There is nothing like a good book and a hot drink when it pours outside. We’ve picked the best new releases to keep you company this autumn.
ADULTS, EMMA JANE UNSWORTH
Jenny McLaine is a single 35-year-old who works for a radical feminist online magazine as a columnist. It’s her all-consuming obsession with social media – Instagram in particular – that is the main theme throughout the book. Jenny agonises over every image, caption, hashtag, like, following, not following and comment on her feed and constantly asks a friend to proofread her carefully curated responses.
Adults is a relevant read about the ‘Love Me, Love Me’ culture of constantly checking and analysing posts and the need to be adored, seen and validated. The outside world demands too much reality and real-life relationships suffer as a result.
SAVING MISSY, BETH MORREY
The story follows Millicent Carmichael, known as Missy, a 79-year-old lady who lives alone and has no purpose in her mundane, lonely life until she unexpectedly faints whilst visiting a local park. From there she finds kindness from strangers who welcome her into their lives and introduce her to Bobby, a dog, who becomes her beloved companion.
The narrative switches between Missy’s childhood, adulthood and later life and we learn why Missy, in spite of having children, is living alone. The story is sad yet captivating and the perfect book to get stuck into over a long weekend.
BOSH! HEALTHY VEGAN, HENRY FIRTH AND IAN THEASBY
Unhealthy in their 30s, friends Henry Firth and Ian Theasby decided to make the change to a healthy plant-based lifestyle. It wasn’t too long before they had over a billion views of their recipe videos and became bestselling vegan authors in the UK.
BOSH! Healthy Vegan is their third book and is packed with nutritional advice, meal plans and more than 80 health-focused recipes. It’s a great cookbook for those new to veganism, where they’ve taken popular favourites, such
as burgers, pizza, bolognese, and transformed them into delicious healthy vegan equivalents. There are also recipes to help build muscle, reduce calorie intake and reduce fat. The emphasis is that vegan food can be delicious, flavoursome and healthy.
KINGDOMTIDE, RYE CURTIS
If you’re looking for something completely different, try this debut novel by Rye Curtis. Cloris Waldrip, a 72-year-old woman, miraculously survives a plane crash and, when no-one seems to be searching for survivors, leaves the mangled bodies of the pilot and her husband of 54 years, and sets off into Montana’s unforgiving Bitterroot National Forest. Intertwined with her story is merlot-swigging, recently divorced forest ranger Debra Lewis who is filled with self-loathing. The story switches from Cloris, who tells her story in the first-person narrative from an assisted living facility 20 years later, to Ranger Lewis’s third-person account. There are, of course, a number of other flawed characters and subplots woven into the story which makes it more intriguing.
SUPERFASTDIET, VICTORIA BLACK AND GEN DAVIDSON
After years of yo-yo dieting, two Australian women, Victoria Black and Genevieve Davidson, used intermittent fasting to lose 40kg between them, and keep it off. They’ve since created the largest online fasting program and recently launched SuperFastDiet for devotees of their weight-loss system.
Intermittent fasting requires regular short bursts of fasting. There’s the 5:2 diet, where for two days of the week you are only allowed to eat 500-600 calories, while eating normally on the other days; the Eat-Stop-Eat option where you opt for one or two 24-hour fasts each week, or the 16/8 method where you skip breakfast every day and only eat during an 8-hour window.
The book includes real-life stories of dramatic weight loss, the science behind the diet as well as 80 recipes and weekly meal plans.
BIG LIES IN A SMALL TOWN, DIANE CHAMBERLAIN
This is the beautiful unfolding story of two white, female artists living 78 years apart, in Edenton, North Carolina, and how their lives intertwine, and the legacy of Jesse Jameson Williams, a famous African American artist with Edenton roots.
In 1940, artist Anna Dale wins a competition to paint a mural for the Edenton post office. In 2018, Morgan Christopher has taken the fall for a DUI crime her boyfriend committed and ends up in prison. Her art career is put on hold until a mysterious visitor offers her an unusual assignment in return for her freedom – to restore the old post office mural in the small town of Edenton.
For some reason, Anna’s mural was never unveiled and as Morgan begins to uncover the layers of grime, she finds out about the small town’s racial prejudices, violence, chauvinism and conspiracies that Anna was exposed to. What happened to Anna Dale?
THE GIRL WHO READS ON THE MÉTRO, CHRISTINE FÉRET-FLEURY
The central theme to this quirky novel is that books can change lives. Juliette’s daily joy comes from seeing what books fellow passengers read on her daily Métro commute. When she inadvertently gets off at the wrong station she comes across an unusual bookstore that doesn’t seem to sell books directly to the public but, instead, has book passeurs who go out into the world to follow and observe strangers in order to give them a relevant book for that moment in their lives. Juliette, of course, is drawn to this strange calling and it isn’t long before she too becomes a passeur. Can the gift of the perfect book transform a person’s life?
MISS-CONNECTION: WHY YOUR TEENAGE DAUGHTER HATES YOU, EXPECTS THE WORLD AND NEEDS TO TALK, DR JUSTIN COULSON
Dr Justin Coulson, author of 21 Days to a Happier Family, 9 Ways to a Resilient Child, and 10 Things Every Parent Needs to Know, says in his latest book, Miss-Connection, that we do our best to have strong connections with our daughters but, in spite of this, often feel a disconnect or mis-connect.
Drawing on research, surveys and interviews with 400 adolescent girls, Miss-Connection takes you into the often- complicated world your teen daughter experiences and gives accessible tips for parents to help them connect with her the way she needs you to.
