Heron’s Booker – 5 August 2023

The Booker’s Dozen was announced this week and my tip for the winner is North Woods by Daniel Mason. Unfortunately, the judges don’t feel the same way; it’s not on the longlist. Fortunately, you can preorder it from us here. I try not to talk too much about getting advance copies of titles because you probably don’t want a recommendation for something that you can’t read yet. But I do have an early copy of this one, delivered by a wonderfully excited, almost-skipping publisher, and I assure you that you will want a copy too come 19^th September.

I won’t embarrass myself by offering an actual tip for the Booker. I will say that I continue to think Study for Obedience is superb; if you like the feeling of being unsettled by a place and of unreliable-narrator-induced whiplash then you will agree. I am also looking forward to reading How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney, a novel set in the west of Ireland about a boy who wants to build a perpetual motion machine, and to reading The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, an intricate tragicomedy about a family in crisis, about grief, rivalry, self-sabotage and the hopes and nightmares induced by comparing life with fairytale.

Meanwhile two other novels are dominating my thoughts this week:

Take What You Need by Idra Novey follows Jean in her quest to make metal sculptures, spurred on by the art of Louise Bourgeois, and Leah, her estranged but beloved stepdaughter. Set in the Appalachian Mountains, it manages both to question whether we can ever really know another person and to assure the reader that some people know each other no matter how much time has passed since they last spoke.
Idol Burning by Rin Usami, translated by Asa Yoneda, is ostensibly about obsession, obsession that’s turned up to eleven. And while it is about that and about celebrities and fame and social media, it is more. I found it deeply moving. At its heart is a young woman who doesn’t know how to get things ‘right’; she tries to do things the way family and teachers tell her to but she cannot and no one gives her the space to understand why.

There is so much excellent poetry being written and performed right here in Bristol. On 19^th August, we will showcase eight such poets in the shop. To meet your poetry needs before then, Mary Jean Chan’s new collection Bright Fear is in the shop now. There are three sections, each of which contain more feeling than I knew you could muster in so few words. A taster from the middle section, Ars Poetica:

Offer a translation your life can bear.

Revisit poems that spark mysterious

doorways in the mind and glistening

eyes. Let ink seep into what you hear.

I’ve followed Catherine Taylor’s lucid and engaging book reviews for some time. Moving from critic to critiqued must be rather fraught, I imagine. Her debut The Stirrings: A Memoir in Northern Time pulls it off with aplomb: you can feel the Sheffield rain and see the grey streets which she leaves behind when cutting school. Her story is a personal and a political one, an extraordinary and a quotidian one – a woman coming of age in a patriarchal world in chaos.

Material World by Ed Conway is a fascinating examination of the six materials crucial to our history and our future: salt, sand, iron, copper, oil and lithium. Conway travels the world to explore the journey of these materials, demonstrating why they are more important than ever and how the battle to control them will shape the future.

Our children’s section is absolutely teeming with new titles to occupy those enjoying this glorious summer.*

One of our windows is currently stuffed with our favourite new 9-12 titles, including Wolf Road by Alice Roberts, the much anticipated story about a prehistoric girl seeking adventure outside of her tribe. It is illustrated by Keith Robinson and we have a few very special signed copies.

If you are searching for activity inspiration, Ten-Word Tiny Tales by Joseph Coelho is a work of miniature genius. Each of the brief stories in this compendium and the accompanying wild illustrations are full of such creativity that you (and/or any children you are entertaining) will want to try imagining how the stories could unravel or writing your own.

Finally, we have a new favourite picture book: Nabil Steals a Penguin by Nishani Reed and illustrated by Junissa Bianda. It’s about a penguin who escapes the zoo after discovering how delicious biryani rice is. So, essentially a book featuring two of my favourite things.

*Glorious in the sense of rainy i.e. perfect reading weather.