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Friday Poem – ‘The Larder’ by Judy Brown

Wheels of cheese sitting on a larder shelf.

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘The Larder’ by Judy Brown from her collection Lairs. You can listen to her talking in depth about the collection on Series 2 of The Seren Poetry Podcast. Listen and subscribe on your favourite podcast app to listen to the series so far.

The Larder In the shop’s moist basement the red wines lay prone in their cool dormitory. Beyond the jars of lobster bisque and canned truffle sauce, both Lancashires sat squat on their wood: Tasty and Mild like a pair of underground kings. No satisfaction in breaching the waxed cloth, breaking the stiff robes they were buried in. Only the owner had the right to draw the cutting wire twice through the horizontal before quartering. It was ritual, to bear each portion upstairs to the shop. Later we’d peel the cloth off the soft edge and unpuzzle the grain of the clotted blank face. Down there, too, was where they kept the unripe moons which were soft as what’s inside a baby’s unfused skull. In the dark they would salt to rock and start to spin. When at last the old satellite has worn to a nub, an uncut cheese will rise, white and purposeful with the sun’s reflected buttermilk light, to do its work. Think of the store of teeth a shark is born with; which, one by one, drift to the front of the mouth to take their turn to be the ones to shine, to bite.

Judy also appeared on the Mouthful of Air podcast to talk specifically about ‘The Larder’ with Mark McGuinness.

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Friday Poem – ‘Against Blood’ by Katherine Stansfield

Close up photo of a rusty old door locked with a padlock and chain.

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Against Blood’ by Katherine Stansfield from her collection We Could Be Anywhere By Now. Katherine will be reading alongside Lynne Hjelmgaard at Seren First Thursday at Carnegie House in Bridgend on 7th December.

Against blood A cutting-edge DNA test could determine how Welsh you are – BBC Ne ws, 24th September 2014 To say this is the way you decide who I am and who I’m not, a sample of body that speaks only couplings and accidents, emigration and abandonments, Scotland and Ireland, to Buffalo and back. To say this is the way you sanction my belonging and my not, like those wet days at school that kept us penned in the hall, the Cornish kids playing genealogy games all through break: and his father and his father. To say this is the way you prove what’s home and what’s not, that identity is a permanent code you can map in a lab when a swab can’t show all the timid love I have. To say this is the way leaves me on the wrong side of a locked door I’ll never open when for the first time I’m trying the handle, trying to come in.

Join us on Thursday 7th December at Carnegie House in Bridgend for First Thursday. This month we’ll be joined by Lynne Hjelmgaard and Katherine Stansfield reading from their collections The Turpentine Tree and We Could Be Anywhere By Now. Tickets are available in advance via Tocyn.cymru, or on the door. As usual, the main readings will be followed by our popular open mic. You can also watch on Facebook live. We hope you can join us.

Seren First Thursday at Carnegie House in Bridgend. Thursday 7th December 7:30om GMT. In person and via facebook live. With Lynne Hjelmgaard and Katherine Stansfield. Join us at Carnegie House in Bridgend Town Centre for our monthly First Thursday reading and open mic night. Tickets £3 plus admin fee. Buy in advance at tocyn.cymru/en/events
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Seren Non-Fiction Christmas Gift Guide

Photograph of lots of Seren non-fiction titles including Bar 44, The Edge of Cymru and Are You Judging Me Yet lying in a scattered pile surrounded by festive decorations.

Welcome to Seren’s Non-Fiction Christmas Gift Guide. Find the perfect gift for avid fans of memoir, essays, the great outdoors and much more. Browse our specially selected titles below, or visit our non-fiction pages for more inspiration.

This cover shows a sculpture of a glass dress as if worn by an invisible figure. It is posed as if sat on its left hip with its legs stretched out to the side. The text reads: Are You Judging Me Yet? Poetry and Everyday Sexism. Kim Moore.

Are You Judging Me Yet?, Kim Moore

In Are You Judging Me Yet? Kim Moore explores the relationship between poetry and everyday sexism, in a series of lyrical essays. They draw on her experience of writing and performing the poems in her Forward Prize-winning collection All The Men I Never Married to examine the dynamics of being a female poet performing in a public space. 

Are You Judging Me Yet? is designed to encourage readers to make their own connections between the essays. Each chapter ends with a choice of sections to read next, as well as connecting the essays to poems from All The Men I Never Married. 

Buy now for £9.99

Welsh Quilts, Jen Jones

Jen Jones has written an expanded version of Welsh Quilts, her authoritative guide to the history and art of the quilt in Wales. Kaffe Fassett, the doyenne of textiles, provides a Foreword for this new edition, which also includes a greater number of images of quilt designs – some published for the first time – in a beautifully produced, detailed and generously illustrated book. Welsh Quilts explores the origins of quilting and blanket making in Wales before considering its peak period between 1870 and the Second World War when wholecloth, frame-made quilts became the standard for which the country was famous.

This cover shows a light grey background with a red pattern quilted on. The Text reads: Welsh Quilts. Jen Jones. Foreword by Kaffe Fassett. Patterns by Sandie Lush.
Buy now for £12.99
This cover shows a photo of a country road stretching into the distance. The sky is dark with storm clouds but the top of the hill is bathed in golden light. The text reads The Edge of Cymru. Julie Brominicks.

The Edge of Cymru: A Journey, Julie Brominicks

The Edge of Cymru is the story of Julie Brominicks’ walk around Wales in the course of a year. As an educator she knew a lot about the country’s natural resources. But as a long established incomer from England and more recent Welsh learner, she wanted to know more about its history, about Wales today, and her place in it.  

Brominicksʼ observations of the places and people she meets on her journey make a fascinating alternative travelogue about Wales and the lives its people live. Her writing is lyrical, with engaging and striking coinages and images which carry the reader along too, entertained and informed. A quest of personal discovery, the narrative of The Edge of Cymru is also a refreshingly different way of looking at place, identity, memory and belonging.

Buy now for £12.99

Bar 44: Tapas y Copas , Owen and Tom Morgan

Bar 44: Tapas y Copas celebrates Spanish food and drink in equal measure. These delicious recipes – each tried and tested in the busy Bar 44 restaurants – elevate traditional Spanish cuisine to exciting new heights with dishes which look good and taste even better.

Bask in the passion of two of the most knowledgeable people celebrating modern Spanish food, drink and culture in the UK. More than just a cookbook, Bar 44: Tapas y Copas is a must-have experience which packs fun, food and flavour between the covers of a beautifully designed book.

This cover shows an illustration of a repeating pattern made of interlacing flowers and stems. On either side is a small face with wings which looks towards the centre of the cover. The text reads: Owen and Tom Morgan. Bar 44: Tapas Y Copas. This is our Spain.
Buy now for £25

The Golden Valley: A Visual Biography of the Garw, Phil Cope

The Golden Valley is a personal account in words and photographs of the Garw where Phil Cope has lived for thirty-five years.

In it he explores the valley’s history: sparsely worked agriculture; boom-town coal exploitation; sudden, followed by gentle, post-industrial decline; attempts at re-invigoration through heritage and leisure; and now, existing in a post-covid world. This is a classic example of close-knit communities shattered by the removal of the thing that bound them together. The valley’s natural beauty – some might say returning natural beauty – is also present, from the minutiae of the lichen on its windswept trees to the river which has shaped the valley with its timeless flow.

This cover shows a photograph of the Garw Valley. There are hills in the background which are illuminated by sunshine. Below the hills is a small village. The text reads: The Golden Valley: A Visual Biography of the Garw. By Phil Cope.
Buy now for £14.99
This cover shows large white text with a yellow ampersand on a dark green background. The end of the ampersand is a dragon’s tail. The text reads: Cymru & I. Essays By Gosia Buzzanca, Tia-Zakura Camilleri, Kelechi Ronald Ikpe, Mo Jannah, Bethany McAuley, Laura Mochan, Debowale Omole, Alys Roberts, Anthony Shapland. In Parntnership with Inclusive Journalism Cymru.

Cymru & I, Inclusive Journalism Cymru

In Cymru & I nine new writers look at what Wales means to them as people from backgrounds previously largely underrepresented. Their various viewpoints make this book a new look at Wales, or show a Wales for the most part hidden: a Wales unwritten. Here are essays on identity, integration, the power of language to welcome or divide, acceptance, personal aspiration, civic decline, and hill walking. Wales is the first official Nation of Sanctuary. Among the contributors are those who have sought sanctuary or space in Wales: immigrants – current and first or second generation – neurodivergent, LGBTQ+ and working-class people. Their articulate and compelling essays demand attention.

Buy now for £9.99

Wild Places UK : UK’s Top 40 Nature Sites, Iolo Williams

The UK is known for its natural beauty and its wildlife and in Wild Places UK television naturalist Iolo Williams picks his favourite forty wildlife sites from the many nature reserves around the country. From Hermaness on Shetland to the London Wetland Centre, from Dungeness in Kent to Loch Neagh, Williams criss-crosses the country. His list takes in coastal sites from marshes to towering cliffs – and distant islands – mountains, valleys, bogs, meadows, woods and land reclaimed from industry. These wild places vary in size from the vastness of The Wash to the gem that is Skomer Island. They include sites of international significance, like estuarial Slimbridge, and the wild marshes of Forsinard Flows.

This cover shows an image of two puffins on Skomer Island. In the top right hand of the cover is a picture of Iolo Williams. He is a white man with cropped dark hair and is looking at the camera. He has binoculars around his neck. The text on the cover reads: Iolo Williams. Wild Places UK; UK’s top 40 Nature Sites.
Buy now for £19.99
This cover shows a photo of a Dorset Hill Fort. A lush grass path leads to the domed fort in the distance which sits beneath a blue sky tinged with the golden light of early dusk. The text reads: Real Dorset. Jon Woolcott.

Real Dorset, Jon Woolcott

Real Dorset is a discursive, humorous, idiosyncratic and personal look at Dorset. The county is famous for spectacular coastlines, historic towns, its eco-foodie reputation, for Hardy and Fowles. Yet there’s much more behind the tourist-friendly façade – subversion, rebellion and revolt, wealth and poverty, ghost stories, rich folklore, film and music.

Criss-crossing the county, Woolcott makes connections, uncovers the hidden and the forgotten. A huge and lost Neolithic earthwork contrasts with Victorian pleasure gardens and nightlife in Bournemouth. The legacy of the black GIs, the Cerne Abbas Giant, the model village of Milton Abbas, vie for attention with the importance of Dorset for writers and artists including William Barnes, T.E. Lawrence and Sylvia Townsend Warner, John Piper and Elisabeth Frink.

Buy now for £9.99

Walking the Valleys, Peter Finch and John Briggs

Over the past two centuries the South Wales Valleys have gone from idyllic rural landscape to the engine room of the British Empire to post industrial decline. Building on the success of their book Walking Cardiff, Peter Finch and John Briggs explore how the Valleys have changed, and how they are evolving for the twenty-first centuries in their new book Walking the Valleys.

The informative texts can be used as both a route finder and a literary entertainment in themselves.  John Briggs’s lively photographs provide further detail and each walk is illustrated with a map. Armchair walkers will find the book as interesting and as useful as those actually pull on their boots. And natives and visitors alike will find a new discovery around every corner.

This cover shows a photo of a large sculpture depicting the heads of two miners made from horizontal black slabs. The text reads: Walking the Valleys. Peter Finch. Photographs by John Briggs.
Buy now for £14.99
This cover shows a black and white image of a herd of sheep moving down the side of a mountain. The text reads: A Hardy Breed, Sheep Farming in Wales. Bruce Cardwell.

A Hardy Breed; Sheep Farming in Wales, Bruce Cardwell

A Hardy Breed is a collection of 120 photographs, mainly black and white, celebrating shepherding and sheep farming in Wales. It records a way of life under pressure for the past couple of centuries, and more than ever today. The book is an important social document, of reportage, portraiture and documentary photography of an industry threatened by the outcomes of Brexit and other issues, like climate change, biodiversity, agricultural developments. Importantly, many of the communities featured are centres of Welsh language and culture, also under pressure.

Buy now for £15

Waterfalls of Stars; My Ten Years on the Island of Skomer, Roseanne Alexander

When Rosanne Alexander’s boyfriend Mike was offered the job of warden of Skomer, a small uninhabited island off the south west tip of Wales, they had just ten days to leave college, marry (a condition of employment) and gather their belongings and provisions for the trip to the island. This was the first of many challenges Rosanne and Mike faced during their ten years on the nature reserve, from coping with periods of isolation when they were the island’s only inhabitants, to dwindling food supplies during the winter when rough weather made provisioning from the mainland impossible. Thrown on their own resources they had also to deal with catastrophes like the devastation of the island’s seal colony following an oil spill.

This cover shows bare land which is surrounded by the waves of the sea. The sky above shows clouds covering a bright blue sky. The ocean is a bright green. The text reads: Waterfalls of Stars; My Ten Years on the Island of Skomer. By Roseanne Alexander.
Buy now for £9.99

Still haven’t found what you’re looking for? Browse our other gift guides…

Fiction Christmas Gift Guide
Poetry Christmas Gift Guide
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Seren Poetry Christmas Gift Guide

Photograph of lots of Seren poetry titles including Republic, Twelve Poems for Christmas and The Turpentine Tree lying in a scattered pile surrounded by festive decorations.

Welcome to Seren’s Poetry Christmas Gift Guide. Poetry is the ideal gift for lovers of words and stories. Find the perfect book for any poetry lover by browsing this list of specially curated titles or visiting our poetry pages. 

This cover shows a dark blue background. There is a deer made from small Christmas lights in the centre of the cover. The text reads: Twelve poems for Christmas. Edited by Amy Wack.

Twelve Poems for Christmas, selected by Amy Wack.

This sparkling selection of Christmas poems is the perfect stocking filler for any poetry addict. These are poems full of feeling that resist cliché, that touch on classic ‘Christmas’ themes, but bring them to life from fresh perspectives. The pamphlet opens with Pippa Little’s lyrical and tender poem, ‘St. Leonore and the Robin’, and features poems both humorous and contemplative. Small enough to send with (or instead of) a card, this is the perfect festive treat for your loved ones.

Buy now for £5

Republic, Nerys Williams

What constitutes a republic? Not Wales, a nation subject to military claims on its landscape and a second home explosion which has hollowed out its communities. The achievement of a republic can be a subversive activity, as was the writing of Republic.

Republic is about class, culture and community in west Wales. It recounts the story of a young woman growing up listening to the post-punk music of the 1980s and indie labels of the 1990s. These decades culminated in the explosion of “Cŵl Cymru” and new devolutionary powers in Wales.

This cover shows a colourful print of a woman dressed in a black hoodie with large bunny ears on the hood. She has dripping dark blue rings around her eyes and stands out against an acid yellow background. The text reads: Republic. Nerys Williams.
Buy now for £9.99
This cover shows a colour photograph of cyclist Gina Bartali riding through a cheering crowd. The text reads: Viva Bartali! Damian Walford Davies.

Viva Bartali!, Damian Walford Davies

Inspired by the lyrical, mythic mode of Italian sports journalism from the 1930s to the 1950s, Viva Bartali! is a biography-in-verse of the iconic Italian cyclist Gino Bartali (1914—2000), two-time winner of the Tour de France (1938, 1948), known both as ‘Gino the Pious’ because of his fervent Catholic faith, and as Ginettaccio (‘Gino the Terrible’), owing to the short shrift he so often gave the Press.

From amateur races to the professional one-day classics and on to Tour de France glory, Bartali is seen alongside his fellow riders as both vulnerable body and élite athlete; both cycling’s hard man and fond and bereaved father; both kneeling believer and climbing god.

Buy now for £9.99

In Orbit, Glyn Edwards

On receiving news of a beloved teacher’s death, a man struggles with the loss of a relationship sustained by deep admiration and unrequited love. Memories of their shared journey are separated in three orbits where the man’s past, present, and future are punctuated by intense grief.

In Orbit uses a variety of innovative forms to explore loss, from traditional stanzas to prose poems to shaped poems in the form of birds, circuits, or hands. The narrative shifts in time, moving from his teen years to the present day when he himself has become a teacher, working alongside the man he mourns.

This cover shows a sepia-toned watercolour illustration by Galileo depicting the 6 phases of the moon. The text reads: In Orbit. Glyn Edwards.
Buy now for £9.99
This cover shows a colourful print of a tree in the background. In the foreground are rocks with bright orange sand and brightly coloured grass in between them.

The Turpentine Tree, Lynne Hjelmgaard

The Turpentine Tree  is an enduring symbol of memory, fragile but enduring the passage of time and still persisting: in the title poem, Lynne Hjelmgaard describes it ‘a coppery faux god / with wildly twisted branches’. It might slip into the void, but here it is for now ‘flying into the eye of the storm.’ Hjelmgaard employs strong, sensuous imagery to capture moments from across her remarkable life. 

Buy now for £9.99

You’ll Never Be Anyone Else, Rachael Clyne

Rachael Clyne’s You’ll Never Be Anyone Else presents a direct and assured voice, demanding that we think carefully about what it takes to reconcile being different. She advises the reader to ‘Stop drinking the poison / labelled “Hate me.” / It’s that simple. I didn’t say easy.’ Clyne also has an alter-ego “Girl Golem” reminiscent of a superhero but based on the mythical man made from clay and spells to protect Jewish people from persecution. Through this empowering persona, Clyne opens up an exploration of Jewish and lesbian identity. Surveying attitudes in the present day and in the past, these poems explore migrant heritage, sexual identity, domestic violence and ageing.

This cover shows a colourful painting of a person lying on a chair, perhaps in a therapist’s office, talking to another figure who sits on a chair beside them. The text reads: You’ll Never Be Anyone Else. Rachael Clyne.
Buy now for £9.99

Into the Same Sound Twice, Zakia Carpenter-Hall

American poet Zakia Carpenter-Hall’s stunning debut Into the Same Sound Twice is a place where ‘the ordinary rules of motion’ don’t always apply. What ensues are words, bodies and environments that thrum with new music. In language that is at once precise and tender, Carpenter-Hall leads us into rituals of care, ancestral memory, a rainbow that coruscates and various forms of rupture and repair.

Borders can become meaningfully blurred. In ‘Shakespeare Honours My Grandmother’, a play’s burial scene merges with a funeral taking place four-thousand miles away. The language of dramaturgy is then used to describe both. ‘Big Talk’ counters the unfathomable vastness of space with the sensuality of a kiss. The collection creates its own multi-sensory language and landscape.

Buy now for £6

Homelands, Eric Ngalle Charles 

In Homelands, his debut collection, Eric Ngalle Charles draws on his early life raised by the matriarchs of Cameroon, being sent to Moscow by human traffickers, and finding a new home in Wales. Rich in tone, subject and emotion, Charles’ poetry moves between the present and the past, between Africa and Europe, and between despair and hope. It discovers that historical injustices now play out in new forms, and that family tensions are as strong as the love within a family. Despite the difficulties Charles has faced, Homelands contains poems of fondness, warmth and humour and, as he returns to Cameroon to confront old ghosts, forgiveness.

This cover shows a painting of a young African boy standing in front of a wooden wall. He is wearing a large black hat, blue robe around his waist and is holding a bunch of reeds.
Buy now for £9.99
This cover shows a woman looking down at a book in her hands. Next to her is a small table with a teacup. The cover style is slightly blurry, painted by oil paints.

God’s Little Artist, Sue Hubbard

God’s Little Artist is a biography in verse of Welsh painter Gwen John (1876 – 1939). As with many female painters of the time, John’s work was often overshadowed by that of her male contemporaries, especially her brother Augustus John. God’s Little Artist is a celebration of her passionate life and work, illustrated with precision, authenticity and the keen painterly eye of the poet, novelist and art critic Sue Hubbard. 

“In fifty years’ time,” wrote the painter Augustus John, “I shall be remembered only as the brother of Gwen”. Now, nearly 100 years after Gwen John’s death, her younger brother’s prescient words don’t seem so surprising as her work experiences a resurrection alongside other previously neglected female artists. 

Buy now for £9.99

Hollywood or Home, Kathryn Gray

Welcome to Kathryn Gray’s Hollywood or Home, a poetry collection with as much ruthless glamour as any Old Hollywood movie. These worldly-wise poems explore celebrity culture in a mode that is both seriously playful and playfully serious. Here, melancholy and humour, irony and sincerity can be often found in the same poem, creating a rich experience for the film buff or fan of celebrity culture, as the book is full of easter eggs and movie references

This cover shows an illustration of a woman wearing a yellow dress. She is walking down a pier surrounded by water. In the background there is lighting and a bare forest. The dress is drawn as if wind is blowing it to the left. On the right of the character is a figure in a shirt and dark trousers floating face down in the water. Hollywood or Home. Kathryn Gray. ‘‘Underpinning the comedy and satire... is a real pain at life’s jolts time’s realness” - Nick Laird.
Buy now for £9.99

Still not found what you’re looking for? Try our other gift guides…

Fiction Christmas Gift Guide
Non-Fiction Christmas Gift Guide
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Seren Fiction Christmas Gift Guide

Photograph of lots of Seren non-fiction titles including Christmas in Wales, Cymru and I and The Confession of Hilary Durwood lying in a scattered pile surrounded by festive decorations.

Welcome to Seren’s Fiction Christmas Gift Guide, created to help you find the perfect gift for any fiction lover this festive season. This collection of novels and short story collections are bound to please any fiction fan. You can also browse our fiction pages to discover more great titles.

The cover shows old-fashioned sketches of 3 Victorian gentlemen in top hats. The text reads: The Confession of Hilary Durwood. Euron Griffith.

The Confessions of Hilary Durwood, Euron Griffith

Eager for glory as an explorer in the further reaches of the Empire Hilary Durwood is duped into undertaking a semi-mythical mission, in semi-mythical lands. After many adventures and setbacks he returns to Victorian London destitute, dismayed at having killed someone, and seeking revenge against the Gentleman Explorer who set him up. Meanwhile a serial killer, The Slasher, stalks the streets and inevitably their paths will cross…

This dark comedy thriller is a page-turning and riotous engagement with the notions and myths of Empire, the nature of reality, the power of narrative and the gullibility of those who wish to believe, even in the face of the truth.

Buy now for £9.99

The Green Bridge, John Davies

The short story has long been a popular form with writers and readers in Wales.  The Green Bridge collects work by 25 of the country’s foremost writers of the twentieth century in an entertaining and varied anthology. Horror, satire, humour, war, tales of the aristocracy, of navvies, love, and madness, industry, the countryside, politics and sport: these stories provide insight into the changing values of Wales and the world. This is enjoyable reading for those who know Wales and its authors, and for newcomers to both.

This cover shows an illustration of a road winding into a village. Behind the village is the sea and a distant hill. On the top half, the cover is black with text on it. The text reads: John Davies (ed.). The Green Bridge; Stories from Wales. Seren Classics.
Buy now for £9.99
This cover shows a close-up photograph of a white woman with red lipstick staring at the camera. Her hair is blonde and is tied up above her head, with a loose thick strand covering her right eye. She does not have any clothes. In front of her and across the cover are white translucent scraps of an image which is not identifiable. The text at the bottom reads: Significance. Jo Mazelis. The text at the top reads: ‘An intricate, subtle thriller with a satisfying literary edge’ Francesca Rhydderch. There is a red sticker on the right hand sideof the cover which reads: Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize winner 2015.

Significance, Jo Mazelis

Lucy Swann is trying on a new life. She’s cut and dyed her hair and bought new clothes, but only gets as far as a small town in northern France when her flight is violently cut short. When Inspector Vivier and his assistant Sabine Pelat begin their investigation the chance encounters of her last days take on a new significance.
Lucy’s death, like a stone thrown into a pool, sends out far-reaching ripples, altering the lives of people who never knew her as well as those of her loved ones back home. 

Buy now for £9.99

Things found on the mountain, Diana Powell

Farmer’s daughter Beth is a child of nature, utterly at one with the rugged landscape on which she tends the farm’s sheep, in a remote valley in the Black Mountains. But change is coming. The modern world arrives with the construction of a reservoir in a neighbouring valley. Part of the mountain is taken away to build the dam; there are people, machinery, noise. Then the farms are emptied of their young men by the First World War, including Beth’s beloved brother Daniel, who goes missing in action. Her mother turns to religion, her father falls silent. Things found on the mountain is a Hardyesque coming of age story. At its heart is the dramatic landscape, which, like Beth, suffers an end to innocence. This lyrically written novel, reminiscent of Sarah Hall, marks the arrival of an appealing new voice in fiction.

This cover shows an image of a young woman, facing away, looking out over the rolling hills of the black mountains. The text reads: Things Found on the Mountain. Diana Powell.
Buy now for £9.99
This cover shows a painting of a woman with short red hair looking out towards the viewer. She is wearing a pink tank top with a heart patch place over the left of her chest. The text reads: Scar Tissue. Clare Morgan.

Scar Tissue, Clare Morgan

Longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize

In a world of uncertainties, how do human beings navigate the increasingly complex interrelations of love, desire, home, community? Each story in Scar Tissue offers a fresh perspective on the nature of individual existence in all its transient vulnerability. The irreducibility of time acts as a continuo throughout the narratives and links loss with longing, hope with love and reveals the tentacular hold the past can have on all present aims and imperatives.

In these lyrical, evocative and searching stories, Scar Tissue unflinchingly explores the darker and more challenging aspects of emotional, sexual and familial relationships, while simultaneously celebrating the joys of being alive in an unfathomable world.

Buy now for £9.99

Whaling, Nathan Munday

1792. Nantucket whalers are invited to found the port of Milford Haven in Wales. What does the arrival of these hardy Quakers – immigrants to America a century before – mean for the local people? And what is the meaning of the beached whale that preceded them? Two cultures rub against each other and distrust grows, driven by the local preacher. As Whaling unfolds concern swerves into hysteria against the incomers and the preacher plans a grotesque, Jonah-inspired fate for the whalers.

Nathan Munday’s debut novel is an exciting mélange of original fiction, historical writing and whaling images. In it he explores our relationship with the natural world, the boundary between faith and superstition, and the age old problem of immigration. Set in historical fact this is a narrative at once modern and contemporaneous, the writing rich in imagery and deceptively tense as its story slides into allegory.

This cover shows an illustration of the upright tails of three blue-black whales disappearing off the bottom of the book. The text reads: Whaling. Nathan Munday.
Buy now for £9.99
This cover shows a black and white photo of Hitler and his officers walking in front of the Eiffel Tower during the French occupation. The text reads: Darkness in the City of Light. A novel. Tony Curtis.

Darkness in the City of Light, Tony Curtis

Shortlisted for the Paul Torday Memorial Prize 2023

Paris is an extraordinary city, never more so than during the German occupation, with all the tensions, accommodations, resistances and paradoxes which that entailed. Civilised German officers engage in Parisian culture while their colleagues torture and kill in the city; French citizens measure what needs to be sacrificed in order to survive, or to be free. Morality is more sharply in focus than ever, and more expendable.

Stretching backwards and forwards within the twentieth century, and with a cast including Picasso, Braque, Sartre, Hemingway and Lee Miller, this remarkable multi-form novel combines fiction, journals, poetry and images to investigate what war can let loose, and how evil can dominate a man. Its collage technique reflects the continual shifts of life in the city of light.

Buy now for £9.99

This is Not Who We Are, Sophie Buchaillard

Shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2023

1994, Iris and Victoria are pen friends. Iris writes about her life with her family in Paris. Victoria is in a refugee camp in Goma having fled the genocide in Rwanda in which thousands are being killed. One day Victoria’s letters stop, and Iris is told she has been moved.

For Victoria, the last twenty years have been ones of migration, to Goma, then to Paris and finally to London. There she starts a new life with her youngest brother Paul, and leaves the past behind. Or so she thinks until she is suddenly confronted with the decision to reconnect with her genocide-supporting middle brother Benjamin.

How have the lives of these two women, who shared a moment in time, changed in the past twenty years? As the pressure of long-kept family secrets builds, will they ever find each other?

This cover shows an image of an African tree silhouetted against the purple, mist shrouded dawn sky. The text reads: This Is Not Who We Are. Sophie Buchaillard.
Buy now for £9.99
This cover shows a small number of sheep in the foreground. Behind the sheep is a snowy farmhouse. The text reads: Christmas in Wales. An Anthology edited by Dewi Roberts.

Christmas in Wales, Dewi Roberts

Celebrate Christmas the Welsh way in the company of some of the country’s leading writers, past and present. Christmas mass, the nativity play, turkey and plum pudding, the Mari Lwyd, presents, the weather, the shopping and post-festive blues are among the many subjects drawn from stories, poems, diaries and letters. Featuring R.S. Thomas, Dylan Thomas, Dannie Abse, Gillian Clarke, Catherine Fisher, Bruce Chatwin, Sian James, Kate Roberts and Leslie Norris, it’s guaranteed to get you in the Christmas spirit. 

Buy now for £9.99

Still not found what you’re looking for? Browse our other gift guides…

Non-Fiction Christmas Gift Guide
Poetry Christmas Gift Guide
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Friday Poem – ‘The Copenhagen Hair Salon’ by Lynne Hjelmgaard

A wooden hairbrush laying on a grey worktop

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘The Copenhagen Hair Salon’ by Lynne Hjelmgaard from her new collection The Turpentine Tree.

The Copenhagen Hair Salon for Berith When she was old enough to slowpoke around me in her small red Danish clogs, we’d play beauty parlour. I was her willing subject and happily sat on the floor. She’d fuss over my long dark hair, throw a hand mirror and magazines onto my lap so I could follow her inventions and entertain myself as she brushed my hair to remove tangles, rearranged it in elegant styles; piling it on top of my head or roughly, not intentionally, pulling it away from my face. She’d talk with other imaginary customers in the room in her newly-formed language; at times in a whispering voice I found so comforting – I’d fight to stay awake. This dreamy state of beauty and curls I could instantly partake in. In Danish, her two year old vocabulary sounded so sensible. Her mutterings and sighs contained an abundance of power drawing me in - in to all the places I’ve never been and always wanted to go; her will stronger – more mine than mine.

Don’t forget that Lynne will be launching The Turpentine Tree alongside Kathryn Gray and Sue Hubbard next Tuesday 7th November at St John’s Waterloo in London. Readings start at 6:30pm. All welcome.

Joint book launch. Lynne Hjelmgaard, Kathryn Gray & Sue Hubbard. Tuesday 7th November. From 6:30pm. Free entry. All welcome. St John's Waterloo, 73 Waterloo Road, London, SE1 8TY.