Heron Books

I read a 700-page novel so that I can insist you should too. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai is so good that it is a struggle to emerge. Like Sonia’s mother, one wants to remain in its pages: ‘When Dickens is better than your life, then why live your life?’ she wonders. (Sonia has a ready answer though it goes unuttered.)    From Vermont where she is studying, Sonia calls her parents crying. She is lonely. Her family in India, never physically alone, do not empathise. But they do scheme: perhaps, her grandfather thinks, she should be introduced to the grandson of a friend of his,…

‘What is the purpose of your visit?’ Lea Ypi is asked repeatedly as she tries to enter countries and archives. Fun, she tries on one official, to little mirth in response. Personal research. Academic inquiry. Dignity, perhaps. At the start of Indignity, Ypi asks a taxi driver in Tirana to take her to the secret-service archive. (He does. Must try that sometime.) There she has permission to view documents relating to her grandmother, Leman, a woman whom she admired and loved, from whom she learned compassion and morality and about whom she perhaps knew little. This realisation was sparked by a photo posted on social media of her grandparents, ostensibly…

Autumn is here and the pleasing scents of pumpkin lattes and fresh paper must have gone to publishers’ heads for the number of books out this week is, in the best possible way, overwhelming. All-Consuming, fans of Ruby Tandoh may say. Espionage thrillers, epic art and history books, folklore- and mythology-inspired adventure stories and even a picture book called Harry and the Heron have all flown to the shop. How on earth does one plan one’s reading when unpacking such boxes of delights? I am not able to help anyone decide between The Hunt for the Fog Town Moose, a quest to photograph a master-of-disguise in a foggy town, or…

All good things this week in many forms, from poetry to short stories to a novel, from a picture book about broccoli as well as goodness (as if those are not synonymous), to a board book teaching sign language, to a memoir about mother Mary (not that one). A little evil, a little naughtiness, a little silliness herewith too. The Greatest Possible Good by Ben Brooks opens with a family in their historic, tastefully modernised, Cotswold house eating a meal together but apart, its members focussed on a book, a podcast, a phone screen and an unsettled housefly rather than each other. Evangeline’s attempts to make her father read her…

I write this sitting at the kitchen table.* This table once belonged in my parents’ kitchen. It hosted meals and art classes and filing sessions (don’t ask; there always seemed to be a lot of filing). It held roast dinners, steaming gravy boats, a jar of mint sauce with a story I’m not allowed to tell you,** cooling cakes, bubbling crumbles, Peter Rabbit plates and the perfect cup from which to drink hot Ribena. One day the comfortable pine table was replaced by my grandmother’s mahogany one. It was round instead of rectangular. It was heavy and somehow you couldn’t sit at it without banging your leg. It was too…

You may not have known that you want to spend your weekend reading a comprehensive study of social patterns and cultural values in twenty-first century Britain but, trust me, you do. Welcome to Anthropology Unit 1. Please open your textbook, Bougie Babies Boss Brunch. Harriet Evans and illustrator Kim Faria have captured something deep, something authentic: the import of that first babyccino (first of the day, that is, following too much fun at that playgroup*) and the significance of a trip to the farmer’s market. It is imperative to meet different characters and places through a book but sometimes one needs to see oneself. All those babies cuddling cavapoos and…

Through the balloon arch to see the magic: a puppet show, clowns, a haunted house, a tunnel of love, a hot chocolate stand, egg hunts, confetti cannons, an actual cannon, book launches, stand-up shows, karaoke and even a tour of the toilets. No, it’s not The Heronry. It’s Jen Calleja’s Fair. Welcome. A book fair, an art fair, a fabulously fun fair. Your tour guide, ensuring that you don’t miss a thing though she does everything at the speed of a spinning, stormy teacup, is Calleja herself, poet, novelist, essayist and translator. Also, punk drummer, singer and maker of tiny salt dough models of pretzels. Just go with it. Fair…

Last week we enjoyed a late-night party here in the shop. By late, I mean past 8pm. By a party, I mean a stock take. By enjoyed, I mean enjoyed. Here is what I learnt. There are 6144 books for sale in the shop. We know that because we scanned each one. The scanners are not designed for left-handers. Harry and I are both left-handed. We feel personally and dextrously attacked.* Making separate piles as one goes of ‘things I intend to read next’ is not helpful. It is hazardous. Add twisted ankles to the list of already-known stock take injuries: tennis elbow and Funny Bones.   Someone does not…

I wrote last week with recommendations for entertainment over the summer holiday. But it is back to school and lacrosse sticks at dawn in Rebecca Wait’s new novel, set in a boarding school comparable to St Trinian’s in disorder, derangement and exam results ranking. Welcome to St Anne’s. Avoid the fish pie, if you can. Don’t take any advice from the English teachers. Do break a leg in the school play – it’s the safest way out. It is mayhem. It is chaos. It is Havoc. The History teacher has died doing what she loved, preparing for a lesson on the Diet of Worms, and her replacement is dubious. The…

The summer holidays are here and, in case you find yourself with a greater-than-average number of hours in which to entertain smaller-than-average people, we are here to help. If you are reading this and packing to go away, I suspect you are going to need a heftier-than-average suitcase for all those books. If you are staying at home, don’t forget to carry a stronger-than-average tote bag crammed with reading material. (And a spare to fill with more.) Those of you who know how much we loved Torla and Smorla and The Lower than Average Cloud may already have surmised that a new episode in the life of these giraffes has…