Hardback, Jonathan Cape, £16.99, out 20 February 
Katherine O’Dell is an actress, and her daughter Norah tells her story. From the Irish theatre of the 1940s to London’s West End and the early days of Hollywood, famous Katherine’s life is exciting and often turbulent. But no-one could predict that she would shoot someone. Why did this happen?
Norah notes: “I was twenty-eight and the time of the assault. I struggled on for the next year or more, but there came a day when I could not make it in to work. I was writing a book, I said. And then that became true. I wrote, not one, but many books. But I never wrote the one I needed to write, the one that was shouting out to be written, the story of my mother and Boyd O’Neill’s wound”.
From the Booker winning author of The Gathering and The Green Road, all of the things Anne Enright is known for are present here. There is family drama, mothers and daughters, snappy lines and a story that seizes you and doesn’t let you go.
Norah begins to feel able to tell her mother’s story after Katherine’s death, prompted in part by irritation with how the story is being co-opted by others. But how can she get to the truth? Can she tell her own story too?
My colleague read this first, and rightly said this was a must-read for fans of fiction about theatre. The dry wit reminded me of another all-time great theatre book, Penelope Fitzgerald’s At Freddie’s.
Review by Bethan
Aaronovitch to Riverside to sign copies of his new book, False Value. Come and get them while they’re hot…
The bookshop is putting on an event in collaboration with
Posy Simmonds’ latest neatly combines arch Metropolitan satire with a slow-burn, snowballing thriller narrative (truly something for everyone…) – we know from the intriguing cover that elderly, miserly art dealer Cassandra Darke will come into contact with a pistol, and, presumably, some deadly goings-on – the question is, how? And it’s a particularly tantalising question given that we’re introduced to the character in a very relatable, rather domestic way, as she navigates the Christmastime hell of Oxford Street; but as always with these things, all is not well beneath the surface…
Patrick Chamoiseau’s latest novel is a little masterpiece: perfectly-formed, mesmerising, thrilling, moving, eye-opening, distressing, poignant, the lot.
We have a few signed copies of their gorgeous new book Art Matters.
Hardback, Walker Books, £11.99, out now
This book is extremely silly and a guaranteed good laugh for anyone aged about two and up. Dwayne and Jane-o want to see the volcano… they’ll catch a plane-o and climb down a chain-o… their enthusiasm is not in doubt but what will happen when they get there?
Here at Riverside we’re pleased to see that The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the Donmar is getting good reviews – and particularly that its characterisation of the troublingly fascism-sympathetic Brodie cleaves to Spark’s original vision – because a few of us are massive fans of the late Scottish author (and total genius).
