The End of the Year Book Tag
I’ve been feeling a little burnt out after Novellas in November, so when I spotted this on Laura’s blog I thought it might be just the thing to help me sort through my December reading plans while I wait to get my reviewing mojo back.
- Is there a book that you started that you still need to finish by the end of the year?
Yes … too many. Pictured are a dozen 2024 releases, a mixture of review copies and library books, that I still hope to get through. Some of them I’m a good way into; others I’ve barely started. (Not shown: All Fours by Miranda July, from NetGalley on my Kindle; and Nine Minds by Daniel Tammet, which I’ll be assessing for Foreword Reviews.)
- Do you have an autumnal book to transition to the end of the year?
Autumn is the hardest season for me to assign reads to. I’m already in winter mode, so it’s more likely that I’ll pick up one or a few of these wintry or Christmassy books.
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Is there a release you are still waiting for?
Published last week and on my Kindle from Edelweiss: the poetry collection Constructing a Witch by Helen Ivory. Otherwise, it’s on to January and February releases for my paid reviewing gigs.
- Name three books you want to read by the end of the year.
From the stack above, I haven’t properly started Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel or opened Fire Exit by Morgan Talty, and I’m still hoping to read those two review copies in their entirety. I will also try to squeeze in at least one more McKitterick Prize novel entry.
But I also have up to five 2025 releases to read for paid reviews that would be due early in January.
Over the holidays, I fancy dipping into some lighter fiction, cosy and engaging creative nonfiction, and thought-provoking but readable science and theology stuff. Here are some options I pulled off of my bedside table shelves.
- Is there a book that could still shock you and become your favourite of the year?
Small Rain by Garth Greenwell and Dispersals by Jessica J. Lee are both very promising. I’m nearly 1/3 into the Greenwell (it’s my first time reading him) and I’m so impressed: this is patently autofiction about a medical crisis he had during the pandemic, but there is such clarity and granular detail that it feels absolutely true to the record yet soars above any memoir he might have written about the same events. He’s both back in the moment and understanding everything omnisciently. Greenwell has also written poetry, and I was reminded of the Wordsworth quote “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.”
I’ve only read the first chapter of the Lee so far, but I’m a real fan of her hybrid nature memoirs and I think the metaphorical links between her life and plants will really work.
- Have you already started making reading plans for 2025?
So far I’ve read something like 11 books with 2025 publication dates, most of them for paid reviews. I will feature some of those soon. I’ve also compiled a list of my 20 Most Anticipated releases of 2025 and will post that early in January.
Apart from that, I expect it will be the usual pairs of contradictory goals: reading ahead (2025 stuff) versus catching up (backlist and my preposterous set-aside shelf); failing to resist review copies and library holds versus trying to read more from my own shelves; reading to challenges and themes versus preserving the freedom to pick up books as the whim takes me.
Speaking of themes, I fancy doing a deep dive into the senses, especially the sense of smell, which particularly intrigues me. (I’ll make it a trio with The Forgotten Sense: The New Science of Smell—and the Extraordinary Power of the Nose by Jonas Olofsson, which will be published on 7 January and is on order for me at the library.)
Love Your Library, November 2024
Thanks to Eleanor (here and here) and Marcie for posting about their recent library reading!
New at my library this month: lacemakers sitting and working at their craft at two designated tables, with examples of finished work behind them. I was intrigued by their round wooden boards, almost like artists’ palettes, holding various pins and threads. Apparently if you can crochet you can tat lace. I didn’t know that we had a local lacemaking tradition in Newbury. On travels elsewhere, e.g. Nottingham, I have seen it more prominently mentioned as part of a city’s history. During my Tuesday volunteering the other week, a patron made a point of coming up to me and saying how nice it was to see them there.
The only thing that tarnished the experience for me, as with some other things I’m involved with (Repair Café especially), is that the participants are overwhelmingly over 50 – probably most of them over 70, in fact. Such skills and crafts are going to die out unless they’re being passed on to younger generations. This is not arcane knowledge to be admired but essential human culture to be preserved. Art is always of value for its own sake. We have never needed a ‘make do and mend’ mindset more, yet we are consuming and disposing as if there is no tomorrow. I need to bring up again with the Repair Café coordinators how we might get younger people apprenticed to skilled volunteer repairers to start this process.
Anyway, back to libraries. That day, one member of staff went over to a lacemaker and apologized that it was about to get noisy with Rhyme Time (a singing session for babies and toddlers with their parents and carers), which seemed like a great juxtaposition that shows the range of activities the library system supports.
My library use over the last month:
I’ve been catching up on the Booker Prize shortlist and reading loads of novella-length works.
READ
- The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke
- Without Ever Reaching the Summit: A Himalayan Journey by Paolo Cognetti
- James by Percival Everett
- A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand
- Orbital by Samantha Harvey
- What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher
- Heartstopper: Volume 5 by Alice Oseman (a reread)
- Playground by Richard Powers
- Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
+ picture books Pete the Cat Saves Christmas and The Twelve Cats of Christmas
SKIMMED
- Barcode by Jordan Frith
- A Nature Poem for Every Winter Evening by Jane McMorland Hunter
- A Thousand Feasts by Nigel Slater
- Dinner by Meera Sodha
CURRENTLY READING
- Interlunar by Margaret Atwood
- Life before Man by Margaret Atwood
- A Beginner’s Guide to Dying by Simon Boas
- Small Rain by Garth Greenwell
- Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World by Pádraig Ó Tuama
- The Place of Tides by James Rebanks
- Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
- The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Thériault
- The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- The Second Coming by Garth Risk Hallberg (audiobook)
- Dexter Procter: The 10-Year-Old Doctor by Adam Kay
- Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging by Jessica J. Lee
RETURNED UNREAD
- Rosarita by Anita Desai
- Bellies by Nicola Dinan – Requested off me; will try another time.
- Bothy by Kat Hill – Have had it out twice and not managed to open it; maybe I should wait and take it away to a Scottish island.
- What Does It Feel Like? by Sophie Kinsella
- Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan
The three not explained were borrowed for #NovNov24 with the best of intentions, but I don’t think they actually appeal to me (for very different reasons).
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio – Subpar.
- How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair – Too long and involved (and such small print!) for a busy month. Will try another time.
What have you been reading or reviewing from the library recently?
Share a link to your own post in the comments. Feel free to use the above image. The hashtag is #LoveYourLibrary.
A New Chapter in My McKitterick Prize Judging
For the past four years, I have been a judge for the McKitterick Prize, one of various awards administered by the Society of Authors (the UK trade union for writers). Since 1990, this Prize has been given to a debut novelist aged 40+. It’s unique in that it considers unpublished manuscripts as well as published novels – Tom McKitterick, who endowed the prize, was a former Political Quarterly editor and left an unpublished novel at his death. The overlapping Paul Torday Memorial Prize (for debut authors of 60+) closed last year, so this is one of just two prizes I know of for authors OVER a certain age, the other being the RSL Christopher Bland Prize, which is for fiction or nonfiction.
In 2021–24, my role was helping to whittle down the unpublished manuscripts, which then joined the traditionally published novels for judging. For 2025, I’m delighted to announce that I’m one of the judges assessing the published material (this includes self-published books). The opportunity came about by happenstance, really. I realized that I hadn’t heard from the SoA lately and assumed they didn’t need me this year, but e-mailed in case and learned that a judge had just had to bow out, leaving a space for me. It feels like a big step up as judging ‘proper books’ – by which I mean published, and in print format – for a literary prize is a longstanding ambition of mine.
My first shipment arrived on Thursday and I’ve already gotten stuck into my first two reads. I didn’t take a look at the list before the parcel was delivered so I could have the fun of unboxing surprises. Four of the submissions are ones I (secretly) predicted, and I recognized another six titles. The rest are new to me. I likely won’t be able to share more about the process or any of my reading until after the shortlist in May and/or the winner announcement in June at the annual SoA Awards ceremony. My hope is that I will find lots of gems so the task never turns tedious. Longlist choices are due in March, so I’m going to be busy over the next few months! I pulled out a notebook I won in a giveaway on Cathy’s blog to act as a repository for my notes and thoughts. I’m excited to see what themes emerge and encounter some debut novelists the world needs to hear about.
#NovNov24 Halfway Check-In & Small Things Like These Film Review
Somehow half of November has flown by. We hope you’ve been enjoying reading and reviewing short books this month. So far we have had 40 participants and 84 posts! Remember to add your posts to the link-up, or alert us via a comment here or on Bluesky (@cathybrown746.bsky.social / @bookishbeck.bsky.social), Instagram (@cathy_746books / @bookishbeck), or X (@cathy746books / @bookishbeck).
If you haven’t already, there’s no better time to pick up our buddy read, Orbital by Samantha Harvey, which won the Booker Prize on Tuesday evening. Chair of judges Edmund de Waal said it is “about a wounded world” and that the panel’s “unanimity about Orbital recognises its beauty and ambition.” I was surprised to learn that it is only the second-shortest Booker winner; Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald is even shorter.
Another popular novella many of us have read is Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (my latest review is here). I went to see the excellent film adaptation, with a few friends from book club, at our tiny local arthouse cinema on Wednesday afternoon. I’ve read the book twice now – I might just read it a third time before Christmas – and from memory the film is remarkably faithful to its storyline and scope. (The only significant change I think of is that Bill doesn’t visit Ned in the hospital, but there are still flashbacks to the role that Ned played in Bill’s early life.)
The casting and cinematography are exceptional. Cillian Murphy portrays Bill with just the right blend of stoicism, meekness, and angst. Emily Watson is chilling as Sister Mary, the Mother Superior of the convent, which is suitably creepy with dim brick hallways and clinical laundry rooms. The grimy cobbles and dull streetlamps of the town contrast with the warm light in the scenes of Bill’s remembered childhood at Mrs Wilson’s. Repeated shots – of Bill’s truck setting off across the bridge in the early morning, of him scrubbing coal dust from his hands with carbolic soap, of his eyes wide open in the middle of the night – are not recursive but a way of establishing the gruelling nature of his tasks and the unease that plagues him. A life of physical labour has aged him beyond 39 (cf. Murphy is 48) and he’s in pain from shouldering sacks of coal day in and day out.
Both book and film are set in 1985 but apart from the fashions and the kitschy Christmas decorations and window dressings you’d be excused for thinking it was the 1950s. Bill’s business deals in coal, peat and tinder; rural Ireland really was that economically depressed and technologically constrained. (Another Ireland-set film I saw last year, The Miracle Club, is visually very similar – it even features two of the same actors – although it takes place in 1967. It’s as if nothing changed for decades.)
By its nature, the film has to be a little more overt about what Bill is feeling (and generally not saying, as he is such a quiet man): there are tears at Murphy’s eyes and anxious breathing to make Bill’s state of mind obvious. Yet the film retains much of the subtlety of Keegan’s novella. You have to listen carefully during the conversation between Bill and Sister Mary to understand she is attempting to blackmail him into silence about what goes on at the convent.
At the end of the film showing, you could have heard a pin drop. Everyone was stunned at the simple beauty of the final scene, and the statistics its story is based on. It’s truly astonishing that Magdalene Laundries were in operation until the late 1990s, with Church support. Rage and sorrow build in you at the very thought, but Bill’s quietly heroic act of resistance is an inspiration. What might we, ordinary people all, be called on to do for women, the poor, and the oppressed in the years to come? We have no excuse not to advocate for them.
(Arti of Ripple Effects has also reviewed the film here.)
So far this month I’ve read nine novellas and reviewed eight. One of these was a one-sitting read, and I have another pile of ones that I could potentially read of a morning or evening next week. I’m currently reading another 16 … it remains to be seen whether I will average one a day for the month!
My Year in Novellas (#NovNov24)
Here at the start of the month, we’re inviting you to tell us about the novellas you’ve read since last November.
I have a special shelf of short books that I add to throughout the year. When at secondhand bookshops, charity shops, a Little Free Library, or the public library where I volunteer, I’m always thinking about my piles for November. But I do read novellas at other times of year, too. Forty-four of them between December 2023 and now, according to my Goodreads shelves (last year it was 46, so it seems like that’s par for the course). I often choose to review books of novella length for BookBrowse, Foreword and Shelf Awareness. I’ve read a real mixture, but predominantly literature in translation and autobiographical works.
My favourites of the ones I’ve already covered on the blog would probably be (nonfiction) Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti and (fiction) Aimez-vous Brahms by Françoise Sagan. My proudest achievements are: reading the short graphic novel Broderies by Marjane Satrapi in the original French at our Parisian Airbnb in December; and managing two rereads: Heartburn by Nora Ephron and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.
Of the short books I haven’t already reviewed here, I’ve chosen two gems, one fiction and one nonfiction, to spotlight in this post:
Fiction
Clear by Carys Davies
Clear depicts the Highland Clearances in microcosm though the experiences of one man, Ivar, the last resident of a remote Scottish island between Shetland and Norway. As in a play, there is a limited setting and cast. John is a minister sent by the landowner to remove Ivar, but an accident soon after his arrival leaves him beholden to Ivar for food and care. Mary, John’s wife, is concerned and sets off on the long journey from the mainland to rescue him. Davies writes vivid scenes and brings the island’s scenery to life. Flashbacks fill in the personal and cultural history, often via objects. The Norn language is another point of interest. The deceptively simple prose captures both the slow building of emotion and the moments that change everything. It seemed the trio were on course for tragedy, yet they are offered the grace of a happier ending.
In my book club, opinions differed slightly as to the central relationship and the conclusion, but we agreed that it was beautifully done, with so much conveyed in the concise length. This received our highest rating ever, in fact. I’d read Davies’ West and not appreciated it as much, although looking back I can see that it was very similar: one or a few character(s) embarked on unusual and intense journey(s); a plucky female character; a heavy sense of threat; and an improbably happy ending. It was the ending that seemed to come out of nowhere and wasn’t in keeping with the tone of the rest of the novella that made me mark West down. Here I found the writing cinematic and particularly enjoyed Mary as a strong character who escaped spinsterhood but even in marriage blazes her own trail and is clever and creative enough to imagine a new living situation. And although the ending is sudden and surprising, it nevertheless seems to arise naturally from what we know of the characters’ emotional development – but also sent me scurrying back to check whether there had been hints. One of my books of the year for sure.
Nonfiction
A Termination by Honor Moore
Poet and memoirist Honor Moore’s A Termination is a fascinatingly discursive memoir that circles her 1969 abortion and contrasts societal mores across her lifetime.
During the spring in question, Moore was a 23-year-old drama school student. Her lover, L, was her professor. But she also had unwanted sex with a photographer. She did not know which man had impregnated her, but she did know she didn’t feel prepared to become a mother. She convinced a psychiatrist that doing so would destroy her mental health, and he referred her to an obstetrician for a hospital procedure. The termination was “my first autonomous decision,” Moore insists, a way of saying, “I want this life, not that life.”
Family and social factors put Moore’s experiences into perspective. The first doctor she saw refused Moore’s contraception request because she was unmarried. Her mother, however, bore nine children and declined to abort a pregnancy when advised to do so for medical reasons. Moore observes that she made her own decision almost 10 years before “the word choice replaced pro abortion.”
This concise work is composed of crystalline fragments. The stream of consciousness moves back and forth in time, incorporating occasional second- and third-person narration as well as highbrow art and literature references. Moore writes one scene as if it’s in a play and imagines alternative scenarios in which she has a son; though she is curious, she is not remorseful. The granular attention to women’s lives recalls Annie Ernaux, while the kaleidoscopic yet fluid approach is reminiscent of Sigrid Nunez’s work. It’s a stunning rendering of steps on her childfree path. 
Reprinted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
I currently have four novellas underway and plan to start some more this weekend. I have plenty to choose from!
Everyone’s getting in on the act: there’s an article on ‘short and sweet books’ in the November/December issue of Bookmarks magazine, for which I’m an associate editor; Goodreads sent around their usual e-mail linking to a list of 100 books under 250 or 200 pages to help readers meet their 2024 goal. Or maybe you’d like to join in with Wafer Thin Books’ November buddy read, the Ugandan novella Waiting by Goretti Kyomuhendo (2007).
Why not share some recent favourite novellas with us in a post of your own?
Love Your Library, October 2024
Thanks to Eleanor, Laura, Marcie, and Sarah for posting about their recent library reading!
I mentioned that my library has recently started running author events again, for the first time since Covid. Apart from that, the main thing that’s new is a sculpture of local author Michael Bond, creator of Paddington Bear, in the lobby. I have to say, it’s a little bit creepy because when you’re working behind the circulation desk you feel like there’s a person sat there the whole time. (And, as one staff member noted, he looks more than a little like Vladimir Putin.) It makes for a popular photo op, though not as much as the larger Paddington on a bench in the town centre. There’s nearly always a queue to get your photo taken with him.
My library will be a major source of books for Novellas in November for me.
My library use over the last month:
READ
- The Lone-Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
- I’m the King of the Castle by Susan Hill
- What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
- Isabella & Blodwen by Rachael Smith
CURRENTLY READING
- Without Ever Reaching the Summit: A Himalayan Journey by Paolo Cognetti
- James by Percival Everett
- Small Rain by Garth Greenwell
- A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand
- What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher
- Heartstopper: Volume 5 by Alice Oseman (a reread)
- Playground by Richard Powers
- Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
- Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World by Pádraig Ó Tuama
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- Interlunar and Life Before Man by Margaret Atwood (for #MARM) [university library]
- Bellies by Nicola Dinan
- Orbital by Samantha Harvey
- Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging by Jessica J. Lee
- Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit [university library]
+ various novellas I’m gradually bringing home
RETURNED UNREAD
- It’s Not Just You: How to Navigate Eco-Anxiety and the Climate Crisis by Tori Tsui – I feared it would be depressing (though of course that’s exactly why I should read it) and from a glance it also appeared formulaic.
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier – Way too much technical info about glassmaking in the early pages. I may try it another time as I’ve read everything else she’s written.
- The Painter’s Daughters by Emily Howes – I read 24 pages. It seemed fine but undistinguished as historical fiction goes.
- Held by Anne Michaels – The first few pages of pretentious fragments were unbearable.
- Autumn Moods – Yeah … a local publication … wow, it was bad.
What have you been reading or reviewing from the library recently?
Share a link to your own post in the comments. Feel free to use the above image. The hashtag is #LoveYourLibrary.
Book Serendipity, August to October 2024
I call it “Book Serendipity” when two or more books that I read at the same time or in quick succession have something in common – the more bizarre, the better. This is a regular feature of mine every couple of months. Because I usually have 20–30 books on the go at once, I suppose I’m more prone to such incidents. People frequently ask how I remember all of these coincidences. The answer is: I jot them down on scraps of paper or input them immediately into a file on my PC desktop; otherwise, they flit away!
The following are in roughly chronological order.
- The William Carlos Williams line “no ideas but in things” is quoted in Home Is Where We Start by Susanna Crossman and echoed with a slight adaptation in Want, the Lake by Jenny Factor.
- A woman impulsively stops into a tattoo parlour in We Are Animals by Jennifer Case and Birdeye by Judith Heneghan.
- Cleaning up a partner’s bristles from the sink in 300 Arguments by Sarah Manguso and The Echoes by Evie Wyld.
- Sarah Manguso, by whom I was reading two books for a Bookmarks article, was quoted in Some of Us Just Fall by Polly Atkin.
- Someone is annoyed at their spouse making a mess cooking lemon preserves in How We Know Our Time Travelers by Anita Felicelli and Liars by Sarah Manguso, both of which are set in California.
- Rumpelstiltskin is referenced in one short story of a speculative collection: How We Know Our Time Travelers by Anita Felicelli and The Man in the Banana Trees by Marguerite Sheffer.
- A father who is hard of hearing, and an Australian woman looking for traces of her grandmother’s life in England in The House with All the Lights On by Jessica Kirkness and The Echoes by Evie Wyld.
- A character named Janie or Janey in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and The Echoes by Evie Wyld. The Pre-Raphaelite model Janey is also mentioned in The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing.
Contrasting one’s childhood love of the Little House on the Prairie books with reading them as an adult and being aware of the racial and colonial implications in Home Is Where We Start by Susanna Crossman and My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss.
- A mention of Little Women in A Perfect Arrangement by Suzanne Berne and My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss.
- A character grew up in a home hair-dressing business in A Perfect Arrangement by Suzanne Berne and Home Is Where We Start by Susanna Crossman.
- The discovery of an old pram in an outbuilding in Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell and Mina’s Matchbox by Yōko Ogawa.
- An Irish woman named Aoife in My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss and Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell.
- Cooking then throwing out entire meals in My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss and The Echoes by Evie Wyld. (Also throwing out a fresh meal in Birdeye by Judith Heneghan. Such scenes distress me!)
A new lover named Simon in one story of The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro and The Echoes by Evie Wyld.
- A character writes a recommendation letter for someone who then treats them vindictively, because they assumed the letter was negative when it wasn’t, in A Perfect Arrangement by Suzanne Berne and one story of The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro.
- After her parents’ divorce, the author never had a designated bedroom in her father’s house in Home Is Where We Start by Susanna Crossman and The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing.
Reading The Bell Jar as a teenager in Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner and My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss.
- A contentious Town Hall meeting features in A Perfect Arrangement by Suzanne Berne and Birdeye by Judith Heneghan.
- The wife is pregnant with twins in A Perfect Arrangement by Suzanne Berne and The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. (There are also twins in Birdeye by Judith Heneghan. In general, I find that they occur far more often in fiction than in real life!)
- 1930s Florida as a setting in Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
- Dorothy Wordsworth and her journals are discussed in Some of Us Just Fall by Polly Atkin and My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss.
- Wordsworth’s daffodils are mentioned in Signs, Music by Raymond Antrobus and My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss.
- “F*ck off” is delivered in an exaggerated English accent in Birdeye by Judith Heneghan and The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken.
- The main character runs a country store in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro.
Reading a second novel this year in which the younger sister of a pair wants to go into STEM and joins the Mathletes in high school: first was A Reason to See You Again by Jami Attenberg; later was Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner.
- An older sister who has great trouble attending normal school and so is placed elsewhere (including a mental institution) for a total of two years in Learning to Think by Tracy King and Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner.
- The idea of trees taking revenge on people for environmental destruction in one story of The Secret Life of Insects by Bernardo Esquinca and one poem of The Holy & Broken Bliss by Alicia Ostriker.
- An illiterate character in Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell and Also Here by Brooke Randel.
-
Controversy over throwing a dead body into the trash in Birdeye by Judith Heneghan and Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent.
- A publishing assistant who wears a miniskirt and Doc Martens in Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner and Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell.
- Ancestors’ experience in Auschwitz in Also Here by Brooke Randel and Transgenesis by Ava Winter.
- The protagonist finds it comforting when her boyfriend lies down with his full weight on her in Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner and The Echoes by Evie Wyld.
- A woman badgers her ex-husband about when his affair with his high school/college sweetheart started (before or after the divorce) in Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner and Liars by Sarah Manguso.
I encountered an Irish matriarch who married the ‘wrong’ brother, not Frank, in The Bee Sting by Paul Murray earlier in the year, and then in Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell.
- A boy is playing in the family car on the driveway when it rolls backwards and kills someone in A Perfect Arrangement by Suzanne Berne and Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout.
- Quantoxhead, Somerset is mentioned in On Trying to Keep Still by Jenny Diski and A House Unlocked by Penelope Lively.
- Tapeworms are mentioned in On Trying to Keep Still by Jenny Diski and one story of The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners, ed. Lauren Groff.
- A description of horrific teeth in one story of The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners, ed. Lauren Groff, and one story of The Long Swim by Terese Svoboda.
- A character researches potato blight, and another keeps his smoking a secret from his wife, in one story of The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners, ed. Lauren Groff, and Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout.
A piano gets mauled out of anger in one story of Save Me, Stranger by Erika Krouse and Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent.
- Men experiencing eating disorders in Heavy by Kiese Laymon and Heartstopper Volumes 3 and 4 by Alice Oseman.
- Black people deliberately changing their vocabulary and speech register when talking to white people in James by Percival Everett and Heavy by Kiese Laymon.
- My second book of the year in which a woman from centuries ago who magically appears in the present requests to go night clubbing: first The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, then Isabella & Blodwen by Rachael Smith.
- Characters named Sadie in James by Percival Everett, The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken, and Still Life at Eighty by Abigail Thomas.
- Creepy hares in horror: A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand and What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher. There were weird rabbits in I’m the King of the Castle by Susan Hill, too.
- I read two scenes of a calf being born, one right after the other: in Dangerous Enough by Becky Varley-Winter, then I’m the King of the Castle by Susan Hill.
- I read about an animal scratch leading to infection leading to death in a future with no pharmaceuticals in Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel in the morning and then in the afternoon heard Eve Smith mention the same thing happening due to antibiotic resistance in her novel The Waiting Rooms. Forget about R.I.P.; this is the stuff that scares me…
What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?
Short Nonfiction Series for Novellas in November + Nonfiction November
Most Novellas in November participants focus on fiction, which is understandable and totally fine; I also like to incorporate works of short nonfiction during the month, which is a great opportunity to combine challenges with Nonfiction November.
Building on this list I wrote in 2021 (all the recommendations stand, but I’d update it by adding Weatherglass Books to the list of UK publishers), here are some nonfiction series that publish brief, intriguing works:
404 Ink’s Inklings series bears the tagline “big ideas to carry in your pocket.”
I have reviewed Happy Death Club.
Biteback Publishing’s Provocations series “is a groundbreaking new series of short polemics composed by some of the most intriguing voices in contemporary culture.”
- I have reviewed Last Rights. I spied a pair of books by John Sutherland on youth and ageing at my library.
Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series “is a series of concise, collectable, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.”
- I have reviewed Doctor, Dust, Grave, Pregnancy Test, and Recipe.
Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 is “a series of short books about popular music.”
- I have reviewed Jesus Freak.
Bristol University Press’s What Is It For series is edited by George Miller, creator of the OUP Very Short Introductions (see below). Miller believes “short, affordable books can, and should, be intelligent and thought-provoking”; he hopes these will “be an agent for positive change,” addressing “tough questions about purpose and fitness for purpose: what has to change for the future to be better?”
A number of Fitzcarraldo Editions’ Essays are significantly under 200 pages.
I have reviewed Intervals, A Very Easy Death, Happening, I Remain in Darkness, A Woman’s Story, and Alphabetical Diaries (plus others that are longer).
[Edited:] Thanks so much to Liz for letting me know about Jacaranda Books’ A Quick Ting On series, “the first ever non-fiction book series dedicated to Black British culture,” with books on plantains, Grime music, Black hair, and more.
[Edited:] There are three books so far in the Leaping Hare Press Find Your Path self-help series. I have just downloaded Find Your Path through Imposter Syndrome from Edelweiss.
Little Toller Books publishes mostly short nature and travel monographs and reprints.
- I have reviewed Deer Island, Aurochs and Auks, Orison for a Curlew, Herbaceous, The Ash Tree, and Snow.
From the Little Toller website
[Edited:] Thanks so much to Annabel for making me aware of Melville House’s The FUTURES series, which gives “imaginative future visions on a wide range of subjects, written by experts, academics, journalists and leading pop-culture figures.”
MIT Press’s Essential Knowledge series “offers accessible, concise, beautifully produced books on topics of current interest.” I spotted the Plastics book at my library.
Oxford University Press’s Very Short Introductions now cover a whopping 867 subjects!
- I had a couple of them assigned in my college days, including Judaism.
Penguin’s 100-book Great Ideas series reprints essays that introduce readers to “history’s most important and game-changing theories, philosophies and discoveries in accessible, concise editions.”
A number of Profile’s health-themed Wellcome Collection Books are well under 200 pages.
- I have reviewed Recovery, Free for All, Chasing the Sun, An Extra Pair of Hands, and After the Storm (plus others that are longer).
Saraband’s In the Moment series contains “portable, accessible books … exploring the role of both mind and body in movement, purpose, and reflection, finding ways of being fully present in our activities and environment.”
- I’m interested in Writing Landscape by Linda Cracknell and On Community by Casey Plett.
Most of the original School of Life books are around 150 pages long. Their newer Essential Ideas series of three titles also promises “pocket books.”
- I have reviewed How to Develop Emotional Health, How to Age, How to Be Alone, and How to Think about Exercise.
Why not see if your local library has any selections from one or more of these series? #LoveYourLibrary
If you’re a reluctant nonfiction reader, choosing a short book could be a great way to engage with a topic that interests you – without a major time commitment. #NonfictionNovember
Keep in touch via X (@bookishbeck / @cathy746books) and Instagram (@bookishbeck / @cathy_746books). Add any related posts to the link-up. Don’t forget the hashtag #NovNov24.
Any suitable short nonfiction on your shelves?
Novellas in November Possibility Piles! (#NovNov24)
Less than two weeks to go now until Novellas in November (#NovNov24) begins! Cathy and I are getting geared up and making plans for what we’re going to read. As I mentioned in my announcement post, this year it’s my challenge to self to read mostly books of 150 pages or under. I gathered all my potential reads at home and in the library for photo shoots. Although we’re not having the below as themes this year, I’ve grouped my options in rough categories:
Short Classics (pre-1980)
*Memoirs of a Spacewoman would do double duty for SciFi Month. I have already read Passing, so would just be reading Quicksand from the Nella Larsen omnibus.
Novellas in Translation
*Knulp, from the Little Free Library, would do double duty for German Literature Month.
Contemporary Novellas
(With three review copies perched on the top.)
Library Haul
I can’t wait to get started on our buddy read, Orbital by Samantha Harvey!
Short Nonfiction
(And the right-hand Library Haul photo above.) On Wednesday I’ll post some ideas for how to link Novellas in November with Nonfiction November – there are various great series that only publish short nonfiction.
In 2021–2023, I read 29, 24 and 27 novellas, respectively. I wonder how many I’ll manage this year… Maybe I’ll aim for 30+, or an average of 1+ per day!
Spy any favourites or a particularly appealing title in my piles? Give me a recommendation for what I should be sure to try to get to.
The link-up is now open for you to share your planning posts!
Thanks to Cathy of What Cathy Read Next for starting us off.
Have any novellas lined up to read next month?
Love Your Library, September 2024
Thanks to Eleanor, Laura (here, here and here & Happy birthday!), Marcie and Naomi (here and here) for posting about their recent library reading!
On our holiday I popped into the Dunbar library (East Lothian, Scotland) while my husband was touring a nearby brewery. It seemed like a sweet and useful community centre, and I enjoyed the kid-friendly book returns box.
Last week my library removed its Perspex screens from around the three enquiry desks, nearly four years on from when they were put up during Covid.
I’m dipping into the Booker and Wainwright Prize shortlists through my library borrowing, and stocking up for R.I.P.
I appreciated this passage about libraries from Home Is Where We Start by Susanna Crossman:
Every week, from the age of seven, I walk the twenty minutes to the local library, and I borrow four books. My path takes me past the greengrocer’s, the newsagent’s, the butcher’s, the baker’s, the bank, the post office, and across the town square … Inside the library, high walls are lined with books, and when I’ve read all the Children’s section, the librarian lets me take the Adult books, but only the Classics. Back in my room at the community, I read for hours. Reading is one of my forms of resistance. … Books are my home, and when you turn the cover, you close one door and open another, moving to imagined worlds.
My library use over the last month:
(links to reviews not already featured on the blog)
READ
- One Garden against the World: In Search of Hope in a Changing Climate by Kate Bradbury
- Clear by Carys Davies
- Moominpappa at Sea by Tove Jansson
- The Song of the Whole Wide World: On Motherhood, Grief, and Poetry by Tamarin Norwood
- Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent
- Heartstopper: Volume 1 by Alice Oseman (reread)
- Heartstopper: Volume 2 by Alice Oseman (reread)
- Heartstopper: Volume 3 by Alice Oseman (reread)
- Lumberjanes: Campfire Songs by Shannon Watters
- The Echoes by Evie Wyld
SKIMMED
- The Garden against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing
- The Accidental Garden: The Plot Thickens by Richard Mabey
CURRENTLY READING
- The Lone-Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
CURRENTLY READING-ish (more accurately, set aside temporarily)
- Death Valley by Melissa Broder
- The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
- Learning to Think: A Memoir about Faith, Demons, and the Courage to Ask Questions by Tracy King
- Groundbreakers: The Return of Britain’s Wild Boar by Chantal Lyons
- Unearthing: A Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets by Kyo Maclear
- Late Light: Finding Home in the West Country by Michael Malay
- Mrs Gulliver by Valerie Martin
- After Dark by Haruki Murakami
- Stowaway: The Disreputable Exploits of the Rat by Joe Shute
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand
- Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging by Jessica J. Lee
- Now She Is Witch by Kirsty Logan
- Held by Anne Michaels
- Heartstopper: Volume 4 by Alice Oseman (reread)
- It’s Not Just You: How to Navigate Eco-Anxiety and the Climate Crisis by Tori Tsui
IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE
- Orbital by Samantha Harvey
- Bothy: In Search of Simple Shelter by Kat Hill
- The Painter’s Daughters by Emily Howes
- Playground by Richard Powers
- The Place of Tides by James Rebanks
ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP
- The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier
- James by Percival Everett
- Small Rain by Garth Greenwell
- Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
RETURNED UNREAD
- Wasteland: The Dirty Truth about What We Throw Away, Where It Goes, and Why It Matters by Oliver Franklin-Wallis – Twice I’ve had this out and failed to actually open it. I think I’m worried it will depress me.
- This Is My Sea by Miriam Mulcahy – A bereavement memoir with a swimming theme was sure to attract me, but the writing was blah. In fact, I think I may have borrowed this when it first came out in hardback and DNFed it then, too. Whoops!
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- The Forester’s Daughter by Claire Keegan (a standalone Faber short) – This didn’t seem very interesting, and I figure there is no point reading just one story from a whole unread collection.
- The Burial Plot by Elizabeth Macneal – I actually read 109 pages, then left it alone for weeks before it was requested off me. It was perfectly readable stuff but I kept feeling like I’d encountered this story before. It reminded me most of The Shadow Hour by Kate Riordan but was also trying for the edginess of early Sarah Waters. Now that I’ve DNFed Macneal’s two latest novels, I think it’s time to stop trying her.
What have you been reading or reviewing from the library recently?
Share a link to your own post in the comments. Feel free to use the above image. The hashtag is #LoveYourLibrary.
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 