Auraist's focus is on the quality of prose, so here are our rankings for October releases in various genres in the UK, best to worst for stylistic excellence and originality:
-
Nonfiction
Twist by Adele Bertei
The Double Life of Bob Dylan Volume 2: 1966-2021 by Clinton Heylin
Shame by Annie Ernaux
The New Leviathans by John Gray
Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart
Ruskin Park: Sylvia, Me and the BBC by Rory Cellan-Jones
The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts by Loren Grush
Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein
Stay True by Hua Hsu
Great-Uncle Harry by Michael Palin
Everything Is Everything by Clive Myrie
The Long Game: Inside Sinn Féin by Aoife Moore
-
Speculative fiction
The Circumference of the World by Lavie Tidhar
Girlfriend on Mars by Deborah Willis
Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy
The Land of Lost Things by John Connolly
The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord
-
Crime/thrillers
Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper
You’d Look Better As a Ghost by Joanna Wallace
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman
Tell Me Your Secrets by Mel McGrath
The Winter List by SG MacLean
-
Literary fiction
The Variations by Patrick Langley
The Maniac by Benjamín Labatut
North Woods by Daniel Mason
The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks
Absolutely & Forever by Rose Tremain
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
The Glutton by AK Blakemore
-
Here's the opening to The Variations:
-
I. ELLEN
On a winter morning in 1518, in the Holy Roman city of Strasbourg, Frau Trauffea started to sing. This was not unusual in itself. But she was in public, in the middle of the street, wearing a gown but no hat in the windblown sleet. A young woman with a round face and long, red hair, she was neither a professional singer nor a beggar. Nor was she singing to any accompaniment – not that anyone else could hear, at least. Passers-by paused and gawped as her gestures grew savage and emphatic. Some, both concerned and confused, dropped offerings at her feet or crossed themselves in prayer. Those who stopped to watch and listen asked Frau Trauffea what she was doing. Others laughed at her, declared her mad, bewitched, possessed – predictable accusations directed now at her clothing, now at her voice.
-
Noon came and went. Frau Trauffea did not eat, drink, rest, or relieve herself. Her song grew expressive of a soaring anguish, by turns delicate and desperate, emphasized by her upturned gaze and outstretched arms. No soothing word or gentle touch could persuade her to cease her wailing song, which rose and fell and rose again, two low notes followed by two long, high ones, before the melody repeated. Her exertions were brought to a halt when she collapsed in the street, from apparent exhaustion, several hours after she’d begun.
-
That might have been the end of it: a minor aberration in the city’s psychic life, an outbreak of religious-seeming ecstasy in a century marked by countless similar occasions. After Frau Trauffea had been carried home, where she was fed and watered, rested and recovered, and where, in her first speech since she began, she babbled incoherently about not seeing but being her grandfather’s ghost, her first action, upon waking again, was to get out of bed, wander into the street, and sing, in a manner that suggested no force could prevent her from returning to that precise position in the busy street leading past the bishop’s palace and the bridge to St Magdalena, in the shadow of the intricately pinnacled and ballustraded bell-tower, where she continued to perform as if no time had elapsed since she’d stopped.
-
She continued in this manner for days, repeating the same compulsion. Rumours flew around the city. Small crowds gathered to watch. Coins, flowers, dried fruit and other offerings would litter the rimed, snow-dusted cobbles upon which she moved. She left them to wither and rot in the sleet that blew in at intervals. The city’s beggar children were delighted to collect the coins and baked goods Frau Trauffea didn’t seem to know, let alone care, had been dropped at her feet.
-
If any of the books you've reviewed in recent months are especially well-written, Jodi, please let us know and we'll have a look. The only books we don't consider are story collections, as the standard of writing can vary so much across the collection or anthology. Thanks.
It looks like you had a good month, Jodi! You piqued my interest in the Eleanor Catton novel ◡̈
Auraist's focus is on the quality of prose, so here are our rankings for October releases in various genres in the UK, best to worst for stylistic excellence and originality:
-
Nonfiction
Twist by Adele Bertei
The Double Life of Bob Dylan Volume 2: 1966-2021 by Clinton Heylin
Shame by Annie Ernaux
The New Leviathans by John Gray
Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart
Ruskin Park: Sylvia, Me and the BBC by Rory Cellan-Jones
The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts by Loren Grush
Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein
Stay True by Hua Hsu
Great-Uncle Harry by Michael Palin
Everything Is Everything by Clive Myrie
The Long Game: Inside Sinn Féin by Aoife Moore
-
Speculative fiction
The Circumference of the World by Lavie Tidhar
Girlfriend on Mars by Deborah Willis
Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy
The Land of Lost Things by John Connolly
The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord
-
Crime/thrillers
Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper
You’d Look Better As a Ghost by Joanna Wallace
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman
Tell Me Your Secrets by Mel McGrath
The Winter List by SG MacLean
-
Literary fiction
The Variations by Patrick Langley
The Maniac by Benjamín Labatut
North Woods by Daniel Mason
The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks
Absolutely & Forever by Rose Tremain
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
The Glutton by AK Blakemore
-
Here's the opening to The Variations:
-
I. ELLEN
On a winter morning in 1518, in the Holy Roman city of Strasbourg, Frau Trauffea started to sing. This was not unusual in itself. But she was in public, in the middle of the street, wearing a gown but no hat in the windblown sleet. A young woman with a round face and long, red hair, she was neither a professional singer nor a beggar. Nor was she singing to any accompaniment – not that anyone else could hear, at least. Passers-by paused and gawped as her gestures grew savage and emphatic. Some, both concerned and confused, dropped offerings at her feet or crossed themselves in prayer. Those who stopped to watch and listen asked Frau Trauffea what she was doing. Others laughed at her, declared her mad, bewitched, possessed – predictable accusations directed now at her clothing, now at her voice.
-
Noon came and went. Frau Trauffea did not eat, drink, rest, or relieve herself. Her song grew expressive of a soaring anguish, by turns delicate and desperate, emphasized by her upturned gaze and outstretched arms. No soothing word or gentle touch could persuade her to cease her wailing song, which rose and fell and rose again, two low notes followed by two long, high ones, before the melody repeated. Her exertions were brought to a halt when she collapsed in the street, from apparent exhaustion, several hours after she’d begun.
-
That might have been the end of it: a minor aberration in the city’s psychic life, an outbreak of religious-seeming ecstasy in a century marked by countless similar occasions. After Frau Trauffea had been carried home, where she was fed and watered, rested and recovered, and where, in her first speech since she began, she babbled incoherently about not seeing but being her grandfather’s ghost, her first action, upon waking again, was to get out of bed, wander into the street, and sing, in a manner that suggested no force could prevent her from returning to that precise position in the busy street leading past the bishop’s palace and the bridge to St Magdalena, in the shadow of the intricately pinnacled and ballustraded bell-tower, where she continued to perform as if no time had elapsed since she’d stopped.
-
She continued in this manner for days, repeating the same compulsion. Rumours flew around the city. Small crowds gathered to watch. Coins, flowers, dried fruit and other offerings would litter the rimed, snow-dusted cobbles upon which she moved. She left them to wither and rot in the sleet that blew in at intervals. The city’s beggar children were delighted to collect the coins and baked goods Frau Trauffea didn’t seem to know, let alone care, had been dropped at her feet.
-
If any of the books you've reviewed in recent months are especially well-written, Jodi, please let us know and we'll have a look. The only books we don't consider are story collections, as the standard of writing can vary so much across the collection or anthology. Thanks.