the past of archives, but there was no era of the past I had any inclination to visit with my actual human body, being rather fond of it having at least minimal rights and protections”. Cassie, the narrator of the title novella in The Office of Historical Corrections, is an officer at the new US Institute for Public History. She goes out and about correcting historical inaccuracy in the Washington area, a new civil service style job. But what happens when there is a total subversion or avoidance of truth, and some bodies are clearly in the firing line?
This is the best collection of short stories I’ve read in ages. Every one is sharp and entertaining. Claire is called out by a college colleague for wearing a Confederate flag bikini, but doubles down, and doubles down again – why? Cecelia’s mother is determined to get recognition for her father’s wrongful imprisonment in Alcatraz, but a visit to the former prison with estranged family happens instead. The end of Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain is one of my favourite endings to a short story.
Roxane Gay calls Danielle Evans “the finest short story writer working today”, and I think she’s on to something. Race, gender and grief feature over and over. I think this collection will be read for years and years.
I was speaking a couple of years ago with someone who was helping with a citizen science project which was monitoring eels in London rivers. They would empty a trap set for the eels, measure them, and release them. They were told by the research lead that they did not need to take a photo of the eels each time. “There are lots of things we don’t know about eels, but what they look like isn’t one of them”.
The Gospel of the Eels goes after these mysterious animals, explaining that there are large parts of the eels’ lives that remain unknown to science, including exactly where and how they breed. What is clearer is that European eels are in danger of becoming extinct, and that urgently solving some of their puzzles might help protect them even though something might be lost with their mystery. Svensson quotes Rachel Carson: “And as they passed through the surf and out to the sea, so they also passed from human sight and almost from human knowledge”.
Svensson is interesting on eels’ impact on modern life. Sigmund Freud spent time early in his career studying eels, and Svensson makes a good case for this influencing his later theories (‘Sigmund Freud and the eels of Trieste’ is possibly one of my favourite chapter titles ever). He spots eels in literature, including work by Graham Swift and E.T.A. Hoffman.
Among the natural history and current science, Svensson recalls eel fishing with his father as a child. Some of the fishing detail is frankly revolting to a non-fishing person, but the experiences become a place to explore his relationship with his father. Svensson notes that life for working class families like his in Sweden changed hugely during the last half of the twentieth century: “… it had become possible for a road paver and day care worker mum, my parents, to live a life that was different in every way from the lives previous generations of the working class had known”. He finds that attending to eels leads him to pay better mind: this reminded me of some of the arguments made by Julia Bell in Radical Attention (https://peninsulapress.co.uk/product/radical-attention).
The premise of The Gospel of the Eels sounds strange, but it is not strained or annoying. It’s well-translated popular science with memoir, and a pleasure to read. Why gospel though? When science lacks answers, faith can fill the gap. Perhaps if we can fix things for the eels, we can start to fix things for ourselves.
Andrew Green was ‘the father of Greater New York’, a founder of Central Park and the Public Library, the Museum of Modern Art and the American Museum of Natural History among other things. But he didn’t come from money, and he was shot and killed aged 83. So how did he get to this point? Who killed him and why? And what was his great mistake?
The Great Mistake is a humane and very readable novel of one remarkable life. You might wonder how you’d relate to Andrew Green, but his wish to live life and his decisions on what to do without in order to achieve his goals are very resonant. “… after…the pyrotechnic accompaniments others put on to celebrate his achievements, he still went to bed with some version of the same concerns he had always had. Who he was. Who he should be. Things he could have said or done”.
His intense and long relationship with a politician, Samuel, influences much, as does the death of his mother (a hard-working woman who always longed for time outside in green space, and didn’t get it). He is repelled by his work as a young man on a post-slavery plantation in Trinidad, both while doing it and after, and this also affects his ambitions. The role of reading and books in helping to form a life recurs throughout, as do questions over who has access to books and who does not.
Historic New York sprang up around me as I read. “He watched labourers returning home with dinner kettles. Ragpickers bothering apple ladies. Horses set to collapse under the products of commerce they had carried, back and forth, all day long. New York didn’t set out to charm you. It was like God that way”.
As well as learning about Andrew, we follow police Inspector McClusky who is investigating his murder, and we are introduced to yet another side of life in New York. The Great Mistake is a satisfying read in many ways, as a life story, as a crime story, as an exploration of what’s important, and as a song for New York. So enjoyable.
Assembly by Natasha Brown is more than deserving of the glowing reviews it has already received. It’s a slight volume, the plot unfolds over a series of fleeting but intense vignettes and each is crafted to perfection, not a single word is wasted. At times it feels reminiscent of prose poetry or maybe a sparse drama. The narrator is quiet and controlled but burns with quiet anger, acutely aware of the injustices that plague her. She is a black British woman who has found significant success in the corporate world but seemingly at significant psychological and physical cost to herself. She is often a vessel for other characters racist hang-ups, one colleague vents to her about his hatred of diversity initiatives, another calls her office phone to tell her her hair is ‘wild’ and her skin is ‘exotic’. She has a jovial posh boyfriend, who like her attended Oxford and the action unfolds as she anticipates attending his parents lavish anniversary party.
Recently a reviewer compared Assembly to Mrs. Dalloway, but I thought of Brandon Taylor whose novel Real Life has similarly exquisite prose and a protagonist who is out of place in their surroundings and also of The Great Gatsby, although while Natasha Brown’s protagonist is, like Nick Carraway, among the rich and powerful, she is not impressed. When I got to the last page I was sorry to finish Assembly I thoroughly recommend it.
Joe is having a great time at the playground on his own, battling sharks and crocodiles. But a new kid comes along and says what new kids always say – “You’ve only got one leg!” and “What happened to you?”.
Joe is super fed up of always getting these questions, and as more kids turn up, more questions (and questionable theories) abound. But soon the kids discover that there is more interesting stuff they can be doing with Joe… and it involves battling sharks and crocodiles.
This fun and sensitive book provides a great way in to talking about disability with kids, and also has very helpful notes for adults on how to do this when “your child wants to know everything about every disabled person they see, all at once, at TOP VOLUME…”. Some really good advice follows – “…it’s still worth your child knowing that disabled people are just like anyone else, getting on with their busy day, not looking to be a teachable moment”. It reminded me of the very excellent blogs by Gem Turner on exactly this topic (https://gemturner.com/explaining-disability-to-children/).
What Happened to You? is a fun and enjoyable read, with lively and cheerful illustrations. Cracking!
Lost in the Clouds is a sensitive and useful picture book for young children about bereavement and grief.
Billy knows that his mum has died, and he likes to think of her as a cloud in the sky. Sometimes Billy’s days with his dad are good, when they can have fun and still feel close to Mummy. But sometimes the sky is dark and stormy and Mummy feels too distant, and Daddy feels distant too. On a day just like this, Billy builds a tower to the sky to try to be closer to Mummy.
Warm and evocative illustrations show how grief can feel, and also demonstrate that joy and fun can still happen even amid great loss.
Although the story is from Billy’s perspective, his dad’s difficulties and kindnesses are manifest too. “Daddy wasn’t quite the same on these days. He would be quieter and his eyes would always be looking far away, as if he was trying to find Mummy in the distance somewhere”.
There are handy notes and further resources in the back of the book on helping children deal with grief. For older children and adults, I always recommend Michael Rosen’s classic The Sad Book (https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/08/25/michael-rosens-sad-book-quentin-blake). There is a very sympathetic cat who pops up throughout Lost in the Clouds, and is especially fine on the back cover, putting a paw out to test the weather for Billy and his dad.
This is the most enjoyable book I have read for ages. It is a huge slab of gothic horror written with dash and spiky humour. Danforth’s own website describes the book like this, and it’s not wrong: “Picnic at Hanging Rock + The Blair Witch Project x lesbians = Plain Bad Heroines” (https://www.emilymdanforth.com/pbh).
In 1902, at the exclusive Brookhants School for Girls in Rhode Island, two girls are gruesomely stung to death by wasps. More deaths (inevitably) follow. Is this related to a book that some of the girls have become obsessed with, in which Mary MacLane sets out her desire to live life to the full?
In parallel, we follow the present-day story of three women involved in making a Hollywood film about the happenings at Brookhants.
The opening pages show you immediately what’s in store. There is a map which includes the Tricky Thicket and Spite Manor. Part One is called I Await the Devil’s Coming. There are unexpected footnotes and biting commentary from an unidentified narrator. Cousin Charles, who chases one of the girls into the wood where she gets stung to death, is unpopular with the narrator: “Maybe some of the girls had, in fact, later said that he looked rakish and fine, but for now let’s discount their certainly incorrect opinions”.
Anyone who spent their early teens reading hugely long hardback horror novels as I did (I’m looking at you, special edition of The Stand) may well get a nostalgic feeling while reading this epic. There are pleasing horror references for fans throughout, but they don’t detract from the unique atmosphere Danforth creates.
Plain Bad Heroines is pure escapism from page one. A strong array of memorable LGBTQ women rampage throughout. Excellent.
Detransition, Baby the first full-length novel from Torrey Peters is a chaotic and heartfelt whirlwind that asks what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a mother. Katrina, a recent divorcee has discovered she is pregnant, her boyfriend and employee, Ames, formerly Amy, hasn’t told her about his past where he lived as a transgender woman but wants to involve his ex-girlfriend Reese, also a transgender woman, in the mothering of their unborn child. Their lives become intertwined in a kind of queer soap opera, can Reese and Ames resolve their past? Can Katrina co-parent with Ames and Reese? Will Reese get to be mother like she has always wanted?
The novel is rigorously plotted, Reese and Amy’s past relationship is seamlessly interspersed with Katrina and Ames relationship in the present, Reese’s history also forms part of the narrative. Torrey Peters demonstrates enormous narrative skill, her digressions on subjects that range from juvenile elephants to Reese’s large cast of friends never feel tangential to the story. The novel feels epic and complex and funny, like a sort of queer Tristram Shandy, and I thoroughly enjoyed every page.
“I finally understand why people get tattoos of those they have lost. The need to proclaim not merely the loss but the love, the continuity. I am my father’s daughter. It is an act of resistance and refusal: grief telling you it is over and your heart saying it is not; grief trying to shrink your love to the past and your heart saying it is present”.
Adichie’s much-loved father died in June 2020, and this tender and anguished short book contains her reflections on her grief. Best known for her modern classic novels, including Half of a Yellow Sun, and essays including We Should All Be Feminists, this is written in her usual fluid style despite the pain it conveys.
The pandemic complicates everything. Family members are on different continents and flights are cancelled. Arrangements have to be made on Zoom, where weeks before routine family chats including her father had been filled with laughter and everyday chat.
It is about loss, but it is also about the deep love she has for her father. Many people have been hit with unexpected and devastating bereavement over the last year. This relatable and timely book might end up being a life raft for some.
This is Your Time is a stunning new book by Ruby Bridges, who as a six-year-old in 1960 was the first black child to attend an all-white primary school in New Orleans.
The book is small in size but huge in meaning. Bridges talks about the hate she faced outside her school gates every day from white adults who wanted to keep segregation. There is a black and white photograph on every other page, including some truly shocking images. A tiny Ruby is escorted into school by four federal marshals; racist protesters hold up a black doll in a coffin; and images of police targeting civil rights demonstrators in 1963 and 2020.
But there are also hope and joy, friendship and solidarity, and great faith in young people. Bridges writes to young readers: “I am so inspired by you and by everyone out there making change happen. I know, and you must remember… what can inspire tomorrow often lies in our past”. She knows this because of her lifetime of work telling young people her story.
Ruby Bridges’ message of courage and friendship is essential for all people. A gift to the future from one whose courage helped shape the best of the present.
This excellent picture book has possibly my top back cover text ever: “There is a spot. It is the perfect spot to stand. But somewhere above there is also a rock. A rock from the sky”.
The Rock from the Sky is new from Jon Klassen, author of Riverside all-time-favourite the Hat Trilogy (https://riversidebookshop.co.uk/2016/11/30/we-found-a-hat-by-jon-klassen/). There really is a rock from the sky with dramatic consequences (Chekhov’s rock, perhaps). Some characters will be familiar… I think this is one of the turtles from We Found a Hat. Although it may be a different turtle in a similar hat. It is hard to say.
There are shades of Wes Anderson in the title cards for each section. It is also stuffed with very quotable lines. The turtle picks a spot to stand in. “What do you think of my spot?” “Actually I have a bad feeling about it”. “A bad feeling?”. “Yes”.
Maud the guinea pig loves judo. She’s only just arrived at Kit’s house, as a surprise birthday present. But Kit’s other pets aren’t impressed – they’ve got a schedule to stick to and it doesn’t include her. One of them calls her a weirdo … but what is a weirdo, and is she one?
Luckily Maud happens upon the very cheerful Emily Brookstein, who tells her that “life’s too short not to be a weirdo”.
This excellent picture book has wonderful illustrations, colourful and joyous, by Magenta Fox. Zadie Smith is best known as a ground-breaking novelist and essayist (her book of essays, Intimations, has been one of our bestsellers of the last year). Nick Laird is a novelist and poet, also usually writing for adults.
A kind and ultimately happy book about embracing your differences and life being much more interesting for everyone as a result. Just lovely.
Real Life, the debut, Booker Prize shortlisted novel from American writer Brandon Taylor is a triumph. Real Life is a campus novel which follows Wallace, a gay black protagonist as he navigates the academic institution, a burgeoning romance and the fallout of childhood trauma. The novel takes place in a Midwestern university where Wallace is often singled out. Taylor’s depiction of racism on campus is uncompromising, a dinner party scene, in particular, reaches a striking and uncomfortable crescendo.
While reading this novel I was struck, not just by the story, by Taylor’s immense technical skill. Taylor’s prose is unparalleled, spare and focused, yet at times dreamlike, reminiscent of Virginia Woolf or Henry James. A section where the book moves, cinematically, from the protagonists present to his childhood in Alabama, took my breath away. I highly recommend this book to fans of James Baldwin and Donna Tartt, and I will be eagerly awaiting Brandon Taylor’s collection of short stories, published in June.
We are delighted to be open again, and we are looking forward to helping folks find books, cards and Moleskines here in London Bridge.
We have slightly revised opening hours for now:
Monday to Friday – 10am to 5pm
Saturday – 10am to 6pm
Sunday – 11am to 5pm
Please bear with us if we need to adjust these at short notice as we go forward. If you’re planning a special trip to London Bridge to see us, ring first.
Thank you to everyone who has supported us while we have been closed by sending lovely messages and buying from our storefront on bookshop.org. It has helped us stay cheerful and we hope to see you all in person soon.
