Books
With an extra long bank holiday weekend looming, getting busy with a good book may well be on your to-do list. Luckily, the stars have aligned as, this month, avid readers have been inundated with fresh releases. Here's a few new books out in the UK this April to invest in before everyone else does.
If you're a romantic fiction fan, you're in for a real treat. Atonement author Ian McEwan has turned the genre on its head, injecting an artificial intelligence twist into a fictional couple's life in Machines Like Me. Mysteries (plus a surprise appearance from Jackie O) come in the form of Angie Kim's Miracle Creek and Steven Rowley's The Editor while those yearning for a supremely relatable protagonist will fall for Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams.
A couple of non-fiction titles also appear on the list. Beth McColl's How to Come Alive Again is a must-read on the days when you're struggling feel like a real person. In How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell aims to teach why you should be breaking up with the tech in your life, if only for a few hours.
Keep reading for titles designed for the bookworms, inquisitive minds, and so much more.
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'How to Come Alive Again' by Beth McColl
This practical, candid guide is for anyone struggling with their mental health, anyone looking to support their loved ones, or simply anyone wanting to learn a little more. Beth McColl has been through it all and, in a really welcoming tone of voice, offers pointers on getting through those really bad days, learning how to forgive yourself (and other self-care techniques), and even helps clear up the murky world of medication.
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'Machines Like Me' by Ian McEwan
The esteemed author of Atonement and On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan has gone down a slightly different path for his latest novel. Machines Like Me is set in an AI-infused 1980s London. When synthetic humans are developed, one couple decides to invest. The ensuing love triangle explores what makes a human human and whether machines are truly capable of love.
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'Miracle Creek' by Angie Kim
Although not your typical holiday read, this novel will keep you engrossed for hours whether you're on a sun lounger or a sofa. Two Korean immigrants living in the US, Young and Pak Yoo, set up a pressurised oxygen chamber in their back garden. Its aim? To "cure" various conditions like autism or infertility. When an explosion in the chamber results in the death of two people, Pak is the centre of a trial. Via different perspectives from both before and after the trial, author Angie Kim tells the story in a fresh can't-put-it-down way.
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'Queenie' by Candice Carty-Williams
Candice Carty-Williams' first novel centres on Queenie: a woman trying to straddle two worlds. As a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman working at a national newspaper, she must deal with her family, romantic relationships, and her white colleagues. With some darkly humorous moments, you'll find yourself nodding in recognition at almost every one of Queenie's thoughts and actions.
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'How to Do Nothing' by Jenny Odell
When you've spent the best part of the day staring at your phone or computer, you may dream of freeing yourself from the shackles of technology. Jenny Odell's writing will let you take back control of your life and demonstrate exactly why your existence shouldn't be in the hands of Silicon Valley executives. Unplugging is a difficult task — as Odell puts it, nothing is harder to do than nothing. But if anything can help, it's this book.
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'The Editor' by Steven Rowley
Imagine being a struggling author trying desperately to get your book published, only to find that the editor who's so very keen on it is none other than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. That's the premise of Steven Rowley's mysterious novel. Over the course of their working relationship, the author and Jackie O become friendly. But when a family secret comes to light, readers are left wondering if the famous face has an ulterior motive.
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'Stay Up with Hugo Best' by Erin Somers
In the post #MeToo era, a wealthy famous man asking a young employee to spend the weekend at his house would raise eyebrows. So when a 29-year-old assistant working on a late night comedy show is asked to do exactly that by the show's sixty-something host, you'd expect the answer to be a firm "no". Well, that's not exactly what happens in Stay Up with Hugo Best. As author Erin Somers shows, power dynamics aren't always what they seem.
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Here's to spending three figures on books this month.
