You can’t beat a hardback to give as a gift or for that book you know you’ll want to keep forever, the only downside is their weightiness. Paperbacks are perfect for the daily commute, your next beach read or holding in one hand while you sip your coffee with the other. May has seen a plethora of paperbacks released, here are 7 of our recommendations.
Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver
WINNER OF A 2023 PULITZER PRIZE IN FICTION AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE
Demon Copperhead is a once-in-a-generation novel that breaks and mends your heart in the way only the best fiction can.
Demon’s story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking ‘like a little blue prizefighter.’ For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.
In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn’t an idea, it’s as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn’t an abstraction, it’s neighbours, parents, and friends. ‘Family’ could mean love, or reluctant foster care. For Demon, born on the wrong side of luck, the affection and safety he craves is as remote as the ocean he dreams of seeing one day. The wonder is in how far he’s willing to travel to try and get there.
Suffused with truth, anger and compassion, Demon Copperhead is an epic tale of love, loss and everything in between.
THE BRILLIANT SECOND NOVEL FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF SHUGGIE BAIN
Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in a hyper-masculine world. They are caught between two of Glasgow’s housing estates, where young working-class men divide themselves along sectarian lines, and fight territorial battles for the sake of reputation. They should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all, and yet they become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the doocot that James has built for his prize racing pigeons. As they begin to fall in love, they dream of escaping the grey city, and Mungo must work hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his elder brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold.
But the threat of discovery is constant and the punishment unspeakable. When Mungo’s mother sends him on a fishing trip to a loch in western Scotland with two strange men behind whose drunken banter lie murky pasts, he needs to summon all his inner strength and courage to get back to a place of safety, a place where he and James might still have a future.
Imbuing the everyday world of its characters with rich lyricism, Douglas Stuart’s Young Mungo is a gripping and revealing story about the meaning of masculinity, the push and pull of family, the violence faced by so many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much.
The Perfect Golden Circle – Benjamin Myers
THE TRIUMPHANT NOVEL FROM THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE OFFING
England, 1989. Over the course of a burning hot summer, two very different men – traumatized Falklands veteran Calvert, and affable, chaotic Redbone – set out nightly in a clapped-out camper van to undertake an extraordinary project.
Under cover of darkness, the two men traverse the fields of rural England in secret, forming crop circles in elaborate and mysterious patterns.
As the summer wears on, and their designs grow ever more ambitious, the two men find that their work has become a cult international sensation – and that an unlikely and beautiful friendship has taken root as the wheat ripens from green to gold.
Night Crawling – Leila Mottley
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022 – MOTTLEY IS THE YOUNGEST EVER BOOKER NOMINEE
We’ll laugh because we can, until the sun disintegrates and nighttime threatens to set us free just to capture us again, back into the things we can’t escape.
Kiara does not know what it is to live as a normal seventeen-year-old. With her mother in a halfway house, she fends for herself – and for nine-year-old Trevor, whose own mother disappears for days at a time.
As the pressures of rent to pay and mouths to feed increase, Kiara finds herself walking the streets after dark, determined to survive in a world that refuses to protect her.
A Heart Full of Headstones – Ian Rankin
THE BRAND NEW REBUS THRILLER FROM THE ICONIC NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER. ONE OF THE MUST-READ CRIME NOVELS OF THE YEAR.
John Rebus stands accused: the once legendary detective is on trial, facing the rest of his life behind bars.
How does a hero turn villain?
Or have times changed, and the rules with them?
Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke tackles Edinburgh’s most explosive case in years, as a corrupt cop harbouring huge secrets goes missing.
But is her loyalty to the police or the public? And who can she trust when nobody is truly innocent – including her former mentor Rebus – and a killer walks among them?
As the time comes to choose sides, it becomes clear: after a lifetime of lies, the truth will break your heart…
The Satsuma Complex – Bob Mortimer
THE BRILLIANTLY FUNNY FIRST NOVEL BY A MUCH LOVED COMEDIAN.
My name is Gary. I’m a thirty-year-old legal assistant with a firm of solicitors in London. To describe me as anonymous would be unfair but to notice me other than in passing would be a rarity. I did make a good connection with a girl, but that blew up in my face and smacked my arse with a fish slice.
Gary Thorn goes for a pint with a work acquaintance called Brendan. When Brendan leaves early, Gary meets a girl in the pub. He doesn’t catch her name, but falls for her anyway. When she suddenly disappears without saying goodbye, all Gary has to remember her by is the book she was reading: The Satsuma Complex. But when Brendan goes missing, Gary needs to track down the girl he now calls Satsuma to get some answers.
And so begins Gary’s quest, through the estates and pie shops of South London, to finally bring some love and excitement into his unremarkable life…
THE LATEST NOVEL FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE ROOM.
In seventh-century Ireland, a priest has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind.
Taking two monks with him – young Trian and old Cormac – he travels down the Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a new place of worship.
Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. But in such a place, far from all other humanity, what will survival mean?