Some of Gayle's favourite books from across the shop.
Recommended by Gayle
‘Another absolute banger in the excellent Faber Editions series of rediscoveries. Ex-Wife follows Patricia, a New Yorker who unexpectedly finds herself divorced at 24, as she works out how to live and who to be in her new role of ‘ex-wife’. It’s full of dead-pan humour, and so modern I refuse to believe it was first published in 1929. A Heartburn for the Jazz Age!’
Recommended by Gayle
‘One of the most perfect short novels I’ve ever read. Helen Garner vividly depicts the gentle implosion of the Fox family – from shabby domestic bliss to disaster (and back again) – in 150 pages of brilliantly spare prose.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘Jane Bowles’s only novel is an under-read modernist classic that follows the two serious ladies of the title as they each strike out on their own unexpected paths: ‘I have gone to pieces, which is a thing I've wanted to do for years,’ declares one. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that feels so genuinely like a dream – unsettling, out of time, with a logic all of its own, that lingers in the mind long after it’s done.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘Tom O’Neill’s Chaos spirals out from the Manson Murders to become both a secret history of 20th century America, and a chronicle of his own descent into obsession, debt and madness, as he unravels the official story of the murders and follows the threads to the most extraordinary places. There’s a moment when he writes to his agent, ‘You’re not going to like this, but I think the JFK assassination is involved. And the CIA’s mind-control experiments.’ What more could you ask for?’
Recommended by Gayle
‘I can’t tell you how tenderly I – a person who spends much of their time going to the BFI alone – feel about Jeremy Cooper’s Brian, a novel about a man who spends all his time going to the BFI alone. A love letter to the BFI and to London! To small, quiet lives made expansive by access to film and art! To friendship and community!’
Recommended by Gayle
‘A wonderful novel by an underrated Victorian novelist: Margaret Oliphant’s Miss Marjoribanks is a real treat. Social climbing, petty feuds, visiting clergymen who outstay their welcome: it’s like a proto-Mapp and Lucia.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘The second of two novels written by Emeric Pressburger (of Britain's greatest ever film-making duo Powell and Pressburger), The Glass Pearls tells the story of Karl Braun, a Nazi war criminal hiding in plain sight among the German émigrés of grimy, down-at-heel 1960s London. A properly good thriller that keeps ramping up the tension until the very end.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘After watching The Servant, I recently became completely obsessed with Dirk Bogarde, and proceeded to read all eight (8!) of his volumes of autobiographical writings. I don’t recommend you do that, but I do recommend reading the first, A Postillion Struck by Lightning, a perfect evocation of the lost world of his interwar country childhood – a joy, even if you are not desperately obsessed with Dirk Bogarde.’
Recommended by Gayle:
‘A sweet and tender Christmas novel, that’s not just for Christmas. The Women in Black by Madeleine St. John follows the employees of the Ladies’ Cocktail Frocks section of an upmarket department store as they prepare for the Christmas rush in the sweltering heat of a Sydney summer. To my northern hemisphere eyes at least, it’s a novel for all seasons.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘Isobel Wohl’s Cold New Climate approaches the coming climate apocalypse from a oblique angle: it’s a novel about facing an uncertain future and trying to work out how to live in it. Like the story itself, Wohl’s prose – slyly simple and deadpan – creeps up on you. Startling and totally compelling.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalets sequence is five volumes of pure joy, exquisite sorrow, and everything in between, that will take over your life if you let it. (You should let it.) A family saga that rambles through WW2 and beyond, following four generations through births, deaths, marriages, affairs, abortions, divorces, and a great many meals. I’d gladly read another five volumes, if only I could.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘A brilliant London novel, the kind we need more of: polyphonic, multilingual, thrillingly alive with all the people, food, music that make this city what it is.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘If you need something to finally shake off the lockdown blues and get you in the mood for summer, This One Sky Day is it. One of the most joyful, playful novels I’ve read in ages. Magic, food, love, politics on a dream of a Caribbean island.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘There aren’t enough novels about LONELINESS and GRIEF and the RADICAL JOY OF A PUBLICLY OWNED UNIVERSAL POSTAL SERVICE imo. Thank god for Vigdis Hjorth.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘Exactly what you might expect: absurd outfits, mountains of coke, absolutely weapons-grade name dropping. But there’s also a sense of genuine self-examination here – and a hilariously dowdy suburbanness, that’s just utterly endearing – that keeps it just the right side of too much. A thoroughly enjoyable read. Long live Dame Sharon!’
Recommended by Gayle
‘Finally someone is giving the people what they want: mysteries, set on trains. M.G. Leonard and Sam Sedgman are writing a whole series of them, beginning with the entertaining and gripping Highland Falcon Thief. Highly recommended for mystery buffs, train nerds, and people who like fun things.’
Recommend by Gayle
‘The rediscovery of a forgotten Black modernist poet who hung out with the Bright Young Things sends Mathilda on journey involving a mysterious artists’ residency somewhere in Mitteleuropa, secret societies engaging in occult practices, and a lot of fabulous sounding drinks. LOTE by Shola von Reinhold manages to be both a serious interrogation of the lost queerness and Blackness of history, and delicious fun to read.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘A book so delightful I burst into tears on finishing it. Originally published in 1933 and recently rediscovered and reissued by the brilliant Handheld Press, Business as Usual tells the story of Hilary Fane, a young woman from Edinburgh who, in her year of independence before her planned marriage to a busy surgeon, moves to London and gets a job on the Book Floor of an Oxford Street department store. It’s all told through her letters home and interdepartmental memos, and it will make you wish you still wrote letters, and lament the fact that, even if you did, they’d never be as witty and charming as Hilary’s. If this is all sounding a little whimsical and twee, I promise you it isn’t; in between the jolly anecdotes about life on the shopfloor, it touches on the darker aspects of life as a single woman in London – damp, cold digs, making rent, unwanted pregnancies…’
Recommended by Gayle
‘A book about a friendship between two quiet men who like board games and comfortable silences. It is, from the first paragraph, extremely funny (“Leonard was raised by his mother alone with cheerfully concealed difficulty, his father having died tragically during childbirth…”), but also at times, a painfully tender account of not quite fitting into the world.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘Few things have made me feel as hungry as I felt while reading this book. Tiny Moons explores the connections between food, language, inheritance and belonging, and contains a dangerous number of delicious descriptions of dumplings.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘If you read The Iliad and your main thought was “I wish it read a bit more like YA romance,” The Song of Achilles is for you. Sexy ancient Greek fan fic FTW.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘This dark, funny, heartbreaking feminist cult classic is a joy to read – even if the fact that so much of it is still relevant after nearly 50 years is kind of depressing. If you like The Dud Avocado or Valley of the Dolls, get involved, you’re going to love it.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘Katherine Rundell is one of the best children’s writers going. Every one of her books is a joy to read, packed full of excitement, adventure and wonderful characters, but this is my favourite. The Wolf Wilder tells the story of Feo and her mother, who help guide tamed wolves back into the wild, against a backdrop of revolutionary Russia. (And if you, clever adult reading this, think this recommendation isn’t for you, pick up a copy of Rundell’s essay Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise to find out how wrong you are.)’
Recommended by Gayle
‘Not a day goes past that I don't shake a fist at the sky and cry in despair, “When will Claire-Louise Bennett publish something new?!” Until my cries are answered, I'll make do with rereading Pond, Bennett's wildly brilliant and totally unique collection of stories following one woman living alone in the Irish countryside. EDIT: Claire-Louise Bennett has now written another book, and it’s better than I dreamt it could be.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘Celebrate his long overdue Oscar nod by treating yourself to With Nails, Richard E. Grant’s glorious, funny, gossipy film diaries. Starting with his first film role in Withnail and I, and continuing through to Pret à Porter, the book also contains an anecdote about doing karaoke with Tom Waits. What more could you ask for?’
Recommended by Gayle
‘Harriet Vane appears in far too few of Dorothy L. Sayers’s novels, but she does take centre stage in the best, Gaudy Night. The mystery itself – a poison-pen in an Oxford women’s college – is good, but almost incidental: Gaudy Night is a meditation on women’s place in a world built by and for men; the competing pulls of work – specifically creative work – and family; the desire for freedom and independence within the confines of a relationship – questions that resonate just as strongly 80+ years later.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘I’ve never been so invested in a romance – even the ones I’ve been personally involved in – as I am in that of Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey. Strong Poison is where it all starts: Harriet Vane on trial for the murder of her lover; Lord Peter on the case to prove her innocence.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘This book inspired me to start learning ancient Greek. There aren't many books I can say that about.'
Recommended by Gayle
‘Finally I have something to recommend when people ask for a funny book! Heartburn is properly hilarious, like a 200 page stand up set, except less mean, and with more food.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘King Lear transported to contemporary India. A huge, sprawling, ambitious debut novel, that manages to tackle climate change, capitalism, global inequality - while still being a cracking read.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘I once read this book, cover to cover, by candlelight during a power cut. Not all cookbooks warrant such behaviour, but this one certainly does. Full of musings and stories on ingredients from chocolate to tripe, my particular highlights are the lengthy custard chapter and the eponymous roast chicken recipe, which really is one of the best.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘Funny, heartbreaking and totally filthy. Everything a novel should be.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, The Hate U Give pulls no punches in dealing with its difficult subject matter - it’s shocking and heartbreaking, and offers no easy conclusions, but still manages to be so full of hope. A vital read.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘Pick up any Sylvia Townsend Warner book and you're in for a treat, but Summer Will Show is a particular favourite. It follows young English aristocrat Sophia Willoughby as she steals her lousy husband’s mistress, and discovers communism, all against the backdrop of revolutionary Paris. Blissful!’
Recommended by Gayle
‘A debut collection that lives up to the promise of its marvellous title. Ranging widely in time and place, these stories can be strange, unsettling or funny - but they’re all brilliant.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘Long out of print, and now available again in this glorious facsimile of the 1966 original, Nairn’s London is a funny, angry, stirring tour of London’s architecture. Fifty years old, and still one of the best books on London going. (And very good on pubs as well.)’
Recommended by Gayle
‘A beautifully written novel about the quietly disappointing nature of life. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s the worst Booker winner – they’re talking nonsense.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘One of the most finely tuned bits of storytelling you’ll ever have the pleasure of reading. Funny, beautifully illustrated, and just dark enough to keep you entertained, even if you’re far too grown up to be reading it.’
Recommended by Gayle
‘The Dud Avocado is such fun. Sally Jay Gorce is my absolute hero – a fabulous American tumbling in and out of trouble and beds in Paris in the 1950s. Glorious!’
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