Kicking off a new series of features on “books with buzz” — recently-published gems that everyone’s talking about, and everyone should read — here are our picks for October 2022.
For more recommendations, check out our Star Books section.
THE BOOK - Getting Lost, by Annie Ernaux
When you’ve won the Nobel Prize in Literature, as the author of this novel did in October 2022, enjoying some of that sweet book buzz is hardly surprising. Yet it’s true to say that prior to receiving this accolade of accolades, Getting Lost was barely known to most readers beyond the author’s native France. Thankfully, that’s all about to change.
Based on the diary Ernaux kept during the affair she had with a younger, married Russian diplomat in 1989, Getting Lost examines love, life, death and desire with raw, unfiltered honesty.
THE BUZZ
“Feverish…one of those books about loneliness that makes you feel less alone”
New York Times
“Like Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary, Ernaux's affair should be counted as one of the great liaisons of literature”
Ankita Chakraborty, The Guardian
“The supreme quality in Ernaux’s more polished writing — unflinching and compulsive self-revelation — is present here in its purest form”
Financial Times
THE BOOK - What Just Happened?! by Marina Hyde
Arguably, this book’s publication couldn’t have been better timed, such is Britain’s current political climate. Barely a day goes by when we’re not asking ourselves that very “What just happened?!” question as a rickety rollercoaster rolls on and on.
Collecting Marina Hyde’s Guardian columns, this book is itself a rollercoaster of rip-roaringly funny observations and acerbic summaries of - quite frankly - often absurd political events, politicians, and cultural figures, among them Brexit, David Cameron, Theresa May, Donald Trump, and not-so charming princes. It really does capture our times with incredible “if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry” vividness. Thankfully, this book is laden with lines that’ll have you LOL-ing into the wee hours.
THE BUZZ
“Hilarious. But behind the wit lurks real anger, argument, exasperation and intelligence”
Armando Iannucci
“Lethally funny”
The Observer
“As witty as it is withering, what a wonderful collection”
Gary Lineker
THE BOOK - Madly, Deeply by Alan Rickman
While there’s no shortage of celebrity memoirs and diaries, the late Alan Rickman’s Madly, Deeply diaries has struck a decidedly deep chord with many reviewers.
In fact, it’s not just reviewers who are raving about it. More importantly, readers from all walks of life and backgrounds, and from both sides of the pond, have been diving into Rickman’s candid, witty diaries, which spans the last two decades of his life.
THE BUZZ
“He has a knack of bursting the actorly bubble and saying something profound”
The Guardian
“Witty, withering and sardonic”
The Times
“These diaries are a delight”
Literary Review
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