What we’re loving at the moment…
Here are some of our favourite titles from the past few months…
Unsheltered
Barbara Kingsolver
Published by Faber
Willa Knox is a woman trying to hold things together. Her house, which has been left to her is crumbling about her family’s ears; she and her husband, having worked as university professors, are now unemployed, her son’s girlfriend commits suicide leaving a small, inconsolable baby. Raging against a world that can let these things… Read More
Family Lexicon
Natalia Ginsburg
Published by Daunt Books
Giuseppi Levi is always shouting at his children and forcing them to march up mountains, his wife Lidia is always trying to slope off for a sit down. Their various children comply with their wishes, or not, all of them contributing to the routines and rituals, crazes, pet phrases, and stories, doubtful, comical, indispensable that… Read More
Poems to Live Your Life By
Chris Riddell
Published by Macmillan
Chris Riddell, political cartoonist for the Observer, and prolific illustrator and writer of marvellous children’s books, has made a selection of his favourite classic and modern poems about ‘life, death and everything in between’. Exquisitely illustrated, this an absolutely beautiful book and the forty-six poems in this anthology have clearly been selected with great love.… Read More
Evening in Paradise
Lucia Berlin
Published by Macmillan
Lucia Berlin’s collection of short stories, A Manual for Cleaning Women was published posthumously to great acclaim, and Evening in Paradise is a follow-up selection from Berlin’s remaining stories. The stories are loosely autobiographical, arranged chronologically to follow the arc of Berlin’s life, and take us from a pair of seven year olds running a… Read More
A Muddy Trench: A Sniper’s Bullet
Jacquie Buttriss
Published by Pen & Sword
When Rosie and Robert Stewart’s mother died, they had to sort through the contents of her packed house. The last box in the attic, hastily emptied into plastic bags before the house clearance men came, proved to be a treasure trove, and a forgotten history. Hamish Mann had been their great uncle, unknown to them… Read More
I am the Seed that Grew the Tree
Fiona Waters and Frann Preston-Gannon
Published by Nosy Crow
This a an absolutely gorgeous poetry anthology for children. There is a nature poem for every day of the year, laid out on each double page spread with a linking theme and beautiful illustrations. The poems range from simple nursery rhymes to longer ones, from poets such as WB Yeats, Carol Ann Duffy and Benjamin… Read More
Snow in the Garden
Shirley Hughes
Published by Walker
Snow in the Garden by Shirley Hughes Walker £12.99 Collected here is a charming collection of stories, poems, crafts and recipes, all with a Christmas theme, from one of our best children’s authors, Shirley Hughes. With her trademark illustrations and gentle wit and empathetic understanding of a small child’s viewpoint, this is the perfect way… Read More
How to Stop Time
Matt Haig
Published by Canongate
Tom Hazard may look like an ordinary 41 year old History teacher, but he has a dangerous secret. Owing to a rare genetic condition, he is old. Over 400 years old. From Shakespeare’s Globe theatre, to sailing the South Seas with Captain Cook and sipping cocktails with F Scott Fitzgerald, he has lived a long… Read More
The Lost Girl
Carol Drinkwater
Published by Michael Joseph Ltd
Last year we were very fortunate to host Carol Drinkwater, the charming former actress and author of a series of books about her olive farm in France when she was launching a debut novel, The Forgotten Summer, an atmospheric family drama set on a Provence vineyard estate. Now we have her keenly awaited second novel,… Read More