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
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
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
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
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
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, Ladybird, £6.99, out now
Gretel emerges from the ice to be feted as a Wonder Mammoth: an instant celebrity who makes lots of friends. But she is the last mammoth on Earth, which is always going to be tricky…
Her friends love her, as she is kind and strong and tells the best bedtime stories. When everyone thinks you are jolly and strong, how can you tell them that you are “scared… and sad… and worried… all at the same time”?
Kim Hillyard shows us that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is let your friends know how you are feeling, and that this is how things can start to get better. The friendly illustrations bring Greta’s world to life, and I found the colour palette warm, lively, and comforting.
Gretel’s friends prove most useful. They listen carefully, stroke her woolly feet, answer her questions, and help her find new things that she enjoys. Gretel is still the last mammoth, but she has reclaimed her Wonder and is no longer alone.
This sensitive picture book for young children is one of those brilliant things, a book that is really for all humans.
Review by Bethan
Paperback, Canongate, £6.99, out now
Alem is alone on his birthday and asks many different creatures what he should do – he is wondering where he should call home. None of them know but they all give him the same advice: “don’t ask the dragon – he will eat you!”
Alem is one to think for himself, so when he meets the dragon, he listens. The dragon turns out to be helpful, interesting… and vegetarian.
From celebrated poet and memoirist Lemn Sissay, with engrossing pictures from Greg Stobbs, this is an optimistic picture book for young children. A fun rhyming book to read aloud, this would be perfect for storytime.
With the new animal friends he’s made, Alem celebrates his birthday and discovers that home was inside him all along. For readers of Lemn Sissay’s excellent autobiography My Name is Why, the themes in this book will be especially resonant (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/29/my-name-is-why-lemn-sissay-review). To find your own place when you are alone can be extremely hard, but also sometimes joyful.
The party pictured at the end of the book is one I would very much like to go to.
Review by Bethan
Paperback, Two Hoots, £7.99, out now
We travel on the subway with young boy Milo and his sister, on a journey they make every month. It’s a trip that causes complex emotions…”as usual, Milo is a shook-up soda. Excitement stacked on top of worry on top of confusion on top of love. To keep himself from bursting, he studies the faces around him and makes pictures of their lives”.
The delicious and engaging illustrations in this picture book for young children draw us into Milo’s world. Imagining the stories of the strangers he sees on the train, he assumes that a smartly dressed boy lives in a castle with servants, and that a woman in a wedding dress is off to marry a man a city hall. But why do we assume these things about people we don’t know? Can Milo reimagine the stories he gives to people?
When it emerges that he and the other boy are both visiting their mums in prison, Milo finds out that there are so many ways to imagine the lives of others.
One of the most moving and cheerful things for me about Milo Imagines the World was the effortless portrayal of family love transcending and enduring through imprisonment. I also liked that Milo processed what was going on through drawing pictures of what he was thinking, which his mum got to enjoy during his visit.
Not even remotely preachy, this book is a complete delight. And it might make you see your own tube journey, and the people you’re sharing it with, in a much more interesting way.
Review by Bethan
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
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
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
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
Hardback, Tiny Owl, £12.99, out now
“Celebrations bring us together with music, dance and feasts. Our celebrations are not only steeped in customs and traditions, they evolve and change as we do”. We All Celebrate! is a bright and cheerful picture book from Riverside favourite Chitra Soundar, with jolly illustrations by Jenny Bloomfield.
A lively and informative text lets us join in with celebrations all over the world. As we look forward towards spring, this is a great book to read. I love the sound of Hamani, the Japanese festival of cherry blossoms, where those celebrating meet friends and picnic under the pink frothy trees. Holi, celebrated in some parts of India, involves throwing coloured powder and water over folks dancing in the street, and sounds like huge fun.
Ideal for primary age children, for reading together or alone, We All Celebrate! reminds us that however different our backgrounds we often consider the same things worth celebrating. Birth, the return of the sun, our ancestors… and we often enjoy special food, or clothes, or lights.
We All Celebrate! is effortlessly inclusive, and taught me a lot of things I didn’t know. It has a truly international sweep and I felt the world opening up around me, with fireworks and dancing. This is the perfect picture book for these dark winter evenings.
Review by Bethan
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
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
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Bernadine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other
Frank Herbert – Dune
Hannah Jane Parkinson – The Joy of Small Things
Stanley Tucci – Taste
Michaela Coel – Misfits
John Banville – Snow
Susanna Clarke – Piranesi
Damon Galgut – The Promise
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Sally Rooney – Beautiful World, Where Are You?
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Rutger Bregman – Humankind
Marion Billet – Busy London
Marion Billet – Busy London at Christmas
Hardback, Walker Books, £12.99, out now
Early in the pandemic, Michael Rosen got very ill with Covid. This smashing children’s picture book charts his recovery and the friends who helped him get better. These include not only the NHS staff, and his supportive family, but also his faithful walking stick, Sticky McStickstick.
Tony Ross’s sensitive and lively illustration is the perfect match for Rosen’s account of his recovery. From being able to get out of bed, to walking, to going upstairs and making a cup of tea, the recovery is long but each stage is celebrated. I find it so cheering that Rosen salutes the things that help him move around more: a wheelchair, a walking frame and finally Sticky. The subtitle says it all: The Friend Who Helped Me Walk Again. Sticky has a lot of personality.
From the poet who brought you These are the Hands, a song of gratitude to the NHS (see https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/these-are-hands/), it is no surprise that Rosen gives all credit due to the staff who saved his life and then helped him to recover as best he could. This would be a good book for explaining serious illness and recovery to children, but also for anyone going through it themselves. Like the best children’s books, this is really for everyone. He deals well with fear, and also with keeping on trying. “Maybe you’ve been ill. Or maybe you know someone who’s been ill. When we’re ill, we change, don’t we? And then we do what we can to get better. People help us.”
Review by Bethan
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Frank Herbert – Dune
Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women
Bernadine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Susanna Clarke – Piranesi
Damon Galgut – The Promise
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Richard Osman – The Man Who Died Twice
eds. Jessica Harrison – The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Sosuke Natsukawa – The Cat Who Saved Books
Merlin Sheldrake – Entangled Life
Shirley Jackson – The Missing Girl
Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche – Notes on Grief
Frank Herbert – Dune
Piranesi – Susanna Clarke
Harper Lee – To Kill A Mockingbird
Jessica Harrison eds – The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories
Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half
Sosuke Natsukawa – The Cat Who Saved Books
Sarah Moss – The Fell
Noor Murad, Yotam Ottolenghi – Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love
Elena Ferrante – The Lying Life of Adults
John Le Carre – Silverview
Sally Rooney – Beautiful World, Where Are You?
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Merlin Sheldrake – Entangled Life
Amor Towles – The Lincoln Highway
Matt Haig – The Midnight Library
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Damon Galgut – The Promise
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Susanna Clarke – Piranesi
Frank Herbert – Dune
Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half
Tom Chivers – London Clay
Florence Given – Women Don’t Owe You Pretty
Stanley Tucci – Taste: My Life Through Food
Sosuke Natsukawa – The Cat Who Saved Books
Tim Marshall – The Power of Geography
Various Authors – A Scandinavian Christmas: Festive Tales For a Nordic Noel
Nigel Slater – A Cook’s Book
George Orwell – 1984
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Stanley Tucci – Taste: My Life Through Food
Frank Herbert – Dune
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Sathnam Sangera – Empireland
Elizabeth Strout – Oh William!
Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women
Damon Galgut – The Promise
Shon Faye – The Transgender Issue
John Le Carre – Silverview
Bernadine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Bob Mortimer – And Away…
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Abdulrazak Gurnah – Afterlives
Frank Herbert – Dune
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Various Authors – A Scandinavian Christmas: Festive Tales For a Nordic Noel
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
John Preston – Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell
Jonathon Franzen – Crossroads
Lea Ypi – Free: Coming of Age at the End of History
Sally Rooney – Beautiful World, Where Are You?
Rutger Bregman – Humankind
Sosuke Natsukawa – The Cat Who Saved Books
Rachel Morrisroe, Steven Lenton – How To Grow a Unicorn
Stephanie Garnier – How to Live Like Your Cat
Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man
John Steinbeck – The Vigilante
Shon Faye – The Transgender Issue
Hardback, HarperCollins, £20, out now
This is a delightful, mildly spooky picture book from the author of Lost and Found.
There are supposed to be ghosts in our host’s large old house, but she has never seen them – can you? With the help of tracing paper inserts and atmospheric photos, we can not only find the ghosts but also see the hijinks that they get up to.
It is a brilliant idea, and a timeless book. It goes for funny rather than scary, and the ghosts are quite endearing. You find yourself thinking that living in a haunted house might be quite jolly.
We have signed copies in store. Happy Halloween!
Review by Bethan
John le Carre – Silverview
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Stanley Tucci – Taste: My Life Through Food
Sally Rooney – Beautiful World, Where Are You?
Elizabeth Strout – Oh William!
Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women
Elena Ferrante – The Lying Life of Adults
Colm Toibin – The Magician
Bernadine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other
Suzanna Clarke – Piranesi
Rumaan Alam – Leave The World Behind
Yotam Ottolenghi, Noor Murad – Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Florence Given – Women Don’t Owe You Pretty
Shirley Jackson – The Haunting of Hill House
The Riverside Way 