Welcome to Issue no.2 of Dust Jackets, where Mr B’s booksellers tell you about the backlist books they have been reading.
This month, you can find out what Ed called “simply great storytelling”, which Graham Greene novel Nic declared his best, Katrina’s thoughts on a book starring a kind-hearted toad… and much more!
T. Kingfisher is a fantasy author whose reputation and following just seem to keep growing. Katrina has just gobbled up her 2023 novella Thornhedge. She said: “Forget the classic princess in a tower trope. The hero of this story is sweet Toad who is a kind-hearted and dutybound changeling raised by the magical water folk. After hundreds of years of guarding her secret, a knight arrives with the intention of cutting through the formidable Thornhedge to reach the hidden tower and potentially release the danger within.” Buy now!
You may notice a couple of new faces around Mr B’s over the next few weeks, as our latest batch of ASE interns makes themselves at home. One of these new booksellers is Macie, who has been reading Charlotte Brontë’s iconic Jane Eyre for class. She said: “What’s interesting about Jane Eyre is that it can be read in so many different ways: it is feminist in some ways, but also has some problematic tropes like the whole ‘mad woman in the attic’ thing.” Buy now!
Events manager Emma finally got round to her first Tim Winton recently, the team favourite Breath. An incredible coming-of-age novel with some of the best writing about surfing and the sea that you will ever read, she said: “Brilliant writing, fascinating characters and manages to capture the fearlessness of youth so beautifully.” And she read The Pass, a powerful western by Thomas Savage, author of The Power of the Dog, which Emma bought years ago and has been kicking herself for not reading earlier: “It’s a novel about a people’s love for the land, for wanting and hating the impending modern world in equal measure, and about community.” Buy Breath! Buy The Pass!
Nic, a.k.a Mr B, is keeping up his project of reading another Graham Greene book every year. On a recent holiday he opted for The Power and the Glory, Greene’s classic tale of a renegade priest on the run from the police in Mexico. Nic said: “It’s typical Greene: sweaty, full of great characters and people trapped in a landscape they don’t understand or fit into. It is maybe the best of his books I have read.” High praise indeed. Buy now!
Ed is best known around the shop for his unparalleled crime and mystery recommendations. But he is a bit of a graphic novel aficionado as well. He has been tucking into DC: The New Frontier, which collects legendary comic book artist Darwyn Cooke’s retro series, setting the Justice League against an alternative 1950s America, with slums, scientific discoveries and Cold War mysteries aplenty! Ed said: “This reimagining of the DC universe is just great storytelling and feels so fresh.” Buy now!
Lastly this week, a couple of recommendations from me. Having loved Nobel Laureate Han Kang’s masterful new novel We Do Not Part earlier this year, I resolved to tackle some of her back catalogue, starting with her most famous book, The Vegetarian, which won the 2016 International Booker Prize. It is seriously brilliant, disturbing and incredibly sad. What a writer she is. Another writer who had been on my list for a long time—and who proved the perfect foil to The Vegetarian—was Hiromi Kawakami. Strange Weather in Tokyo is an utter delight, telling the story of a woman who runs in to an old teacher at a sake bar and a romance begins to blossom. It’s charming, delicate and packed with wonderful food writing.
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Tom