Entangled Life
A really fascinating book, which blew our minds! The facts that fungi are closer to animals than plants, that they can solve a maze by the most efficient route, that they can have hundreds of different genders, the revelations come thick and fast. One of those books...
Surfacing
Poet Kathleen Jamie’s latest collection of luminous, clear-eyed essays is a profound meditation on humans’ place in history and within the natural world. From a 500 year old Inuit village being gradually revealed by warming summers in Alaska, to the shifting sand...
The Garden Jungle: or Gardening to Save the Plane
There have been some fabulous natural history books published this year, and this is one of my favourites. Dave Goulson, professor of Biology at the University of Sussex, takes us through the ways in which the average garden can support the myriad of creatures that...
The Gospel of the Eels
This is a lovely exploration of the complicated natural history of the eel, and of those entangled in its slimy coils, from Aristotle and Freud, to the author and his father. After nearly two and a half thousand years of study, we now know the rough outline of the...
Akin
From Emma Donoghue, the international bestselling author of Room, comes Akin, a brilliant tale of love, loss and family, enjoyed by our evening book group in August. A retired New York professor's life is thrown into chaos when he takes his great-nephew to the French...
Pizazz
Sussex-based author and illustrator Sophy Henn is a firm local favourite having wowed local primary schools with her highly entertaining author visits for her previous series, the hilarious Bad Nana books. Her young fans will be delighted that she’s now back with the...
The Glass Hotel
INDIE BOOKSELLERS AUGUST 'BOOK OF THE MONTH' Emily St John Mandel’s previous novel, the best-selling cult hit ‘Station Eleven’ uncomfortably imagined a post-pandemic world, ravaged by a lethal swine-flu. Fans of ‘Station Eleven’ will spot familiar characters and...
The Island of Sea Women
A new novel from Lisa See, the New York Times bestselling author of The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, set in the fascinating, unforgettable world of the formidable female pearl divers of Jeju, a small Korean island. Mi-ja and Young-sook are best friends who come from...
Expectation
What happened to the women we were supposed to become? Hannah, Cate and Lissa are young, vibrant and inseparable. Living on the edge of a common in East London, their shared world is ablaze with art and activism, romance and revelry - and the promise of everything to...
The Mystery of Henri Pick
In the small town of Crozon in Brittany, a library houses manuscripts that were rejected for publication: the faded dreams of aspiring writers. Visiting while on holiday, young editor Delphine Despero is thrilled to discover a novel so powerful that she feels...