The sun may have been struggling, but the soul could not help but rise.
Listening to the Poet Laureate on Radio 4 the other morning, just as a half-hearted sun was warming up its engines, was the perfect timing. The lanes along which I was travelling, bordered by their greening hedgerows, were a riot of blackthorn blossom – the fireworks were exploding all about me. The sun may have been struggling, but the soul could not help but rise. This moment in the calendar, because that is what it is, just a moment, comes and goes in a flash, the brief appearance of the blossom is what makes this time of year so special.
Folk Song by Simon Armitage from his collection of poetry – Blossomise
You lost your sparkle at the fair,
apple, cherry, blackthorn, pear
watched every petal disappear
among the glamour and the glare
and dodgem cars and flying chairs
and candy floss and dancing bears,
the goldfish and the silverware.
apple, cherry, blackthorn, pear
Glitz and glitter in the air
but blossom neither here or there.
apple, cherry, blackthorn, pear
The woods beyond were sparse and spare,
the branches empty-handed, bare,
no glint of blossom anywhere.
apple, cherry, blackthorn, pear
You walked the planet for a year,
slept in the jaws of winter’s snare,
knelt at a campfire like a prayer.
apple, cherry, blackthorn, pear
Then woke one morning in a rare
illuminated atmosphere.
The trees wore flowers in their hair,
and on the hill you stopped to stare
at blackthorn, apple, cherry, pear,
as blossom blossomed everywhere
and everywhere and everywhere.
apple, cherry, blackthorn, pear
The most astounding thing about Anna Mazzola’s new novel is that it’s all based on the truth. The Book of Secrets immerses us in 17th century Rome. It’s months after the plague has wiped the city near-clean, but men are still mysteriously dying, and their corpses aren’t decomposing as they should be…Prosecutor Stafano Bracchi has been tasked with uncovering the truth. Our other top pick of the week (non-fiction this time) is Alex Duff’s Smart Money. In 2005, failing football club Brentford, handed over their £5.5 million overdraft to their fans and admitted defeat. This is the uncanny true story of how one fan (and Oxford graduate) managed to use £500k (won through gambling) to turn the team back into one of the most successful in the country.
If you’re in desperate need of some new fiction, then we have the best-of-the-best for you right here. Peter Tremayne has written a collection of Shakespearean crime stories in Made for Murders, Master Hardy Drew confronts mystery and murder most foul, whilst learning that deaths come cheaply on the Bankside Watch. Claire Parkin’s The Final Hours of Muriel Hinchcliffe MBE is an intensely gripping debut of toxic friendship, jealousy and revenge, that asks the question, what would you do if you were forced to look after your best friend in old age? Especially with a friendship that’s best left in the past? The Song of the Huntress by Lucy Holland is a historical fiction set in 60AD Britain: Hoping to save her lover and her land from the Romans, Herla makes a desperate pact with the Otherworld King. She becomes Lord of the Hunt and for centuries she rides, reaping wanderers’ souls. Until the night she meets a woman on a bloody battlefield – a Saxon queen with ice-blue eyes – and everything changes… And lastly in fiction, we have Frontier by Grace Curtis. This novel hasn’t stopped selling in the shop from the minute it was first published in hardback. This Science-Fiction is perfect for fans of Becky Chambers; with love, loss and laser-guns, what more could you want?
We have the best of new non-fiction too! If, like me, your quarter-life crisis has caused you to don a pair of running shoes and question why your lung capacity is the size of a pea, then you need to read Runner’s High by Jenni Falconer. Packed with research, tips and tricks, this will help you squeeze every last ounce of joy out of running – for the marathon sprinter and Park Run-ner alike. Friendaholic by Elizabeth Day unpacks the significance and evolution of friendship from the ancient wisdom of Cicero to the modern curse of ghosting. The National Trust Book of Cakes by Linda Collister amalgamates 55 of the nation’s favourite cake recipes, with interesting titbits about the history of bakery. Plus, these recipes are designed to be extra-easy, so even the most unskilled of us has a chance to lick the bowl! And finally in non-fiction, we have British Woodland by Ray Mears, this book is packed full of history about how our ancestors survived in, and shaped, the woodland of Britain, as well as explaining how it is vital that we look after it today.
New in children’s fiction, there is The Dark Portal by Robin Jarvis, the first in The Deptford Mice series. For readers aged 9+, this story is about the Deptford mice, a clan of mice who live in the skirting boards of an abandoned London house. But something powerful lurks in the sewers, and it’s up to the Deptford mice to help save their fellow rodents from this ancient magic. And for babies, Cuddly Ladybird by Ingela P Arrhenius is a super-soft, black-and-white cloth book, with crinkle pages, felt flaps and a mirror. This is bound to get a smile from your little one.
As always, if there’s something you need help with, or a book you need ordering, please call or email us!
From Amber
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