We've made you a list, we're checking it twice.
Here are the books we reviewed in 2024 - poetry first, and then novels. Click the link to read the review, or click below to get one for your Santa sack. Where possible, we have linked to an author's own site or a local independent shop.
POETRY
‘Serious Nonsense for the Unbearably Festive’ - Ben Macpherson
This book of verse cuts past the stale, idealised winter wonderland to deliver charm and imagination.
Available here.
‘A Moonless Night’ - Henry Normal
A book that ponders the universe with a pun - another collection of real charm and principle from one of our city’s most memorable poets.
Available here.
‘Come Here To This Gate’ - Rory Waterman
This collection of poetry is both engrossing and a statement of real talent. Like a gate with rusty bolts - once you have opened this book you will do well to shut it again.
Available here.
‘Akal’ - Dave Wood
A mindful compilation of poetry which can be started anywhere, dipped into and reread.
Available here.
NOVELS & PROSE
‘The Body in the Library’ - Graham Caveney
Though brutal and decidedly unromantic, this new ‘memoir of a diagnosis’ is told with remarkable tenderness and wit.
Available here.
'Pleasantly Disturbed' - Lee Stuart Evans
A feel-good '80s music-inspired coming-of-age tale with a comic crime twist - penned by a writer who has worked with Sean Lock, Harry Hill and many more.
Available here.
‘It Hurts Every Time’ - LP Mills
A roaring work of sci-fi crime - featuring a drug which revives the dead, at a steep cost - from an author with command and imagination.
Available here.
‘The Whale Who Disappeared’ - Emma Oldham
A book aimed at children which deftly weaves together a small-scale personal tale with a wider clarion call about the world we need to look after.
Available here.
‘Heartsound’ - Clare Stevens
A stirring and queer coming-of-age novel set in the drainpipe-wearing 80s.
Available here.
BONUS
The book in the first picture is Alan Spree's 'Nottingham: The Postcard Collection'. You can get hold of it here.
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