Welcome back to Book Break. It's the end of the month which means
it's time for our monthly book haul. I always get messages from you guys saying
you look forward to these, and to be honest I
really look forward to these as well. I have just received my most exciting
email of the month, a virtual box of some of
the best books we have published in the
month of August. I don't know what's going to be inside
it but Elle said it's a particularly big haul this month, we've got 30 books
in this virtual box to open. So without further
ado let's go in and open the first book! I. . . have never seen this
before. So this is Arlo the Lion Who Couldn't Sleep. This
looks absolutely adorable. So this is a children's book with a
mindfulness message. That is so sweet. Ideal for bedtime and
especially helpful for little ones who have trouble going to sleep, I mean does
it work for big ones who have trouble going to sleep?
Because that sounds great. Let's see what we've got next.
Our Dark Secret by Jenny Quintana. Okay I've read this one. Our Dark Secret is
about two girls who were friends back in the
70s when they were teenagers. One of them, our main character Elizabeth,
was a bit of a loner. And then she meets this new girl called
Rachel, becomes kind of obsessed with her, and they have this
strange, quite intense friendship - and then
a body is found. Okay next is The Catholic School by Eduardo Albinati.
This, you can't see from just the picture on screen, but this
is a huge book. I think it's over 1200 pages.
I included this one in our video we made about long books
to keep you busy for a while, because it definitely will. It's massive.
The novel is based on a true crime that happened in Italy and it's all about
exposing the dark underside of the wealthy Italian
middle class. OK next up, The Doors of Eden by Adrian
Tchaikovsky. People have been so excited for this.
Adrian Tchaikovsky is like a sci-fi legend, so if you're a big sci-fi fan I'm
sure you definitely will have heard of him. If you haven't, he's someone
you should really know about. And the Doors of Eden is his brand new
August release. It's just this absolutely epic
sci-fi story with such huge scope. It spans like multiple worlds,
multiple timelines, you're gonna love it. Queer Intentions, this is a book that I
loved when I read it, when the hardback came out, so this is a non-fiction book
by Amelia Abraham. It's her personal journey through LGBTQ+
culture ,so it's this really fun mix of getting to hear some of Amelia
Abraham's own life, but also, she's a journalist so she takes
us on this journey meeting so many different
people from different countries, different walks of life, and learning
what the queer experience is like for different people around the
world. Okay then we have a Danielle Steele.
Child's Play. So Danielle Steele is the best-selling author alive.
She's also written like some of the most books ever, so I can't remember
specifically what this one's about. Let's have a look. Okay so this one is
all about family and what you can learn from your
children when they grow up. So our main character is a woman called
Kate who has raised three children who are all
adults now, and they are all, their lives are turning out slightly differently
than the lives she had planned for them, and so it turns
out she has a lot to learn from them as well.
Okay next we have this gorgeous book One Day in Wonderland. This is
absolutely stunning, so this is a celebration of
Lewis Carroll, of Alice in Wonderland. It's this gorgeous illustrated book that
tells the story of Lewis Carroll's life and him first
writing Alice in Wonderland. It's got like a glossary
of some of the words and phrases that Lewis Carroll invented because he was so
brilliant and playful with his use of language.
And I mean, just look at it. That is a book you want to have on your bookshelf.
Then we have Return to Wonderland, okay which one is this?
So this is really cool, this is a collection of original stories from
some of today's biggest children's authors writing
stories set in Wonderland. Oh The Glass Hotel!
I absolutely loved this one. So we have obviously a glass hotel,
this really striking hotel made of glass on Vancouver Island.
And one night at this hotel this very beautiful bartender there called Vincent
meets a rich businessman who is staying at the hotel, and starts a life with him,
this very rich glamorous life. We also know that years later
Vincent is going to go missing from the deck of a ship, and so we're
jumping back and forth to find out what leads to that happening as well.
It's such a mesmerizing novel that honestly I can't do justice to, and
you should just read it. Next we have Wayward Sun by Rainbow
Rowell. So this is the sequel to Carry On. This is a YA fantasy
adventure love story about vampires and wizards,
with a guy who is wearing a very Harry Styles-esque suit here, and in general
this cover just makes me want to go on an American road trip like right now.
There is a third book in the series coming called Any Way the
Wind Blows, so you're going to want to catch up with this series first.
Okay what is this? The Morning Flower by Amanda Hocking. OK this is a book in
the Trylle universe. So Amanda Hawking originally
self-published these books set in the Trylle universe, and they
were so popular, like massively best-selling,
so they ended up being re-released through traditional publishing. And that
was in the early 2010s, so it was this whole trilogy
about a teenager called Wendy who stumbles across this
alternate universe. And now Amanda Hocking has gone back
and revisited that world but with a whole new story,
new characters, new trilogy of books. Okay
Sorcery of a Queen by Brian Naslund. Okay so this must be the sequel to
his first book which was called. . . Blood of an Exile.
Forgot the name for a minute there. So the premise for the first book
in this series: our main character was exiled and his punishment was
that he was doomed to become a dragon slayer, only our main character
turned out to be the best dragon slayer in the history of the world,
and is still alive. So in this second book
he is still in exile, still notorious, still living on borrowed time, and then
he meets a banished queen. Then we have Lovecraft Country released
with a brand new TV tie-in cover. I am so excited for the TV
series, produced by Jordan Peele and JJ Abrams.
It's a sci-fi horror story with a twist,
it's subverting a lot of the tropes that often come with that genre, particularly
some especially racist tropes, and it is set
in New England in the 1950s so racism is one of the horrors that the
characters encounter. You can see why that's a
project that Jordan Peele was perfect for.
I can't wait to watch this show. Then we have Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart.
This has just been long listed for the Booker prize.
Shuggie Bain is about this boy called Shuggie
growing up in Glasgow with an alcoholic mother,
and it's this really emotional moving story of about 10 years of his life. We
actually predicted in a Book Break video right at the beginning of summer that
this was going to be one of the books everyone was talking about this year, and
that was even before the Booker prize long list. So you're
definitely going to want to read this one if you want to join in with all the
bookish conversations this year. Then we have, oh I have been excited
about this book, this is I Survived: a true story by Victoria
Cilliers, who is this woman whose husband tried to
kill her by sabotaging her parachute. So this
absolutely terrifying true story. And she has now
written a book about it. I remember reading about this story in
the newspaper at the time and being so shocked, and this wasn't even the
first time her husband had tried to kill her.
So this story is definitely going to be terrifying and fascinating.
Oh this is XX by Rian Hughes. So this is a sci-fi story that questions
what might happen in the wake of the biggest scientific
discovery in human history. But it's also a kind of exploration
of graphic design. So it says here that it incorporates
NASA transcripts, newspaper and magazine articles,
fictitious Wikipedia pages, undeciphered alphabet,
I just keep hearing so many different descriptions of this book
and I'm so intrigued. I really have to read it.
Next we have A Company of Swans by Eva Ibbotson.
This one is a classic, and this new cover is gorgeous, so definitely one you're
going to want to collect. So this one is a historical romance
about a 19 year old girl called Harriet who joins a ballet group
and runs away with them. So it's partly about the freedom and beauty of dance,
and also about her falling in love. Now we're into some children's books. The
Singing Mermaid. So this is a Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks collaboration,
and a make and do book so loads of fun arts and crafts and stuff in there,
with over 200 stickers it says! I wish I had the physical book here.
My Magical Flying Pony. Again I really wish I had the physical book.
These always have so many fun interactive elements
you can push and pull and slide around, so they're always really cute.
We also have My Favourite Unicorn, this looks equally adorable.
It says turn the wheel to choose, I just want to play with that
so badly! Then, aha The Gospel of the Eels. This one's been really talked about, so
this is a nonfiction book about a father and son relationship, but
also about eels. So this all kind of comes
together in the book because the writer Patrick Svensson had quite a
difficult relationship with his father. His father's only passion was eels
so this is like a science memoir of Patrick Svensson learning what is so
fascinating about eels. And it turns out we know almost nothing about them and
they really are very interesting. Then we have Summerwater
by Sarah Moss. So I was lucky enough to get to read
this one a bit early. Sarah Moss is such a brilliant writer, and this is a
book set all in one day in a Scottish caravan
park in the rain. So it's really tense, really
claustrophobic, and there is a lot of foreboding going on, so we spend a
little bit of time in the minds of each of the different
characters at this holiday park. And we know the
whole way through we're building up to some disaster at the end of the day.
Then we have Karamo Brown's book I Am Perfectly
Designed. So this was written by Karamo Brown from
Queer Eye. He wrote it together with his kid and it's this really sweet story of
this parent-child relationship and learning to love each
other, and loving yourself for exactly who you are. Then we have, oh a really
bright fun cover, Flipped. I don't know what this one's
about. Okay so this looks like a really fun
YA story, and it's actually been adapted for Netflix,
so it's about these two teenagers Julie and Bryce.
And Julie has seriously fancied Bryce for ages and he just wants her to leave
him alone. Until suddenly in eighth grade everything flips, so that sounds really
fun. Then we have The Lamplighter by Jackie
Kay. I really want to read this. So this was originally produced as a
play, but when you read it on the page it apparently reads
like a poem. So it's the story of four women and one man telling the story
of their lives in slavery. Jackie Kay is such a
beautiful writer, so I really want to read this one.
Then we have, this is a collection of short stories, You Will Never Be
Forgotten by Mary South. So this is a collection of
very strange, unusual, quirky stories that are all
based in some way on technology, and people using technology to try and
fill some gap in their lives. Then we have Boy Queen
by George Lester. So exciting. So George Lester
is another BookTuber, so we love him, this is his
debut novel. It's a YA story about a boy going to university and
discovering drag. And George Lester has been making such
cool videos of him doing full drag makeup, talking
about the book, it just looks so much fun. Especially for
big fans of RuPaul's Drag Race. Then we have this beautiful book, A Poem
for Every Autumn Day. Perfect time to get your hands on this
one. So this is another collection edited by Allie Esiri.
Hello, note from editing Emma here from the future. I just wanted to clarify
something about this book. So Allie Esiri has edited these beautiful
poetry collections that we have, A Poem for Every Day of the Year and A
Poem for Every Night of the Year, and now she's releasing these little
mini seasonal collections, which are so beautiful, so this is just the autumn
dates taken from that full collection. And it's just
absolutely gorgeous. I can't wait to have all seasons on my bookshelf.
This is Intentional Integrity: how smart companies can lead an ethical revolution.
Sounds great, let me look at the description. Okay so the author Robert
Chesnut is this silicon valley expert and the
book is a six-step process for leaders of
companies to foster and manage a culture of
integrity at work, which he says is actually important to
the company's success. And finally I can see there is one more
in here, and that is How to Survive a Pandemic.
Very appropriate right now. Michael Greger is the author of books like How
Not to Die. So he is an expert on how our diets
can keep us healthy and alive, and now in this book
Dr Greger is delving into the origins of some of the world's
deadliest pathogens, and tracing their evolution.
And so he's got advice on what we can do to protect ourselves and our loved ones,
during this current crisis, but also what human society needs to do as a whole
to prevent even worse catastrophes in the future. So this book is going to save
us all. Let's end that on a very positive note.
So that was our whopper August book haul. I am out of breath from talking about
all those books. Do leave a comment below letting me know which of those you're
most excited to get your hands on, and I will link to our playlist here of
all of our previous book hauls. See you next time!