Category: Recommendsday

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Dysfunctional Families

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It’s Wednesday again everyone, and tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the US so I did think about doing a recommendsday post about books with Thanksgiving, but I don’t actually have a lot to add to the one I did a couple of years back. And so instead, I thought I’d do dysfunctional families because I know there is a lot of conflict over family dinners at events like Thanksgiving.

I think dysfunctional families come on a scale. So I’m going to start with the light(er) and fun(ner) ones. The ones that are a bit soapy and more on the family drama end of the spectrum and it often that comes with a side order of Rich People Problems. So there is The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren with a grocery store heir trying to get his inheritance from his family with a fake marriage that’s got to survive scrutiny at a family wedding on a tropical island. Then there’s Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan with another rich old money family who are trying to get rid of their son’s girlfriend because she’s not from a rich Singaporean family. There’s also Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple, where Bernadette is the mum of our protagonist, who disappears after a disastrous school fundraiser leaving her daughter behind to try and work out where her mum has gone.

Slightly less soapy but still not grim, and you have The Vacationers by Emma Straub which is about a family with a lot of secrets on holiday in Mallorca. It seems to be a divisive book – some Goodreads reviewers hate it (typically saying nothing happens or they hate all the characters) but I enjoyed it – there’s a steady drip of revelations that kept me turning the pages even as I liked the characters less! Then there’s also two Taylor Jenkins Reid books – Malibu Rising, which had the messy lives of the Riva siblings and impact of their famous dad; or The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo with the many marriages and relationships of a Hollywood star.

Getting grimmer there is The War that Saved my Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley which is a middle grade book but which I described as Goodnight Mr Tom but amped up somewhat. It’s got a satisfying ending but the early stages are heavy going. And then about as grim as I will go today on the fiction side we have The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel where a woman returns to the house she spent a summer as a teen after her cousin goes missing.

Over in the non fiction world it’s all a bit grimmer: Educated by Tara Westover and I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy were on the edges of what I could cope with, especially because you know it’s a memoir and really happened. And because I want to end on a bit of a lighter note Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher is very funny even as it’s dealing with growing up the child of famous parents, her struggles with addiction and her mental health as well as just generally being Carrie Fisher.

Happy Humpday everyone!

first in series, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: First in mystery series

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It’s the middle of the week again and I’m back with some more murder mysteries, but this time they’re the first books in their series.

Grime and Punishment by Jill Churchill

After picking up two later books in this series earlier this year, I’m now going back and getting more and have acquired the first one. Book two, Farewell to Yarns was a BotW in May, but in Grime and Punishment Jane is trying to solve the murder of a cleaning lady in the house next door because the suspects include a lot of her friends. Often in a first in a series there is too much set up and the book can suffer, either from just having too much going on or from the mystery not being quite good enough. This isn’t one of those – it manages to introduce the group and Jane very naturally and the mystery is sufficiently twisty.

Murder on the Mountain by Ellie Alexander

After having enjoyed Alexander’s Secret Bookcase series, I was interested to read this first one in a different series from her – a re-release and retitle of something she had previously released under a different pseudonym. Our heroine is Meg, a journalist who scores a job at an outdoors magazine, where she’s definitely trying to fake it till she makes it because her outdoor skills are practically nil. The murder in this one is of a contestant in an outdoor competition TV show, but in the background is the death of Meg’s father (an investigative journalist) in mysterious circumstances while working on an expose. I didn’t love this – I found Meg a real trial because she is almost aggressively clueless about the outdoors, and about a few other things in the story. However as these are in Kindle Unlimited, I’ll probably give the second one a go to see if it improves any once all the series set up is over with. However, given this was Alexander’s first ever series, and I don’t know how much reworking of it she’s done, it may just be that Alexanders writing has changed since she wrote these!

Beaches, Bungalows and Burglaries by Tonya Kappes

Mae West’s (no, not that one) life has taken a turn – her much older husband has turned out to be a conman, he’s in jail, she’s divorced him and all his assets have been seized. So instead of a life of luxury, she’s got to start over and all she has is am RV and campground in Normal, Kentucky which her husband put in her name years ago. So she heads to Normal to start over, but finds that the community there is suffering because of her husband too. Then he turns up – not in prison, but dead in the lake at the campsite and suddenly she’s a suspect. I found this while I was looking for books for my missing states for the 50 states challenge this year, and didn’t realise that I’d read one of Kappes’ series years ago when she was being published by Henery press back when they were in a really good groove of easy, fun cozy crime. And this is slightly ridiculous (and the recipes at the end are awful) but it’s a pretty fun read, with a good set up for a series. If you’re a KU member, it’s worth a read, but I have no idea how Kappes has get this set up going for *checks* more than 40 books! I suspect that I’ll read a few more to see because long series are so hard to pull off!

books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: November Kindle Offers

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It’s the second week of the month and it’s Wednesday so you know what that means: Kindle offers. And it’s quite a good crop this month, I spent more money than I should have (well I shouldn’t have been buying more books at all, so technically any money is more than I ought) when I was writing this!

I’m going to break with convention and start with books that I haven’t read because there are a lot of new releases on offer this month. Firstly, if you’re not finished with Halloween yet, Alexandria Bellefleur’s The Devil She Knows and Josie Silver’s Kooky Spooky Love are 99p. If you’re ready to move to Christmas reading, the new B K Borison High Spirits is 99p (as is the one from earlier this year, First Time Caller). This one has the literal Ghost of Christmas Past, so I’m not quite sure how we get to a happy ending with one portion of the couple being dead, but hey we all know I don’t have enough imagination for this. Martin Edward’s Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife is 99p – I hve this on my reading list for this Christmas. The Marble Hall Murders aka Magpie Murders 3 is 99p too because it’s out in paperback now, which is a total bargain considering how hefty it is and how much it cost when the hardback first came out – and you know I’ve been watching the price of this one!

In stuff I have read, the first of Susan Mallery‘s Wishing Tree books The Christmas Wedding Guest is 99p as is Ali Hazelwood‘s The Love Hypothesis. The Cat Who Save the Library, the sequel to The Cat Who Saved Books is 99p. Kirsty Greenwood’s Love of My Afterlife is 99p – she’s just announced a new book coming in June next year.

If you want a murder mystery, The Marlow Murder Club (that’s the first in that series) is 99p and also in Kindle Unlimited. Catriona McPherson‘s latest The Edinburgh Murders is 99p – this was a BotW a couple of months ago. The Great Deceiver, the seventh (and currently final) in Elly Griffiths‘s Brighton mysteries is on offer too. Last year’s Christmas instalment in the Three Dahlia’s series A Lively Midwinter Murder is 99p as Rev Richard Coles’s Christmas novella Murder Under the Mistletoe is 99p (and both are now out in paperback). Also from last year Denzil Mayrick’s Murder at Holly House is 99p – I have this on the pile waiting to be read. Graham Norton’s Holding, which was turned into a really good TV series a few years back is 99p, although it has to be said that I didn’t get on with the book when I tried it.

As spotted in The New Bookshop the other week, the Terry Deary murder mystery Actually, I’m a Murder is 99p. Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong, Tom Hindle‘s Death in the Arctic, Jeeves Omnibus 5, Shardlake book six, Lamentation, and Joanne Harris’s Vianne are all 99p. The Terry Pratchett is Witches Abroad at £1.99, Hercule Poirot’s Christmas is 99p (and in KU) as is former BotW Mary Stewart‘s Thornyhold

In things I bought while writing the post there is Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T J Klune, the sequel to The House in the Cerulean Sea and Smiley’s People by John Le Carré. And that’s your lot – because that really is a lot of books. I hope your wallet hasn’t suffered too much!

Happy Humpday!

book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: October Quick Reviews

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It’s the first Wednesday of the months and I have quick reviews for you – and one of them is even a new release! Two days in a row! Yes, it can happen! I’m almost proud of me. Except for the fact that the rest of the pile is massive. Moving on. To the reviews:

Taylor’s Version by Stephanie Burt*

Cover of Taylor's Version

I’m going to be honest and my most listened to album last month was the new Taylor Swift album. What can I say, I’m a millennial who likes Swedish pop, so an upbeat Max Martin-produced album is totally my jam. And so I was interested to read this book, which is a critical appreciation of Swift’s work, written by a professor who runs a course on her at Harvard. And it was interesting, but I had two key problems with it: one, I’m not a big enough Swiftie that I’m able to remember all the songs off all the albums without going back and listening to them again, and two, I’m not across (American?) music terminology and theory to be able to understand all the technicalities of the music and composition that Burt is explaining. I need someone to play it to demonstrate it to get it – like the Switched On Pop guys did with The Life of a Showgirl the other week – and to really understand the points that are being made. But I think it may well work for other people more than it did for me.

From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming

Paperback copy of From Russia With Love

This was my purchase in the Penguin Pop-Up back in September and is only the second of the actual James Bond books that I’ve read. I’ve watched the Connery and Bond movies a lot, so it was really interesting to see what the original was and where the plot was changed to make it into a film – and there are a few changes here and they weren’t always what I expected. There’s actually not a lot of Bond here until fairly late on – it’s mostly about the Russian side of the plot, building up to the chase sequence as Bond tries to make his way back to Britain (with Tatiana in tow). As a book it is of its time, but if you’re familiar with all the issues of the movie series, you know what you’re letting yourself in for!

The Body in the Kitchen Garden by Paula Sutton*

Cover of The Body in the Kitchen Garden

After reading the first in the Hill House Vintage mystery series last year, I’m back to report in on the second, because I said that I would come and report back on a sequel if it came. This sees Daphne helping in the renovation of the local manor house after the return of the owner after years out of the country. But when an unidentified body is discovered in the garden, she’s drawn into another murder investigation. In the first book, I had the murderer pegged fairly early on but I thought that might be because it was a debut, but also because there was a lot of series set up going on, so the mystery couldn’t be as complex as a result. But this didn’t have all that set up to do and I had the victim’s identity and the murderer worked out as early (if not earlier). And that’s a shame because I still really like the main characters and the setting. It’s just not got enough happening or complexity for me. Hey ho.

And that’s your lot for this month, as a reminder, the Books of the Week were: The Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Solving a Murder; What You Are Looking For is in the Library; Red Land, Black Land and I Shop, Therefore I Am. The Recommendsdays were a Halloween preview, mysteries set in theatres and Novelised Real People II

Book previews, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Halloween 2025

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I had lofty plans for my reading for a Halloween post this year, because it’s been a couple of years since I have done a Halloween Recommendsday post. But due to my extreme flakiness when it comes to reading, I only finished one of the books that I was planning to read – and that was yesterday’s BotW. But I’m turning that to the good, and instead of giving you reviews, I’m going to tell you what I’ve got waiting to be read that fits a Halloween vibe, but appeals to me and my reading tastes.

I’m starting with Olivia Dade‘s ZomRomCom. I bought this at Saucy Books in the summer and I think the fact that it’s in paperback is the reason I haven’t read it yet – because I’ve been away from home so much. Anyway, as the name suggests this is a Zombie Romantic Comedy where two neighbours team up to try and prevent the Zombie apocalypse. I’m really looking forward to seeing how Dade’s style and sensibilities transfer over into a paranormal romance, if I can just find some time at home to read it…

Also in paranormal rom-coms, I have Rosie Danan‘s Fan Service on the pile. I mentioned this back in March when it came out, and it had a price drop this month so here I am with a Kindle edition of this novel about a star of a werewolf detective TV show who has just discovered that he might be a werewolf for real.

Among the books waiting on the monster to-read pile are three Virago Designer Classics that look beautiful, but that I’m a little afraid may be too scary for me. The first a book of Daphne DuMaurier’s Don’t Look Now, has five short stories that are described as “haunting and evocative” and the second is The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton, where the problem is clearly in the name. Finally there is The Talented Mr Ripley, which I don’t think counts as Halloween-y, unless you count psychological thrillers as Halloween reading, and I’m pretty confident that that one is too scary for me, given that as as a teenager I failed to make it to the end of the movie version!

And finally, I’m confident that I will have finished The Murder at World’s End by this time next week – but that of course is too late for this post. It’s got a remote mansion, the passing of Haley’s Comet, a seemingly impossible murder in a locked room and a new servant who arrives the day before the murder and finds himself in the sights of Scotland Yard. I’m not sure if it’s actually Halloween-y per se though – but it’s certainly mysterious, and from where I have got to so far (about a third of the way through at time of writing) it has good potential to get really creepy.

Have a great Halloween if that’s your thing, if it’s not I hope you manage to escape the madness and in case you haven’t read it yet this season, I present my second favourite* McSweeney’s article ever: It’s Decorative Gourd Season.

*My favourite is of course I Regret To Announce That My Wedding to Captain Von Trapp Has Been Cancelled. You’re welcome.

mystery, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Mysteries set in theatres

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I’m back with a post of mysteries set in theatres because I’ve read a few of them recently. I did a post of theatre-set books a couple of years back and most of those were mysteries, but not all, but do take a look back at that too. There’s a bit of a theme here, because they’re all books in series, but they can all be read standalone without you missing anything crucial to follow the plots.

Hattie Steals the Show by Patrick Gleeson

This was my purchase at the Notting Hill Bookshop and turns out to be the second book featuring Hattie, which I didn’t realise at the time. Our plot is thus: Hattie is a stage manager, who has a job teaching at a stage school but it’s the summer holidays and has taken a couple of weeks cover work on a West End show for a friend. But when she turns up to shadow the job, they find a body in the theatre and one of Hattie’s old friends is the chief suspect. And so she starts to investigate, which leads her to a country house for a week long workshop of a new musical where a lot of the suspects will be. The author is a stage manager himself so I loved all the detail on that in the book, although I did have a couple of the plot twists worked out before they happened. But it’s got a lovely easy style about it and doesn’t info dump on you, to the extent that I really want to read the first book to see how much of the backstory was in that and how much was a new reveal in this. I really hope there are more too.

A Deadly Night at the Theatre by Katy Watson

This is the fifth book in the Three Dahlias series and sees two of the trio starring in (different) West End plays. But there is discord in the group as one of the stars of Caro’s show is Luke, an actor who has a history with Posy. Rosalind discovers this when she arrives in town to see the two shows, but then Like is found dead in Post’s dressing room everything lols on the verge of falling apart. While Posy holes up at her flat, Ros and Caro investigate, but are they really sure it wasn’t Posy? As you know I really like this series and i like the way that Katy Watson keeps finding them new settings for the Dahlias so it doesn’t feel obviously like one cursed literary franchise.

A Howl of Wolves by Judith Flanders

This is the fourth and final book in the Sam Clair series, and sees Sam and her boyfriend Jake at the theatre when a real body appears on the stage. As I said in my post about the series, Sam is a great character, but the supporting characters are also a joy, and in this one they are really front and centre – because the reason Sam is at the theatre is because her upstairs neighbours are in the play. There’s less of the publishing world detail in this one – or at least it’s less obviously publishing related, but we also get a good dose of Sam’s frighteningly efficient mum Helena. This is the hardest to get hold of of the series – it only came out in hardback and isn’t on Kindle (yet) but if you do spot a copy somewhere it’s worth it.

Murder at the Playhouses by Stuart Douglas

A slight theme is going on here as this is the second in the Lowe and Le Breton series, following on from Death at the Dress Rehearsal. This sees Edward and John taking on parts in a Shakespeare production in the gap between filming of series of Floggit and Leggit. They’ve been recruited because one of the company has been sacked for drunkenness. John is worried about the potential for Sir Nathaniel turning up to reclaim his job and making a scene – especially because he knows him – but then a body is found. This is fun, but it’s a little bit overlong and could have done with another editing pass because I spotted a continuity mistake in there (which really bugged me!) but I really like the characters and I hope we get a third one at some point.

Happy Humpday!

books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: October Kindle Offers

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It’s the second Wednesday of the month, so as always I am back with the Kindle deals for the month. And it’s a really good month, with quite a lot of new releases among the cheap deals – including several that I have been waiting to drop in price.

I’m going to start with Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy because it is 99p. I really, really loved this when I read it as it came out, and it was both the first book I read that had the pandemic in it but also the first in what is now a lot of books in the current trend of famous people-normal people romances in fiction (especially in romance). Just writing about it again has made me want to go back and re-read it.

Elly Griffiths‘ latest The Frozen People is on offer again – I bought it back when it was on a deal in April and really need to get around to reading it because there is a sequel coming early next year. Talking of sequels, Murder on the Marlow Belle is on offer, book five in the Marlow Murder Club is coming in January and there’s a third series of the TV series coming in 2026 too. The third Molly the Maid, The Maid’s Secret, is 99p as is

Just warning you, this next paragraph contains multiple books that I bought while writing this post. If you’re after some Halloween-themed reading, I have exciting news: Jen DeLuca’s new book Ghost Business is 99p – as are Rosie Danan‘s Fan Service and Do Your Worst, Josie Silver’s Crazy Spooky Love, Jenna Levine’s Road Trip with a Vampire and Lauren Evans’s Casket Case. If you just want autumnal, I think You, Again has the most autumnal cover of anything I’ve recently seen.

T J Klune‘s The House in the Cerulean Sea is 99p, I think because the sequel Somewhere Beyond the Sea came out in paperback at the end of September. The fifth in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, Before We Forget Kindness, is on offer as is Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet which is the first in her Wayfarers series. This summer’s Trisha Ashley is 99p too – A Recipe for Romance was originally published as Chocolate Wishes and is one of her Lancashire books.

This month’s Terry Pratchett is Soul Music – if you haven’t read the story of that time when Music With Rocks In It came to the Disc, then you’re really missing out. If you like your P G Wodehouse, the fourth volume (of five) of Jeeves omnibuses is 99p. The Autumn Chills Agatha Christie collection is 99p (as well as being in Kindle Unlimited)

On the non-fiction front, Otto English’s Notorious (which is waiting on my shelf after buying it on the way to Ghana) is 99p, as is Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik and Kim Gordon (of Sonic Youth)’s Girl in a Band. There are also two of Tim Marshall’s books at 99p – Worth Dying For about the power of flags and Shadowplay about his time reporting on the Yugoslav conflict. And David Hepworth’s Overpaid, Oversexed and Over There about the British invasion of the US music charts in the 1960s is on offer too.

And that’s your lot. I’m not telling you how many books I bought while writing this because I’m trying not to think about it!

Happy Humpday!

book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: September Quick Reviews

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It’s the start of October today, so I’m back with the Quick reviews for September, and stats will pop up later in the week. And September was quite a ride on the reading front. It really has. I’ve read some good stuff and some less good stuff, I’ve struggled with books for BotW at some points, but I’ve ended up at the end of the month with plenty of books on the list to chose from to talk about here, but I’ve decided that this month it’s a follow up special…

Chris at the Kennels by Patricia Baldwin

It’s been a while since I did a Girl’s Own book, and a year since I did my post about Girl’s Own career’s books, and so I’m popping this one in here as a follow up. This is another evangelical career book – so Chris finds God while she carries out an apprenticeship at a kennels. Because in the 1960s it seems that breeding dogs and showing them and doing a little bit of boarding for other people’s dogs was enough to pay two salaries as well as supporting the owner. Chris is a twin and grew up on a farm, but instead of staying on at school and trying to get into university she wants to leave and work with dogs. I have no idea how accurate this is on a life of a kennel maid front, but I enjoyed seeing what drama Baldwin had found to keep the plot moving and break up the dog care info! Additionally, unusually for the Baldwins that I’ve read, Chris’s religious awakening happens from reading the Bible and from the other kennel maid’s scepticism about religion, rather than a religious person coming in and converting her!

Island Calling by Francesca Segal*

I mentioned that this was coming out back in June and now I’ve read it, I am reporting back. I really think you need to have read the first one to make the most of this but it is part two of a trilogy, so that’s not really a surprise. But for me, having enjoyed Welcome to Glorious Tuga, it was lovely treat to return to the characters and the great setting and get another slice of island life. This time we have the addition of Charlotte’s bossy mother unexpectedly arriving on the island. There is some peril here, but it never feels too awful so it’s a charming and relaxing read. As far as I can tell there’s no news yet on a date for part three, but if it follows the pattern of this one, it should be next summer sometime.

The Paris Spy by Sarah Sigal*

And I’m also reporting back in on this one which came out a couple of weeks ago. The follow up to The Socialite Spy takes Lady Pamela More to Paris on the eve of WW2, and back into the orbit of Wallis Simpson, now Duchess of Windsor. I didn’t think this was as successful as the first book because it has a less defined task for Pamela to do, and it also covers a much wider and more chaotic time. It continues to follow fairly closely to what I have read about the antics of the Windsors after the abdication, so it feels pretty accurate on a history front, I just think it’s trying to do too much and doesn’t always resolve things as successfully as you want, although I suspect there’s a third book in mind… and I did enjoy this enough that I would read it though if there was!

That’s your lot today, but a reminder if you need it that this month’s books of the week were: The Last Supper, A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever, Breakneck and Entitled.

Book previews, book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: New Autumn Fiction

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After last week’s look at the non-fiction, this week I’m using Recommendsday to talk abou the big fiction releases of the autumn as we hurtle towards Christmas.

I’ve already written about the new Dan Brown which came out on the 9th, but tomorrow sees the other biggie September with the arrival of the new Richard Osman. After taking a break from the Thursday Murder Club last year with We Solve Murders, he’s back with the fifth in the series The Impossible Fortune, which sees the residents of Coopers Chase back on the case. You’re going to want to have read the previous book because there was a Big Plot Development at the end of The Last Devil to Die.

Also out this week is the new novel from Patricia Lockwood, Will There Ever Be Another You. This is inspired by Lockwood’s own experiences suffering the effects of Long Covid on her memory and promises to be a slightly trippy and inventive read. I read Lockwood’s memoir Priestdaddy years ago and still need to read her first novel before I get around to this one, even if I was ready to start reading books set during Covid. Which I’m not sure I am yet!

The new R F Kuang, Katabasis is already out and completely everywhere. This is Kuang’s first book since Yellowface and is a return to speculative fiction. If you are a reader of Literary Fiction, there are lots of the Big Authors who have books out this autumn – from Salman Rushdie with The Eleventh Hour on November 4, to Ian McEwan’s “literary thriller and love story” What We Can Know (which came out last week) and William Boyd’s historical spy novel The Predicament which is his second book featuring Gabriel Dax (the first being Gabriel’s Moon).

There are also new books from some of the mega thriller writers: John Grisham has The Widow (October 21) which is being described as his first whodunnit as well as being a legal thriller. Jeffery Archer also has a new thriller out this week with End Game. In (other) books that are Not For Verity there is also the Nicholas Sparks and M Night Shyamalan book Remain

But what am I waiting for, I hear you ask. Well my autumn pre-orders include Olivia Dade’s Second Chance Romance. This is the second book in the Harlot’s Bay series, and I’ve had it pre-ordered since March, because that is how I roll. If you read At First Spite, this is Karl the Baker’s story, and the heroine is an audiobook narrator who moved away from town after high school. I can’t wait. It’s out at the end of November. I’ve also got the paperback of Katherine Center’s Love Haters ordered – the ebook came out at the start of the summer, but for some reason Past Verity went for the paperback and a longer wait!

The fifth H M The Queen Presents book, The Queen Who Came in from the Cold is out the same day – it’s the early 1960s, and The Queen is getting ready to go to Italy on the Royal Yacht when someone claims to have seen a murder from the Royal Train. There is another Sophie Hannah Poirot novel coming this autumn too – The Last Death of the Year – which sees Poirot arriving on a Greek island for New Year. These can go either way for me – I’ve liked two, disliked two and just picked up the one I haven’t read on offer to see how that one suits me.

And finally, it would be remiss of me not to mention that Stephen Rowley, author of The Celebrants and The Guncle, has a new one coming in mid October. Just a warning though that The Dogs of Venice is a novella – it’s already available on Audible and only lasts 80 minutes, so it’s quite pricey as a £20 hardback (no matter how much I love him).

Book previews, book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: New Autumn non-fiction

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September is the start of the mega Christmas release schedule and as ever there is a shedload of celebrity memoirs and non fiction coming out this Christmas season. SO this week I thought I’d mention the ones that I am particularly looking forward to.

Let’s start with Tim Curry’s Vagabond which comes out in mid October. Curry has had a long and successful career – you’re likely to know him either as Frank-n-Furter in the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Pennywise in the original It, Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island, or the voice of Nigel Thornberry in The Wild Thornberrys. He’s always been a somewhat private person and he’s been largely out of the spotlight and only doing voice work since he had a major stroke in 2012. So I’m really excited to find out what he’s got to say about his career (because I’m not expecting any revelations about his personal life) and as he’s reading the audiobook, I think I may well consume it that way so I can listen to his wonderful voice.

The other big actor memoir that I’ve seen this autumn is Michael J Fox’s Future Boy which is specifically about the period in the 1980s where he was making both the Back to the Future films and the sitcom Family Ties. That’s out in mid October. The week before that there’s Ozzy Osborne’s Last Rites, which takes you (apparently) right though his life to that final gig just a few weeks before he died in July.

But the other book on my list is Making Mary Poppins by Todd James Pierce. Mary Poppins is one of my very favourite ever movies and as you know I love stories of behind the scenes in Hollywood. I’ve already read both of Julie Andrews’s memoirs so I’ve heard about the filming from her, but I’m sure there is much more to find out.

The Big Political Book this autumn is Kamala Harris’s 107 Days, which is out next week and looks at her very brief campaign to become President, starting from when Joe Biden announced that he would no longer seek reelection.

Talking of American politics, not a memoir per se, but Michelle Obama has a new book out in early November – The Look is an examination of her evolving style over the years and the impact that fashion and style can have on you. And there’s also a new cookbook from Samin Nosrat whose Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat won a bunch of awards back in around 2017. Good Things is recipes to cook – 125 of them in fact. Padma Lakshmi also has a new cookbook out – All American – with recipes from all the many cultures she’s come across during her decades travelling in the US.

I’m really interested to have a look at Cory Doctrow’s Enshittification, which is looking at why so many things in tech and online start off being good and then go downhill as it is monetised and the impact that this has on everything in our lives. That’s out in mid October. In a similar sort of area, I’m also interested in Streaming Wars by Charlotte Henry, which is about the changes in the media industry that streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney+, Spotify and the like have caused, and what happens next. That’s out at the start of October.

I won’t be the only person out there who studied The Handmaid’s Tale at A Level, even if I’ve only read one (maybe two?) of Margaret Atwood’s other novels in the years since (more if you count her graphic novel series AngelCatbird). But she has a memoir out this autumn The Book of Lives out in early November. In other notable prize winning authors, Zadie Smith has Dead and Alive, an essay collection, out at the very end of October and Arundhati Roy’s Mother Mary Comes to Me is already in the shops.