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Best of 2015: Books
1. Grief is the Thing with Feathers
Max Porter
This slim book is a beautiful meditation on grief and the healing process. Reminiscent of the great Modernists in style and tone, by turn poetic and prosaic with a memorable avian protagonist this is a book for all lovers of literary fiction.
Read the full review
2. The Other Ida
Amy Mason
Incubated at Spike Island, The Other Ida features an anti-heroine unflinchingly portrayed with warmth, humanity and enough dark wit and humour to compel you to read on. Family secrets, identity and dysfunction are forensically exposed in this first novel from an exciting new talent.
Read our interview with the author
3. Edward Thomas: From Adlestrop to Arras
Jean Moorcroft Wilson
Edward Thomas may not be as well known as the other Great War poets – Brooke, Sassoon, Owen – but he’s arguably a more interesting character. This biography reveals the tormented double life or lives of an astonishing poet. Read Thomas’ poem Adlestrop and you’ll forget all about ‘honey still for tea’.
4. Foxglove Summer
Ben Aaronovitch
Aaronovitch’s ‘Rivers of London’ series of novels may not be high art but they are immensely readable tales. Part-police procedural, part-fantasy and always full of interesting facts about hidden London and England with numerous nods to British folklore, Foxglove Summer sticks to the formula but transfers the action to the heart of England, in more ways than expected.
5. The Romantic Poets
Event organised by the Bristol Festival of Ideas
Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey created the poems that formed the original Lyrical Ballads collection whilst in Bristol in the C18th. 2015 saw 23 globally renowned commissioned by the Festival of Ideas to write new poetry for a new Lyrical Ballads. This event featured 21 of the poets reading their new work to a sold out audience. We’re still waiting for the book!