Category: Reviews
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The Midnight Library
by Matt Haig Paperback, £9.99 This novel was published in 2020, and is an antidote to the stress caused by life’s inevitable uncertainties. Haig had me thinking about what actually matters, beyond all the specific choices we all make. The Midnight Library follows music shop assistant and cat owner Nora Seed, who has had enough…
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Briefly, a Delicious Life
by Nell Stevens Paperback, £9.99 If I had to condense my review of this book into three words, I would describe it as full of life, which is ironic, as the narrator is a ghost who has been dead for centuries. However, this ghost – Blanca – watches and involves herself in the stories of…
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The Secret World of Spider Webs
by Jan Beccaloni and Namasri Niumim Hardback, £14.99 A gorgeous children’s non-fiction book stuffed with excellent facts and Namasri Niumim’s accurate and appealing illustrations (see inside the book here). As with all the best children’s books, it is good for adults too. The Secret World of Spider Webs is hugely popular at Riverside, and not…
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The Trembling Hand: Reflections of a Black Woman in the Romantic Archive
By Mathelinda Nabugodi Hardback, £20 The Trembling Hand is a rich and thought-provoking discussion of the Romantic writers in the context of enslavement. I found that I was thinking about Percy and Mary Shelley, Byron, Keats and others differently, and that this was both hard and relevant. Nabugodi’s explanation of historical contexts of their lives…
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It Might Never Happen
By Emily Slapper Hardback, £16.99 The cover and the first page of this book drew me in because I suspected it would fit into the same niche as Sally Rooney and Naoise Dolan – and having read it, I think it does – but it has something a little different. Slapper’s writing is more visceral,…
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The Woman Dies
by Aoko Matsuda Europa Editions, Paperback, £14.99 What I love about short stories is that they can lightly slip into the crack of everyday hectic-ness. One day, Aoko Matsuda, the author of Where the Wild Ladies Are — witty, uncanny, feminist tales rewriting Japanese folklore, winner of the 2021 World Fantasy Award Best Collection —…
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The Proof of my Innocence
by Jonathan Coe This is the funniest book I’ve read all year. Stuffed with good puns and jokes, it’s also an excellent pastiche of genres including cosy crime, autofiction and ‘dark academia’ (no, I had no idea either – apparently it includes The Secret History). I knew I’d enjoy it when I saw that the…
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The Cave Explorer
By Kate Winter Penguin, Hardback, £14.99 The Cave Explorer is a beautiful picture book with fold out pages featuring amazing illustrations of the Lascaux cave paintings of 20,000 years ago. It is an excellent book for everyone, not just children – I’ve already bought for an adult who has visited the caves, and I’m certain…
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My Rice is Best!
By Selina Brown and Maxwell A. Oginni Penguin, Paperback, £7.99 Any books about food immediately draw me in, and this was no exception! Brown’s storytelling and Oginni’s illustrations are bound to start conversations about favourite foods and cooking. Each page is brimming with as much energy as the children in the book, Yinka and Shane,…
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A Language of Limbs
By Dylin Hardcastle Verve Books, Paperback, £10.99 I picked this book up at random based on the image on the cover, which really drew me in with the affection and vulnerability portrayed, and I’m very glad I chose it. Hardcastle weaves together the stories of two very different lives with great skill and emotion, and…
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Lands of Belonging: a History of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Britain
By Donna and Vikesh Amey Bhatt and Salini Perea Nosy Crow, Paperback, £9.99 This colourful and accessible book manages to bring together history, geography, culture and religion while remaining very readable. Perfect for ages 9 and up, it is helpful for adults too, as I certainly learnt some interesting things while reading it. Lands of…
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Butter
By Asako Yuzuki Harpercollins, Paperback, £9.99 11 months ago, the paperback for Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (by Gabrielle Zevin) came out and I spent the summer selling it. My first thought was that it was probably overhyped, but I was intrigued and caved when a friend lent me a copy in early autumn. I…
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All Fours
By Miranda July Canongate Books, Paperback, £9.99 “I’d whipped myself into a froth of longing — or worked, created fictions…. Was there any actual enchantment or was it all just survival, ways to muddle through?” I’m jealous of you if you are yet to read Miranda July’s All Fours, now out in paperback. It has…
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The Safekeep
By Yael van der Wouden Penguin, Paperback, £9.99 Call Me By Your Name meets Girl With A Pearl Earring in this consuming and simmering debut novel set in a rural town in the Netherlands. The Safekeep is one of those rare books where the things left unsaid speak as much as the ones on the…
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Otto The Top Dog
By Catherine Rayner Paperback From the winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal comes the most adorable children’s book about dogs ever written. I suspect Catherine who wrote and illustrated the book does herself have a sausage dog, as the adorable and pitch perfect observations of Otto, a dachshund who loves his bed, (as we know…
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Suspicion
By Seichō Matsumoto Penguin, Paperback, £10.99 With an RRP that puts the price per word worryingly close to values more common to poetry books than fiction narratives, Suspicion comes across as a slight prospect, and an expensive one at that. It emphatically is not. Unlike most mystery fare, Suspicion centres on a crime whose details…
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The Exorcist
A potty-mouthed classic of all kinds of horror – psychological, Catholic, gothic. Unmissable!
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The Most
By Jessica Anthony Transworld Publishers, Paperback, £9.99 On an unseasonably warm Sunday in November 1957, housewife Kathleen Beckett decides she does not want to go to church with her family, as all middle-class American families ought to. Instead, she decides to go for a swim in the disused pool of their apartment complex. And there…
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