Waterstones, the UK Bookseller, released their yearly shortlist of this year’s best books of the year. The shortlist and award is selected by booksellers.
If you are not looking to add more books to add to your TBR shelf, then reading this shortlist is highly unadvisable, you ‘ll have a hard time tearing your eyes away from these interesting blurbs:
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Ocean: How to Save Earth’s Last Wilderness by Sir David Attenborough and Colin Butfield
From the icy oceans of our poles to remote coral islands, David Attenborough has filmed in every ocean habitat on planet earth. Now, with long-term collaborator Colin Butfield, he shares the story of our last great, critical wilderness, and the one which shapes the land we live on, regulates our climate and creates the air we breathe.
Through one hundred years, eight unique ocean habitats, countless intriguing species – and through personal stories, history and cutting-edge science – Ocean uncovers the mystery, the wonder and the frailty of the most unexplored habitat on our planet. And it shows its remarkable resilience: it is the part of our world that can, and in some cases has, recovered the fastest, and in our lifetimes we could see a fully restored marine world, even richer and more spectacular than we could possibly hope, if we act now.
It is a book almost a century in the making, but one that has never been more urgently needed. (Credit: John Murray Press)
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Universality by Natasha Brown
Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar.
An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic newspaper columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers. Through a voyeuristic lens, and with a simmering power, Universality focuses on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean.
A thrilling novel from one of the most acclaimed young novelists working today, Universality is a compelling, unsettling celebration of the spectacular, appalling force of language. It dares you to look away. (Credit: Random House)
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Donut Squad: Take Over The World! by Neill Cameron
Ever wondered what donuts get up to when they’re not being eaten?
No, because that would be silly! But it turns out, donuts have BIG PLANS FOR WORLD DOMINATION!!!
Meet Sprinkles, the leader of the Squad; Jammyboi, who spreads stickiness EVERYWHERE; Dadnut and Lil’ Timmy, who explain obscure facts, and Spronky, who is bizarrely unconventional! But don’t mention the arch-nemeses of the donuts . . . the bagels, secretly plotting Donut Squad’s doom!
Guffaws guaranteed! (Credit: David Fickling Books)
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Sunrise On The Reaping by Suzanne Collins
When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?
As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.
Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.
When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena. (Credit: Scholastic Press)
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Craftland: A Journey Through Britain’s Lost Arts and Vanishing Trades by James Fox
The story of craft is the story of who we are.
Britain has always been a craft land. For generations what we made with our hands defined our families, communities and regions. Craftland brings to life the vanishing skills, traditions and trades that shaped the fabric and governed the rhythms of everyday life in Britain for hundreds of years.
Through the stories of often humble-seeming objects of exquisite beauty, precision, utility and meaning, it shows how craft connects us to the land, emerging from local natural materials, and is the material expression of our regional identities and cultures. And through encounters with some of the last remaining master craftspeople at work today – weavers and wheelwrights, coopers and coppice-workers, boat-builders and bell-founders, silversmiths and watch-makers – we glimpse not only our past but another way of life, one that is not yet lost and whose wisdom could yet shape our future.
For as long as there are humans, there will be craft, ever evolving in response to changing technologies, environments and communities. Craftland is a celebration of that deeply necessary connection between our creative instincts and the material world we inhabit, revealing a richer and more connected way of living. (Credit: Vintage Publishing)
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The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
‘She might win the throne. She might destroy an empire. Either way, it begins with murder.’
After twenty-four years on the throne, it is time for Bersun the Brusque, emperor of Orrun, to bring his reign to an end. In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven contenders will compete to replace him.
Trained at rival monasteries, each contender is inspired by a sacred animal – Fox, Raven, Tiger, Ox, Bear, Monkey, and Hound. An eighth – the Dragon proxy – will be revealed only once the trials have begun. Eight exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists – the best of the best.
Then one of them is murdered.
It falls to the brilliant but idiosyncratic Neema Kraa to investigate. But as she hunts for a killer, darker forces are gathering.
If Neema succeeds, she could win the throne – whether she wants it or not. But if she fails, she will sentence herself to death – and set in motion a sequence of events that could doom the empire. (Credit: Hodder & Stoughton)
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Alice With a Why by Anna James
Return to Wonderland in this extraordinary reimagining of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by one of our most brilliant storytellers
England, 1919. Alyce – with a Y – lives with her grandmother, the original Alice, having lost her father during the great war. When a mysterious invitation to a tea party hits her square in the face, Alyce realises her grandmother’s strange stories of a place called Wonderland might have some truth to them after all.
But the land Alyce finds herself in feels different to the Wonderland of her grandmother’s stories – for it is trapped in its own war. The Sun King and the Queen of the Moon are fighting over a stolen hour, and soon Alyce is tasked with setting it right. With the help of the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and a Sailor Fox, Alyce will have to solve Wonderland’s problems and, eventually, find her way back home.
An enchanting adventure through Wonderland, and featuring new characters as well as old favourites, Alice With a Why is both a celebration of Lewis Carroll’s beloved original story, and a modern masterpiece. (Credit: HarperCollins Publishers)
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Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek. The story of a hero’s descent to the underworld.
Grad student Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become the brightest mind in the field of analytic magick. But the only person who can make her dream come true is dead and – inconveniently – in Hell. And Alice, along with her biggest rival Peter Murdoch, is going after him.
But Hell is not as the philosophers claim, its rules are upside-down, and if she’s going to get out of there alive, she and Peter will have to work together.
That’s if they can agree on anything.
Will they triumph, or kill each other trying? (Credit: HarperCollins)
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So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
Discover this extraordinary and beautiful novel from one of America’s greatest novelists.
In rural Illinois two tenant farmers share much, finally too much, until jealously leads to murder and suicide. A tenuous friendship between lonely teenagers – the narrator, whose mother has died young, and Cletus Smith, the troubled witness to his parent’s misery – is shattered. After the murder and upheavals that follow, the boys never speak again. Fifty years on, the narrator attempts a reconstruction of those devastating events and the atonement of a lifetime’s regret. (Credit: Vintage Publishing)
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The Cafe at the Edge of the Woods by Mikey Please
Welcome to the Café at the Edge of the Woods, the utterly charming and mesmerising new picture book from BAFTA award-winning writer Mikey Please.
Rene’s dreams have finally come true! She’s opened a café beside an enchanted wood, and with the help of a newfound waiter, Glumfoot, she is ready to serve the finest cuisine! But the locals seem to favour a most peculiar palette, requesting all sorts of disgusting things.
Can Glumfoot’s quick-thinking save the day?
Join Rene and Glumfoot in this incredible other-worldly story full of magical humour, mythical creatures and culinary curiosities. (Credit: HarperCollins)
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The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About by Mel Robbins and Sawyer Robbins
What if the key to happiness, success, and love was as simple as two words?
If you’ve ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or frustrated with where you are, the problem isn’t you. The problem is the power you give to other people. Two simple words—Let Them—will set you free. Free from the opinions, drama, and judgments of others. Free from the exhausting cycle of trying to manage everything and everyone around you. The Let Them Theory puts the power to create a life you love back in your hands—and this book will show you exactly how to do it.
In her latest groundbreaking book, The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins—New York Times bestselling author and one of the world’s most respected experts on motivation, confidence, and mindset—teaches you how to stop wasting energy on what you can’t control and start focusing on what truly matters: YOU. Your happiness. Your goals. Your life.
Using the same no-nonsense, science-backed approach that’s made The Mel Robbins Podcast a global sensation, Robbins explains why The Let Them Theory is already loved by millions and how you can apply it in eight key areas of your life to make the biggest impact. Within a few pages, you’ll realize how much energy and time you’ve been wasting trying to control the wrong things—at work, in relationships, and in pursuing your goals—and how this is keeping you from the happiness and success you deserve. (Credit: Hay House)
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Mother Mary Comes To Me by Arundhati Roy
Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy’s first work of memoir, is a soaring account, both intimate and inspirational, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her complex relationship to the extraordinary, singular mother she describes as “my shelter and my storm.”
“Heart-smashed” by her mother Mary’s death in September 2022 yet puzzled and “more than a little ashamed” by the intensity of her response, Roy began to write, to make sense of her feelings about the mother she ran from at age eighteen, “not because I didn’t love her, but in order to be able to continue to love her.” And so begins this astonishing, sometimes disturbing, and surprisingly funny memoir of the author’s journey from her childhood in Kerala, India, where her single mother founded a school, to the writing of her prizewinning novels and essays, through today.
With the scale, sweep, and depth of her novels, The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, and the passion, political clarity, and warmth of her essays, Mother Mary Comes to Me is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace—a memoir like no other. (Credit: Scribner)
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Padella: The secret to cooking iconic pasta at home by Tim Siadatan
This is the ultimate book of pasta. With over 100 recipes – all pasta – it is for pasta lovers everywhere. There are recipes for simple weeknight store-cupboard pastas, such as Spaghetti with Garlic, Capers & Black Pepper and there are recipes for mastering fresh pasta from scratch, like Ravioli of Ricotta with Sage Butter.
Padella is one of London’s most iconic fresh pasta restaurants. When they first opened in Borough Market in 2016, they put sensational pasta outside of Italy on the map thanks to iconic dishes like Beef Shin Ragu and Pici Cacio e Pepe. These delicious recipes, paired with their buzzy ambience and stylish aesthetic, saw queues around the block.
This book brings the magic of Padella into home cooking. It includes all their best loved recipes such as Tagliarini with Crab, Chilli, Lemon & Parsley, and Fettuccine with Nduja, Lemon & Mascarpone along with many off-menu favourites shared in this book for the first time. Most importantly it teaches home cooks the simple steps to take their home cooked pasta to the next level. (Credit: Bloomsbury Publishing)
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The Artist by Lucy Steeds
Provence, 1920.
Ettie moves through the remote farmhouse, silently creating the conditions that make her uncle’s artistic genius possible. Joseph, an aspiring journalist, has been invited to the house. He believes he’ll make his name by interviewing the reclusive painter, the great Edouard Tartuffe.
But everyone has their secrets. And, under the cover of darkness, Ettie has spent years cultivating hers.
Over this sweltering summer, everyone’s true colours will be revealed. Because Ettie is ready to be seen. Even if it means setting her world on fire.
An intoxicating tale of art, love and secrets set across a sun-drenched Provençal summer in 1920, Steeds’ masterly debut revolves around a fabled, reclusive painter, an aspiring British journalist set on penning a piece on him, and the artist’s seemingly unworldly niece Ettie who harbours an explosive secret.
Blending mystery and slow-burning romance with lush, cinematic prose and exquisite characterisation, The Artist is an absorbing study in monstrous egos, self-discovery and the power of art, filled with dextrous detail for the senses. (Credit: John Murray Press)
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Strange Pictures by Uketsu
An exploration of the macabre, where the seemingly mundane takes on a terrifying significance. . . .
A pregnant woman’s sketches on a seemingly innocuous blog conceal a chilling warning.
A child’s picture of his home contains a dark secret message.
A sketch made by a murder victim in his final moments leads an amateur sleuth down a rabbithole that will reveal a horrifying reality.
Structured around these nine childlike drawings, each holding a disturbing clue, Uketsu invites readers to piece together the mystery behind each and the over-arching backstory that connects them all. Strange Pictures is the internationally bestselling debut from mystery horror YouTube sensation Uketsu—an enigmatic masked figure who has become one of Japan’s most talked about contemporary authors.
- A great read for spooky-season nights
- A perfect addition to any Halloween reading list
Translated from the Japanese by Jim Rion. (Credit: HarperVia)
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