Titles in this preview are published in October


Batsford, 9th, £20, HB, 9781837330041


With chapters on such themes as Firsts, Family, Feasts, Friends, Fashion and Falling in Love, a “captivating” gifty collection of diverse writing by women.


Joanna Lumley My Book of Treasures: A Collection of Favourite Writings


Hodder, 2nd, £20, HB, 9781399741613


Actress and presenter Lumley has long kept private notebooks, filled with her favourite writings, thoughts and quotes. Now she shares many of those jottings, including lines from her favourite authors, pearls of wisdom that she has heard or read, and nuggets of trivia that have made her happy.


Sue Monk Kidd Writing, Creativity and Soul


Canongate, 23rd, £16.99, HB, 9781837265008


Combining memoir and philosophical investigation, the author of The Secret Life of Bees channels warmth and wit in this enlightening guide for writers and creatives, both new and experienced.


Andrew O’Hagan On Friendship Faber, 9th, £12, HB, 9780571397471


In this “heart-enriching” gifty celebration, O’Hagan explores friendship through music and poetry, memory and history, illuminating the many ways and reasons that people come together in friendship, and how our lives are all the better because we do.


Zadie Smith ( 9) Dead and Alive Hamish Hamilton, 30th, £20, HB, 9780241729595


Pleasingly divided into sections entitled Eyeballing, Considering, Reconsidering, Mourning


and Confessing, this kaleidoscopic and immersive new collection encompasses the work of artists, musicians and writers who are no longer with us, the changes of government on both sides of the Atlantic, the story behind the writing of The Fraud and more. She is a master of this form.


Brandon Stanton Dear New York Pan Macmillan, 9th, £35, HB, 9781035085163


The creator of Humans of New York returns with a new love letter to New York City through previously unpublished stories and photographs.


Rory Stewart ( 8) Middleland: Dispatches from the Borders


Cape, 30th, £22, HB, 981787336247


Drawn from pieces he wrote for a local newspaper while MP for Penrith and The Border, the author of The Places in Between and co-host of the hugely popular podcast The Rest is Politics presents a portrait of the history, people and landscapes of Cumbria, forming an “unforgettable portrait of rural Britain today”.


Rebecca Lucy Taylor A Complicated Woman Brazen, 30th, £22, HB, 9781914240652


As Self-Esteem, Mercury Prize-nominated Taylor has garnered a huge following for her songwriting. In her debut, she takes us on a journey through womanhood – “whatever the hell that means” – blending lyrics, vignettes and “biting observational prose”.


Mind, body & spirit


Caitlin Blackwell Baines How to Build a Haunted House: The History of a Cultural Obsession


Profile, 9th, £22, HB, 9781805221487


What makes a house haunted? From medieval Scotland to Victorian suburbs, this book takes us on a tour of some famously spine-chilling structures to explore our cultural fascination with horror and haunted houses.


Alison Davies How to Thrive in Retrograde: Navigate the Chaos and Live in Cosmic Harmony


Pavilion, 23rd, £14.99, HB, 9780008752729


Publishing in time for Mercury in retrograde, this illustrated guide to the influence of planets in retrograde explains their various heavenly movements and aims to help you work with them to live your best life.


Dean Radin The Science of Magic: How the Mind Weaves the Fabric of Reality


Penguin Random House US, 21st, £16.99, PB, 9780593797570


Today’s magic is the science of tomorrow. So argues the scientist author of this guide to discovering the real power of magic and implementing it in your own life, which unveils “persuasive empirical evidence for the existence of psychic phenomena”.


Lindsay Squire, Nicole Weiss, Rachel Patterson The Witch’s Altar Book:


Leaping Hare, 2nd, £22, HB, 9781836003885


Containing information about the specific powers of herbs, crystals and symbols, practical advice about formulating incantations and divining the future, and more, this “definitive” guide to witchcraft is written by three witches from three different generations.


Natural history & pets


Jon Cannon The Stones of Britain: A History of Britain Through Its Geology


Constable, 16th, £20, HB, 9781472116833


Interwoven with meditations on home, place and belonging, the architectural historian-author who died in 2023 explores how rocks make places, and how our island’s history is written in stone.


Tim Flach, Jonathan Losos Feline


Abrams, 9th, £50, HB, 9781419773648


8


Flach is a leading photographer of animals,


9


and this compendium of his feline photography takes “animal portraiture to a new level”, with his highly stylised images of moggies and pedigree animals alike.


Rose George Every Last Fish: What Fish Do for Us and What We Do to Them


Granta, 23rd, £20, HB, 9781783787920


Journeying from Alaska to Senegal via Scotland, Norway and Massachusetts, the author of the excellent Deep Sea and Foreign Going returns to sea for a fascinating and bracing account of fish and the fishing industry in which she aims to transform the way we think about fish, and the creature behind the inscrutable eye that looks back at us. And she succeeds! I may now never eat fish again. Certainly not tuna.


Tom Jackson


Galápagos Islands: A Showcase of Evolution Amber, 14th, £19.99, HB, 9781838866174


From the archipelago’s volcanic peaks to the famous giant tortoise, this is a richly illustrated photographic exploration of the landscape, flora and fauna of the Galápagos Islands.


Will Millard Kingdom BBC, 23rd, £28, HB, 9781785949760


Accompanying a five- part BBC One natural history series, this handsomely illustrated book chronicles the real- life saga of four animal families – leopard, wild dog, hyena and lion - in Zambia’s Luangwa Valley, a place experiencing seismic change. Eventually they come head-to-head in a battle for land.


Sophia Money-Coutts The Year of the Dog: How One Tiny Terrier Ruined My Sofa but Saved My Life


HQ, 23rd, £14.99, HB, 9780008744038


When the author brings home Dennis, a scruffy Parson terrier, she has perfect visions of puppy bliss. But after a sudden break-up, she finds herself confronted with the challenges of solo- parenting. This is a “funny, tender” account of a year spent raising a puppy.


Arthur Parkinson Hen Party: A Celebration


Particular, 2nd, £16.99, HB, 9780241674703


Spanning more than 50 breeds of chicken from the classy Ancona to the lavishly laced Wyandotte, the writer, illustrator and photographer shares his advice on keeping hens in a “riotous, clucking, poultry show of a book for anyone dreaming of the good life”.


Jane Perrone, Alice Smith (illus) The Atlas of Deadly Plants: Botanical Tales of the World’s Most Intoxicating, Poisonous and Dangerous Specimens


Greenfinch, 23rd, £30, HB, 9781529442502


This luxuriously packaged book profiles the 50 most poisonous plants and fungi in the world, and includes information on their toxic effects, as well as stories of high-profile poisoning cases, and the medicines to which they have also contributed.


Jake Robinson The Nature of Pandemics: Why Protecting Biodiversity Is Key to Human Survival


Pelagic, 14th, £20, HB, 9781784275990


Identifying and evaluating the pathogens with the highest potential to trigger future pandemics, this reframes wildlife pandemics as ecological crises that require ecological solutions.


Sverker Sörlin Snö: A History Doubleday, 9th, £26.99, HB, 9781529947878


Sörlin is a Swedish historian of ideas and professor of environmental history who has won his country’s top literary awards. This is his “beautiful and profound” appreciation of snow, exploring the cultural, scientific, artistic and existential significance of what is fast-becoming a vanishing fact of nature. Sounds beautifully elegiac.


23


TOM CAMPBELL


Books New Titles: Non-Fiction


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