Highlights of the Season
This memoir of Dublin life in the 1980s and 1990s is also an “uncynical” portrait of the adolescent and early-adult mind and an “intimate defence of radical thinking about literature and life”.
Lydia Pang Eat Bitter Chatto & Windus, 14 May, hb, £18.99, 9781784746308
Reimagining eating bitter as a philosophy to confront her own challenges – burning out, testing her marriage, navigating fertility struggles and caring for a parent - Pang shares eight recipes, as she reflects on food as both memory and medicine.
Andrea McLean Shameless DK RED, 21 May, hb, £16.99, 9780241762813
By the former host of Loose Women, this “unflinchingly honest” book aims to help you get back up again and find the courage to keep going through life’s toughest moments.
Mark Oppenheimer Judy Blume Scribe, 21 May, hb, £25, 9781915590558
Drawing on extensive interviews with Blume and unparalleled access to her papers, this “definitive, all-access” biography is a portrait of a life as “triumphant and inspiring as the stories she crafted”.
Miranda Seymour I, Vera William Collins, 21 May, hb, £25, 9780008650384
The untold story of Princess Vera Gedroits, a “sweet-faced lesbian” who regularly performed true medical miracles of surgery, “while on occasion forcibly ejecting an inquisitive Rasputin from her operating theatre by throwing him down the stairs”.
Tom Conti I Think This Is What Happened
John Murray, 21 May, hb, £25, 9781399825559
Opening with the story of how his mother risked everything to rescue his father from a prison camp in the Second World War, a “vivid and surprising memoir of a fascinating life” by the Scottish actor.
Samar Yazbek, Leri Price (trans) Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life Fitzcarraldo Editions, 21 May, pb, £14.99, 9781804272411
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Throughout 2024, Yazbek asked hundreds of survivors from Gaza about their experiences following the attack on Israel on 7th October 2023, and what their lives have been like since that pivotal date. She has selected 26 of these narratives for this compelling work of oral history.
Deborah Lutz This Dark Night Bloomsbury Continuum, 28 May, hb, £20, 9781399417082
Drawing on unexplored archival materials and containing new readings of Emily Brontë’s poetry, this new biography aims to bring us closer to one of the “greatest and fiercest writers we have”, by showing us her creative process and her confidence in her strange art.
Current Affairs
Simon Rogers What We Ask Google Torva, 7 May, hb, £20, 9781911709923
In June the UK sees a spike in searches for “how to help a bee”. “Where is Chuck Norris?” is the 17th most common English-language question of all time. At 2am, parents around the world want to know how to get their baby to sleep. These and other insights emerge from this book by Google’s data editor Rogers.
Eyal Weizman Ungrounding Fern Press, 7 May, hb, £22, 9781911717331
Exploring the larger geographical and historical context, from the displacement of the Nakba in 1948 to the present day, this shows how architectural and territorial analysis is key to understanding the relationship between the coloniser and the colonised.
Clare McGlynn Exposed Oneworld, 7 May, hb, £20, 9781836431718
An entire generation’s sexual education is being delivered via Pornhub; fantasies moulded and manipulated by degrading, misogynistic and racist ideals, normalising sexual violence. So says the author of this call to confront patriarchal porn in order to reclaim our sexual freedom and achieve true gender equality.
The Bookseller Buyer’s Guide Non-Fiction
Natasha Walter Feminism for a World on Fire
Virago Press, 7 May, hb, £25, 9780349018829
In which Walter offers a vision of a rooted feminism that can connect women’s liberation to other movements for equality and environmental protection. “This is the book that feminists have been waiting for: global in scope, fearless in tone, and daring about what has to happen next.”
AJ West How Queer Bookshops Changed the World
Oneworld, 7 May, hb, £14.99, 9781836431695
From Shakespeare and Company in Paris, to Gay’s the Word in London and the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in New York, this explores the remarkable story of how LGBTQ+ bookshops have been the unsung heroes of queer liberation.
General History
Alison Light Red, Red Robin Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 7 May, hb, £22, 9781474619912
Conjuring her girlhood from the 1950s to the 1970s, growing up in an extended family in Portsmouth, Light uses her own story to tell a richly textured social history of post-war England: its popular culture and music, its language and humour.
Imogen Willetts Up All Night Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 14 May, hb, £25, 9781399617079
From Edo Japan to 2000s LA, via the invention of the discotheque in Nazi- occupied Paris, historian Willetts pieces together “tantalising ephemera and foggy reminiscences” to discover what really went on at some of history’s hottest nightspots.
Charlie Higson, Jim Moir (illus) Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee
Mudlark, 21 May, pb, £10.99, 9780008741099
This “unmissable” collaboration between two famous comedy names is billed as “an irresistible, family- friendly deep dive into the murky lives of the British monarchy”, including who ruled when and whether they were any good at it.
Susan Pedersen Burn This Letter John Murray, 21 May, hb, £25, 9781399806220
Drawing on a cache of letters between two female friends, the fascinating story of an Edwardian husband swap and ménage a quatre, told against a backdrop of suffragettes, seances, politics and the birth of the supposed new Messiah.
Damien Lewis SAS Great Escapes Five Quercus Publishing, 21 May, hb, £22, 9781529448245
The newest instalment of Lewis’ Great Escapes series reveals more untold stories of the Second World War’s most daring and audacious escapes as executed by the SAS.
War & Military History
Michael Knights The Battle for the Red Sea Profile Editions, 14 May, hb, £25, 9781805226468
The final book in Knights’ trilogy about the UAE effort in Yemen tells the epic political-military drama of the battle for the Red Sea port of Hodeida in 2017-18.
Popular Science
Geoffrey Cain Steve Jobs in Exile Icon Books, 21 May, hb, £25, 9781837731930
The story of the dozen years Steve Jobs spent building NeXt after his firing from Apple in 1985 and the later resurgence of Apple following his return. “This period would see Jobs at his most creative, vulnerable and intense.”
Psychology
Dr Madeleine Pownall Absent Minds Headline Press, 7 May, hb, £25, 9781035416882
Aiming to restore women’s place in the history of psychology, Pownall’s “entertaining and empowering” narrative documents how women shaped the discipline and provided alternative, creative and more critical ways of thinking about the human experience.
Nicholas Epley Hello? The Bodley Head, 7 May, hb, £22, 9781847926807
With a “life-changing message”, this book by a leading behavioural scientist explores why we often avoid connecting with other people and how to build wiser social habits through small, simple acts.
Dr Rachel Yehuda The Resilience Response The Bodley Head, 7 May, hb, £25, 9781847927651
A US professor of psychiatry and neurobiology and world authority on intergenerational trauma presents a “revolutionary” new way of understanding trauma and healing.
India Sturgis How to Eat an Elephant Thorsons, 7 May, pb, £16.99, 9780008658915
Explaining from the author’s personal experience what it is like to be in the grip of chronic anxiety and come out the other side, this is billed as a “clear-sighted, comprehensive and – ultimately – human” look at anxiety.
Dr Julie Smith Open When… Michael Joseph, 7 May, pb, £9.99, 9780241663950
Billed as a must-have companion to Smith’s bestselling Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?, this aims to teach us the skills we need when we find ourselves in the eye of the storm. “This is the book for life’s twists and turns, when being human starts to get complicated.”
Crafts, Hobbies & Pastimes
Alan Connor What Would Reacher Do? Bantam Books (Transworld), 21 May, pb, £16.99, 9780857509611
With an introduction by Lee Child himself, this book contains a slew of challenging logic puzzles inspired by his famous character. “You don’t need to have read Jack Reacher books. You just need to adopt Reacher’s cool, calm, matter-of- fact approach to solve the puzzles and save the day.”
Food & Drink
Emily English So Good Express Seven Dials, 7 May, hb, £25, 9781399631167
English returns with 80 more “fast and flavourful” recipes designed to fuel your body, lift your mood and fit effortlessly into your busy life. I am a big fan.
Eleanor Steafel But First, Dinner Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 7 May, hb, £22, 9781399629072
From crispy gnocchi with hot and sour tomatoes and grated halloumi to salty coconut granola, this narrative food book blends memoir with more than 50 recipes for every occasion. “Because in our real lives, we need all kinds of dinners.”
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall High Fibre Heroes Bloomsbury Publishing, 7 May, hb, £26, 9781526639004
Many of us are not getting enough fibre in our diets, but Fearnley-Whittingstall is on hand to show us how simple – and delicious – it can be with these 100 recipes, all celebrating 12-veg heroes.
Itamar Srulovich Honey & Co Daily Quadrille, 19 May, hb, £27, 9781837833993
Based on the menu the authors serve at their café in Store Street, London, a collection of relaxed Middle Eastern recipes to make and enjoy every day.
Chetna Makan 5 Ingredient Indian Hamlyn, 21 May, hb, £26, 9780600639763
Save time and money with these recipes for home-cooked Indian meals that use just five ingredients, and combine bold flavours with straightforward cooking methods.
Tom Parker Bowles Let’s Eat Meat Pavilion, 21 May, hb, £26, 9780008744724
Emphasising ethical consumption while celebrating diverse, delicious meat dishes, this new cookbook from Parker Bowles advocates enjoying meat in moderation and quality, through 120 recipes that balance meat with other ingredients.
Health, Self-Help & Parenting
Stephan Schäfer 25 Summers John Murray One, 7 May, pb, £10.99, 9781399827010
This uplifting self-help fable – a surprise bestseller in Germany – tells of a man whose formal and career-driven life is transformed through his friendship with a potato farmer named Karl. It reminds us to slow down, live in the moment and reconnect with life’s most important values.
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