Suspenseful thriller, set in the snowy ski mountains of the USA, by @tsierraauthor.bsky.social 12-yr-old Zach is on a father-son trip with entitled rich men. Disaster strikes! Luckily, his dead mother taught him survival skills. Engaging, fast-paced page-turner. UK publication 12/2/26 #books 💙📚⚡️

Yes, this. But also, booksellers play an important role, sharing the books we love, with expertise. We should be valued; I wish I was paid the Real Living Wage (I’m paid 95p an hour below it). www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I’m so excited to read the proof of Ali Smith’s forthcoming novel! Glyph is a companion to Gliff, but can be read on its own. This is the art that we need for our time. Thoughtful, deep, and light at the same time, with warmth and playfulness. I love the sisters’ relationship. 29/1/26 #books 💙📚🖋️

Surely there’s no one who doesn’t love Richard Ayoade! Here’s a little book he’s put together, which was no doubt given and received happily this season by his many fans. With many an amusing aperçu, it’s easy to dip into whilst trapped among relatives and needing distraction. #books 💙📚

A cosy mystery by @nicolaupson.bsky.social set on Christmas Eve 1943. Elva & Anthony Pratt are the real-life couple who invented the board game Cluedo. Here, it’s imagined how they may have been inspired by deadly events at a country house hotel. Good story, readable in an afternoon. #books 💙📚⚡️

I LOVE this crime debut by @franapunk.bsky.social Set in 1970s Glasgow , the narration switches between 12-yr-old Janey, who finds a body, and her grandmother. Very well-written, with strong voices & characters I care about. Themes of grief, memory, and how women cope. Great! UK 12/2/26 #books 💙📚⚡️

Exciting news for book lovers in #Bristol : The brilliant author Ali Smith is visiting us in February, to discuss her new book Glyph. Tickets available from The Small City Bookshop: www.thesmallcitybookshop.co.uk/event-detail... #books 💙📚🖋️

An eye-opening examination of the history of yoga in the early twentieth century, by @stewarthome.bsky.social Apparently there’s nothing that some white people can’t spoil by injecting hatred and extracting profit. Pertinent lessons for the rising science-denialism and fascism now. #books 💙📚💡

I’m getting into the spirit of the season by reading the latest Christmas-themed mystery by @alexandrakbenedict.bsky.social Edie & Riga, in love and in their 80s, are off to a posh hotel on a remote Scottish island. Will they solve the elaborately-clued series of murders? Good & cosy. #books 💙📚⚡️

An insightful and original short novel set in Paris in the 1960s, 90s & 2010s. Colonialism, consumerism, and immigrant experiences are considered from the perspectives of undocumented Ivoirians working as security guards. Biting satire, but also poignant in places. Relevant. #books 💙📚🖋️

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Really interesting Marxist approach to issues around neurodiversity in the modern era, by @drrobertchapman.bsky.social Many relevant insights into alienation; how capitalism narrows standards of mental normality; how the pathology paradigm is problematic; eugenics etc. Recommend. #books 💙📚💡

Atmospheric gothic thriller set in 1920s Wiltshire. Vee, trying to outrun her past, takes a job as gardener at crumbling Harfold Manor. Will she fall under the spell of mysterious Lady Arabella, who is hiding her own secrets and fearful of the family curse? UK publication 22/1/26 #books 💙📚⏳

We’re all looking for a little magic at Christmas 💫 Stories bring joy, comfort and connection. And you can help to share the #MagicOfBooks with the children who need it most.  Donate today to make a difference this Christmas - and beyond: https://bit.ly/4hTWKCT

My first graphic novel! A kind gift from a friend in Book Club. It took me a minute to process the pictures, which is a different skill than reading text. Cassandra is a grumpy, lonely, disgraced art dealer. I enjoyed the unexpected turns of her story, and her young lodger Nicki. #books 💙📚

What a delightful pleasure it is to read a well-written children’s book - whatever your age! I thoroughly enjoyed returning to the Archipelago, and meeting brave young princess Anya, who’d much rather be in the forest than the palace. I especially love the map and the Bestiary pictures. #books 💙📚

I always learn so much, reading Robin Wall Kimmerer. She is an ideal teacher and guide to the natural world, blending scientific and indigenous knowledge with personal wisdom. Now I will look at mosses in a different way, and pay closer attention. My favourites are Sphagnum. Inspiring. #books 💙📚💡

I’ve had this as an earworm all week…

A gothic psychological thriller set in 1920s Cape Town. Soraya works as a live-in maid in the crumbling house of widowed Mrs Hattingh. An atmospheric exploration of the power dynamics of empire and the grief from WWI between the two women. Taut and haunting. UK publ. 15/01/26 #books 💙📚🖋️

I really enjoyed this readable speculative fiction, set in a recognisable near-future city. Surveillance is ubiquitous; nature is depleted; Hums are intelligent robots. May is struggling to raise her family in a difficult economy. Exciting, thoughtful, and Black Mirror-esque. #books 💙📚🪐

In 2019 Australia, Lucy is in trouble so runs to her sister’s house, only to find her gone. In 1800, sisters Mary and Eliza are transported as criminals from Ireland to Australia. Something mysterious links these pairs of sisters… but what explains the disappearances of abusive men? #books 💙📚

This is a beautifully written book, I’m glad it’s been recognised.

Set in 1930s Japanese-occupied Korea. Age 20, Kang Juryong joins her husband fighting in the liberation movement. Later she works in a Pyongyang factory where she becomes a labour organiser. My favourite way of learning history is through novels with engaging characters like this! #books 💙📚⏳

We are delighted to announce that the winner of the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2025 is ‘And the Walls Became the World All Around’ by Johanna Ekström and Sigrid Rausing, translated from Swedish (Sweden) by Sigrid Rausing and published by @grantabooks.bsky.social !

I learned a lot about cybernetics from this really interesting book by @dsquareddigest.bsky.social He uses fascinating and relatable examples to explain how organisational processes can result in an ‘accountability sink’ of stuff happening without responsibility. Sad for the squirrels. #books 💙📚💡

A literary coming-of-age / queer campus novel, with themes of loneliness and identity, honesty and self-invention. The writing in this forthcoming debut is outstandingly good, with a sharp, dark and compelling interior voice. New author Grace Murray is one to watch. UK publ. 15/01/26 #books 💙📚🖋️

Exciting and original sci-fi horror by @qntm.org Antimemes cannot be remembered; they are ‘self-keeping secrets’. So how can Marie Quinn, the Head of the Antimemetics Division, protect humanity from this threat? Sometimes confusing but always propulsive and interesting. I enjoyed this. #books 💙📚🪐

A pretty standard locked-room whodunnit. Except that the setting is a Zeppelin flying from Nazi Germany to Rio de Janeiro. Set in 1933, with good characters and a plot which really takes off with a twist in the last third of the book. A quick & fun weekend read. #books 💙📚⚡️

A must for fans of Jeanette Winterson. I enjoyed this, her latest book, which does not limit itself to the opposing categories of fiction and nonfiction. It’s about stories, and their power. Shahrazad’s 1001 Nights has always had plenty to tell us. Let us look closely, and imagine. #books 💙📚

Tara is still stuck in the eighteenth of November. But now she has met Henry, who, like her, is reliving the same day repeatedly. Could there be others? This series just gets better and better. Let us contemplate the purpose our lives, as Tara must. Are we monsters, using things up? #books 💙📚🖋️

It’s the eighteenth of November! Tara’s day. Will we ever see another day? I hope that everyone is reading On The Calculation of Volume today. I’m spending today reading Volume III. Fantastic! I’m obsessed. Strongly recommend. @faberbooks.bsky.social #books 💙📚🖋️

The narrator is living alone in an apartment in Argentina. Her relationships with friends and family are strained and distant. A big package arrives…it’s her estranged Mum in a box! An unsettling, otherworldly feeling keeps us unsure of what is real. Lots of symbolism. Intriguing! #books 💙📚🖋️

I loved this warm and touching love story by @damianbarr.bsky.social Bobby & Robert were Scottish artists who flourished at Glasgow School of Art in the 1930s despite class barriers. Their reimagined lives are described with a painterly eye. A story worth telling, told beautifully. #books 💙📚🖋️

We’re in era of information crisis. @naomialderman.bsky.social , in this excellent new short nonfiction book, examines what this means for us as individuals, and for humanity. Well-informed, important, lucid & highly relevant. Overwhelmed & unsettled by the internet age? Read this! #books 💙📚💡

Sean is a miserable misanthropic bookseller living in LA and trying to write a novel. By turns annoying and hilarious, every time I began to lose patience he would hit me with a biting & funny observation. Themes of gentrification, self-loathing & the frustrations of customer service. #books 💙📚🖋️

There’s a lot of really great journalism on this shortlist.

It’s really interesting that this prize includes different genres, including novels, poetry and memoir. I’ve only read Han Kang’s We Do Not Part so far, which is an excellent book. I most want to read Désirée Congo next (if I can find it). 💙📚🖋️

Well that’s the first year in ages that I haven’t read the full Booker Prize shortlist, and of course the only one I’m missing is the winner! Not sure how it passed me by. I think my lesson is not to judge a book by its title. I’m off to the bookshop in the morning.

The #BookerPrize2025 winner will be announced this evening. I’ve read five of the six shortlisted books (I was not tempted by Flesh). My favourite is Flashlight by Susan Choi. I was immersed in this brilliant novel from the very beginning. I very much hope she wins the prize. 💙📚🖋️ 🧵1/3

I loved this epic literary novel from the very first pages. A well-written, immersive narrative which informs about geopolitical issues through characters I really cared about. From post-WW2 Koreans in Japan, through the late C20th US immigrant experience, to today. #BookerPrize2025 #books 💙📚🖋️

An engaging and sometimes humorous nonfiction book about looking for a father figure. The 31-year-old author, who never had a dad, looks for candidates for that role by placing “dadverts” in various publications. An interesting premise, well told, with an original voice. #books 💙📚💡

A very American literary novel, shortlisted for the #BookerPrize2025 Tom is having a midlife crisis, and health problems. Like a male All Fours, except with sport instead of sex, and he actually goes on the road trip. Similarly annoying privileged characters. Didn’t love it, sorry. #books 💙📚🖋️

Set in 1970s Italy in the world of film-making, this literary novel fictionalises real events around the life and death of Pasolini. A queer love story with an air of menace. Themes of power, artifice and the underlying threat of fascism. I’m glad I read her essay (Guardian 1/11) first #books 💙📚🖋️

A queer, gothic, Latin American vampire tale. Two women in Buenos Aires, one in the 1860s & one in the present day, are linked when the one who’s a vampire is awakened by the other. Well-written and atmospheric, with themes of desire, loneliness, grief and mortality. #books 💙📚🖋️📚🩸

An enjoyable and engrossing historical crime thriller. Set in Calcutta towards the end of British Empire rule, with plenty of atmospheric detail and political awareness. Banerjee and Wyndham are reunited when Suren’s cousin disappears and Sam investigates a murder. pub.13 Nov #books 💙📚⚡️ 1/2…

A literary horror thriller; a compelling mystery spanning countries & decades. When strangers Jake and Mariko meet in an airport, they discover a gruesome coincidence of lost loved ones. Horror is not a genre I prefer, but I enjoyed this because of its engaging plot and pacy writing. #books 💙📚🩸

A powerful takedown of the “Western Civilisation” brand by a knowledgeable science historian/museum curator. She includes some personal memoir along with well-researched information. Particularly strong on ‘race science’ and its impact historically. Accessible and relevant. #books 💙📚💡

I loved this fascinating piece of speculative fiction, somewhere between a novel and a collection of linked stories. In the distant future, there are few humans left on Earth. Themes of cloning, AI, evolution, community and the nature of humanity. Meditative, sometimes unsettling #books 💙📚🪐

Fun NYT Connections puzzle this morning! Finally, the respect due to Only Connect and @vcorenmitchell.bsky.social

A richly detailed literary epic. Set in late 20th century India, New York and beyond. Sonia and Sunny are separately trying to find their way in the world. I felt a fundamental sadness, frustration and dissatisfaction within all the characters. It’s very long. #BookerPrize2025 #books 💙📚🖋️