The last full week of January is known as 'Heroic Bookseller's Week'. You didn't know? It's a month after Christmas, we've made it through a grim British January, the news is, well, you know, and the shop is looking a bit bare with all the Christmas books gone, and the shelves cleared to make way for lots of lovely new books heading our way.
But fear not citizens.
Now is the time to turn your face to the unmistakably brightening skies, roll up those sleeves up, and revisit those New Year's resolutions - particularly the ones that promised to spend less time on the Internet, get more sleep, and read more.
Your bookseller stands ready to help, hero like, having made it through the turmoil of a genuinely remarkable 2016. Now is the time to step into a bookshop and ask for our help.
So, with bookselling capes flapping in the cold Winter wind, for your delectation and delight, today we have assembled some truly heroic titles ready to combat the blues, offer alternative worlds for you to visit - and inspire you make a difference.
We are all superheroes - we just need the right book to unleash our superpower...
4321 - Paul Auster
Let's start with The Hulk - or rather, a hulking great near-1000 page magnum opus by Paul Auster. And yes, this is 'Incredible', in every sense of the word. Ostensibly it's the story of Archie Ferguson, born in Newark, New Jersey in 1947, and destined to live his life through what we might until recently, called the most momentous period of American history. Deeply autobiographical (and thus in keeping with much of Auster's other writing) the twist here is that Archie's story fragments into four separate strands, which hinges on an event which plays out in four different ways. Multiverses and multiple lives are in the zeitgeist at the moment (think Kate Atkinson's 'Life After Life', or Iain Pears' 'Arcadia') and what elevates this novel to brilliance is the quality of the writing. Seven years in the writing, this is what Mark has to say:
"I looked at the size of this book and thought 'no way', not with my TBR pile. But then I started reading and I was hooked, I cannot tell you the sheer joy of the writing, the swirl of grand themes and the way in which all four story arcs intertwine in a way that just works. The last book that pulled me in like this was 'Wolf Hall' and I can feel Auster's characters putting down deep roots inside me. The observations of the inner life of a teenage boy are both all-too-familiar and at-times heartbreaking and this book builds empathy in a way I haven't encountered since Mantel's classic. I can't recommend this book highly enough - 'the great American novel' is one of the hoariest of hoary old cliches in the publishing world, but blimey - if there's a line a novel needs to cross to be called it, this is way, way down the asymptote. Joyous, that's all I can say."
The Keeper of Lost Things - Ruth Hogan
This was described by one reviewer as 'the perfect cure for the winter blues' and we have to agree. Not only is this a beautiful book but also an imaginative and amazing story that winds its way through the lives of many people, and with lost items, a ghost and a very special girl.
One of Julia's favourites his January, she describes it as 'a joy to read, exploring the way lives are interconnected, and how one person can make a profound difference to the stories of others'. Profound and uplifting!
Moonglow - Michael Chabon
This blog is being published on Holocaust Memorial Day, and 'Moonglow' - told as a deathbed confession by an ageing Jewish American engineer - takes in the sweep of world history, from the invasion of Germany to the closing years of the 20th century.
At the heart of this story is the relationship between the protagonist's grandfather and Wernher Von Braun, architect of the Apollo Moonshot, populariser of space exploration - and Nazi war criminal whose background was swept under the carpet during the Cold War. The parallel with Auster are apparent (Chabon is drawing heavily on his own family's history) but the style is utterly different, but the writing is still sublime.
If a big, heft hardback is not your thing, three titles fresh out in paperback might be. Our bookgroup is reading ''The Noise of Time' by Julian Barnes - new out in paperback, is a sympathetic, grimly humorous yet brilliant telling of the story of Shostakovich, specifically his complex relationship with Stalin and the Soviet authorities at the end of the 1930s.
Rose Tremain's 'The Gustav Sonata' is the tale of an intense and deepening friendship between Gustav, a boy growing up in wartime Switzerland, and Anton, an only-child whose parents have big ambitions for him to be a classical pianist. But this is Switzerland in 1942, nothing is as it seems, and as if growing up isn't difficult enough, how do you handle strong feelings when the world seems to be pulling everything apart?
Finally, we loved recommending 'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' by Ben Fountain, a satirical look at the strange period in the noughties when celebrity culture, military prowess and an ability to bring regime change around the globe collide grotesquely during the Superbowl for Billy Lynn, freshly returned from Iraq as a war hero, but about to return to duty. It all feels like a lifetime away, but - with a film about to be released - it's a great opportunity to study what might just have been the seeds of the post-truth modern world?
A Quiet Kind of Thunder - Sara Barnard
It's shaping up to be another great year for YA publishing, but Imogen's gone for this refreshing twist on the opposite's attract theme.
When Rhys starts at school, he is introduced to Steffi because both of them know sign language. Rhys is deaf and Steffi has selective mutism, and this is their journey through new experiences, friendship and love. It's a wonderfully refreshing, well researched book (many of the characters nicely play against type) about two individuals trying to find their way in the world. Brilliantly written, there's an extra bonus of a guide to the basics of British Sign Language (BSL) on the end pages!
For today’s 3 4 Friday, here are some some special books to take a look at next time you are in the shop .
We're very pleased to have signed copies of the latest Julian Barnes. ‘Levels of Life’ is an intense – and intensely personal – story, written in part as a response to the death of Barnes’ own wife in 2008. Barnes tries to get to the very heart of love and grief, and opens his heart in the process.
A deeply moving book by the Booker-prize winning author of ‘A Sense of an Ending’. Email us to reserve a signed copy at £10.99.
Patrick Ness is best known for his ‘Chaos Walking’ trilogy of sci-fi novels for older children and for his Carnegie Medal winning ‘A Monster Calls’ about a boy dealing with his mother’s cancer. He has an adult novel now out ‘The Crane Wife’, a beautiful tale of life-changing love and forgiveness, with elements of fantasy and fairytale woven in.
Both sensitive and imaginative, the ever-creative Ness brings his brooding style to this tale of the arrival of a woman from nowhere who transforms everyone's lives for the better. But Kumiko is hiding dark secrets and there is a wonderfully doomed atmosphere to this bittersweet tale of the transforming power of love. We think this is a a great summer read...
Finally in Barbara Kingsolver’s ‘Flight Behaviour’ Dellarobia Turnbow thinks she has seen a miracle. Her life is soon part of a media circus and scientists with reputations to make clamouring for the story. She was witness to the unexpected migration of the monarch butterfly, but why has it suddenly become erratic?
Dellarobia ekes out a living in the Bible Belt – a life dependent on the seasons and where unpredictable and unreliable seasons are already making her precarious existence more perilous and leaving her son with no future. The explanation is there for everyone to see, but still everyone seems to grapple with the evidence.
An absorbing and entertaining story as well as a timely novel on climate change and the nature of belief. Anyone who enjoyed her much-loved ‘The Poisonwood Bible’ will recognise the brilliant way Barbara Kingsolver conveys blind belief and the inability to face up to reality...
Not since Kate Summerscale's 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher' in 2009, has my outstanding book of the year gone to a non-fiction title. I sincerely hope that Susan Cain's 'Quiet – the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking' is going to be an equally popular success and as widely read and enjoyed.
'Quiet' is an absolutely fascinating book that celebrates the world's introverts and challenges big corporations, employers in general, and teachers, to reconsider whether the relentless attempt to realise the extrovert ideal is really something to be celebrated. It is a call not to overlook the value of what introverts provide and most of all, a call for balance.
You can also read it as a self-help book – particularly if you are an introvert. It's a great insight to help to understand the value of introverts the world over and understand that by listening to your inner voice you can sometimes achieve remarkable things – even in the face of being constantly told that you should socialise more, speak out more readily and stop worrying about things like details and consequences.
I also found it fascinating to read how differently an extrovert's mind works. My understanding of how they tick and what they find stimulating and enjoyable has been a hugely valuable journey in my ability to understand other people.
It is also a history of psychology over the last century and how personality types are as prone to fashion as anything. Thus in the nineteenth century virtues such as duty were highly regarded, whereas in the twentieth century personal magnetism and ability to be gregarious and work sociably in teams have taken over as the traits we value and reward.
Susan Cain in her own quiet way has set out attempting to redress the balance. She asserts that introverts (rather than seeing themselves as 'failed extroverts') should celebrate their preference for a strong inner life and need to find occasional solitude as the only way to recharge batteries. And she finds countless examples of introverts – from high flying business executives, inspiring teachers, expert negotiators and financiers who have made their investors billions – who have found success by having the quiet strength to go their own way.
It's also a reminder to employers and teachers that anything up to half of the people they have charge of are likely to under-perform when working in big groups or offices with no private space and no time to be creatively alone.
It is being reviewed as one of the most important books for years and her research is both detailed and convincing. Hopefully it might become essential reading for introverts everywhere, but also for extroverts to perhaps understand why some of their fellows are better at coming up with ideas when left alone. And it definitely should be essential reading for anyone who has introvert children, is involved in education and training, or even involved in management and business, to help understand that many accepted practices – such as brainstorming and working in big teams - might actually be counterproductive to getting the best ideas from their most creative people and thinkers.
Interesting, insightful stuff.
My favourite novel of the year was a small, understated novel, but one that was rather special and left me thinking about it a long time afterwards.
Julian Barnes' 'A Sense of an Ending' is a terrific example of 'less is more' and how powerful it can be to leave the reader to do the thinking.
On the face of it the story belongs to an unreliable narrator, one who doesn’t appear to have a very good grasp of what's going on around him.
But as the book goes on it becomes more about how this narrator could be any of us. How many of us can possibly know the consequences of our actions as we don't have the luxury of a novelist's view of the action of our own lives.
It's a fabulously thought-provoking read that questions how successfully any of us are able to re-examine key moments in our lives, to even know what they are, how we might not only have mis-remembered everything, forgotten the rest, and may never understand the consequences of things we have done in the past.
It's a short book that you feel like immediately turning over and reading again the moment you get to the end. It was also a perfect book group read as it provoked so many different thoughts and discussions.
My favourite debut of the year was 'Tell the Wolves I'm Home' by Carol Rifka Brunt, an intricate story told from the point of view of a niece after a beloved uncle has died. It's a story of family secrets (I am rather fond of stories about family secrets) and the pain of growing up and starting to see the world how it really is. And it's about how, however hard we try, we don't always do the best thing for those who are closest to us.
I loved its quiet good sense and unpeeling of layers of family silence. And I felt the quiet tragedy of how from spending every moment playing together as children, how difficult it is to retain that closeness with siblings as we grow up.
I also like a debut with a good publishing story. 'Tell the Wolves I'm Home' was rejected by 50 agents over five months before Carol Rifka Brunt finally got three offers in the same week. Definitely a case of it all being about it landing on the desk of that person who is going to be able to relate to what you are writing.
I think my favourite event of last year was with crime-fiction author Ann Cleeves and I did take great pleasure from her latest novel 'The Glass Room', for just being so thoroughly enjoyable. It was a classic murder mystery, set in an isolated house, where a group of writers, bringing all their ego and envies to a weekend course that ends in a murder. Beautifully atmospheric and very engrossing.
She is very good indeed and to be recommended to anyone who enjoys well-plotted crime fiction with believable characters.
Spies seem to be back in vogue – lots to enjoy in 2012 and looking forward to 2013. But my favourite spy book was William Boyd's 'Waiting for Sunrise', which is a terrific tale of a man who becomes a spy by accident. It's a pacy story, with some great plot twists, but all told with Boyd's wonderful observant character detail.
I always think his women characters are particularly strong and can't wait to see the result now he has been commissioned to write the next Bond novel...
My two favourite children’s books of the year were both contemporary stories, slightly out of odds with the current popularity of dystopian futures and fantasy, perhaps.
The heroine in 'Wolf Princess' by Cathryn Constable seizes a chance to go on a school trip to Russia, something she has always felt drawn to doing.
When things don't go according to plan, Sophie and her two friends are happy enough to stay in a crumbling palace as a guest of a real-life princess. The descriptions of the faded glory and bullet holes in the walls as a constant reminder of revolution are never far from the girl's minds, even as they enjoy sumptuous clothes and fabulous skating parties.
But all is not as it seems and danger is not all over and done with in the past. It's an atmospheric story with a hint of the fairytale about it, and a mystery at its heart.
My second choice 'I’ll be There' by Holly Goldberg Sloan was another debut, one that on the face of it looks like a standard teen romance. But an unexpected plot soon seizes you and it becomes a tale of survival, ending more as a modern fable about what families can mean.
While on the subject of children’s books I can't not mention the fabulous ‘Quest of the Gods’ series by Dan Hunter. It's a young reading series featuring Egyptian gods and it was really the first series my eight-year-old was reading which such enthusiasm and demanding the next in the series, as well as astounding me with his new-found knowledge about Egyptian gods.
Of course, as I write this I can think of plenty of other books that really deserved a mention, but my reading pile is as big as ever and I can’t wait to start discovering my favourite reads of 2013.
(For part 1 of our favourites of the year, click here to view Ellie's picks from 2012)
Tomorrow (Saturday June 30) is the start of Independent Booksellers Week, an annual celebration of everything that is good about independent bookshops, independent shops in general and - ultimately - the importance of vitality and diversity on our high streets.
This year, several publisher have made exclusive limited editions available to independent bookshops, and we would urge you - wherever you live in the UK and Ireland - to seek out your local independent bookshop, and find out what events and hand-picked recommendations they have coming up in the next week - and beyond.
For today's '3 4 Friday' selection, we've picked three of the exclusives available through indies this year - and several can be found on our Special Buys page on the blog.
Firstly, Antony Beevor's 'The Second World War' will vie with Max Hastings' recent publication to be the definitive single-volume account of World War Two.
In some ways this is the book that Beevor was destined to write, with previous books such as Stalingrad and Berlin - published to critical acclaim and commercial success - honing a style that brings a soldier's eye to the realities of battle strategy, with a compelling writing style that is well suited to a huge canvas.
The limited first editions are specially produced and signed by the author. We think it makes an excellent gift - and deserves a place on the bookshelf - for anyone interested in 20th century history.
Next up is a limited edition re-issue of an absolute classic, and a great example of someone who completely reinvented themselves in the process from ageing rocker to new-age farmer and author. Chris Stewart, erstwhile original drummer with Genesis, upped sticks, took his family out to a remote region of Spain, and attempted to ingratiate himself with the locals to mixed, sometimes poignant but eventual success.
'Driving Over Lemons' is funny, in parts outrageous - and is a book which led the way for many memoirs about restarting in another culture. But its success was less the subject matter and more a genuine talent for autobiography which we think everyone can read and find uplifting.
And finally, following recent bookgroup discussions of 'A Sense of an Ending', we definitely have a Julian Barnes appreciation society underway at Mostly Books, so how exciting to be able to have a special, indie collectable exclusive in the form of a £1.99 essay entitled 'A Life with Books'?
Barnes is a novelist who can touch on many things - emotions, the nature of reality - with just a few words, or a vignette, and in this lightly written love letter to reading, he gets to the heart of what it means to have a life lived in books, and what impact the right books can have on your life.
I can think of no better book to celebrate independent bookseller's week with - and we hope you can celebrate with your local indie over the next dew days!
