Welcome to Insider Reading, where the booksellers of Mr B’s give you the lowdown on new and future releases. We are very lucky as booksellers to get to read books ahead of publication.

So here is a behind-the-scenes peek into what some of our booksellers are already raving about for the months ahead…

Sôffi has recently been struck by two books by authors we have coming up for events in the months ahead. The first of which is sure to delight any of Sôffi’s regular followers, as our resident dystopian fiction addict – the new novel from Deb Olin Unferth, intrugingly titled Earth 7 (July 16th). Sôffi says:

“One woman grows up in a pod under the sea, another other on land, often mistaken for a robot. In a depopulated planet full of sand, tech, tardigrades and few people, can a molecular code be the answer to humanity’s future away from Earth, and is it worth saving anyway?

Earth 7 is a beautiful, optimistic and strange piece of speculative science fiction that ponders what we’re losing, and what the earth might be without us. It’s slippery, profound and often funny. For fans of Ursula le Guin, Jeff Vandemeer and more recently Aerth and In Ascension.”

Don’t miss Deb Olin Unferth’s visit to Mr B’s on Thursday 16th July.

Sôffi has also quickly devoured the latest novel by Team B favourite author, Tahmima Anam, titled Uprising (May 21st), and says:

“Inspired by the real women of Banishanta, Bangaldesh, Uprising is a fiercely told story of female subjugation and power. On an isolated island that is slowly being drowned by the surrounding rivers, a rebellion ignites amongst a community of sex workers. 

This is a dark, unflinching tale whose beating heart is Kusum Khan, a young woman forcibly bought to slavery, who leads the charge against their exploitation.

Told from the perspectives of the female children living on the island, alternating with the mothers, their madam, and the men who visit them, this choral novel sings the songs of resistance and defiance. A story I won’t be forgetting any time soon.”

You can catch Tahmima Anam at Mr B’s for an event on 3rd June

Nethmi has been raving about Livonia Chow Mein (May 21st) by Abigail Savitch-Lew, a multi-perspective, multigenerational tale of one Brooklyn neighbourhood. Nethmi says:

“Rookie journalist Sadie Chin jumps at the chance to cover the Brownsville beat, keen to leave her gentrified home in Park Slope and get sucked into what she believes is the “real” America. But when she discovers that her grandfather, Richard Wong, is suspected to have set fire to two buildings he rented out on Livonia Avenue, Sadie decides to find out what really happened on that fateful day in 1978. 

Meanwhile, lifelong community organiser Lina Rodriguez Armstrong is determined to build a community centre in Brownsville. She’s grown up in the neighbourhood, watched it thrive and falter, rise to protest and be crushed by the government, the police, and the drugs rampant in the streets. But now is her chance to get her beloved Brownsville back on track to becoming its own sovereign state with the community’s best interests at heart. So, when an outsider comes sniffing around for stories, Lina is suspicious. And when she realises this outsider is a descendent of the very man who ruined her Freedom School, Lina is livid.

As these two women come face to face in the present day, another story unfolds in the past: that of Chinese immigrant Koon Lai, who comes to America in search of a new life and opens a Chinese restaurant on Livonia Avenue…

A layered and gripping story about immigration, the American Dream, gentrification, and community. Perfect for fans of Real Americans and Everything I Never Told You.“

Ever the eclectic reader, Tom M has veered between Deborah Levy’s My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein (April 16th) and Eric Cantona’s 82 Goals by Valentin Deudon (June 11th), and says:

“Levy’s narrator is spending a few months in Paris as she prepares to write an essay on that most legendary writer of limited appeal, Gertrude Stein. A huge supporter of early Surrealist artists and the mother of expat writers in the French capital in the early 20th century, Stein has always been a source of fascination for me; the way she welcomed young artists into her salon; her role as a guide in the work of Hemingway and Fitzgerald; her frustrations at her own limitations as a writer. What better person than the unparalleled Levy to tour us around Paris in the company of this literary icon? A blend of fiction, travelogue, biography and memoir, it is undeniably brilliant and surely a contender for the Goldsmiths Prize and possibly the Booker Prize too.

From an English writer in Paris, to a French poet talking about English football… For football fans between about 40 and 50 years old, Eric Cantona holds a special place in our hearts. He was the icon of early Premier League football, lighting up stadiums throughout the country with his skill, baffling reporters with his poetry, karate kicking the odd supporter here and there for good measure. In Eric Cantona’s 82 Goals, Valentin Deudon takes us through each goal the great enigma scored for Manchester United, and in doing so tells the story of Premier League football before it became fully devoted to foreign money and cynicism. This unorthodox football book hits the same mark as going through your old Merlin sticker albums, taking in the glamour of Giggsy and Becks, as well as the workhorses like Bruce and Ince, while reminding us of the fleeting and forgotten brilliance of Lee Sharp and Andrei Kanchelskis along the way. A treasure for footy fans who like their sports writing with a side order of Rimbaud.”

Charlotte has found herself gripped by Little Wild (June 25th) by Laura Evans, a delightfully untamed gothic sapphic debut. She says:

“In 1937, amidst a blistering heatwave that scorches the Suffolk countryside, preparations are underway for a lavish party at Snare House. The Winthers have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of their daughter Joanie, who is back from a trip to Europe, unaware that she and her closest friend Margaret have other plans. They are in love, planning to flee to London together, and they won’t let anything stand in their way. But with the threat of exposure and the possibility of exile in their futures, Margaret soon realises that brandishing her own inner wildnerness may be the only way to get what she wants…”

As for myself, I of course took far too many books with me on a recent holiday, and made it only through half of them, but one particularly struck me: Under Water by Tara Menon (March 12th), a striking debut for 2026:

After losing her mother at a young age, Marissa’s father, a marine biologist, takes them to live in Thailand, on a little island where they can continue her mother’s work researching manta rays. It’s here she instantly befriends Arielle, and the two spend their days kayaking to distant coves, diving through coral reefs, seeing who can hold their breath the longest, exploring forests and finding hidden treehouses, and getting secret matching bird tattoos. But when the Boxing Day tsunami hits, Marissa’s life is forever altered. 

The novel is interspersed with chapters set in 2012 where we see snapshots of Marissa’s life in New York as Storm Sandy approaches – one that the city and its people are prepared for, unlike the tsunami. But Marissa is struggling to leave the past behind, and the island with its wealth of natural beauty and wildlife, that she once called home. 

This is a beautiful but incredibly heartbreaking read. It’s the way Menon really brought to life the beauty of the island, and the kind of life-changing friendship that’s difficult to let go of, that I loved the most.

I also have to mention that I’m part way through the glorious Villa Coco (June 9th) by Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Sean Greer, who has set out to actively write a “charming novel”, and let me tell you – he has succeeded! Set in the beautiful Tuscan hills, Villa Coco follows a young man fresh out of college in America, who finds himself taking up a job as an archiver to catalogue the contents of a crumbling mansion of a baroness. But what ensues, is a series of madcap events, an array of fascinating characters from bohemian painters to elderly princesses, that leave our narrator wondering just what he’s got himself involved in. I haven’t laughed out loud at a book like this in many years, and I predict big things for Villa Coco – its charm, wit and heart is sure to be a food for the soul for us all this summer.

Thanks for reading.

Emma