Christmas at Midsummer

It’s six months until Christmas Eve (I know! I’m sorry!) so today we revealed the cover of my forthcoming festive book, The Christmas Book, which has the most gorgeous artwork by Lizzy Stewart. Here it is!

It may seem bizarre to be thinking about winter in the midst of the sweltering midsummer weather but I’m hoping that a glimpse of these beautiful snowy illustrations will prove cooling and refreshing in a heatwave!

Here’s a bit more about the book:

Inspired by an Icelandic book-gifting tradition, this beautiful story, illustrated with full colour artwork throughout, and decorated endpapers, is the perfect gift for sharing during the Christmas period.

It was Christmas Eve in the little farmhouse. The air was full of good smells of spices and jam and hot cocoa. No one was expecting any presents, but there would be leaf bread, and cookies, and Grandmother’s embroidered tablecloth, and they would all do what they could to make the Yuletide bright.

Picking his way home across the lava field, Tómas knows that this Christmas won’t be quite the same - not without his Grandfather. But as the war draws closer, Tómas devises a plan to ensure his Grandfather’s stories will still be at the heart of his family’s Christmas - even if it means being braver than a boy ever dreamed he could be. Donning his grandfather’s jumper for courage, working hard at chores for neighbours, he takes his hard earned pennies to shop for presents - only to find all the shops empty of stock. This is war time and rationing. There is just one shop still open - a bookshop.

Inspired by the Icelandic tradition of Jólabókaflóðið, where books are given as gifts on Christmas Eve.

The Christmas Book is being published by Faber in October and you can preorder it now from Waterstones.com or of course from your favourite independent bookshop. You can also read a little more in my previous newsletter here.

I’m really excited to be sharing the cover and a hint of the artwork inside. It’s SUCH a beautiful book - all thanks to the amazing work of Lizzy and the Faber team. Lots more to come on this, so ready yourselves now for a cosy and delightful winter season of Nordic sweaters, pastries and celebrating the joy and magic of Christmas reading.

But before we think too hard about winter, let us enjoy the rest of the summer — and in particular summer reading.

It’s that kind of weather when it’s really too hot to do anything but sit in the shade and read a good book — ideally with an iced drink on hand, and possibly also with your feet in the paddling pool.

Here are ten books I’ve enjoyed recently that I think you might enjoy too:

Receipts from the Bookshop by Katie Clapham

We’ve just celebrated Independent Booksellers Week in the UK, and there really could not be a more perfect time to read and enjoy this gorgeous new book from my friend and fellow Lancastrian, Katie Clapham. If you don’t already know Receipts from the Bookshop, one of my very favourite Substacks, then you should sign up at once for a funny and delightful weekly update from Katie’s lovely little bookshop Storytellers Inc in St Annes - and make sure you also read this book, which coincidentally also features a delicious cover by Lizzy Stewart. Bookshops are so special and this book beautifully communicates why (see also this piece from Katie): it’s a truly lovely read.

The Othernauts by Clare Pollard illustrated by Macha Yao

A highlight among the many excellent children’s books I’ve read recently is this funny and clever adventure from Clare Pollard (also the author of The Modern Fairies, a novel I’ve recommended here before). It’s a hugely fun retelling of Jason and the Argonauts, told from the point of view of Phoebe, a stowaway on the Argo, with big plans to escape her boring home, track down her heroine Medea, and become a witch. She soon teams up with two fellow ‘Othernauts’ — a trainee shapeshifter and a siren who can’t sing — to help Jason and his motley crew complete their quest. Greek mythology seems to be having a moment among kids right now (on a similar theme I’d also recommend Anne Miller’s Monster Diaries for a slightly younger audience) and this is a fantastic read for those who have enjoyed Loki or Percy Jackson.

Lily Tripp: Accidental Time Traveller by Amelia Tate

This is another hugely fun new middle grade novel, which I think will please readers of Lottie Brooks and the like. It’s the tale of Lily Tripp, a girl who finds herself regularly jumping backwards in time to different periods of history, along with her family, best friends and everyone else she knows (even her cat). The odd thing is that no one else seems to have any idea what is happening. Through the entertaining pages of her diary, we follow Lily as she tries her best to navigate life in 1621, 1972 and the present day, documenting strange fashion trends, music, food and more. But in spite of the many peculiar differences (people wearing orange hot pants, chicken nuggets not being invented yet etc) the problems of being an almost-13-year-old strangely never seem to be all that different…

Survival Show by Juno Dawson

Sometimes you want to read a book that grips you and won’t let you go until the last page, and this is exactly what you will get from Juno’s latest YA novel. Imagine the The Hunger Games mashed up with The X Factor: in a dystopian future Britain, main character Taryn boldly enters ‘Starmaker’, a reality TV show, in the hope of securing life-saving medication for her younger brother that her family otherwise can’t afford. If she is selected to join the winning pop-group, she’ll be guaranteed a life of luxury, fame and fortune. The catch? Eliminated contestants are literally eliminated by the sinister Project Population. I can sometimes feel a little jaded by YA dystopia but this book had totally the opposite effect on me: it’s funny, sharp and breathlessly tense.

Annie Knows Everything by Rachel Wood

I love a good rom-com and this is an excellent one: its author Rachel Wood is also the owner of the wonderful Rare Birds bookshop in Edinburgh, so it’s no surprise that she knows her way around a story. The titular Annie has just lost her job, but luckily she’s managed to talk her way into another team working on data strategy, even though she has no idea how to write code, or even what data strategy really is. But she’s determined to master her new job one way or another, in spite of her annoying new boss, Connor. Meanwhile, she’s also trying to convince her sister to reconsider her engagement to the worst man alive; and working out why her roommate and best friend are both acting strangely. Could it be that Annie doesn’t know everything after all? I honestly didn’t expect to find a workplace romance set in the world of tech to be so endearing, but it really is. Quirky, fun and joyful with a distinctly Nora Ephron-ish charm.

Nonesuch by Francis Spufford

The latest novel by Francis Spufford is one of my favourite I’ve read this year so far, and I think this review in the Guardian by AK Blakemore does an excellent job of summing up its particular appeal. Nonesuch is a rich historical fantasy, set in London during the Blitz. I read a good portion of it on various tube journeys which felt very fitting. It mashes together wonderful period detail of wartime London with a whole grab bag of fantasy elements — dark magic and the occult, angels, time-travel — and an unexpectedly touching romance. Mostly, it’s just hugely fun, and goodness knows, we could all do with more of that. (Be warned though, that it ends on a massive cliffhanger: a second instalment, Arcady, is coming next year).

The Biography of X by Catherine Lacey

I’ve just discovered Catherine Lacey’s work, beginning with this fascinating novel — the biography of an imaginary subject (‘X’ — an idiosyncratic, elusive and iconoclastic artist, whose work spans visual art, music and writing) written by an imaginary biographer (her widow, ‘CM’). After X dies suddenly, CM reluctantly takes on the task of writing about her life, and gradually begins to excavate her many different identities, secrets and betrayals. I always love a work of fiction that disguises itself as non-fiction: here the text is scattered with quotations, photographs and artefacts, all backed up with footnotes. Gradually we realise that the world we’re reading about is not quite our own, so even though familiar names appear in the text (David Bowie, Tom Waits, Jane Fonda etc) the events of the novel in fact play out in an alternate version of the USA, in which the country split into two after World War II, divided into a progressive north and an oppressive, fascist and theocratic south. The dystopian element, though, is not really the main event at all, but only one facet of this ambitious, multi-layered, experimental novel. I suspect it is somewhat of a Marmite book — probably not for everyone — but I was delighted by it. There’s something joyful about its sheer playfulness: I found it wonderfully clever, inventive and provocative.

Someone at A Distance by Dorothy Whipple

Dorothy Whipple is my newest favourite mid-century author: I’ve been reading my way through her backlist, which is beautifully published by Persephone. Her writing is so compelling and her characters beautifully observed. Rather fabulously described as ‘Blackburn’s answer to Jane Austen’, I find her representation of Lancashire particularly pleasing. Northern settings in the literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries are so often largely mills and misery, but that is not at all the case here. I do love reading what we might crudely term ‘mid-century women’s fiction’ but this does tend to have an extremely Home Counties vibe (even when written by e.g. Dodie Smith who was originally from Lancashire). Nothing wrong with that of course, but reading novels like these that also feel northern is a delight. I could have recommended any of them (Because of the Lockwoods, Greenbanks, High Wages etc) but this is probably her most famous and the book that first set me off on my Whipple journey - although actually one that doesn’t have a northern setting. She was very popular in her day, but has not always been critically admired: Carmen Callil, the founder of Virago, apparently thought her prose was dreadful and introduced ‘ a limit known as the Whipple line below which we would not sink’ in her publishing. This seems like an injustice to me. It’s true that Whipple’s prose does have a slightly flat, detatched quality — and occasionally it all strays rather towards the melodramatic — but this is part of her appeal. She’s different to her contemporaries — not a Rosamund Lehmann or a Barbara Pym — but she has her own very distinct charm.

The Wreck by Lizzy Stewart

Of course, I am finishing up with this, the latest book by my Christmas Book partner-in-crime Lizzy Stewart. As with her previous book Alison, it’s a hugely appealing blend of graphic novel and literary fiction, this time following two couples as they carry out an experiment in communal living, deciding to share a rambling old house in the countryside. At first their life feels joyful and utopian, but soon tensions rise to the surface. It’s a story about love, art, the mistakes we make, and the way our relationships shift and change, tangle and untangle, throughout our lives. It’s so beautifully told and every page is a rich visual treat: I hope Lizzy makes many more books like this one.

That’s all for now but I’ll be back next month with a bonus edition to celebrate the publication of The Moonstone (more on that here if you missed it).

Until then, you can keep up with news on Instagram, see lots more books I’ve recommended, or find information on my website katherinewoodfine.co.uk — and, of course, you can always contact me here.

Happy reading!

Katherine x