PotsandPlots

This is the first in a new type of post for PotsandPlots, where I note all the bits and pieces that have inspired me to add books to my TBR (To Be Read) pile. Many of these may only be virtual, but they’ll go on the list and maybe I’ll add them to the physical pile one day.

There are two sources of books that will probably appear regularly in this column – The Big Issue and its weekly book review page and the Waterstones book of the month, which usually whets my appetite for at least a couple of titles.

Nov 1st – Waterstones Books of the Month

This month their fiction choice – Eurotrash looks really interesting.

“Realising he and she are the worst kind of people, a middle-aged man embarks on a dubious road trip through Switzerland with his eighty-year-old mother, recently discharged from a mental institution. Driving across the country, they attempt to give away her arms-industry wealth, but a fortune of such immensity is hard to squander. Haunted in different ways by the figure of her father, an ardent supporter of Nazism, mother and son can no longer avoid delving into the darkest truths about their past.”

It’s a definitely possibility for a future book group choice. I suspect that’s the only way I’d ever actually get around to reading it!

I loved Jeanette Winterson’s Christmas Days from a few years ago which is why The Dead of Winter appealed. Subtitled The Demons, Witches and Ghosts of Christmas, this is a non-fiction book about all the various darker folklore tradition that surround Christmas and Christmas time.

The Big Issue – November Week 1.

I enjoy reading the Big Issue book review page. It always has a couple of books that I may not otherwise have heard of and then five one-line reviews of a group of themed books. This week’s reviewer was Doug Johnstone (author of the Encapheldons trilogy) who is my favourite of the reviewers they have on rotation.

He mentioned Relearning to Read: Adventures in Not-Knowing by Ann Morgan, a book about how we read, and why it’s ok to read a book that is out of your comfort zone. Having struggled with and given up on a few books in my time, but also a believer that some of my very favourite books are ones I’ve had to fight my way into, I’m very keen to read this.

Cyntia Rogerson’s novel about human evolution, 100,000 Birthdays explores how we’ve become who we are. It sounds like an absolute riot. The book begins with the first birthday of the narrator, then rewinds to the first birthday of her (many times great) grandfather – a microbe called Kevin bobbing in a not-very-salty sea. Johnstone compared it to Bill Bryson’s – A Short History of Nearly Everything, which is high praise indeed.

Books from elsewhere.

Ever since reading Octavia Butler’s Kindred, I’ve thought I should read more of her work, and was reminded of this by a recently watched episode of Abbot Elementary (a current TV pleasure), where they have a book group centered around The Parable of the Sower. The episode was bonkers enough to prompt me to buy a copy.

I very much enjoy reading “Runalong the Shelves,” run by Womble (who is also good value on Bluesky for his Sunday Reads enquiry). He regularly adds to my TBR pile and November was no exception, with a sneaky 2fer. The Salt Oracle by Lorraine Wilson looks to be just up my street. It’s only out in hardback and the moment, and I tend to try to make my money go further by reading paperbacks.

Fortunately she has an earlier novel set in the same world, but independent, called We are All Ghosts in the Forest. I’ve added that to my Christmas list.

Bluesky is a fun place to find book reviews and this post put me onto “The Red Labyrinth,” because the cover looked cool.

It’s a short novel that is “Presented to the reader as a speech given by Zoja’s most infamous disciple, Illanana, The Red Labyrinth tells of the violent histories of the Red King and the Black Queen, the twisted maze they lived in, and the cruel, tattooed monks who oversaw their rule.”

Quite fancy giving that a try.

Bluesky also led me to this article in Locus magazine. The book reviewed feels like it might be a little too nebulous for my liking but it led me to Madeleine Thien’s Book of Records, which looks like a mosiac of ideas and history, that I’d really like to immerse myself in.

Finally, I’ve been watching Silo this month on AppleTV. I’ve reached the end of season 2, which is all that’s available at the moment. I am very tempted to go back and read Wool and the rest of Hugh Howey’s excellent trilogy.