Welcome back to Book Break! Today it is time for our
September book haul, everyone's favourite video of the month,
and I have just received my monthly email from
Elle which has an exciting selection of some of the
best books we have published in the last month. It looks like a pretty big folder
today so settle in, and maybe get your shopping
lists ready because you might need to end up buying quite a few of these.
So first up we have- I knew this one would be in here! This is Before the
Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Cafe by Toshikazu
Kawaguchi. This is the sequel to Before the Coffee Gets Cold which you
may have heard about because I think it's the book we have talked about on
Book Break more than any other book in the world.
The original book is this really cute quirky story about a time traveling cafe
in Tokyo and you meet all these different
customers who come to the cafe to time travel for different reasons and
to meet different people. And this is the sequel where we're going
to meet a whole new cast of characters coming to the cafe for their
own time traveling reasons, but of course our favourite cafe
staff are still there. And I am so so excited to read this one
because I loved the original so much. I am waiting every time I hear
the doorbell rings, I'm hoping it's going to be this book
arriving for me. Well that already feels like the most exciting book we could get
but let's see what else this haul has to offer.
Next we have The Monsters of Rookhaven by Padraig Kenny.
OK so this is one we have been anticipating for a little while.
We hinted this one was coming back in the video we made over the summer on
books that use your favourite tropes and this was my recommendation for a
book that's about found family, which is such a beloved
trope. This is a middle grade book about a monster called Mirabelle
who lives with her family who are all monsters, but they have this spell they
use to protect them from the human world. Until one day the spell wears off and
an orphaned brother and sister stumble into their life. And it's about
this group of people forming a new found family. And of
course we have To Sleep in a Sea of Stars in here by Christopher Paolini.
So this is the long-awaited follow-up from Christopher Paolini who is the
author of Eragon. Finally! Everyone has been waiting. He has
written a new book and this time it's a sci-fi.
And I actually have my copy right here, let me show you.
It is enormous. You know that we adore big books here on Book Break, I love
books that will keep you busy for weeks and this is definitely one of those.
Doesn't it look amazing? I haven't started this one yet but I'm
so excited to dive in. This is such an epic story of a war
set among the stars, and I love the tagline: space holds countless secrets,
she just found the deadliest one. OK back to my email. Next we have The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy collection.
So this year marked a very important anniversary,
it was the 42nd anniversary of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
radio debut. And fans of the series will know that is very significant
because the number 42 is a very important
number within the Hitchhiker's Guide universe.
So we have published these books this year with brand new covers and content
and now we have this beautiful box set. Oh Inner Spark! This book looks so
beautiful. So this is something that we all need at the moment,
this is all about finding calm in a stressful world.
And the author is both a clinical psychologist and a yoga facilitator
so this book combines both of those tool kits that she
is such an expert of, that together will help you find your inner calm.
All Things Bright and Beautiful. OK this is one I don't know anything about,
so let's have a look. Aha! OK so you may have seen the new
channel 5 series called All Creatures Great and Small, which is
inspired by these memoirs by James Herriot who was a vet in the 1930s.
And so this book All Things Bright and Beautiful is actually volume 2
in his collection of memoirs. Then we have- ah, the Lady Gaga book.
So this is Channel Kindness and this is such a beautiful idea for a book,
summed up by such a beautiful cover right here. So this is a collection of 51
stories of kindness, bravery and resilience written
by young people all over the world, and then collected by the Born This Way
foundation which is Lady Gaga's foundation, and she's written an
introduction to the book. So the real idea behind
the Born This Way foundation is the idea that kindness has such a power to change
the world, and that's something that's really important to Lady Gaga,
and that is really the theme of all of these stories here, it's channeling
the way that kindness can build community and be a force for change.
OK this is She Will Soar so this is a poetry collection of poems written by
women. So this is a really inspiring poetry collection
for readers of any gender but maybe particularly for women and girls to own.
And it's got a mix of poetry by classic writers to modern voices.
BookTube's very own Jen Campbell has a poem in this collection,
as well as writers like Carol Ann Duffy, Christina Rossetti,
Nikita Gill, and so many more. Then we have
a big one. The Meaning of Mariah Carey. So this book is going to be iconic, much
like the woman herself, and I will put a link below to a video
that Mariah posted on her social media of her
seeing the book in print for the first time, because it's really exciting and
really sweet. Mariah Carey is just such a legend that
it's so exciting. I can't wait to read this one
and get more of an understanding of the human person behind the legend.
And Mariah Carey has said this book is also a lot about
the resilience of the human spirit as well. Then
we have, oh so many memoirs from legendary figures here,
so this is Permanent Record by Edward Snowden,
who famously leaked top secret NSA documents that revealed a lot about US
surveillance of our phone and internet communications.
So this book is his story, starting with his childhood,
we get to see him growing up, working with the CIA,
and what moved him to expose what was going on. Oh this looks like
such a fun one, this is Slam! You're going to want to
hear this. This is another poetry collection.
So this one is very much a celebration of modern
performance poetry. All of these poems were chosen and collected by Nikita
Gill and it's very much a celebration of
the spoken word poetry scene. And this one feels really personal as well. So
each poet who's featured in here has also written a few words to tell you
a bit about themselves, introduce their poem, and even give you
their tips for spoken word poetry. Aha this is How I
Built This. So this is one for the podcast fans. This is based on
the massively popular podcast How I Built This. So on the podcast
Guy Raz interviews top entrepreneurs and learns
their stories of how they built their incredible businesses.
So from speaking to so many people he has obviously learned a lot
of very useful lessons, and so this book is him
sharing some of the most incredible lessons that he's learned from these
people. So if you have dreams of starting your
own business this sounds like a pretty incredible how-to guide,
or if you're more like me and could not imagine ever starting your own business
but are just fascinated hearing about how other
people did it, then this sounds like a pretty
incredible read. And we're into the adorable children's books. This one is My
Magical Owl. So this is one of those Campbell books
that have so many fun little interactive elements that I
wish I had here to play with. There's also a Halloween themed one, that is so
cute, my first touch and find Halloween. I can only imagine there's so many fun
textures and stuff to play with in there. There's the Frog Prince, that looks
absolutely beautiful and it looks like you can actually
move the coin along as she throws it into the water,
love that. Oh and then this is one I've been excited about,
this is Just One of those Days by Jill Murphy. So this
is the follow-up to Peace at Last which was a book that I had read to me when I
was a little girl. So I feel really nostalgic looking at this.
So the original Peace at Last was actually published 40 years ago,
and that was the story of Mr and Mrs Bear not being able to get
a very restful night's sleep, and so this book
is possibly set the very next morning, even though we have been waiting
40 years to find out what happened. They then wake up late
and have just one of those days where nothing seems to go right.
Oh, How to Grow Your Own Poem. So this is from Kate Clanchy, who is a brilliant
poet and teacher, she's been teaching poetry for years,
and this is her kind of how-to guide for beginners starting writing their own
poetry. So we actually have a video that I will
link to, we got the amazing Joel from the BookTube channel fictional
fates to try out using some of the tips here to write his own poem, and he wrote
this wonderful poem for us all about Excalibur. So I'll
link to that video so you can see his process,
but this book basically is filled with creative writing prompts and
exercises and advice to get you growing your own poems.
Ah this one looks very heavy, so this is No
Fixed Abode. And it's a story all about the UK's
homeless population. So this book is really shining a light on
the homelessness problem that we have in this country, quite how many people are
dying on our streets, and also quite how easy it would be for any one
of us to become homeless. And this book gives a voice to
the people who are so often completely ignored and silenced,
telling really sad stories, sometimes surprisingly uplifting stories.
The book is also looking at the organizations who are working
to end homelessness and what they're doing. OK next for something a bit
happier, this is a collection of Classic Dog
Stories. And I absolutely love this cover. How sweet is that? I'm
guessing what the next book in here is going to be . . .
and I was right! We also have Classic Cat Stories.
So if you're getting your Christmas ideas ready, both of these are such good
little gift books for the dog or cat lovers in your life. Very
important to get it right, which one people are.
Then we have Lampedusa by Stephen Price. OK so this is a book I haven't read
but I did hear a lot of people talking about it when the hardback
came out last year. So let me look up what this one's about. So this is set in
Sicily in the 1950s, and it's about a man haunted by memories
of the war, struggling to complete the novel that he
wants to be his lasting legacy. So that sounds beautiful. I love
that cover, makes me feel warm, makes me wish I was in Italy, and it
looks like this is going to be a very moving
literary novel. And then one that I have read, and look at this
cover, just amazing. So The Harpy by Megan Hunter
is a very weird and wonderful surreal story
about a woman whose husband cheats on her and so they agree that she can hurt
him three times in revenge. So that's quite a
dark fairy tale-y set-up, and the book never quite does what
you expect. It keeps you on your toes. The whole way through we get little
flashbacks to our main character's childhood obsession with the mythical
creatures harpies. And that makes the book very
foreboding the whole way through. Then we have Fake Law, aha, so this is the
follow-up book from the Secret Barrister who is a real barrister with a hidden
identity who is exposing stories from within the justice system.
So in this book the Secret Barrister exposes some of the incompetence
and lies behind some of the biggest legal stories that we've heard
in recent years, and in doing so shows how the law is so relevant to every one
of us, how it touches every aspect of our lives.
Another beautiful book, another one that I have on my bookshelf so let me grab
that one for you. This is absolutely stunning, Dear Reader
by Cathy Rentzenbrink. We recently showed this one off in a
Book Break video which I will link to below,
that was on books about books. So this is just a love letter
to books and the power of reading and how reading can help us through
some of the hardest times we might face in our lives.
And it's shiny! Then we have an Ann Cleeves, The Darkest Evening. OK so I
don't know the plot of this one, let me have a look, but I know there's been a
lot of buzz. OK so this looks great, this looks like
a wintery christmasy mystery. This is book number nine in the Vera
series, and it starts with Detective Chief Inspector
Vera Stanhope driving home during a blizzard,
but here is where it gets dramatic. So in the snow
she sees a car that has pulled off the road
but she looks inside, as the driver's door's open, and sees a toddler alone
strapped into the car seat in the back of the car. So she rescues this toddler,
drives on, manages to get through the snow
until she arrives at this stately home that she recognizes as the house her
father grew up in. Inside this house, she can
hear a party going on in full swing, very christmassy,
but outside in the snow a young woman lies dead. What is going on? I've actually
never read any of the Vera books but that one sounds so fun and Christmassy
that I might have to read them all to catch up.
The Confession by Jessie Burton. So this is a book that I
absolutely loved, I read it last year when it came out in hardback.
This is a whole new cover design for the paperback and it is
stunning. So this is a dual timeline story.
In present day, we meet a young woman who is trying to solve the mystery of what
happened to her mother, and so she gets a job working for a
reclusive novelist called Connie Holden who is
apparently the last person to have seen her mother before she disappeared.
And then we also flash back to the 80s and get the story
of Connie Holden and her lover Elise as they moved from London to LA
to work on the film adaptation of one of Connie's books.
And so we find how all of these stories are going to link up and come together.
Oh, The Memory of Souls by Jenn Lyons. OK so this must be the sequel to
The Ruin of Kings. Oh okay so this is actually the third book in the series.
There was The Ruin of Kings, then The Name of All Things, and now we're here on
book number three, The Memory of Souls, and this is an epic fantasy series about
a long lost royal. OK and speaking of royal,
this is Royal by Danielle Steele. So this one, just reading the description,
okay so this one looks like a lot of fun. So this is a fictionalized story about
the royal family, imagining what happened if during World War II the king and queen
had quietly sent away their youngest daughter, who in this story is called
Princess Charlotte, she is sent away to live with a trusted noble
family and keeps her identity a secret. But then 20 years later a young girl who
was raised as an orphan and knows nothing about her true
heritage finds a stack of hidden letters and her identity comes to the
surface. So it's about this missing princess from
the royal family, that sounds really fun. Okay we're nearly there, just a couple
more. Next is Savage Kiss by Roberto Saviano. So this
one is the sequel to The Piranhas which was
about the young teenage boys who are in gangs
on the streets of Naples and how much power they get.
So in this book we go back and meet Nicolas again, who is the leader of this
gang The Piranhas. And they're just this group
of really disillusioned boys who have had much too much power
too early in their lives. And then finally last one in here is of
course The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett.
So this has been another really highly anticipated book.
This is the prequel to the Kingsbridge trilogy. So I will link to a video we
made recently on epic book series in every genre, and I
talked about the Kingsbridge novels as this epic historical fiction
series spanning generations of this city and its cathedral.
And everyone has been waiting for Ken Follett to write
the prequel The Evening and the Morning which goes back to the year
1000 and spans all the events that lead right up to exactly where the first book
in the Kingsbridge series starts. So what a great haul, so many highly
anticipated books in there, and a few that I hadn't heard
of before. So do leave a comment letting us know which ones you are most excited
to pick up, and of course I will link our playlist here of all of our previous
book hauls, so you can click through and have a watch.
See you next time!