What to read in November – our 5 top choices
Crime, skullduggery and some of the most affectionate writing you’ll read this year.
Crime, skullduggery and some of the most affectionate writing you’ll read this year.
Bloomsbury Publishing – RRP: £16.99
Advent 1962. We return to Williams’s Irish parish of Faha, where diligent Ronnie keeps the show on the road for her widower GP father, Dr Jack Troy.
He worries it’s no life for his eldest daughter, blaming himself for her solitary state. Then the boy Jude Quinlan, son of a feckless farmer, brings a foundling girl to the door (a Christmas gift like no other), and the Troys have a secret to keep from the nosy and judgmental elements of the community.
Like aspiring author Ronnie, now smitten with baby ‘Noelle’, Williams sees in Faha ‘the full of humanity in its ordinary clothes’, and renders personalities for us in tender, luminous prose. Not so much writing as alchemy.
Hachette UK – RRP £20
We stay in the same harsh winter of 1962–63, but now we’re in frigid, snowbound England where Eric Parry, another rural GP, has a guilty secret.
His wife, Irene, has no idea, as an unlikely friendship grows between her and her neighbour Rita, a sweet, dippy, funny farmer’s wife and former club hostess.
Like Niall Williams, Miller works magic, bringing to life not just human relations, but the Sixties too, before they began to swing.
Hachette UK – RRP £20
They laugh at temperatures of -20°C in the Swedish ski town of Esseberg, but when a deaf teenager goes missing, with a murderer on the loose and no way out but a mountain tunnel, it’s no laughing matter.
Another case for Dean’s resourceful, hearing-impaired ace journalist Tuva Moodyson. Nordic noir from a Midlands-born Brit who now calls an elk forest home. Best enjoyed with a steaming mug of glögg.
Quercus Books – RRP £16.99
Super-intrepid (or should that be insanely reckless?) agent Slim Parsons goes undercover for MI5 to infiltrate a news website that’s leaking state secrets, and soon she’s risking her life to save victims of slavery.
Porter draws on his journalistic experience in this riveting, deeply researched novel about the heirs to the Bletchley Park codebreakers (thank you, Poland!), corruption, the role of AI, and state overreach.
Elliott & Thompson – RRP £16.99
In the aloneness of the dark of night, this poet author (who lives with a painful genetic disorder) finds solace in hearing her tawny owl neighbour around her home in Grasmere, Cumbria.
An elegiac meditation laced with gems of owl lore – they pair for life but spend time apart, love to sunbathe, have a wide vocal repertoire, and are not, in truth, so very wise (maybe that’s why they’re said to gather in ‘parliaments’).
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The mischievous actor reveals how she gets daily job offers and believes it’s what you do that matters, not what you say.
The actors talk ageing, James Bond, the powerful message of the film and why author Richard Osman felt nervous about coming on set.
The TV designer on the daily meeting that is the key to living happily with his children and grandchildren.
As the BBC One show returns to our screens, we spoke to series four finalists Stephen and Viv to get all the secrets.
The clothing designer says it’s time to embrace thrift and shares his tips on how we can dress well for less.
The UK’s bestselling contemporary poet talks about finding huge success in later life and why Christmas is her lifeline.
The Call the Midwife star on having a baby on Christmas Day and how she never really wanted to be an actor.
The radio DJ, 74, on leaving the BBC, continuing his PopMaster quizzes and the joy of the daytime party.
DJ and presenter Jo Whiley on how she's still getting home at 4am and why she thinks Monty Don is as cool as Mick Jagger.
Former finalist Debbie McGee reveals what happens behind at the scenes at TV's most glamorous show.
Stop smoking, go for a walk and do puzzles, says the veteran newsreader.
The author and actor talks about her starring role in the Thursday Murder Club film.
Rock and roll's true survivor - Chris Rea on family, fame and what his battle with cancer has taught him.