Staff Recommendations July 2025
What We’re Reading |
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The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier (Borough Press, £9.99)
We are in Venice (500 years before Bezos despoiled the place) and meet a family of glassmakers on Murano, just across the lagoon. The book features the same set of characters, ageing slowly, but modern to the age of each section of the book which skips down the centuries. From medieval plague to Covid and steps in between. Not a Doctor Who or a time slip but the same people reacting to their times, with their same personalities and family and friendship networks. The industry changes, there are love affairs and disasters, and Venice eventually becomes joined to terrafirma to become the place we know, where you can still buy Murano glass, though primarily tourist tat rather than the craftwork of before. We learn a lot about glassmaking, and a little Venetian as we go along. One neat character is an initially enslaved gondolier, drawn from a Carpaccio painting from the Renaissance. These days, I imagine you would need to be Bezos to afford a gondola, but they were the standard mode of travel around the city and the watery suburbs. A great summer read. –Ross |
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How To Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks (Penguin £10.99) David Brooks’ is a journalist who I think falls somewhere between social scientist and moral philosopher, and within two books has quickly become one of my favourite writers. In How to Know a Person, he offers a thoughtful exploration of the crucial (and sadly often lacking) skill of truly seeing and understanding others. Beyond superficial interactions, Brooks looks at the art of deep listening, asking real and meaningful questions, and the task of recognising the unique inner lives of individuals. The book provides plenty of raw but honest home truths, valuable insights and practical guidance for fostering more genuine connections out in our fragmented world and closer to home. A worthy follow up to The Second Mountain, his inquiry into living a moral life. –Carl |
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Wish I Was Here by M. John Harrison (Serpent’s Tail £10.99) The book’s title is a clue to the inimitable style of a writer described by the Sunday Times as ‘The best writer you’ve never heard of’. He writes in most genres you can think of, and his work includes the Goldsmiths Prize-winning novel The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again. The author starts this fragmented, brilliant ‘anti-memoir’ about writing and who he is, or was, with a dedication: “For everyone who couldn’t think what to say”; and a quote: “Yesterday upon the stair/I met a man who wasn’t there.” –Giselle |
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The Flow: Rivers, Water and Wildness by Amy-Jane Beer (Bloomsbury Wildlife, £10.99)
If you pay attention to nature writing, I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that Robert Macfarlane has a new book on rivers (which you should absolutely read) but if you’d like to know more about Britain’s beautiful and oft mistreated waterways Beer’s 2023 book is well worth a look. Her personal love of rivers sings through the pages, as she grapples to redefine her relationship with the water after stepping back from kayaking following the tragic death of a dear friend. It’s much more than a touching memoir though – it’s also a wealth of information on natural history, geology, and access rights. Worth noting – Beer is one of the key figures in the right to roam movement, fighting to give us all better access to swim, paddle, or simply sit and watch the flow. –Kate |
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Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation edited by Jeremy Tiang and Kavita Bhanot (Tilted Axis £12.99)
I don’t think I’ll ever stop finding value in this brilliant collection of essays. Each time I pick it up, I learn something new and am challenged on things I thought I understood about, to quote Jen Calleja, the “life-art of translation”. If you enjoy fiction in translation, thinking about language or have an interest in forms of communication, this is a book for you. –Sarah |
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Passion by David Morley (Carcanet, £12.99)
Start by looking closely at the cover, then google the original painting, Gypsies by Rafael Barradas, then sink in… Initially to a poetic equivalent of Merlin, the app where you can identify birdsong, then to a long section on Romany life, which takes two readings, one before, one after reading the extensive glossary. –Ross |
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Versus Versus: 100 Poems by Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent Poets ed. by Rachael Boast (Bloodaxe £14.99)
This is the best poetry anthology I’ve picked up in a long time. Where many fall short on consistency, this collection maintains a high standard throughout, while showing a diversity in form and approach. A particular favourite is Levent Beskardès’s poem ‘V’, transposed to the page and translated from French Sign Language by Stephanie Papa. The talent on display in this collection is staggering and has introduced me to so many exceptional poets. –Sarah |
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White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link (Head of Zeus/AdAstra £9.99)
Kelly Link is one of my favourite short story writers and her latest collection does not disappoint. Loosely based on fairy tales, the stories quickly diverge into truly original Link tales, full of playful humour. She is a genre-bender of note, effortlessly blending realism, horror, fantasy and sci-fi. Be prepared to go on a wild imaginative journey full of fantastic surprises, from cats running a cannabis farm to a house sitter who is instructed to never let in the owner, should he happen to visit. My favourites are ‘The White Cat’s Divorce’ and ‘Skinder’s Veil.’ –Giselle |
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Mouthing by Orla Mackey (Penguin £9.99) I picked this up for June’s fiction book group and though I didn’t manage to attend the discussion on the night, I’m so glad I read this! Told from the multiple perspectives of inhabitants of a small Irish town, it is at turns funny, heartbreaking and brilliantly shows how flawed our perceptions of ourselves and each other often are. –Sarah |