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Things - A Story of the Sixties

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Things: A Story of the Sixties

A material world

A 1965 cult read (reimagined for the 21st century by Vincenzo Latronico in his recent excellent novel, Perfection), Things: A Story of the Sixties by Georges Perec is a wry portrayal of post-war materialism. Chronicling the lives of a young Parisian couple, Jérôme and Sylvie, Perec shows us how they are served by their time and place in history. With the advent of mass advertising and the concept of ‘lifestyle’, a desire for stuff and more stuff has been ignited, yet Jéröme and Sylvie are determined not to join the 9 to 5 treadmill. They want to be free but are unaware that there’s always a price to pay.

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Permanence by Sophie Mackintosh

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Permanence

An inventive and bittersweet tale of adulterous love

Clara and Francis are lovers, partners in a spectacularly ardent adultery. No strangers to the pleasure of an anonymous hotel room, they go to great lengths to conceal their affair from Francis’s wife and young daughter. One day, the hotel room they wake up in is unfamiliar to them both and they have no recollection of arriving there. In Permanence by Sophie Mackintosh, we’re spirited away to a paradisal parallel world of endless blue skies and aphrodisia, populated entirely by adulterers. Here, Clara and Francis can celebrate their love openly. Is this freedom at last or an uncanny case of be careful what you wish for?

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Backlight by Pirkko Saisio

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Backlight

The comedy of puberty

Prickly Pirkko is in opposition to everyone and everything, above all her cantankerous father and most of her teachers, with the notable exception of her Finnish teacher who seems to spot a glimmer of talent in her student’s writing. Besides, she hates puberty. She seeks out trouble, befriends the wrong kids and is all round a pain in the butt. Backlight by Pirkko Saisio is an autofictional deep dive into the author’s teenage mind which will leave you relieved those years are behind you.

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The Infamous Gilberts by Angela Tomaski

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The Infamous Gilberts

A quirky and original take on the family saga genre

A splendidly eccentric debut novel, The Infamous Gilberts by Angela Tomaski tells the story of the once illustrious Gilbert family through the eyes of their elderly retainer, Maximus. Welcoming the reader as a curious visitor, Maximus takes us to Thornwalk, the now deserted and decaying family estate, his final tour before relinquishing the keys to the inevitable luxury hotel developers. Each room, nook and discarded item he introduces us to prompts revelations of scandal, perfidy, and more than a dash of insanity; the Gilbert loves and losses set against a twentieth-century backdrop defined by the reverberations of war and the decline of the great English country house.

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The Artist by Lucy Steeds

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The Artist

A captivating quest for light and freedom

Creating a literary buzz upon publication in 2025, The Artist by Lucy Steeds dazzles amongst recent debuts. A luminous and evocative tale set in 1920s Provence, it tells the story of Joseph, an English journalist tasked with interviewing the famous, reclusive painter, Edouard Tartuffe. Joseph’s time staying with the volatile artist and his enigmatic niece, Ettie, will come to redefine all their lives in a fabulously immersive novel that manages to combine art, history, intrigue and romance, along with a stirring cameo from Peggy Guggenheim.

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The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns

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The Vet’s Daughter

Rising above it

We’re big fans of the Virago Modern Classics collection, the iconic green-spined books denoting wonderful women writers saved for posterity (and often from neglect). A personal favourite on this inspiring list is the 1959 gem, The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns, an eccentric tale tinged with melancholy and magic. Set in a rather gloomy Edwardian South London, it tells the story of a naive young woman named Alice, her confined girlhood, strange otherworldly gifts, and relationship with a father who must surely rank as one of the most monstrous parents in all literature.

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A Room Above a Shop by Anthony Shapland

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A Room Above a Shop

Love in a cold climate

An Observer Best Debut Novel of 2025 and Hay Festival Book of the Year, A Room Above a Shop by Anthony Shapland is a poignant and beautiful tale of secret love. Set in a Welsh valley town in the late 1980’s, against a backdrop of industrial decline and the emerging AIDS crisis, it tells the story of two unhappily closeted gay men, M and B (symbolically shielded by the use of only their initials). Drawn to each other one fateful evening, they begin a tentative relationship in an insular, small-town community which would shun and shame them if the truth were revealed.

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Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda

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Reservoir Bitches

A graveyard full of pink crosses

Fierce, street smart, and laced with dark humour, Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda is a literary adrenaline shot; thirteen blistering and brilliant tales of contemporary Mexican womanhood, from an activist and debut writer whose theme here is women who live with violence. With a cast of characters spanning the social scale (aging seamstress ‘spinsters’ traumatised by the degradation of their once nice neighbourhood, an impoverished young woman contemplating a lonely abortion, a wealthy narco heiress running her father’s empire), De la Cerda shows us the lengths these women will go to to survive.

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Vaim by Jon Fosse

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Vaim

A Three Sentence Miracle

One sentence books scares me. Vaim by Jon Fosse, winner of the Nobel Prize in 2024, is one of those, although to be fair, it is more like a three-sentence book, one sentence for each of its three parts. How wrong I was. In stream-of-consciousness prose Fosse hypnotises his reader with the story of invisible, middle-aged Jatgeir, his beloved wooden boat and the enigmatic Eline amongst the deep fjords of Norway’s west coast. It has an almost otherworldly feel to it this novel and a timeless, disorientating quality which is part of its magic. Ideally, this short novel should be read in one sitting. I was reading it while juggling Christmas dinners and dishwasher emptying, not the ideal context. Find yourself a quiet corner on a rainy Sunday, immerse yourself and be enthralled.

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Nature Tales for Winter Night by Nancy Campbell

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Nature Tales for Winter Nights

A lovely seasonal companion

Nature Tales for Winter Nights by Nancy Campbell is a curiously mistitled book. To the casual browser, at first glance it appears to be a short story collection, when in actuality, it’s a wintry-themed literary pick’n’mix. Almost fifty different pieces, ranging through time and genre; a lucky dip could bless the reader with a letter from Vincent Van Gogh, a passage from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, or maybe an extract from the meteorological records of an Arctic explorer. Eclectic and evocative, it makes a lovely companion for these long, dark days of the year.

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