Belonging
Amanda Thomson
Canongate, £10.99, pp320 (paperback)
Belonging was deservedly shortlisted for the Wainwright prize this year; artist and Guardian Country Diary contributor Amanda Thomson fashioning a thoughtful blend of memoir, family history, artistic scrapbook and nature journal in a compelling collage. Underpinned by a creative and psychological reset during the pandemic, it’s a lovely exploration of northern Scotland and most notably the pine woods of Abernethy, but for all that specificity, there’s also an all-encompassing belief in the importance of listening, looking and learning from the world around us.
Nowhere to Run
Jonathan Sayer
Bantam, £17.99, pp256
It’s one of those classic fish-out-of-water tales: comedy playwright and screenwriter Jonathan Sayer (The Play That Goes Wrong) takes over struggling semi-professional football team Ashton United with his father, dreaming of bringing at least some good times. Nowhere to Run is brilliantly entertaining and heartwarming – although Sayer’s warning that some details are exaggerated for comic effect or “in some way fictionalised” makes it slightly too eager to please. This does mask some of its more interesting elements – particularly how this close-knit community got through Covid.
The Book of Fire
Christy Lefteri
Manilla, £16.99, pp400
Taking on added significance after the wildfires in Greece this summer, Lefteri fine-tunes her poignant, intimate family storytelling in The Book of Fire. A tiny island and its Anglo-Greek family are similarly ravaged by a deliberate fire, the starting point for this novel reflecting on trauma, redemption and recovery. The overt political urgency inherent in The Beekeeper of Aleppo – her exploration of the refugee crisis – is missing, but The Book of Fire’s climate-crisis subtext is testament to Lefteri’s increasing reputation for crafting international bestsellers with real contemporary meaning.
• To order Belonging, Nowhere to Run or The Book of Fire go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
