The Riverside Bookshop blog
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Thanks to Laura Price for popping in to sign her new novel, Single Bald Female. Good luck with the book, Laura!
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
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
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
Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and The Sun
Catherine Belton – Putin’s People
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Rutger Bregman – Humankind
Marion Billet – Busy London
Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women
Tom Burgis – Kleptopia
John Preston – Fall
Eliot Higgins – We Are Bellingcat
Charlotte Mendelson – The Exhibitionist
Kotaro Isaka – Bullet Train
Tim Marshal – The Power of Geography
Rebecca F. John – Fannie
David Baddiel – Jews Don’t Count
Siobhan Dowd – The London Eye Mystery
Paperback, Vintage, £8.99, out now
As the Shinkansen bullet train speeds out of Tokyo, several of those on board seem to be on missions to kill. But who will kill, who will die, and why?
This is a speedy and satisfying locked-room crime novel. It’s not clear at the outset how the disparate group of characters are connected. What links a father bent on revenge, a hitman obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine, and a professional killer who’s concerned that he’s unlucky and wants to quit? And what are the roles of those off the train, including a woman who is phoning with instructions?
So many questions, and Bullet Train presents an engaging mystery for readers to try and solve. It’s violent, but given the sheer number of murderers this is perhaps not surprising. This was part of my ongoing Japanese crime reading jag, following on from The Aosawa Murders (https://riversidebookshop.co.uk/2020/07/25/the-aosawa-murders-by-riku-onda/). Isaka is a prize winning author in Japan, and the movie starring Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock is due out this summer (see https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12593682/).
For an escapist and entertaining crime read, this is a good choice.
Review by Bethan
Margaret Atwood – Burning Questions
Lucy Caldwell – These Days
Marlon James – Moon Witch Spider King
Charlotte Mendelson – The Exhibitionist
Graham Robb – France: an Adventure History
Julia Samuel – Every Family Has a Story
Nikesh Shukla – Your Story Matters
Fitzcarraldo Editions, £9.99 paperback, out now
Cold Enough for Snow is a startling and subtle mediation on family and belonging from the winner of the inaugural Fitzcarraldo Novel Prize. It is incredibly vivid and sensuous but it is also a gentle read, Au takes us movingly through different scenes, unhurried by plot. At times it’s reminiscent of a series of anecdotes, scenes from the life of the narrator and the narrator’s family are strung together through the conversations between mother and daughter as they wander through Tokyo, eating dinner, visiting tourist attractions. The prose radiates quiet beauty, every detail from the weather to the food that they eat is realised in precise detail. I highly recommend this novel for fans of Rachel Cusk and Sheila Heti.
Review by Phoebe
Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and The Sun
Damon Galgut – The Promise
Colm Toibin – The Magician
Margaret Atwood – Burning Questions
Rutger Bregman – Humankind
Patrick Radden Keefe – Empire of Pain
Natasha Lunn – Conversations on Love
Caleb Azumah Nelson – Open Water
Frank Tallis – The Act of Living
Georgia Pritchett – My Mess is a Bit of a Life
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Adam Rutherford – Control
Michelle Zauner – Crying in H Mart
Victoria Mas – The Mad Woman’s Ball
Coco Mellors – Cleopatra and Frankenstein
Tim Marshall – The Power of Geography
Caleb Azumah Nelson – Open Water
Frank Tallis – The Act of Living
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Maggie O’Farrell – Hamnet
Patrick Radden Keefe – Empire of Pain
Karen McManus – One Of Us is Lying
David Baddiel – Jews Don’t Count
Gertrude Stein – Food
bell hooks – All About Love
John Preston – Fall
Sathnam Sanghera – Empireland
Natasha Lunn – Conversations On Love
Marian Keyes – Rachel’s Holiday
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Natasha Lunn – Conversations On Love
Rutger Bregman – Humankind
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Susanna Clarke – Piranesi
F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby
John Preston – Fall
Caleb Azumah Nelson – Open Water
Sathnam Sanghera – Empireland
Marian Keyes – Again, Rachel
Bernadine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other
Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and The Sun
Hanya Yanigahara – A Little Life
Cho Nam-Joo – Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Marion Billet – Busy London
Adam Kay – This Is Going To Hurt
Frank Herbert – Dune
Tim Marshall – The Power of Geography
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Stanley Tucci – Taste
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
They – Kay Dick
Delia Owens – Where The Crawdads Sing
Hafsa Zayyan – We Are All Birds of Uganda
Mariana Enriquez – The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
Lorraine Mariner eds. – Ten Poems About Love
Bella Mackie – How To Kill Your Family
James Baldwin – Giovanni’s Room
Gertrude Stein – Food
Anna Malaika Tubbs – Three Mothers
Luke Kennard – The Answer To Everything
Paperback, Verso £10.99 Out Now
Isa and her best friend Gala arrive in New York in the Summer of 2013 with a mission in mind, to have as much fun as possible. They recall the heroines of golden age Hollywood; in another era they could be Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Isa and Gala’s literary ancestors might have treated this scene as a marriage market, but the novel is free of commitment, although not without romantic entanglements and their consequences. Isa and Gala’s friendship is the most important relationship in the novel, their friendship is loving but not idyllic, Isa more than once refers to it as a ‘marriage’ with all the history and tensions that go along with that description. Clothes are a secondary, yet crucially important romance, work is something to be avoided where possible and ambition a laughable fancy.
Happy Hour dispels the myth that glamour is analogous to wealth, Isa and Gala are permanently down on their luck, scraping a living by selling clothes on a vintage stall and taking ad hoc modelling and babysitting jobs. In spite of this, they manage to mainly have a fabulous time, only an uncomfortable jaunt to the Hamptons is enough to show Isa that the fair might be coming to an end.
Granados turns sharp and witty prose to great affect here. I would highly recommend Happy Hour for anyone seeking an intelligent but fun read in the mode of Anita Loos, Dorothy Parker or Nora Ephron.
Review by Phoebe
Tim Marshall – The Power of Geography
Patricia Lockwood – No One Is Talking About This
Hafsa Zayyan – We Are All Birds of Uganda
Natasha Lunn – Conversations on Love
Virginia Woolf – Flush
Sathnam Sanghera – Empireland
Stanley Tucci – Taste
Frank Herbert – Dune
Sally Rooney – Conversations With Friends
Abdulrazak Gurnah – Afterlives
Mo Willems – Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus
Lorraine Mariner – Ten Poems on Love
Anna Malaika Tubbs – Three Mothers
Karen McManus – One of Us Is Lying
Peppa Pig – Peppa’s Magical Unicorn
Natasha Lunn – Conversations on Love
Frank Tallis – The Act of Living
Susanna Clarke – Piranesi
Tim Marshall – The Power of Geography
Damon Galgut – The Promise
Maurice Sendak – Where The Wild Things Are
Charles Dickens – The Great Winglebury Duel
John Preston – Fall
Caleb Azumah Nelson – Open Water
Claire Fuller – Unsettled Ground
Bernadine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half
Francis Spufford – Light Perpetual
Tom Chivers – London Clay
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
John Preston – Fall
Hanya Yanagihara – To Paradise
Stephen Millar – Londons Hidden Walks
Sasha Dugdale – Ten Poems About Walking
Stanley Tucci – Taste
Frank Tallis – The Act of Living
Nan Shepherd – The Living Mountain
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Khaled Hosseini – A Thousand Splendid Suns
Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women
Donna Tartt – The Secret History
Joan Aiken – Arabel and Mortimer Stories
Claire Fuller – Unsettled Ground
Kazuo Ishiguro – Never Let Me Go
Hanya Yanagihara – To Paradise
John Preston – Fall
Rutger Bregman – Humankind
Claire Fuller – Unsettled Ground
Sathnam Sanghera – Empireland
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Lucy Caldwell – Intimacies
Claire Keegan – Small Things Like These
Nan Shepherd – The Living Mountain
Maggie O’Farrell – Hamnet
Douglas Stuart – Shuggie Bain
Raven Leilani – Luster
Matt Haig – The Midnight Library
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Wendy Kendall – My Little Garden
Hardback, Penguin Books, £12.99, out now
Change Sings is a positive and inspiring picture book, showing how children can make a difference in their home area and beyond.
“I’m a chant that rises and rings. There is hope when my change sings”. Amanda Gorman is an activist and poet probably best known the UK for the poem she wrote for Joe Biden’s inauguration, The Hill We Climb (read it here, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/20/amanda-gorman-poem-biden-inauguration-transcript). She was 22 when she delivered it.
Loren Long illustrated Barack Obama’s children’s book Of Thee I sing, and her work in Change Sings is similarly uplifting and lively.
It’s helpful to have a children’s book that shows that working for change can be cheerful, friendly, and fun, even when serious things are at stake.
The combination of Amanda Gorman’s poem (perfect for reading aloud) and Loren Long’s vibrant and engaging illustrations makes the book a source of joy in difficult times. I feel like Desmond Tutu would have approved (I’ve been rereading The Book of Joy following his death and it’s as useful as ever). For anyone needing more instant uplift, some images of the Archibishop Emeritus might help (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-59793545). Change Sings is a pleasure to share.
Review by Bethan
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Sathnam Sanghera – Empireland
John Le Carre – Silverview
Frank Herbert – Dune
Qian Julie Wang – Beautiful Country
Marit Kapla – Osebol
Bernadine Evaristo – Manifesto
Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half
Marion Billett – Busy London
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Katherine Mansfield – Prelude & Other Stories
Tim Marshall – The Power of Geography
Damon Galgut – The Promise
Isabel Waidner – Sterling Karat Gold
Hardback, Melville House Publishing, £18.99, out now
Snow falls as the scientist Robert Hooke and his former assistant Harry Hunt are called to a child’s body which has been found on the Fleet riverbank. The body has been drained of blood. The city of London in 1678 is febrile with anti-Catholic feeling and the shadows of the recent civil war are all around.
This is an excellent historical mystery, and much of the action takes place around where the Riverside Bookshop now is. London Bridge, Southwark, the Monument, Bishopsgate, Westminster… for anyone who knows this area well, The Bloodless Boy will take you through areas at once familiar and strange. In Whitechapel market, “Black powder from hundreds of chimneys and from the fires, braziers and stoves set up to keep the traders warm, dusted the hard, refrozen snow”.
It is like C J Sansom’s Shardlake series, combining a compelling mystery with detailed research that’s lightly worn, and featuring some real-life characters (in this case John Locke and King Charles II as well as Hooke).
It is clear that Lloyd has expertise in the history of science and the history of ideas. I knew I was going to enjoy the book when it opened with a cast list of characters including a fanatic, an assassin, and one who is both “a clergyman, and perjurer”.
Originally published in 2013 and reprinted now in a gorgeous hardback edition, The Bloodless Boy has won praise quotes from Lee Child, Andrew Taylor and Christopher Fowler among others.
A great London book and a gripping and pacy story. Recommended.
Review by Bethan
Rutger Bregman – Humankind
Yotam Ottolenghi and Noor Murad – Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love
Michaela Coel – Misfits
Frank Herbert – Dune
Bernadine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other
Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women
Kate Ellis eds. – Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize Longlist
Richard Osman – The Man Who Died Twice
Jessica Harrison eds. – The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories
Sally Rooney – Conversations With Friends
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Maggie Shipstead – Great Circle
Tom Chivers – London Clay
Clare Chambers – Small Pleasures
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Yotam Ottolenghi and Noor Murad – Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love
John Le Carre – Silverview
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Claire Keegan – Small Things Like These
Abdulrazak Gurnah – Afterlives
Hannah J. Parkinson – The Joy of Small Things
Colson Whitehead – Harlem Shuffle
Various Authors – The Haunting Season
Susanna Clarke – Piranesi
Michaela Coel – Misfits
Stanley Tucci – Taste
Dave Eggers – The Every
Various Poets – The Liberty Faber Poetry Diary
Amor Towles – The Lincoln Highway
Hardback, Sort Of Books, £14.99, out now
This new special edition of Moominland Midwinter is a complete treat. It has colour plates and a big map, and is beautifully produced (as books from this publisher usually are). The colour plates were produced by Jansson in 1961 for the Italian version of the book and make their first UK appearance here, sixty years later (you can see some of the gorgeous plates here – https://www.moomin.com/en/blog/moominland-midwinter-color-illustrations/#57813284).
I loved Moominland Midwinter when I came across it in 2017 and reviewed it then – https://riversidebookshop.co.uk/2017/10/15/moominland-midwinter-by-tove-jansson/.
There is also a fantastic picture of grumpy Moomin ancestors on p. 89 which is worth the price of the book alone.
Review by Bethan
The Riverside Way 