February 17, 2022
by Team Riverside
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
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February 16, 2022
by Team Riverside
Paperback, W H Allen, £9.99, out now
The Madhouse at the End of the Earth is an engrossing account of a journey to Antarctica in 1897. One thing after another goes wrong for the crew of the Belgian whaling ship the Belgica, and they get stranded for the whole of the winter darkness, their ship frozen in a sea of ice.
Among those on board is a doctor, Dr Frederick Cook, who will later be imprisoned in his native USA for fraud. But as those on the ship suffer the effects of cold, dark, and malnutrition, his innovation and care keeps his colleagues alive. As things get worse, and the Captain withdraws, Cook seems able to turn his hand to anything. One part of the story that stayed with me was Cook creating a treatment for crew members suffering from scurvy and depression (among other things) of standing unclothed and in private in front of a fire. As Sancton notes: “His wild idea to have his ailing shipmates stand naked in front of a blazing fire is the first known application of light therapy, used today to treat sleep disorders and depression, among other things.”
The Madhouse at the End of the Earth works in many different ways. It’s a story of adventure and survival, failures of leadership, and physical and mental courage. It contributes to the history of medicine, as Sancton discovers that Cook’s case study is still used by Jack Stuster, a behavioural scientist who works with NASA, among others. As a study of how people cope, or don’t, under extreme strain, it is fascinating.
Also on the unlucky ship is Roald Amundsen, later famous as an epic Antarctic explorer in his own right. The insight given here into his early life is intriguing. He emerges as stoic in himself, and unbending in his attitude to others.
Sancton evokes the harshness of the Antarctic landscape and the claustrophobia of the trapped ship very well. “Where the water ended, the snow began, as if the ocean had risen half way up the Himalayas”. The descriptions of sounds of rats eating the crew’s limited food are suitably revolting. His impressive use of archive materials including the ship’s logs, crew diaries, and accounts published later by those who had been on board lends credibility to his review of the psychological states and emotions of those he is writing about.
He notes the colonial context to this journey, namely Belgium’s grotesque history in Africa at the time of the expedition. I was troubled by the title, uneasy about the use of ‘madhouse’, but I eventually felt it made sense for the time Sancton was writing about.
I read it over two days while on holiday, and felt lucky to have the chance to race through it. Because the story was unfamiliar to me, despite my having read a lot about Antarctic exploration, I tensely awaited each new development. It held me till the last page.
Review by Bethan
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February 13, 2022
by Team Riverside
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
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February 13, 2022
by Team Riverside
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
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February 5, 2022
by Team Riverside
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
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February 1, 2022
by Team Riverside
Paperback, Metro, £11.99, Publisher
The pocket-sized London’s Hidden Walks series is well researched and handy. The latest addition, subtitled Every Street Has a Story to Tell, is a genial and inspiring guide to some hidden London treasures.
Who knew that the Spanish Civil War memorial was right next to Fulham Palace? Or that the cabman’s shelter in Pimlico, a small green wooden hut serving refreshments, is one of the sole survivors of more than sixty such? History, architecture, art, literature and generally bizarre things all feature.
South London is especially well represented here, with Clapham, Peckham and Tooting all featuring. Even in areas I know very well, I’ve learnt to look for some surviving gems because of this book.
Nicely illustrated with quirky photos and useful maps, this is a pleasure to read before you set out, as well as providing suggestions for good restaurants, pubs, and shops on the routes. The inclusion of notable ghost signs is especially welcome (I used to like the Barlow and Roberts ghost sign on Southwark Street near here, but it seems to be gone now – https://ghostsigns.co.uk/2021/10/barlow-roberts/). This book encourages us to look up: there is often something interesting up there.
Review by Bethan
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January 21, 2022
by Team Riverside
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
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January 19, 2022
by Team Riverside
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
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January 16, 2022
by Team Riverside
Paperback, William Collins, £9.99, out now
I read Islands of Abandonment in hardback during one of the lockdowns last year. I was transported to wildly different newly-wild places around the world, even as I couldn’t stir much from home: a former military base on a Scottish island; an abandoned agricultural institute in the Tanzanian mountains; the drowned homes and fields of the Salton Sea in California. Flyn explores what the natural world can do when left mostly alone by humans. She focuses on places that were once hubs of human activity, where decaying buildings and landscape changes are the inheritance of the land.
The book features evocative colour photos, including a series of four Google Earth shots showing the transformation of a regular suburban home in Detroit into a ruin with trees growing through it alongside disappearing sidewalks. It made me think of the loss of people’s homes and communities, alongside the resurgence of other kinds of lives. Flyn’s descriptions are as vivid as the photos. She visits an abandoned canteen near Chernobyl: “The whole room is dominated by an enormous stained-glass scene that takes up the entire far wall: a moon rising in the west, into a sky of electric blue and crimson; and in the east, a burning sun, haloed in purple and orange and gold. Around and between, four godlike women rise, in simple robes, cups over each breast: the seasons”.
The attention and respect Flyn gives to non-human life reminds me of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s transformatory book Braiding Sweetgrass (see https://riversidebookshop.co.uk/2020/07/14/braiding-sweetgrass-indigenous-wisdom-scientific-knowledge-and-the-teachings-of-plants-by-robin-wall-kimmerer/). Flyn’s attempts to see the whole of the life, both non-human and human, in the places she visits echoes Robin Wall Kimmerer’s approach.
Often in these ostensibly abandoned places, some people remain. They might be caretakers, witnesses, those in search of a different way of being on earth. For example, former lab technician and current informal caretaker Martin Kimweri attends the former science facility in Tanzania, and looks after the many white and black mice whose ancestors were kept by the scientists. Flyn also comes across those who have stayed in their homes as other people left and the world changed utterly around them, as well as people who travel out into these spaces looking for something new. She is sensitive to these stories, which are necessarily those of outsiders.
As a woman who likes exploring places on her own, I appreciate Flyn’s solo venturing. Islands of Abandonment can be read as nature writing, adventurous travel, conservation literature or reflections on how cultures deal with the end of civilisations. It’s no wonder that authors including Kathleen Jamie and Adam Nicolson have praised Islands of Abandonment (the hard to classify nature of the work reminded me of both these authors, see https://riversidebookshop.co.uk/2020/08/24/surfacing-by-kathleen-jamie/). Flyn’s thoughtful responses to what and who she sees make this a thoughtful and strangely positive read.
Review by Bethan
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January 14, 2022
by Team Riverside
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
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January 10, 2022
by Team Riverside
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
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January 8, 2022
by Team Riverside
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
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January 4, 2022
by Team Riverside
Hardback, Hoxton Mini Press, £22.95, out now
Did you know that Fortnum and Mason’s was started by one of Queen Anne’s footmen, who had a side business flogging off used candle wax from the queen’s household? Or that the wooden flooring in Liberty’s department store is from a nineteenth century warship? These are the kind of excellent nuggets that feature alongside engaging photos in this beautiful coffee table book (see some of the photos here https://www.hoxtonminipress.com/products/pre-order-london-shopfronts).
I was delighted to see good representation of bookshops (shout out to colleagues at Marchpane and John Sandoe) alongside famous London shops such as the old-school art emporium L Cornelisson and the legendary Beigel Bake on Brick Lane. Many of the entries include an update on how the businesses have managed during the pandemic, reminding us that some are small independent and/or family companies. SE1 is well represented too, with the famous M Manze pie and mash shop and Terry’s Cafe.
Some of those working in the shops tell us why they love it, including Guido Gessaroli of the Coffee Run in the Seven Sisters Road: “This is the London I came here for… Diverse, multicultural, a friendly neighbourhood. The area is sometimes considered a bit shabby, but to me it feels real and down to earth”.
Most places included were new to me, and this book made me want to eat and shop my way around London purely to visit them. I’d love it if the next edition had a map of sites so that you could arrange walking tours between the places.
The shop fronts and interiors that have been preserved are especially valuable, and are my favourite things in the book. New designs that are clearly intended to lift the hearts of anyone even walking down the street are delightful too (Saint Aymes and Mira Mikati, I mean you). Plot your London days out now, and use this jolly book to do it.
Review by Bethan
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January 3, 2022
by Team Riverside
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
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December 31, 2021
by Team Riverside
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?
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December 18, 2021
by Team Riverside
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
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December 14, 2021
by Team Riverside
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
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December 13, 2021
by Team Riverside
Softcover, Head of Zeus, £18, out now
This is a great range of very satisfying Christmas mysteries. Feeling like pulp crime? Try John D. MacDonald. Classic crime? Try Ellis Peters. Something modern? Try Sara Paretsky. There are also stories from lots of all time great crime writers, including John Mortimer, Agatha Christie and Colin Dexter.
I read many of these stories last Christmas when this collection came out in hardback. Now it’s out in a striking softback edition with a smart vintage style Gothic revival cover. For a book with over 700 pages, it’s very comfortable in the hands. Some stories are very short and some are longish, which means you can find something that fits your time as well as mood.
I found it put me on to several crime writers who were new to me, which made for some fun reading this year (I have been cheerfully reading Ellery Queen and Rex Stout as a result).
It’s so attractive that it would make a successful present, but ideally only for someone you can borrow it off later.
Review by Bethan
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December 11, 2021
by Team Riverside
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
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December 8, 2021
by Team Riverside
Hardback, Hoxton Mini Press, £16.95, out now
London in the Snow is not only about the humans. There are elephants with shovels, camels looking a bit chilly, and pigeons making the best of it.
This charming small hardback photo book has a good range of black and white images from the 1900s to the 1960s, and they are not just the usual subjects (for a sample of the images, see (https://www.hoxtonminipress.com/products/london-in-the-snow-book-10-vintage-britain). There are parks and zoos, synagogues and cathedrals, streets and schools, canals and the river. I like that there are diverse images from a diverse city. My favourite photo is a young Sikh man in 1900 tobogganing with the intensity of a champion. This is a well edited and entertaining selection.
Snow is unusual enough in London that Londoners still react in a variety of ways when it falls. We might run wild in the park or steer clear of a deserted Oxford Street. We might valiantly keep working in freezing conditions, or skate across a frozen pond to usher swans towards open water like a woman in this book (perhaps).
We love the Opinionated Guide series from this independent press (see https://riversidebookshop.co.uk/2021/07/12/london-green-spaces-by-harry-ades/). This latest book in the Vintage Britain series is as beautifully made as its predecessors, and would make a cheerful gift.
Review by Bethan
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December 6, 2021
by Team Riverside
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
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December 5, 2021
by Team Riverside
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
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November 30, 2021
by Team Riverside
Hardback, Faber and Faber, £10, out now
It is 1985 in a small town in Ireland, and Bill Furlong is flat out delivering coal and wood in the snow before Christmas. As he, his wife and young daughters prepare for the holidays, he finds out by accident that something is wrong at the local convent. Why are the girls he sees there distressed?
This is a perfect novella. I bought it for someone else for Christmas but now have to keep it for myself, unfortunately for them. Keegan writes the kind of sentences that make you stare at them to find out why they work so well.
Furlong “had come from nothing. Less than nothing, some might say. His mother, at the age of sixteen, had fallen pregnant while working as a domestic for Mrs Wilson, the Protestant widow who lived in the big house a few miles outside of town. When his mother’s trouble became known, and her people made clear they’d have no more to do with her, Mrs Wilson, instead of giving his mother her walking papers, told her she should stay on, and keep her work”. This makes Furlong unusual in his community, and also helps him to reflect on what is happening at the convent.
The story responds to the scandals of the Magdalene Laundries and mother and baby homes in Ireland. Furlong realises that something is not right, but what can he do? The church is part of daily life, and to challenge it is dangerous. A woman warns him: “Tis no affair of mine, you understand, but you know you’d want to watch over what you’d say about what’s there? Keep the enemy close, the bad dog with you and the good dog will not bite. You know yourself”.
Small Things Like These helped me think about how we live alongside injustice, suffering and impunity every day, and decide not to see it or to do anything about it. What might it take to end such collusion? What happens when we finally allow ourselves to see that something treated as inevitable or invisible is unbearable?
After reading Small Things Like These I had to read Belonging by Catherine Corless with Naomi Linehan, the true story of how an amateur historian helped expose the shocking story of the missing babies of the Tuam mother and baby home in the Republic of Ireland. It is an outstanding account of how diligent research and campaigning can bring human rights violations to light, and hold to account those who have acted with impunity (see this detailed review in the Irish Independent – https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-reviews/catherine-corless-memoir-is-a-story-of-the-living-as-much-as-the-dead-40859120.html). A colleague directed me to Motherbabyhome, an extraordinary work of conceptual and performance poetry by Kimberley Campanello which memorialises the 796 children who lost their lives, and is partly based on files provided by Corless to the poet (http://www.kimberlycampanello.com/motherbabyhome). Seeing some of the archive documents found by Corless, alongside the names of some of the children involved, is moving. These themes also recur throughout the excellent Quirke crime novel series by John Banville (writing as Benjamin Black). Art like this helps us process what has happened, and what is happening.
Keegan’s book is full of small kindnesses as well as troubles. The love in the family, who do not have much but are glad of what they do have, is uplifting. A free bag of coal is left on the doorstep for those who can’t afford it, but then Furlong worries that he should not have accepted gifts from those who can’t afford to give them. These are the ethics of everyday life.
Small Things Like These is not saccharine, just readable and relatable. My main feeling after this is to re-read Ariel Dorfman’s Manifesto for Another World. Make of that what you will.
Review by Bethan
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November 27, 2021
by Team Riverside
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
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November 21, 2021
by Team Riverside
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Elizabeth Strout – Oh William!
John Banville – Snow
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Noor Murad and Yotam Ottolenghi – Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love
Harper Lee – To Kill A Mockingbird
Stanley Tucci – Taste: My Life Through Food
John Le Carre – Silverview
Frank Herbert – Dune
Nora Ephron – Heartburn
Rutger Bregman – Humankind: A Hopeful History
Susanna Clarke – Piranesi
Charlie Macksey – The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse
Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women
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November 20, 2021
by Team Riverside
Hardback, Picador, £14.99, out now
A wildly tense but very thoughtful novel set during the lockdown of autumn 2020.
Kate, the single mother of teenage son Matt, is ordered to remain at home. After several days, she feels that she cannot stand it for another minute. Fell walking near her home is how she usually manages her mental health, and so she decides that a short walk has become essential. She leaves home without telling her son or anyone else, although she is seen by her next door neighbour Alice who is shielding and unable to leave her house. She plans to be quick but time passes and she does not come home. Should her son call the police or rescue services? What if she is arrested and charged, and cannot afford to pay the fine? Alice faces the same dilemma, and Alice’s adult children (who have strong views about telling her what to do but seem not very helpful in practice) urge her to tell the police that Kate has illegally left the house.
Kate’s thinking will resonate with many: “She forgets everything these days, stands to reason that when you deprive people of external stimulus their brains slow down, almost a survival strategy, who could bear to be running on all cylinders and locked in like this, you’d go mad, poison yourself with your own fumes”. While walking, she falls in an isolated spot, and cannot get home. Dark falls.
The Fell is a very quick read but covers so many important human things. What are our duties to each other in extreme situations? How much can we prioritise our needs over those of others?
In addition to the voices of Kate, Matt and Alice, we hear from Rob the mountain rescue guide who is sent to find her. Rob faces his own challenges: forced to leave his daughter to attend the rescue, she is unhappy and disappointed and is sure to let him know it. Between these four perspectives, Moss delivers sensitive and relatable thoughts about how lockdowns and individual stay-at-home orders have played out in real life. These lives touch and overlap and human connections happen.
I did not think I would ever want to read a pandemic novel during a pandemic: there is quite enough of all that going on in my real life without it spilling over into my leisure reading. But The Fell is the best type of fiction. It is compelling on its own terms, as I was desperate to find out what happened, but also useful in unpicking what the crisis means about us, as individuals, as communities, and as a society. This is exactly what Moss is brilliant at, especially in Summerwater and Ghost Wall (see https://riversidebookshop.co.uk/2019/09/08/ghost-wall-by-sarah-moss/). The Fell is helping me to process what’s going on, and work out what I think about it.
Review by Bethan
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November 16, 2021
by Team Riverside
Paperback, &Other Stories, £11.99, out now
As a child, Ruby stops speaking. Her loving family don’t understand, but keep loving her anyway. Her sister is tough and caring, her mother is sometimes ill and sometimes not, and the suburban neighbours are in and out, as are the Aunties and Biji (Ruby’s grandmother).
This sensitive short novel is a very quick read but you’ll want to linger over the language. For fans of her poetry collections Small Hands and Dear Big Gods, Arshi’s fresh and illuminating prose will be no surprise. The chapter titles make you feel like you’re reading a collection of prose poems (I particularly liked De-Catastrophisation (for beginners)) and the story flows easily and well. It’s not a hard book to read but it’s a hard book to put down. I read it in a single sitting.
The racism that Ruby and her family face runs throughout the book. Despite dealing with traumatic things, Arshi’s sharp turns of phrase are often funny: “But I don’t believe my father is an elephant; he is most like a canary. His main role in our family is to detect early signs of disturbance and then to flap his wings and warble a little. Of course, usually no one takes notice, or if they notice it’s too late, but that isn’t, strictly speaking, the canary’s fault”.
The cover art is exquisite and echoes the importance of the garden to Ruby’s mother. I could stare at it all day.
Somebody Loves You sings. Read it and listen.
Review by Bethan
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November 15, 2021
by Team Riverside
Paperback, Penguin, £10.99, out now
Ice, snow, owls: sold.
Naturalist and PhD student Slaght goes to Primorye in remotest Russia in 2006 to research and protect the world’s largest owl, the Blakiston’s fish owl (see excellent pictures in Helen Macdonald’s rave review, here – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/22/owls-of-the-eastern-ice-by-jonathan-c-slaght-review-an-extraordinary-quest). Slaght describes it: “Backlit by the hazy gray of a winter sky, it seemed almost too big and too comical to be a real bird, as if someone had hastily glued fistfuls of feathers to a yearling bear, then propped the dazed beast in the tree.”
This is an account of work at the sharp edge of conservation and research. Slaght is working at a time when local economies are changing rapidly. Logging and free market ventures are expanding into areas of remote and limited fish owl habitat, and it becomes imperative that conservationists work out what the threats are, and what opportunities exist to protect the owl.
This is travel writing as much as nature writing. Slaght conveys how quickly the ancient forest and surrounding environment can change, from conditions that are beautiful and wild to extreme and life-threatening. There are rivers and pools warmed by radon, Amur tigers hunting, hermits and wilderness. Endurance is required to get through the hardships he and his colleagues face in finding, tagging and relocating the owls over several years.
Literally toxic masculinity features, as hunters and others working in the area sometimes engage in extreme drinking to forge trust with strangers like Slaght, who not only is an outsider but also an American and an ornithologist. Several times he’s part of a party that must not break up until the vodka bottle is empty, and sometimes the ‘vodka’ is ethanol. But he gets to work alongside committed lifelong conservationists and assistants, and finds that people will often help him and his colleagues when they need it most.
The owls are known locally as “the owls who ask for a fur coat”. In Russian when a pair sing to each other, it sounds like each is saying “I want a fur coat”. Owls of the Eastern Ice is a truly engrossing and transporting book.
Review by Bethan
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November 13, 2021
by Team Riverside
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
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November 6, 2021
by Team Riverside
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
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