One winter morning in 1958, a woman walks out of a lodge on Mount Shasta carrying an axe. The sign over her own driveway bears the name of the character that made her rich, engraved on a placard she paid a fortune for, and she swings at the left post until the wood gives. Her […]
Three dishes wrapped in foil are sitting on the porch when she opens the door. Nobody is there. There are no footprints in the snow, no tyre marks, no sound of anyone hurrying away. She decides they must be shy neighbours, the quietly decent Midwestern sort who believe food says everything a person needs to, […]
Former President and forever Reader-in-Chief Barack Obama’s podcast, A Great Book, dropped today on Audible. Each of the six episodes in the limited series features Obama in conversation a different thinker/writer/artist about a book that has “profoundly shaped his worldview and our society.” In the debut episode, Obama sits down with Tom Hanks to discuss […]
The Determinists reopens the free will debate because what’s at stake could shape how we hold each other accountable. In this thought-provoking work of philosophical nonfiction, Lawrence David Rose takes on one of philosophy’s oldest questions: Do human beings genuinely possess free will, or are our thoughts and actions simply the inevitable byproducts of biology, […]
A man takes a job washing pots in a restaurant cellar at one in the morning, because the night shift pays five marks a week more and he has a family. He is a police officer, recently demoted as far down the ladder as it goes, and a colleague asks why he bothers with this […]
A grey-haired woman who manages a video-rental shop comes into the luxury goods store three doors down, embarrassed to be there at all. Her only son is getting married. She has been putting money aside for his bride since before he had a girlfriend. The saleswoman shows her pearl studs first, then diamonds, and quietly […]
The Sisters of Crimson House by Melissa Anderson Sweazy on September 29, 2026 Genres: Fiction / Fantasy / Dark Fantasy, Fiction / Gothic, Fiction / Horror / General, Fiction / Occult & Supernatural, Fiction / Thrillers / Supernatural, Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense Pages: 416 Format: ARC Buy on Amazon Goodreads Practical Magic meets Play […]
Seven weeks. That is what stands between the Booker Prize 2026 shortlist and the ceremony at Old Billingsgate on 9 November, and it is enough time to read all six if you start now and pick the order sensibly. I did the reading for the thirteen-book longlist over the summer, so for once I can […]
Divinely romantic, deliciously queer—a high-stakes, haunted magical rescue This second book in Sarah Glenn Marsh’s Rogue Devotions series is a magical adventure about found family and the swoonworthy love interests they meet along the way. “A lot can happen in three days. The whole world can change in less time than that. It has before.” […]
A character-rich small town mystery about how we can’t change the past without deadly consequences Who decides when a story has ended? Who decides which stories get told? And how long can a story stay buried, before it comes back to haunt those who would rather forget? Game warden and part-time constable Nate Briggs faces […]