Books of the Year:2023
With so many great books published this year, we’ve had the pleasure of looking back and picking some of ours and our customer’s favourites. After lot of agonising, we have curated a paperback selection, a hardback selection and a children’s selection. It really was a tricky job, and looking at them again, we still think there are some books we could have included – but, what to leave out! We think it’s been a very good year!
Our top five paperbacks
In the bookshop you notice a buzz around certain books when they first arrive in hardback; Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow certainly had that vibe and it’s been a huge hit this year in paperback. In Trespasses, Louise Kennedy, 1975 Belfast provided the backdrop to her compelling tale of ordinary people caught up in sectarian violence. If a little escapism is more your thing, then Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s dazzling debut When We Were Birds brings the colourful Trinidadian culture to life in a tale of magic and love with.
If you prefer non-fiction, then Guy Shrubsole was a worthy winner of the year’s Wainwright prize for The Lost Rainforests of Britain, his paean to Britain’s once magnificent temperate rainforests, now reduced to mere fragment. And who can not be inspired by Rebecca Lowe as she recalls the beauty, kindnesses and complexities of the lands she travels through during her amazing 11,000k solo bike ride in The Slow Road to Tehran
You can browse the full selection of thirty books by clicking on the banner below…
Our top three hardbacks
Trying to find a politician with integrity is becoming very difficult; could Rory Stewart be that politician? Rory has a wealth of experience and knowledge which he eloquently shares in Politics on the Edge, his candid insider’s account of ten extraordinary years in Parliament. We make no secret of being big fans of the rewilding movement, our annual Restoring Nature festival at Lower Sharpham farm is testament to that. So, we have been incredibly impressed by The Book of Rewilding; Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell’s authoritative handbook for restoring nature: everything from farms, estates, rivers and ponds, allotments, cemeteries, parks, and gardens... this book has the answers.
It was not just the striking cover of Rebecca F Kuang’s Yellowface that got our attention; this compulsive tale set in the world of publishing, centres on a rivalrous friendship that morphs into an intense revenge thriller. Top class contemporary writing from a writer on her very top form.
You can browse the full selection of twelve books by clicking on the banner below…
Our Children’s Book of the Year
Seeing children’s delight at taking a book they just can’t wait to read out of the bookshop is probably our greatest pleasure. Wolf Road is the first foray into children’s fiction by biological anthropologist, author and broadcaster, Alice Roberts. It’s full of adventure, heart and vast prehistoric vista that will delight many a young reader.
You can browse the full selection of eighteen books by clicking on the banner below
Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year to all our customers
East Gate Bookshop, Totnes, Christmas 2023