Some of John's favourite books from across the shop.
Recommended by John
‘J.G. Farrell’s masterpiece, the second in his loose trilogy about the decline of the British Empire, tells the story of the British community of the small town of Krishnapur under siege in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and their eventual collapse and retreat. Harrowing in places, it is also extremely funny, and nobody who has encountered his cast of brilliantly-drawn characters is likely to forget them.’
Recommended by John
‘Raunchy 21st century Virginia Woolf with an unforgettable narrator, finding the numinous in small quotidian rituals. My favourite debut novel for ages and ages.’
Recommended by John
‘Sassy, joyous vignettes of English visitors to Portugal. It’s enormous but I would have preferred it twice the size.’
Recommended by John
‘The best children’s book I’ve seen in ages and ages. The crocodile goes to work – but what is his job? Find out in this touching wordless masterpiece.’
Recommended by John
‘Finally a children’s book which tackles the big questions: who’s hiding, who’s sleeping, who’s angry and who’s who. Onishi’s daft vanishing animals are weirdly compelling, especially if you’re under three.’
Recommended by John
‘One of the very strangest novels I’ve ever read – fragmentary knockabout fun. James Ellroy meets B. S. Johnson.’
Recommended by John
‘The best Cavafy translations I’ve come across by a mile.’
Recommended by John
‘One of the Nobel-winning poet’s very best individual collections for my money: a book-length sequence interweaving classic myth with domestic drama. (If you’re wavering, try ‘Midnight’ on p.26, it’s not a very long poem.)’
Recommended by John
‘Quiet, compelling and deeply moving, with two sets of completely believable speakers – a pair of art historians discussing Bernhard Strigel’s 15th century painting ‘The Tomb Guardians’, and the hapless tomb guardians themselves.’
Recommended by John
‘An astounding impossible-to-shelve book at the intersection between history, travel and music. Oral history as told through the stories of lost pianos and their former owners. For fans of The Hare with the Amber Eyes, Max Egremont, etc.’
Recommended by John
‘Grieving, calm, attentive to the natural world, Tongues of Fire is a cracking debut collection. I like best Hewitt’s wild garlic: “the world is dark / but the wood is full of stars.”’
Recommended by John
‘Three interwoven sequences - forgotten back roads of Byzantine history, empires, saints, princesses. Jones has Cavafy’s knack of humanising obscure corners of history and making them heartbreaking. An unmissable collection.’
Recommended by John
‘The best cookery book in the shop - not necessarily for cooking from, just for opening to a random page, luxuriating in the atmosphere and resolving to move to Tuscany and eat stewed fox with anarchist shepherds in the hills.’
Recommended by John
‘A flawless debut. Gin & whiskey & Tabasco soaked, heaving with catfish, howling dogs, Merle Haggard - for heaven’s sake, get on this.’
Recommended by John
‘Jonathan Bate’s vital new biography places Wordsworth where he belongs, at the radical centre of the English poetic tradition. Bate is particularly strong on Wordsworth’s time in Paris around the French revolution, but what stuck with me the most was the occasion when Wordsworth ate an entire half-wheel of Cheshire cheese with a spoon – approximately 4kg of cheese. This, like Wordsworth’s underrated late long poem The White Doe of Rylstone, strikes me as being radical too, in its own quiet way.’
Recommended by John
‘Karen Solie carries on going from strength to strength. Read the one about the uncooperative storage heater on p. 8 if you need convincing. The whole collection is a banger and also storage heaters are the dogs of the heating world.’
Recommended by John
‘If you haven’t read a James Baldwin yet, here’s a good one to start with. He's as good as everyone says he is – one of the best prose stylists of the twentieth century – sensuous, sinuous and unforgettable.’
Recommended by John
‘One of the most joyful novels I know. Impossibly buoyant and fragile: sunshine, spring, the Italian riviera.’
Recommended by John
‘One of the best poetry books of the year – a fractured, syntactically innovative interrogation of language and belonging.’
Recommended by John
‘Petrushka by Peter McCarey is one of the strangest and best books of 2017. The proceedings of a genuine conference on a fictitious disease: part satire, part science fiction, and an alternately chilling and fascinating insight into epidemic preparedness.’
Recommended by John
‘Les Murray’s tour, through photos and poems, of his farmstead in Bunyah, New South Wales. This is a beautiful business.’
Recommended by John
‘Edward Thomas’s long out-of-print masterpiece, now reissued with a batch of newly discovered photos from the poet himself, bicycling across a forgotten England.’
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