There is one cookery book that I will be giving as a gift this season, A Cooks’s Book by Nigel Slater, a beautiful collection of down-to-earth recipes (with the added bonus that we have signed copies!) In my own wishlist of titles to read this winter, firstly a title I have been waiting for since I finished reading The Honjin Murders – the new translation of the classic Japanese murder mystery, The Village of Eight Graves by Seishi Yokomizo (tr. Bryan Karetnyk). Second in my list of books for myself is The Feast by Margaret Kennedy as my bookselling colleagues have been highly recommending it.
Other titles that I read this year worthy of being gift-wrapped are the intriguing The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken, The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir (tr. Lauren Elkin), about the ties that bind us in friendship, and the beautiful and heartwarming stories in the collection Things Remembered and Things Forgotten by Kyoko Nakajima (tr. Ian MacDonald and Ginny Tapley Takemori). In an altogether different set of short stories, I can’t wait to tuck into Mariana Enriquez’s second collection: the first one, Things we Lost in the Fire, was sublime in its darkness and I suspect this will be equally scary. It’s the spectacularly-titled The Dangers of Smoking In Bed, translated by Megan McDowell, and was also shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2021.
From the publisher:
Translated by Ian MacDonald and Ginny Tapley Takemori'If we want to understand what has been lost to time, there is no way other than through the exercise of imagination ... imagination applied with delicate rather than broad strokes'.…
From the publisher:
Translated by Bryan KaretnykNestled deep in the mist-shrouded mountains, The Village of Eight Graves takes its name from a bloody legend: in the sixteenth century eight samurai, who had taken refuge there along with a secret treasure,…
From the publisher:
Translated by Martin AitkenShortlisted for the 2021 International Booker PrizeLonglisted for the 2021 Warwick Prize for Women in TranslationWinner of a Jan Michalski Foundation AwardA THE GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEARA TLS BOOK OF THE…
From the publisher:
Translated by Megan McDowell‘Mariana Enriquez is a mesmerizing writer who demands to be read. Like Bolaño, she is interested in matters of life and death, and her fiction hits with the full force of a train’ –…
From the publisher:
Translated by Lauren Elkin'Life without her would be death'The lost novel from the author of The Second Sex published in English for the first time.The compulsive story of two friends growing up and falling apart.INTRODUCED BY DEBORAH…
From the publisher:
This summer holiday vintage crime classic exploring the mystery of a buried Cornish hotel invites us to solve the puzzle as detectives: perfect for fans of Celia Fremlin’s Uncle Paul, Agatha Christie, or Richard Osman…
From the publisher:
‘This is a book for life . . . This, and it’s high praise, is Slater’s best book’ Diana Henry, Sunday Telegraph‘It’s so good. I think it’s his best one’ India Knight, Sunday…
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