Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
These are the Autumn days which start with layers and thick sweaters, only for them all to be shed as the day warms up. And then putting them all on again to go home!
The almost ghostly apparitions of the morning mists rising up out of the ground, the nascent heat of the day ahead coaxing the vapour upwards towards the hint of orange in the eastern sky. There’s a beauty and an ethereal stillness in the mornings at this time of year – Keats was right when describing these days as those ‘of mists and mellow fruitfulness’.
To Autumn by John Keats
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, –
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Happy October! My favourite director, Jordan Peele, has compiled an anthology of Black horror fiction entitled Out There Screaming, and it’s certainly worth getting your hands on. If you’re looking for something spooky to kick-start your autumn, then this is the one. A completely different text is Sir Graham Brady’s Kingmaker. This definitive history of modern British politics explores our five most recent Prime Ministers. At the centre of the election of these Conservative PMs is Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, who saw all of the backstage gossip and decision-making during these turbulent times.
We have some fantastic new fiction this week, including: Marigold Mind Laundry by Jungeun Yun, the heart-warming story of a Korean laundrette that washes out heartbreak; Nicholas Sparks is back with his new romance Counting Miracles; Bridget Collins has brought together all of her favourite friends to compile a spooky, wintery anthology of ghostly fiction, called The Winter Spirits; and Kate Stayman-London’s Fang Fiction is a kooky paranormal romance you’re bound to love.
New in non-fiction, Lives Behind the Music is a collection of musicians’ obituaries from The Times – from the rock’n’roll pioneers of the 1950s to the pop superstars of the 21st century, as well as lesser-known, boundary-pushing innovators with undeniable influence; in Gyles Brandreth’s Prose & Cons he will take you on a whirlwind tour of the mother tongue; Cook Like a Real Italian by Angelo Coassin teaches you how to cook with passion and enthusiasm; and Emperor of the Seas by Jack Weatherford talks about the making of China through Kublai Khan on the seas.
For children, the TikTok sensation Rebecca Ross is back with Sisters of Song and Sword, for ages 13+, this is the story of two sisters that will go to the ends of the earth to protect each other. Whilst, for ages 5+ Young Zoologist: Axolotl by Jessica Whited is a fact-filled guide to our favourite amphibian.
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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