Which Books Should You Be Buying This Week?

Your digest of the newspaper book reviews Oct 7/8

Here we are, back by popular demand, it is my digest of the new books that the newspapers have been reviewing this weekend. I mean, when I say ‘popular’, that’s subjective… and er, actually when I say ‘demand’ well… again, subjective. But nevertheless, here we are! In my attempt to keep this shorter and sweeter please click on the links to read the book blurbs themselves, I’ve simply pulled out the bits from the reviews that have made these popular choices this week.

So first up, we have a new biography, MADONNA: A REBEL LIFE, and it’s a hefty biography at that coming in 800-pages. But I am assured by every review going that it leaves no stone unturned in the singer’s life, so any fan would would be forever grateful for this gift (I’m thinking Christmas already).

This is what Suzanne Moore wrote in The Telegraph: “Madonna built the house in which nearly all female artists now live: the gig as a huge theatrical spectable. Beyoncé, Britney, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift - she kicked down the doors for them… A REBEL LIFE brings home not just her obvious willpower and strength, but her fearlessness and sheer intelligence. How does female creativity age? Does it even have to? Madonna will show us the way.”

You can buy MADONNA: A REBEL LIFE here.

Next up, another icon, yes, it’s Alan Partridge. Again in time for Christmas, a review in The Sunday Times today of his new book, BIG BEACON, already had me reaching for the pre-orders because in these difficult times, don’t we just need a bit of a giggle?

Here’s what The Sunday Times had to say: “Partridge aficionados will delight in the skillfully terrible writing. If he were real he would have found a place in our polarised media, perhaps ranting about immigrants on GB News. Since he didn’t, we must suffer as he skips merrily from a heated discussion on recycling with Gary Barlow at Esther McVey’s barbecue to a stand-off with Kent locals over his plans to convert his lighthouse into a Wetherspoons. Partridge, in short, has become the man our time deserves.”

You can buy BIG BEACON here.

In The Observer’s New Review (and actually a few other papers) a review of Daniel Clowes’ new graphic novel, MONICA. Another one for Christmas lists, it would be a great choice to impress your older kids (teens/twenties and beyond), but if the reviews are anything to go by this story following the title character from childhood to old age might be hard for them to wrestle from your hands:

“…An eternal outsider, prickly and damaged and sharp-tongued, she’s instantly recognisable: here, at least, is another of Clowes’ female misfits, a type we’ve loved ever since Ghost World was published, more than a quarter of a century ago…This strange and gripping book is often frightening and sometimes deeply sad. But it’s also wickedly funny at times: it is, in other words, a series of pitch perfect portraits of an increasingly odd and scary-seeming US… In short, I could not put it down.”

You can buy MONICA here.

And finally, I’m so intrigued by this novel. I haven’t come across Nigerian-American author, Teju Cole before, but TREMOR sounds absolutely wonderful.

“Stepping into the pages of Teju Cole’s third novel, we quickly find ourselves on unstable ground,” so reads the opening of the review in The Sunday Times. “Tunde, an artist and professor of photography at Harvard, tries to photograph a hedge. ‘You can’t do that,’ an aggressive voice calls out. ‘This is private property.’ The idea of what belongs to whom, and where authority and permission should lie, are central concerns of this compact but hugely ambitious novel.”

The review goes on to discuss the form of this novel, Cole’s first in a decade, and suggests it is this that “transforms an excellent book into an extraordinary one.”

Have a look at the further blurb on my website (the same for all of those featured today), but TREMOR sounds like it could be a future prize winner, so if you want to get ahead of the crowd…

You can buy TREMOR here.

And so there we are, four great books, and I want all of them.

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