Parfums: A Catalogue Of Remembered Smells by Philippe Claudel (Maclehose Press, £8.99)
There’s nothing objective about this history of smells; it’s entirely personal, a collection of memories that different smells conjure up for Claudel, from his childhood watching his grandmother fry garlic, to the lack of smell his childhood home has after his father dies. A melancholy, joyous, even occasionally troubling memoir, beautifully written.
When The Professor Got Stuck In the Snow by Dan Rhodes (Aardvark Bureau, £8.99)
Rhodes’s gentle but very funny satire on science and religion has a man by the name of Richard Dawkins at its centre. ‘Dawkins’ is trapped due to a snowstorm in the home of a vicar and his wife. Publishers wouldn’t touch it for fear of legal reprisals so Rhodes successfully self-published. This print edition should hopefully get a deserved wider audience.
Holy Spy by Rory Clements (Hodder, £7.99)
A large cast of characters helps Clements avoid the mire of complicated assassination plots in this latest in his undemanding but entertaining John Shakespeare series. The brother of William, John works for Elizabeth I’s spymaster Walsingham; this time, a plot that places Mary, Queen of Scots at its heart vies for attention with John’s love interest.
The Wilderness Party by A B Jackson (Bloodaxe Books, £9.95)
Jackson’s poems aren’t always easily accessible, although the ‘Nature’ poems in the middle of this collection are perhaps more accessible than others, where a mix of old English spelling and animal traits combines to give some wonderfully evocative images (“makes a Crocodile gape”) and sounds (“Soveraigne to the games of gluttonie”).
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