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Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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Demon Copperhead

Down and out in Opioidland

Updating one of Charles Dickens’ iconic novels is a brave thing to do. In Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver we get squalor, poverty and destitution worthy of the master himself, set in modern day America during the opioid crisis. Damon Field aka Demon Copperhead’s story is one of resilience in a society where everything is stacked against someone like him; his mixed race, poverty, his mother’s addiction, the education system, the list goes on. The shocking realisation is how little things have changed since 1850, which is precisely Kingsolver’s point.

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The Thames and the Tide Club by Katya Balen

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The Thames and Tide Club

5-8 years

A gleefully imaginative mudlarking adventure

For the unitiated, mudlarking is the practice of combing river banks for interesting artefacts that may have washed ashore. For Clem and her friends, it’s treasure-hunting and story-finding, and in The Thames and Tide Club by Katya Balen, we join them at a time of chaos and calamity on London’s famous river. Only the young mudlarkers can save the day, in an aquatic adventure that will see them encountering pirates, a ballgowned porpoise named Barbara, and an underwater branch of the famous department store, Shellfridges.

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Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh

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Cursed Bread

A beguiling and erotically charged mystery

Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh is a wonderfully enigmatic and mesmerising read, by an author whose presence sings from the Granta Best Young British Novelists 2023 list. An acknowledged purveyor of disquieting fiction, here Mackintosh introduces us to Elodie, a frustrated baker’s wife in post-war provincial France. Spending her days mired in gossip and domesticity, the bored young woman is ripe for seduction. It comes in the form of a dashing young ambassador and his wife, the beautiful and damaged Violet, their arrival heralding a sultry, sexy summer, and a rash of darkly peculiar goings on.

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Different for Boys by Patrick Ness

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Different for Boys

Teen/Young Adult

A perceptive and empathic LGBTQ+ read

Ant Stevenson is finding life complicated. As a 15-year-old boy who likes boys, the questions are piling up and there don’t seem to be any answers. We join him in Year 11 as he navigates changing friendships and the thorny topics of masculinity, sexuality, and internalised homophobia. With warmth, relatability and personal insight, Different for Boys by Patrick Ness helps Ant (and us) unpick the issues.

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A Little Life

A profoundly moving novel about friendship in the twenty-first century

The hottest play in London at the moment! If you can’t get hold of a ticket. The book will do just fine! Here’s our review. Enjoy.

When I was given a copy of this much-lauded, lengthy book at the beginning of the summer my heart sank slightly. I’d read so much hype about this challenging blockbuster novel that I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to read it. A close friend put me off further by declaring that she had given up half way through as she found it too gruelling and unrelenting. However, relaxing on holiday in sleepy Somerset, I braced myself and began what turned out to be an exhausting and harrowing yet profoundly moving novel.

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Love Leda by Mark Hyatt

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Love Leda

An evocative and unforgettable tale of bygone gay London

Predating the decriminalisation of gay sex in 1967 and never before published, Love, Leda by Mark Hyatt is a lost gem of urban gay literature. By turns, audacious and affecting, Hyatt’s semi-autobiographical novel gives us a handful of days in the company of Leda, depressed narcissist and self-proclaimed ‘social bum’. Leda spends his days (and heady nights) searching for something beyond the greyness of an early 1960’s London that has yet to become groovy. A captivating read, it brilliantly chronicles an unapologetic adventurer and a bygone London.

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Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi

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Diary of a Void

Cleverly surreal Japanese tale of motherhood and deception

Shibata is 34-years-old and works in the paper core manufacturing industry (that’s cardboard tubes to you and me). As the only woman in her office, Shibata is eternally put-upon by her chauvinistic colleagues, who expect her to be the coffee maker and general dogsbody. One day, in a fit of pique, she falsely announces that she’s pregnant and therefore too nauseous to deal with dirty coffee cups. In Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi, we’re in for the full nine months, as Shibata learns to love sitting with her feet up, and the lies spiral out of control.

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A Girl In Winter by Philip Larkin

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A Girl in Winter

A quiet, sad, and often beautiful read

Set in wintry wartime England, A Girl in Winter by Philip Larkin is a reflective tale of lost innocence and disappointment. The titular girl is twenty-something librarian, Katherine Lind, a refugee living in an unnamed provincial town, where the harsh winter is threatening to become a state of mind. Memories of her first visit to England, a girlhood interlude with her penpal, Robin Fennel, contrast bitterly with her current lonely situation, but when fate causes Robin to resurface, memory and expectation play their usual sly tricks.

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You Don't Know What War is by Yeva Skalietska

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You Don’t Know What War Is

11-13 years

A unique eyewitness account

As we approach the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the media spotlight has occasionally dimmed. Published in association with the UN Refugee Agency, You Don’t Know What War Is by Yeva Skalietska serves as a heartfelt reminder, while offering young readers a window into the war through the eyes of a child. Yeva’s diary documents the early days of the invasion in her home city of Kharkiv, and her escape to safety, often via the kindness of strangers. Supplemented with photos, verbatim text messages from her left-behind friends, and news headlines, it’s a humbling read.

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Glowrushes by Roberto Piumini

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Glowrushes

8-11 years

A profound and beautiful celebration of art and storytelling

Published here in English for the first time, Glowrushes by Roberto Piumini is an enchanting classic of Italian children’s literature. Set in Turkey in bygone days, it tells the tale of an acclaimed artist, Sakumat, who has been summoned to the palatial home of a young invalid named Madurer. Stricken with a mysterious illness, Madurer is doomed to a short life within the confines of his windowless bedchambers. It will be Sakumat’s task to bring him the outside world via the magic of his paintbrush. What follows is a rich and affecting celebration of art, storytelling and friendship.

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