Welcome back to Book Break! It is time for our monthly book haul. If you haven't seen one of
these before, this is our virtual publishing house book haul. So I get a very exciting email
every month containing details of some of the most exciting books we have published in the previous
month, so today we are looking at November's books, and Elle, who is the other half of the
Book Break team, said she has chosen me a smaller selection than usual, but of books that we are
both - you and me - gonna get very excited about. So let's open this up. So the first book we are
hauling this month is the 30 Day Kickstart Plan by Joe Wicks. We all love Joe Wicks here on Book
Break, he is just brilliant, so this looks like it's going to be a perfect book come January.
It's all about energy-boosting recipes and workouts, which is great because January can
be a bit of a slump month for me and so anything that gets me feeling excited and energetic
is perfect. I love the bright colours as well, that already makes me feel happier,
and it says it has a hundred delicious recipes inside and I always trust Joe Wicks's recipes.
OK next in here we've got a new David Baldacci: Daylight . . . reveals the deadliest secret of
all, how exciting is that? So this one is very exciting because it's combining
two of David Baldacci's characters. So this is actually the third in the series featuring Atlee
Pine, who is a special agent whose twin sister was abducted when they were both six years old,
and so she is always on the hunt to find out what happened to her sister, but in this book we also
get an appearance from John Puller. John Puller is a military investigator you might recognise from
books like Zero Day and No Man's Land. So in this book they're going to team up, and the truth about
what happens to Atlee Pine's sister is finally going to be revealed, so this is a big one. OK
next we have, oh that's stunning: The Dark Archive by Genevieve Cogman. So this is the next in the
Invisible Library series. These covers are always so beautiful, you have to collect them all. I love
this purple. So I think this is number seven in the series now . . . it is! It's number seven. So
this series is really fun because each book takes you to a different alternate universe. You get to
go to different cities, different time periods, we even traveled with Book Break all the way to Paris
once to tell you about one of the books in this series that was set in the libraries of Paris,
so I'll link to that video below because it's a really fun one. But The Dark Archive. This
is set in Guernsey and London, this is fantasy that's about books, it's also got dragons in it,
so I know there are a lot of you for whom this will be right up your alley. OK next
we have The Twelve Dates of Christmas. I actually have this one on my desk, here it is, I have been
keeping this one on my desk, I'm so excited to read. The second it hits the first of December,
I'm diving into this one. I'm already feeling very Christmassy but I've told myself I have to
wait. So this is about a woman who goes back to her hometown, and she signs up for this 12 dates
of Christmas service where she gets to go on 12 different festive dates with 12 different men,
and the whole town is watching her hilarious dating adventures. Sounds like just the Christmas
rom-com I need. Then we have Walking with Ghosts by Gabriel Byrne. OK so Gabriel Byrne is an actor,
I know him from films like The Usual Suspects and Little Women. He's also worked as a film director
and producer, so he's had a really amazing career and he's an incredible writer. I haven't read this
one yet but it has been so praised as this just beautifully told memoir of his life growing up in
Ireland all the way to Hollywood success. Lots of people have said that it's very poetic and
moving so it sounds amazing. Then we have - I haven't seen this cover, I love that! The
Readiness by Alan Gillis. So Alan Gillis is an Irish poet. I'm just reading the description of
this collection. It says that in here he addresses some of the most pressing concerns of the age,
how can we live at the centre of our contemporary paradox, disconnected and hyper-connected as
we are. That's very interesting. These poems form a series of bad dreams and clear visions
that speak to the chaos and fragility of both self and society. Wow what a description,
and I still just have not stopped laughing at how brilliant this cover is. Next in here,
that is beautiful, Counting Creatures by Julia Donaldson and Sharon King-Chai. So they are an
amazing pair. They worked before on Animalphabet which was an absolutely gorgeous children's book.
This one looks equally stunning. Animalphabet was about learning the alphabet through looking
at these different animals ,and this one is about learning to count through counting
the different drawings of the different animals. It looks stunning, I want to learn to count
all over again. OK next we have Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho.
I've talked about this book on this channel before in our non-fiction recommendations video. So
Emmanuel Acho set up a YouTube channel back over this summer where he created a safe space to talk
about some of the uncomfortable conversations and questions that need to be asked. The videos
went absolutely viral, it's a brilliant YouTube series you should definitely check out, and now
he has written a whole book engaging with some of these most difficult and uncomfortable topics
that we need to talk about. And finally, the last book in this haul is The Happiest Man on Earth:
the beautiful life of an Auschwitz survivor. This is by Eddie Jaku. Again I've mentioned this book
before in our non-fiction recommendations, so I will link to that video. I am so desperate
to read this book, it looks absolutely beautiful. So Eddie Jaku was a young man living in Germany,
proud to be a German until the day he was arrested and taken to a concentration camp
because he was Jewish. And he survived some of the most unimaginable horrors that a person can
live through, but after surviving the holocaust he decided to set himself a mission that he
was going to smile every single day. And he now believes himself to be the happiest man on earth.
And it's such a beautiful story, and Eddie Jaku has just turned 100, and lived a truly amazing
life that I think we can all learn from. So Elle was right, that was a brilliant haul.
Do let me know which of these books you are most excited about getting your hands on. I will also
link to our playlist here of all of the book hauls we have done before if you want to go back in time
and revisit some of our most exciting books of the year. And we will see you next time!