What is the nub of such a plain grey day?
The clouds these last few weeks appear to have been made of lead, heavy with the rain they’re about to spill, hanging low and hunching our shoulders. Sometimes from the west with a little warmth, mostly from the north and east carrying an unseasonable chill, trundling across the sky they spread a thick coat of grey. An Autumn of crisp, bright days with the glorious palette of gold and bronze and copper seems to be elsewhere this year.
But open the doors of the bookshop, switch on the lights and on a morning like this our world comes alive. The farmers may have finished most of their harvest, the bounty now having moved to the bookshelves. The colours and variety are dazzling, the silent noise the sweetest of symphonies, you can almost hear the books calling out ‘choose me, choose me!’.
The canvas we’ve been given may be grey, but we’ll paint it with every colour we can find!
Grey by Edwin Morgan
What is the nub of such a plain grey day?
Does it have one? Does it have to have one?
If small is beautiful, is grey, is plain?
Or rather do we sense withdrawal, veiling,
a patch, a membrane, an eyelid hating light?
Does weather have some old remit to mock
the love of movement, colour, contrast –
primitives, all of us, that wilt and die
without some gorgeous dance or drizzle-dazzle.
Sit still, and take the stillness into you.
Think, if you will, about the absences –
sun, moon, stars, rain, wind, fog and snow.
Think nothing then, sweep them all away.
Look at the grey sky, houses of lead,
roads neither dark nor light, cars
neither washed nor unwashed, people
there, and there, decent, featureless,
what an ordinariness of business
the world can show, as if some level lever
had kept down art and fear and difference and love
this while, this moment, this day
so grey, so plain, so pleasing in its way!
Let’s leave the window, and write.
No need to wait for a fine blue
to break through. We must live, make do.
As the rest of the world feels as though it’s hurtling toward the end of the year, it’s the perfect time to unwind with some slower fiction. In Yu Yoyo’s Invisible Kitties, a young couple stumble into owning a mischievous kitten who turns their lives upside down. Charting their relationship with cats, some they live with and some who are only imagined, this captivating debut rests on the peaceful moments of everyday life. And in The Food Life Cookbook, Tim Spector’s science for eating well is implemented in over 100 delicious recipes that increase the diversity of your diet and keep your gut happy. We’re offering this at a Coles Special Price of £20.00, because a nutritious diet is key to a richer life.
In fiction, Sam Ripley’s suspense thriller The Rule of Three holds a disturbing curse. An urban myth, “bad things happen in threes”, terrorises the protagonist as they fear for their life. Alan Moore’s novel, The Great When, plays with reality when bookseller Dennis discovers a book that only exists in an alternate London. In this version of London, poetry becomes a wondrous being, sorcerers and gangsters roam freely, and magic looms. Can Dennis return this book to its rightful place before facing some disastrous consequences? And an illustrated edition of The Hunger Games will make the perfect gift. This dark story of a murderous reality show paved the way for dystopian fiction, and this beautiful edition highlights the vivid imagery of the districts.
So much non-fiction is arriving in October that it’s difficult to pick just a handful, but here are some that have jumped out this week: Mayumi Inaba’s Mornings With My Cat Mii is a beloved Japanese memoir of a writer’s twenty-year connection with her rescued feline friend; Sebastian Smee documents the rise of Impressionism during a time when Paris was struggling through war and poverty in Paris in Ruins; The Scapegoat by Lucy Hughes-Hallett is the extraordinary story of George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham, in a world of witch hunts, art, politics, and excess. The Starling by Stephen Moss is a biography of a common garden bird; Moss admires their dazzling murmurations, skill for singing, and their huge impact on culture and farming. And Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book 2025 is the most comprehensive annual guide to wine you will find – in this edition, Johnson includes a supplement on Pinot Noir, the most prized grape in the world.
For teens, Chris Mould’s War of the Worlds is a visually-scrumptious edition of the H.G. Wells sci-fi classic. A meteor strikes Earth, an alien threat looms, and Leon and his scientist wife must race against the clock to save humanity. Finally, for little explorers, Our Cosmos journeys through the universe, taking in the wonders of black holes, stardust, and revolutionary spacecraft.
As always, if there’s something you need help with, or a book you need ordering, please call or email us!
From Sophie
The full newsletter with linkd to books – including this week’s Signed Editions – can be found HERE
