Here’s that football season – knocking on the door and shouting ‘jumpers for goalposts’
The normal sequence of events always seemed to be pretty straightforward – autumn follows summer, winter follows autumn, spring follows winter and summer follows spring – and then the football season starts. But this year it’s a bit of a jumble, a glorious spring and an awful summer – it was even tricky getting five consecutive days of no rain to be able to play a cricket match! Any sense of seasonal rhythm has gone out of the window, and here’s that football season – knocking on the door and shouting ‘jumpers for goalposts’ – ‘hang on a minute, I thought you’d only just finished, and we haven’t had summer yet!’
This morning the rain is lashing against the windows, the gutters are overflowing and the only upside is the resulting lushness of the landscape – the expected yellow is being held at bay by verdant growth.
Apples by Laurie Lee
Behold the apples’ rounded worlds:
juice-green of July rain,
the black polestar of flowers,
the rind mapped with its crimson stain.
The russet, crab and cottage red
burn to the sun’s hot brass,
then drop like sweat from every branch
and bubble in the grass.
They lie as wanton as they fall,
and where they fall and break,
the stallion clamps his crunching jaws,
the starling stabs his beak.
In each plump gourd the cidery bite
of boys’ teeth tears the skin;
the waltzing wasp consumes his share,
the bent worm enters in.
I, with as easy hunger, take
entire my season’s dole;
welcome the ripe, the sweet, the sour,
the hollow and the whole.
Obsession thrills me; the unapologetic intensity of feeling always lends itself perfectly to novels, and Maud Ventura has deftly captured this in My Husband. There’s a wife who wants to always appear polished, still crushing on her husband as if they’re teenagers, but he might not feel the same way. Combining the playful danger of Gone Girl with the heightened emotions of You, you’ll want to devour this one.
In children’s non-fiction, The Book of Mysteries, Magic and the Unexplained is another one that has grabbed our attention. From existential questions like “is this the only universe?” to aliens, mysterious sightings, and psychokinesis (think Matilda and her pranks on Miss Trunchbull), this is a fabulous, illustrated book for inquisitive minds.
From the fiction shelves this week, Juja by Nino Haratischvili is a harrowing novel set in bohemian Paris; half a century after Jeanne’s tragic death, two women take on the challenge of finding out what really happened, and why so many women since 1953 have attached their own dilemmas to her story. There’s more mystery in 73 Dove Street, where residents of a boarding house struggle to keep their pasts under lock and key. The formidable rise of K-pop has seen a boom in stories about fandom and parasocial relationships, and now, Idol, Burning by Rin Usami is here to add to the conversation. A slim novel, it depicts the difficulty in sticking by a stranger you’ve attached to. In sci-fi, The Book Eaters is out in paperback; when one member deviates from the appetite of stories, and instead must consume minds and souls, this family must flee.
In non-fiction, one of the most-discussed literary figures of the year, Roald Dahl, is examined in the biography from Matthew Dennison; Amanda Thomson pens a love letter to Scottish nature in Belonging; and in Solito, a young boy charts his perilous journey across borders. James Crawford also tackles this topic in The Edge of the Plain, questioning if our divisions should be erased in an age of climate change, migration, and nationalism. With just over a month until the start of the Rugby World Cup, The Official Guide will catch you up to date with the key players, team analysis, and stadiums.
Finally, for sleepy heads, The Bedtime Bunny Hunt is placed in the wonderful world of Peter Rabbit and features plenty of flaps to peek under in the chase to find Peter’s beloved toy before it’s time to turn out the lights.
The first match of the new footy season was yesterday evening and it only seems appropriate we should announce our squad of Coles Signed Editions – we’ve scoured the stockrooms and put together a winning side. In amongst the purveyors of the beautiful game are a couple of best-selling music titles – both are now back in stock. We’ve sprinkled in a few discount codes and a little further down the page is the new Pre-Order for footballing legend Liam Brady – wow!
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