On Our Shelves

Gayle recommends:

Finally I have something to recommend when people ask for a funny book! Heartburn is properly hilarious, like a 200 page stand up set, except kinder, and with more food.

Gayle recommends:

I once read this book, cover to cover, by candlelight during a power cut. Not all cookbooks warrant such behaviour, but this one certainly does. Full of musings and stories on ...

Gayle recommends:

A book I wish I'd written myself. Laura Shapiro tells the stories of six women through the food they ate (or didn't, in the case of Helen Gurley Brown). It's filled with ...

Gayle recommends:

Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, The Hate U Give pulls no punches in dealing with its difficult subject matter - it's shocking and heartbreaking, and offers no easy ...

Gayle recommends:

Pick up any Sylvia Townsend Warner book and you're in for a treat, but Summer Will Show is a particular favourite. It follows young English aristocrat Sophia Willoughby as she ...

Gayle recommends:

A beautifully written novel about the quietly disappointing nature of life. Don't let anyone tell you it's the worst Booker winner - they're talking nonsense.

Gayle recommends:

A book about a sex offender who really likes the Eurovision Song Contest. Have I sold it to you yet? Just in case the answer's no: Martin John is also one of the most ...

Gayle recommends:

One of the most finely tuned bits of storytelling you'll ever have the pleasure of reading. Funny, beautifully illustrated, and just dark enough to keep you entertained, even ...

Gayle recommends:

Long out of print, and now available again in this glorious facsimile of the 1966 original, Nairn's London is a funny, angry, stirring tour of London's architecture. Fifty ...

Gayle recommends:

Funny, heartbreaking and totally filthy. Everything a novel should be.

Gayle recommends:

The Dud Avocado is such fun. Sally Jay Gorce is my absolute hero - a fabulous American tumbling in and out of trouble and beds in Paris in the 1950s. Glorious!