The nights are long and the days are short, frosty and busy in the run up to the winter holidays. Now is a great time to snuggle up warm with a good book and a hot drink (and maybe the odd snack).
Here are some book recommendations from library and information professionals in the South West!
My recommended recent release on Kindle is “Gullible’s Travels: Experiences Amongst a Strange Tribe in a Not-Very-Remote Country” by Adam Brate. Thoroughly enjoyed this tongue-in-cheek recounting of life as a university administrator; as I suspect anyone who has contact with education, universities & REF will do. Particularly those who negotiate the waters between academics & support staff. Fellow librarians might be horrified (but not unduly surprised) at the disconnect between all those involved and the library staff. PS; worth reading the end notes as they appear in the text for an additional giggle.
![Gullible's Travels: Experiences Amongst a Strange Tribe in a Not-Very-Remote Country by [Adam Brate]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41poikyKq9L.jpg)
2. The Dark is Rising Sequence
Favourite Re-read at this time of the year: Susan Cooper’s “The Dark is Rising Sequence”. Officially a children’s series (I’m a great reader of children’s books) this has some of the best atmospheric descriptions of books for any age, IMO (in my opinion). Far more than a classic good against evil tale, one minute the characters are immersed in a fantasy world of swirling myth & legend and the next they are late for tea. But some sections will raise the hairs on the back of your neck and some I still can’t read on my own at night. Not because they are that dark, but because they are that real. The 5 novels to indulge in, in order are : Over Sea, Under Stone; The Dark is Rising; Grrenwitch; The Grey King; Silver on the Tree.
If you only have time to read one, then The Dark is Rising can be read out of order & is particularly appropriate at this time of the year as it starts on Mid Winter’s Eve and timeline covers Christmas Eve & Christmas Day; complete with snow.
“Ahead of him, the sun was going down, visible for the first time since his birthday morning. It blazes out fat and gold-orange through a gap in the clouds, and all around the snow-silver world glittered with small flashes of light …. nobody had been along the path since the snow began; down there it lay untrodden, smooth and white and inviting, marked only by the picture-writing of birds’ footsteps. Unexplored territory. Will found it irresistible.”
3. The Chimes
“We seem to do dreadful things; we seem to give a great deal of trouble; we are always being complained of and guarded against. One way or another, we fill the papers. Talk of a New Year!” (Toby Veck in The Chimes)
I am a huge fan of Charles Dickens and re-read A Christmas Carol (1843) most winters. It was the first of five Christmas Books he wrote and was followed the next year with The Chimes that has its focus on New Year’s Eve rather than Christmas Eve. The story centres on a poor London street-porter named Toby Veck (nicknamed Trotty) and sees Dickens attack prevalent theories and mindsets held by the middle and upper classes who saw the poor as a superfluous irritant and at worst ‘born bad’ and naturally evil. Similar to A Christmas Carol, the book demonstrates a benevolence for the poor and appeals to the charitable sensibilities of the reader. The Chimes likewise includes elements of the supernatural as revealed in its subtitle: A Goblin Story. Church bells seem to call to Trotty on New Year’s Eve. He climbs a church tower and sees “phantoms, spirits, elfin creatures of the Bells” (see image below) who show Trotty what the future holds when mankind is crushed and repressed beyond bearing. Whether the story has a happy ending is debateable, I’ll let you decide. The story does however continue Dickens’ penchant for unusual names; a local shopkeeper is called Mrs Chickenstalker!
Charles Dickens has associations with the south west, particularly Devon. In the first chapter of Nicholas Nickleby the eponymous hero grows up on a small farm near Dawlish. At the same time as the novel was being published in monthly parts, Dickens was searching for a house for his parents as John Dickens had, not for the first time, fallen heavily into debt. Charles rented Mile End Cottage in Alphington (a mile outside Exeter) in 1839 where his parents lived for three and a half years.
Perhaps among the greatest sci-fi book series I have ever come across, The Expanse is set in the not-really-that-distant-future. Humanity has reached beyond the boundaries of Earth and have made new societies and colonies in the solar system. Numerous factions have sprung up; the hard-working and downtrodden Belters, people who live their lives in space, often in mining colonies or makeshift ships. The richer classes own much of the wealth and live lavish lifestyles beyond our wildest dreams, while political classes bicker and attempt to out-maneuver each other for power and money. The colonised planet of Mars holds a fragile peace with Earth, an over-populated, polluted planet with dwindling resources. Earth however is still very much the greatest powerhouse in the solar system, but Mars, with its superior technologies and growing army, creates an uncertain balance of power.
In the centre of political turmoil and new, dangerous discoveries threatening humanity, a small crew of people with very different backgrounds band together, hopping from one nail-biting adventure to the next.
Definitely worth a read!
5. Affinity
Sarah Water’s second novel is a chilling Victorian tale of a troubled young woman, Margaret Prior, who visits and befriends women at Millbank prison. She hopes to escape her bleak situation and bring new meaning to her life, and help others in the process.
Margaret meets an incarcerated woman called Selina Dawes, a medium. She learns more about the mysterious spiritual world, and in the process, learns more about herself. But all is not as it seems, and Selina Dawes has motives of her own…
Affinity is a spooky books which touches on the supernatural. A great read for a long, cold winter night.
CILIP South West Member Network 