Books That Keep On Giving
Some books stay with you long after the last page. These four have done something even better. They have kept making news.
Nesting by Roisín O'Donnell was our June 2025 Book of the Month. It is the story of Ciara, a woman who grabs her children, walks out of her marriage, and tries to rebuild a life with almost nothing behind her. It is a book about coercive control that never once announces itself as such, and that quiet precision is what makes it so devastating. Since we read it together, it has won Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards 2025, hit the Sunday Times bestseller list, and been chosen as a BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick. One of the most important books we have ever chosen.
Caledonian Road by Andrew O'Hagan, our April 2025 read, is a sprawling, Dickensian portrait of modern Britain told through the rise and fall of Campbell Flynn, an art historian and celebrity intellectual whose appetite for the finer things proves to be his undoing. It is a book about class, corruption, and the gap between how people present themselves and who they actually are. A TV adaptation is now in development, with the director of Chernobyl at the helm and the writer behind Slow Horses working on the screenplay. Andrew O'Hagan himself will write at least one episode. It is still early days, but the talent attached is extraordinary.
James by Percival Everett was our October 2025 pick. It retells The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, the enslaved man who travels the Mississippi with Huck, and it does so with a brilliance that won it the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. A film adaptation is in the very early stages of development at Universal Pictures, with Taika Waititi in talks to direct and Steven Spielberg producing. Everett will write the screenplay himself. No release date, no casting, no trailer yet, but with that combination of talent, it is one to watch.
And finally, many of you will remember Virginia Evans joining us for our April author evening, just as The Correspondent was beginning its extraordinary journey from quiet debut to New York Times number one bestseller. This week it was announced that it has been shortlisted for the 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction. The Correspondent is the story of Sybil, a retired lawyer who has spent her life writing letters to everyone from family members to her favourite authors, and it is one of the warmest, funniest, most quietly moving books you will ever read. Virginia told us on the night how much the club meant to her. We are so proud of what this book has become.
All four books are available in our shop now.