Cardiganed Herons – 14/09/2024

A chill hung over The Downs early yesterday morning as we began setting up for the University of Bristol’s Welcome Fair. My fingers complained of the cold when I attempted to achieve the perfect fan of bookmarks (years of training required). By the time our stall was ready, the sun was offering alleviation and the sky was the sort of blue that makes me want to gaze at ceramic pots at Riverside Garden Centre. Did I imagine the scent of spiced cider? Probably. The All-Things-Mulled Appreciation Society had not yet arrived.

Regardless, the season does feel changed. One must don an extra cardigan and reach for Ali Smith’s Autumn for I have tripped over several conkers and the leaves are beginning to redden.

With that, publishers are entering a (book-)leaf frenzy of their own. New titles are coming thick and fast. The delivery boxes threaten to turn the shop into a fort. And September means: The Big Names are here. Richard Osman, Jacqueline Wilson, Robert Harris, Sally Rooney, Elif Shafak, Yotam Ottolenghi…

It’s as easy to become overwhelmed as it is excited so here are some of The Big Ones which I think you will love:

Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd: Gabriel Dax was just your average travel writer reporting from Africa in the 60s when the prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrice Lumumba, was assassinated. The interviews he had recorded with Lumumba now look rather valuable. Dax, turned unwitting – impossible to write such a summary without using ‘unwitting’ – spy is drawn into the MI6 investigation where one is compelled to follow, at speed and with great enjoyment.

Small Rain by Garth Greenwell: a poet finds himself in such extreme pain that he is compelled to acknowledge he may be dying and go to hospital. Despite his discomfort in exposing his body. Despite the US healthcare system. Despite it being 2020. From the confines of his room, losing control of his physical self to doctors and nurses gleaning data from it, he is forced to confront what he thought his poetry already had.

And I must mention two novels yet to be published but worth the agonizing wait:
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout, in which her recurring characters Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton finally meet. You can read Strout’s novels as standalone books – I started years ago with Olive Kitteridge and have loved every one – but they take place in a shared universe and part of their joy is in getting to know her characters more intimately and with more understanding of their changes and ageing than you could hope to know anyone in ‘real life.’ So, perhaps return to the very beginning. You have until 19^th September to prepare.   
Gliff by the aforementioned Ali Smith: out on 31^st October and promising all the glittering word play, political comment, precocious children who just might save us all and fairytales breaking into reality for which one could wish.

Saints by Amy Jeffs: the historian, writer, artist and musician turns to the legends of medieval saints drawing on everything from the ‘official’ records of their lives to obscene poetry to write their stories, accompanying these with erudite commentary and stunning linocuts.

Black History for Every Day of the Year by David, Yinka and Kemi Olusoga: the title does not quite do this justice since it implies you might dip into it like an almanac, think ‘oh, how interesting’ and be done. Instead, this is a fascinating history, well-researched, as well as beautifully presented with poetry and illustrations, which will drive discussion and further reading.

Chernobyl Roulette by Serhii Plokhy: following his history of the 1986 disaster, Plokhy is compelled to return to the subject to examine the weeks in 2022 when Russian vehicles rolled into Chernobyl at the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. There, they held the Ukrainian workers hostage, workers who now found that they must protect the world from a nuclear accident while Russian officers with no understanding of the dangers of the plant aimed at reaching the capital.  

Collected Poems by Wendy Cope: is simply everything one could want from a collected poems by Wendy Cope. Peel me an orange. My heart has made its mind up while my soul made cocoa for Kingsley Amis.

Scattered Snows, To The North by Carl Philips: please disregard everything I have attempted to express about seasons and colours and sunlight and shadows and read Carl Philips’ poetry instead. This is an extraordinary collection. Also with Vikings.

Two of the best children’s illustrators have new books:
In board book form, Maisy Loves Birds by Lucy Cousins: Maisy is off to discover starlings, robins, ducks, birds of prey and birds that can’t even fly.
And in Britta Teckentrup’s latest picture book, Big Hedgehog and Little Hedgehog Take an Evening Stroll, the hedgehogs do exactly that, watching the sunset, observing some things waking while others drift off to sleep.

Those getting into chapter books must read Badgers Are Go by Susannah Lloyd, illustrated by Nici Gregory, in which they will meet Lulu Whifferton-Rear on a mission to save the world. Yes, it’s that Susannah Lloyd of Who Ate Steve? fame. Wonderful. 

Middle grade readers, and anyone who appreciates glorious nature writing in fiction, will delight in the new book from Katya Balen, Ghostlines. When a newcomer arrives on the Island of Ayrie, Tilda wants to show him all that is special about it: the puffins, seals, walks, traditions and stories held in its hills. But when Albie is unmoved, Tilda remembers another, more ghostly tale which might draw him in…

I’m sorry to say that we have had to cancel Poetry in Herons this evening as Elizabeth Parker is unwell. All is not lost for we have copies of her collections, In Her Shambles and Cormorant, in the shop and her work is beautiful on the page as well as in person.

Next Friday, I am very excited to be interviewing Orla Owen about her novel, Christ on a Bike. Do get your ticket online or in the shop and come along to hear about a tale of unexpected inheritance which comes with some unnerving rules…

If you are in denial about the seasons, may I suggest an antidote: go with Elizabeth von Arnim to spend a month in a medieval Italian castle in The Enchanted April. Why have I not read this until now? It has joined I Capture the Castle as a book I’ll read again and again and press into everyone’s hands.

May your weekend swirl with falling, flushed leaves,
Lizzie  

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