March was a quiet month for books that intrigued me, and I only have two entries for you. This might not be because there were fewer interesting books revealed last month. It could be because, with the better weather, I’ve become increasingly obsessed with my garden. Time spent following links on the internet and discovering great reads has instead been spent potting, weeding, and even making a pond.
It may also be a self-defence mechanism. I bought an awful lot of books in the first 3 months of the year, and I’ve suddenly realised, I have almost no chance of reading them all. I have little appetite to make the problem even worse, especially as in March I placed a big Waterstones pre-order, which means books will wend their way through to me over the next six months.
The Misheard World (2026) by Aliya Whiteley
I’ve seen this book reviewed in numerous places, and it has been brilliantly received everywhere.
I don’t usually like to quote wholesale from a blurb, but I’m not quite sure how to break this one down, so here it is. Fascinating pretext from an author whose books always garner stellar reviews (Three Eight One is also on my wishlist!)
Before wars are won, they must be witnessed.
“Elize Janview is a soldier, one of the few survivors of an unimaginably terrible weapon, which ended the long détente between the North and the South and plunged them back into all-out war. She enlisted with a dream of finding those responsible, of somehow getting revenge for the deaths of everyone she knew, but was posted to guard the prison at Crag, the fortress of the South, which has never fallen to the enemy.
Janview’s life is transformed when a rough wooden box is delivered to Crag, holding the performer and spy Marius Mondegreen, agent of the North: the Misheard Word, who can read minds, breathe fire, and make objects appear and disappear. Janview is to witness Mondegreen’s interrogation by his captor, the beautiful and cruel Allynx Syld, who promises the end of the war. As recorder – and by degrees participant – in the interrogation, Janview comes to question everything she knew about the war, and the very world she lives in…”
It’s a well-known fact that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. It’s also a well-known fact that most bibliophiles do. Buying a book because you liked the cover/title/font is an occupational hazard.
When I saw this reissue of Woman Alive with its glorious cover by cartoonist and illustrator Tom Gauld, I knew I had to look deeper. (As an aside, Tom Gauld is amazing, for science-loving bibliophiles, and if you haven’t seen his work before, I urge you to seek him out.m
Woman Alive is a forgotten dystopia set in a London where a mysterious gas attack has left only one woman alive. A contemporary of Orwell, Susan Ertz has set her book in 1985 and delivers “a satire and a commentary on the rising threat of nationalism in 1930s Britain.” Feels on brand for 2026 too.
I’d not heard of publisher Manderley Press; they have a whole host of forgotten classics with beautifully illustrated covers. There are a few on there I’d like to try, and even more I could give to my bibliophile wife!
And that’s it, just two books freshly added to the TBR. Probably a good thing. I wonder what May will bring?
Links in this review are affiliate links at Bookshop.org.
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