Are you looking for your next great read? Why not try out the books from across the pond? Despite from what governments say, books are essential and are needed now, more than ever. So if you are need of a variety and want to read diverse stories, then I suggest you try out some British and Irish titles!
We may have left 2021 behind, but the pain and struggles of last year are still being faced, especially independent bookstores. Continue to support indie bookstores by shopping on Bookshop.org and Hive.co.uk.
You can buy these titles from BookDepository.com, a subsidiary of Amazon. They provide free international delivery, although this is being affected right now due to the pandemic. You can also try with the British bookstore, Blackwell’s, also with Wordery.com. Now on with the recommendations!
Featured Books of the Month:
Love In Winter Wonderland by Abiola Bello
Expected Publication Date: November 10
Trey Anderson is popular and handsome, and he works at his family’s beloved Black-owned bookshop, Wonderland. Ariel Spencer is quirky, creative, and in need of a holiday temp job to cover her tuition for The Artists’ Studio. An opening at Wonderland is the answer . . . and the start of a hate-to-love journey for Trey and Ariel. When Trey and Ariel learn that Wonderland is on the brink of shutting down, can they get over their differences and team up to stop the doors from closing before the Christmas Eve deadline? (Credit: Simon & Schuster UK)
What Writers Read: 35 Writers on their Favourite Book edited by Pandora Sykes
In this love letter to reading, curated by Pandora Sykes in aid of the National Literacy Trust, bestselling and beloved writers share their favourite books: the ones they hold most dearly, that they return to time and again and that helped make them the writers they are. (Credit: Bloomsbury UK)
Murder In The Falling Snow: Ten Classic Crime Stories
It’s only the afternoon, but dusk is already falling and a log fire burning in the grate. Outside, frost coats the tree branches and snow sparkles on the ground. And somewhere in the darkness, a murderer is making plans … Here are ten classic crime stories for the winter months, from the greatest minds of the mystery genre. So bundle up, grab a glass of mulled wine, and get ready to be puzzled, astonished and entertained by these festive stories of murder and mayhem. (Credit: Profile Books)
Be Inspired!: Young Irish People Changing the World by Sarah Webb and illustrated by Graham Corcoran
Meet the inspiring young Irish people taking on the world! Award-winning author of Blazing a Trail and Dare to Dream, Sarah Webb interviews inspiring young Irish people about their amazing achievements. It’s never too early to achieve your dreams – why not start today? (Credit: O’Brien Press Ltd)
Bournville by Jonathan Coe
In the Birmingham suburb of Bournville, a family celebrate VE Day in 1945. With the joy of such an occasion there also come larger national questions about the nature of the horrific war the country has just been through. Following this family through generations as they navigate seventy-five years of drastic social change, from wartime nostalgia and English exceptionalism to the World Cup and coronavirus, domestic secrets and national myths leave characters and a country adrift, bewildered and divided. Bournville is the story of who the English are – at their worst, and best. (Credit: Penguin)
Finding Refuge by Andrea Hammel
A popular history telling the stories of people who found refuge in Wales from Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s.
Finding Refuge will resonate with those who have personal experience of similar situations, those looking to understand the refugee experience, young people investigating Welsh and European history and the stories of their ancestors, as well as the general history reader.
These are stories of child refugees, artists and doctors. Their testimonies are harrowing and sad, but also at times funny and hopeful. (Credit: Honno Welsh Women’s Press)
The Little Book of Snow by Sally Coulthard
Expected Publication Date: November 10
Is it true that no two snowflakes are ever alike? How many Christmases have actually been white? Do the Inuit have dozens of words for snow? Can it ever be too cold to snow?
Our memories and imagination are buried in snow. It’s the weather of play, joyful abandon and mischievous games – of snowball fights, skiing holidays and rattling down a hillside at full speed. It’s the weather of childhood – the world transformed into a temporary playground. Even as adults, the urge to throw a snowball is too hard to resist, those impish, childish instincts overtaking our adult workaday selves.
Packed with fascinating insights, outdoor fun, cultural lore and traditional wisdom, The Little Book of Snow delves into the history, science, literary and cultural heritage that surrounds snow, frost and ice – the perfect book for anyone who loves that feeling when you open the curtains in the morning and find the world has turned to white…(Credit: Head of Zeus)
Murder On The Christmas Express by Alexandra Benedict
Expected Publication Date: November 10
Eighteen passengers. Seven stops. One killer.
In the early hours of Christmas Eve, the sleeper train to the Highlands is derailed, along with the festive plans of its travellers. With the train stuck in snow in the middle of nowhere, a killer stalks its carriages, picking off passengers one by one. Those who sleep on the sleeper train may never wake again.
Can former Met detective Roz Parker find the killer before they kill again? All aboard for… murder on the Christmas Express.
36 Islands: In Search of the Hidden Wonders of the Lake District and a Few Other Things Too by Robert Twigger
Expected Publication Date: November 10
Robert Twigger, poet, artist and travel author, is a lover of uninhabited islands. A lifelong passion for the Lake District led him to embark on a mission to visit all 36 islands of the region – some little more than rocks, some home only to wildlife, some the perfect spot for a night of wild-camping.
Armed only with an inflatable canoe, and inspired by Arthur Ransome, Wainwright, Wordsworth and other writers of the region, he journeys beyond the tourists and the busy roads, beneath the surface, to islands both real and remembered. Here the low tide of the unconscious reveals itself through the strange flotsam that it leaves on the shore – a new sense of discovery, about himself and the world we live in. (Credit: Orion Publishing)
Saha by Cho Nam-Joo
Expected Publication Date: November 24
In a country called ‘Town’, Su is found dead in an abandoned car. The suspected killer is presumed to come from the Saha Estates.
Town is a privatised country, controlled by a secretive organisation known as the Seven Premiers. It is a society clearly divided into the haves and have-nots and those who have the very least live on the Saha Estates. Among their number is Jin-Kyung, a young woman whose brother, Dok-yung, was in a relationship with Su and quickly becomes the police’s prime suspect. When Dok-yung disappears, Jin Ky-ung is determined to get to the bottom of things. On her quest to find the truth, though, she will uncover a reality far darker and crimes far greater than she could ever have imagined.
At once a dystopian mystery and devastating critique of how we live now, Saha lifts the lid on corruption, exploitation and government oppression, while, with deep humanity and compassion, showing us the lives of those who, through no fault of their own, suffer at the hand of brutal forces far beyond their control. (Credit: Simon & Schuster UK)
The Locked Attic by B.P. Walter
Expected Publication Date: November 24
There’s something in my neighbour’s attic.
Something steeped in shadows. A secret to everyone. Seen by no one…
He stands sometimes at the window. Hidden in the corner of my eye.
I know he’s there. I know he’s watching.
Now my son is dead. My neighbour is not.
And I’m going to find out why. (Credit: HarperCollins UK)
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Some great recommendations there. Thank you!