Book of the Month
Didion & Babitz, Lili Anolik, Atlantic, £20, November 14
The most entertaining biography since Roger Lewis’s Taylor and Burton memoir Erotic Vagrancy? Quite possibly. I certainly don’t think I have enjoyed any book this year as much as Anolik’s joint memoir of Los Angeles writers Joan Didion and Eve Babitz. It’s a gossipy, shocking, intimate, very funny and always smart take on the two writers. A very revealing one too. I wasn’t expecting to learn quite so much about Joan Didion’s sex life.
Anolik doesn’t hide her allegiances. “I’ve picked my side: Eve’s,” she writes at one point. But she’s alert to Babitz’s failings as a writer and a human being and acknowledges Didion’s achievements. In passing this is a fascinating cultural history of post-war Los Angeles, but at its heart are two women who couldn’t be more different than each other and whose stories take in everything from the rise of the counterculture to the Manson Murders. Fascinating, funny and ferocious at times, it’s a reminder that even literary biographies can be thrilling.
FASHION
The Tapestry, Erik Madigan Heck, Thames & Hudson, £75, November 7
Erik Madigan Heck is one of the great romantics of fashion photography. Full of echoes of Gustav Klimt, his painterly images are rich and strange and this sumptuous book takes that approach one step further. Fusing art and photography in a way that is both immersive and elegant, this is a heady rush of intense, at times acidic colour. At times leafing through its pages can make you feel like you’re inside Heck’s head. If that’s not enough, it’s also a beautiful thing in and of itself. Book-making as an art, if you like. It has a hefty price tag, but you can see why.
COOKERY
The Contini Cookbook, Carina Contini, Birlinn, £25, November 7
Admittedly, I’d much rather visit the George Street restaurant of the Continis in Edinburgh than try to recreate their recipes in my own kitchen, but when budgets for nights out are under strain then the 100 recipes to be found in this handsomely decked out book might be worth trying out.
SHORT STORIES
The Coiled Serpent, Camilla Grudova, Atlantic Books, £9.99, November 7
The temptation when talking about Camilla Grudova’s uncomfortable, at times even bilious, collection of short stories, now coming out in paperback, is to quote fellow author Taylor Brandon’s back cover puff - “This book is for sickos” - and leave it at that.
But to do so might put off readers who would love the book’s playfulness, ambition and inventiveness. Because based on the evidence of these stories, Grudova, a Canadian writer based in Edinburgh, is an author with a singular imagination.
Yes, there is certainly a queasily organic (even faecal) physicality to these stories. But they're not animated by disgust; rather, by fascination. They are also full of a deadpan humour that sneaks in around the sides.
POETRY
Earth Prayers, Edited by Carol Ann Duffy, Picador, £16.99, out now
Subtitled “Encounters in Poetry with the Natural World”, this anthology of nature poems is concerned with the impact of climate change. It has an underlying sense of urgency as a result. Duffy curates this selection of poetry, bringing together both contemporary voices (Alice Oswald and Kathleen Jamie) and fond, familiar ones (John Clare and Gerard Manley Hopkins). The result mixes up despair with delight, hope and a sense of humility. A beautiful artefact full of beautiful words.
FILM
Box Office Poison, Tim Robey, Faber, £16.99, November 7
Well, this is fun. The Telegraph’s film critic Tim Robey has dipped into Hollywood’s archives to tell the stories of some of the most (in)famous film flops, beginning with DW Griffith's Intolerance (1916) and ending with the woebegotten adaptation of the musical Cats in 2019, and taking in everything from Orson Welles’s ruined masterpiece The Magnificent Ambersons to Speed 2: Cruise Control in between.
Robey is an amusing and yet not unsympathetic guide through this landscape of hubris and humiliation. And if nothing else the book will leave you desperate to see George Miller’s Babe: Pig in the City, his wild, dark sequel to Babe, which, Robey suggests, belongs to the genre of “family films that might require therapy, even for the adults watching.”
CRIME FICTION
The Traitor, Jorn Lier Horst, Michael Joseph, £18.99, November 21
Is there still a hunger for Scandinoir, or have we all moved on to cosy crime these days? If there is, The Traitor fits the bill nicely. The latest Norwegian murder mystery featuring William Wisting (also the subject of a BBC TV series starring Sven Nordin and Carrie-Ann Moss) it begins with a landslide that reveals a dead body. Only thing is, the death happened before the landslide. What follows is a spare, sparse thriller that slips down very easily. You might not remember it a couple of weeks after you’ve read it, but, while you are, you’ll be totally committed to getting to the end. Perfect weekend reading in other words.
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Heretic, Robbie Morrison and Charlie Adlard, Image Comics, £22.99, November 19
Speaking of crime fiction, Scottish writer Robbie Morrison has established himself as a fine proponent of Tartan Noir with his Jimmy Dreghorn books set in 1930s Glasgow. But Heretic sees him return to his comic book roots and team up again with Walking Dead artist Charlie Adlard.
Set in Antwerp in 1529, it’s a murder mystery set against the backdrop of religious persecution (led by the Spanish Inquisition). Imagine Sherlock Holmes in the world of Name of the Rose and you’re halfway there. Adlard’s black and white art is wonderfully atmospheric whilst always clear and clean when it comes to storytelling. Morrison’s writing, meanwhile, is vivid and punchy and the whole thing is hugely engrossing. More Cornelius Agrippa and Johan Weyer mysteries would be very welcome.
FICTION
The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami, Harvill Secker, £25, November 19
Patience is a virtue in a reader, but not one I am particularly blessed with. If a book doesn’t grab me immediately I rarely stick with it. Reading the opening pages of Murakami’s new novel (in fact a rewriting of a novella he had written back in 1980) did have me wondering how long I’d stick with it as it meandered around an imaginary city created in the minds of two teenagers. I think it was when our narrator started having chats with his shadow - who had been separated from him and was waiting to die - that it clicked and I became intrigued enough to carry on reading what is a long, leisurely novel that jumps between here and there, fantasy and reality, and then and now. The result is very Murakamiesque.
MUSIC
Cher: The Memoir, Part One, Cher, HarperCollins, November 19
I’m recommending this sight unseen but, come on, it’s Cher. This first volume covers childhood, working with Phil Spector, meeting Sonny Bono and becoming a star on TV.
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