Welcome to The Deep Read, where you can find out what Mr B’s booksellers have been reading and lots of other shenanigans. This time we find Laura GM stuck in a Dungeon of her own making, Sam gets into the minds of Nazis, recommendations from star authors, and much more!
Into the Dungeon
On Christmas morning, I looked at my book count for the year and I thought that after 150 books, I was going to treat myself to a fun Christmas read. In two days I had finished Dungeon Crawler Carl. I actually can’t remember what family members managed to make it for breakfast or whose dog ate the piece of meat lying on the counter (vague recollection that it was mine). But I can tell you everything about this cracking apocalypse series.
Carl is just a guy wearing heart-patterned boxer shorts who has let the cat outside for a wee in the middle of the night when the world ends and an Intergallactic Alien Association takes control of the planet and anyone indoors dies, leaving the planet bare.
His only options: entering a dungeon to fight to death for televised Alien entertainment or freezing to death.
As of the 20th of January I am finishing book seven and I have followed in awe Carl and Princess Donut (the best Persian cat to ever exist) as they try to 1. Stick it to the aliens 2. survive 3. become famous in Alien social media 4. Erradicate Cocker Spaniels (Princess Donut has her reasons) 5. Avoid total human mass extinction.
I recommend it if you like silly, RPG’s, videogames, fights, aliens, cats and fun. I don’t recommend it if you hate that you will have to wait for book 8 until Summer.
by Laura GM
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman is available now
The Minds of Nazis
The Holocaust is not a story of monsters, but of all-too-recognisable humanity.
While the rise to power of the Nazi party and the development and spread of Nazi ideology was specific to a time and place, many of the psychological mechanisms that the Nazis used to convince people to commit acts of bestial brutality are immutable and repeatable. The Nazi Mind is structured according to ’12 Warnings from History’: these warnings form a guide to the Fascist playbook, and a list of signs to watch out for in our present-day leaders.
The Nazis exploited cognitive biases to gain support for their policies, and to carry them out: proportionality bias, the just-world hypothesis, the sunk-cost fallacy, cognitive dissonance; all allowed the Nazis to attack human rights at home as a pretext to ignoring them abroad, to spread conspiracy theories that created scapegoats, to strip their victims of their humanity.
Combining incredible new research-including previously unpublished eye-witness testimonies of former Nazis and their supporters-with the latest research in psychology, Rees reaches beyond the ‘what’ of history to explain the ‘how’ and ‘why’, to lay bare the motivations and mentalities behind the Holocaust. An essential read for anybody who likes cross-discipline takes on apparently familiar topics, and anybody interested in the intersection of history and current affairs.
by Sam
The Nazi Mind by Laurence Rees is out in paperback on January 29.
Meet the Newmans
We can’t wait to welcome bestselling American author Jennifer Niven to Mr B’s next week to discuss her brilliant new book, Meet the Newmans. Jennifer will be here on Tuesday and her book has already been delighting our booksellers, who have decreed it the perfect next read for all those Lessons in Chemistry fans out there. Here’s what our Sue had to say about it:
“Meet your new favourite TV family! Life appears to be perfect for the Newmans. With a highly successful, long-running TV show, they have fully embraced fame and fortune. But when father Del has a mysterious accident, the family unravels as the TV company tries frantically to keep events out of the news. Set in the swinging 60’s, this is a funny and life-affirming tale of the cost of telling the truth.”
Get your tickets to our event here!
Wash Should You Read Next? Here’s Some Rhett-ommendations
This week has seen us kick off our 2026 events calendar with two brilliant book talks featuring writers from far-flung places, and we couldn’t let them leave without getting some stellar recommendations from what they’ve been reading.
On Tuesday we welcomed Rhett Davis to the shop – shortly after landing in the UK from his native Australia – to talk about his astonishing debut novel, Arborescence, a deeply thought-provoking story about a cult movement of humans who want to turn into trees.
Check out Rhett’s Rhett-omendations here!
On Wednesday we were delighted to have Bryan Washington, long time favourite author of Team B, to Bath. Bryan was joined by Bristol poet Vanessa Kisuule to talk about his National Book Award-finalist novel Palaver. Texan Bryan flew all the way from his home in Tokyo, Japan, to be with us and let us in on the brilliant fiction he’s been reading.