{"title":"October's top reads and recommendations","description":"\u003cp\u003eHere you'll find the cream of the books that we are reading and recommending this month - our top sellers, our fiction and non-fiction books of the month, our book club and social club reads, and the books that are featured in our events programme this month and coming up! \u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-lamb-lucy-rose","title":"Caly recommends... The Lamb - Lucy Rose","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCaly\u003c\/em\u003e recommends... Never in my life have I read a book so poignantly poetic and beautiful yet so deeply brutal and disturbing. Following the uniquely intimate mother-daughter relationship of Ruth and Margot, Lucy Rose tackles love, desire, and hunger with wit and intensity. The story is folksy, sapphic, and haunting - a twisted tale set in the depths of Cumbria not to be missed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e---\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA FOLK TALE. A HORROR STORY. A LOVE STORY. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAN ENCHANTMENT.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMargot and Mama have lived by the forest since Margot can remember. When Margot isn't at school, they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStrays, Mama calls them. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm. Then she satisfies her burning appetite by picking apart their bodies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut Mama's want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, little Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires and make a bid for freedom. With this tender coming-of-age tale, debut novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire and animal instincts - and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54864485548412,"sku":"","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781399619752_The_Lamb_PB.jpg?v=1764063051"},{"product_id":"waist-deep-linea-maja-ernst","title":"Emma recommends... Waist Deep - Linea Maja Ernst","description":"\u003cp\u003eEmma recommends... \u003cem\u003eWaist Deep \u003c\/em\u003ei\u003cspan data-olk-copy-source=\"MessageBody\"\u003es a gorgeously sensory and sensuous novel about friends and lovers, love and sex, beautifully naïve optimism and the pain of disappointed hope - and the many, often shifting and fluid but sometimes stuck and staid, parts of our identities. Unfolding over one week in the idyllic setting of a lakeside lodge in the forest, a group of friends from university sunbathe, cook, talk and flirt - but times have changed and the group find that those edges of anxiety and hints of unresolved desire are of more consequence now than they perhaps felt, or realised, in the past.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan data-olk-copy-source=\"MessageBody\"\u003e---\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFive friends from university; seven summer days in a cabin in rural Denmark. A chance to swim, sunbathe, flirt, read and mess around like in the old days. At least that’s what Sylvia had hoped.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut when her friends arrive with real jobs, kids and partners, Sylvia is left wondering what happened to the radical ways of living they embraced at university. Worse, Esben and Karen announce their plan to get married at the end of the week, striking a blow to Sylvia’s simmering, decades-long crush on Esben – a crush that her monogamous girlfriend Charlie would definitely not approve of. 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Thirst Trap - Gráinne O'Hare","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eEmma and Frankie recommend... \u003c\/em\u003eEmotionally, existentially, and actually messy, \u003cem\u003ethirst trap\u003c\/em\u003e is a fantastic exploration of that second coming of age that is turning 30 (when growing up can be put off no longer!). With grit written into every page, this book is gut-wrenchingly painful, heart-rendingly sad, AND hilariously funny on female friendship, love, sex, and everything in between. Sally Rooney on class A drugs. Read it and weep happy\/sad tears!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e---\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSometimes friends hold you together. Sometimes they’re why you’re falling apart. Maggie, Harley and Róise are friends on the brink: of triumph, catastrophe, or maybe just finally growing up. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTheir crumbling Belfast houseshare has been witness to their roaring twenties, filled with questionable one-night stands and ruthless hangovers. But now fault-lines are beginning to show.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe three girls are still grieving the tragic death of their friend, Lydia, whose room remains untouched. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTheir last big fight hangs heavy over their heads, unspoken since the accident. And now they are all beginning to unravel.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003eThirst Trap\u003c\/em\u003e by Gráinne O'Hare is a blazing, bittersweet, bitingly funny, and painfully relatable story about the friendships that endure through the very best and the very worst of times.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55174282215804,"sku":"","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/Thirst_Trap_9781035046218.jpg?v=1777539477"},{"product_id":"collecteds-twelve-books-of-christmas-2025-helm-sarah-hall","title":"Emma recommends... Helm - Sarah Hall","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEmma says... \u003cem\u003eHeld together by the central character of Helm - Britain's only named wind, local to Cumbria - this story ranges from a Neolithic tribe to 21st century climate change academic, via a medieval exorcist and a Victorian meteorologist. The voice of Helm is playful, ironic, curious and sometimes vengeful, the evocation of the Cumbrian landscape virtuosic, and the whole thing simply glorious.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e---\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHelm is a ferocious, mischievous wind - a subject of folklore and wonder - who has blasted the sublime landscape of the Eden Valley since the very dawn of time. This is Helm's life story, formed from the chronicles of those the wind enchanted: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate it, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish it, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture it - and the farmer's daughter who fell in love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut now Dr Selima Sutar, surrounded by measuring instruments, alone in her observation hut, fears the end is nigh. Vital and audacious, Helm is the elemental tale of a unique life force - and of a relationship: between nature and people, neither of whom can weather life without the other.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56064849772924,"sku":null,"price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/Helm_9780571383580.jpg?v=1776506308"},{"product_id":"collecteds-twelve-books-of-christmas-2025-mere-danielle-giles","title":"Collected's top books of 2025 | Mere - Danielle Giles","description":"\u003cp\u003eCOLLECTED LOVES... \u003cspan\u003eA completely absorbing yet unsettling tale of a declining convent sitting on the edge of a mere, where seemingly everyone and everything has secrets - including the bog. The gorgeously folkloric feeling is undercut with the growing crisis of the convent featuring power strugggles and a moving sapphic love story. Giles brilliantly captures the stragneness of the past and the humanity that binds us across time. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e---\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNorfolk, 990 AD.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDeep in the Fens, isolated by a vast and treacherous mere, an order of holy sisters make their home. Under the steely guidance of Abbess Sigeburg they follow God’s path, looking to their infirmarian, Hilda, to provide what comfort and cures she can. But when the mere takes a young servant boy, Sigeburg’s grip falters and Hilda quickly realizes this place holds secrets darker and more unholy than she can fathom.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen proud Sister Wulfrun, a recent arrival to the convent, has a vision: a curse is upon them and change must be brought. Is she saint or serpent? To Hilda, Wulfrun is a signal bolder and brighter than any fire set – one she cannot help but follow...\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56064853115260,"sku":null,"price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781035051243_Mere_pb.jpg?v=1770893134"},{"product_id":"emmas-top-5-in-2025-heart-the-lover-lily-king","title":"WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION SHORTLIST 2026 | Emma's TOP 5 in 2025 | Heart the Lover - Lily King","description":"\u003cp\u003eEmma says... Oh my days - I LOVED this book! Lily King is such a superb writer, crafting love sotires for people who don't read romance novels. A beautifully told, believable and relatable story about first loves, lifelong loves, the mistakes we make when we're afraid, literature, books and grief. With plenty of wry humour and sadness, cannot recommend highly enough.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e--\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOur narrator understands good love stories - their secrets, their highs and free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the rules. She was in her senior year of college when star students Sam and Yash swept her into an intoxicating world of academic fervour, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTheir lives became quickly intertwined - with friendship but also with unpredictable passions and the intimations of first love. Decades later, she is a successful writer, living a comfortable life with her husband and children, when a surprise visit brings the past crashing into the present, forcing her to confront the decisions and deceptions of her youth. Written with the precision of poetry and the emotional tide of an epic, \u003cem\u003eHeart the Lover\u003c\/em\u003e is a celebration of literature and the life-long echoes of young love.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThis is King at her very best, affirming her as a masterful chronicler of the human experience and one of the finest novelists at work today.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56069487821180,"sku":null,"price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/Heart_the_Lover_9781837265527.jpg?v=1777539617"},{"product_id":"emmas-top-5-in-2025-wild-dark-shore-charlotte-mcconaghy","title":"Emma recommends... Wild Dark Shore - Charlotte McConaghy","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEmma says... \u003cem\u003eI read this in November and it rocketed straight into my top reads of the year! Such an incredible mix of throught-provoking climate fiction, page-turning thriller, and exploration of family, marital, and new love relationships. I loved that reading this book moved me from gasping with surprise to aching sadness. Surprising, nuanced, and essential - while also being a simply great read. Brilliant. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e--\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A storm gathering force.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny weather-lashed island that is home to the world's largest seed bank. As Shearwater risks being lost to rising sea levels, the island's researchers have fled, and only the Salts remain. Until, during the worst storm in living memory, a stranger washes ashore.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe family nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, but it seems she isn't telling the whole truth about why she's there. And when Rowan stumbles upon sabotaged radios and a recently dug grave, she realises that she's not the only one on the island with a secret.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56069572198780,"sku":null,"price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781837265923.jpg?v=1764699910"},{"product_id":"womens-prize-for-fiction-longlist-2026-the-correspondent-virginia-evans","title":"WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION WINNER 2026 | Emma recommends... The Correspondent - Virginia Evans","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEmma says... I will admit that I was sceptical about this one, as I am of basically anything that looks a bit \"too\" popular or has a slightly twee looking cover. But it turns out that there are good reasons why \u003cem\u003eThe Correspondent\u003c\/em\u003e has been such a word-of-mouth and then critical success because it is simply a really good and enjoyable read! A successful epistolary novel can't be an easy thing to pull off but Sybil Van Antwerp is an excellent writer of letters to a range of recipients and respondents. Through her letters, we join her reflecting on a life lived, on how life can still change and surprise even in our \"winter\" years, while also reckoning with life coming to an end. Funny, moving, poignant, and page-turning... Read it - you won't be sorry!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e---\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEvery morning, Sybil Van Antwerp sits down to write letters – to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to attend a class she desperately wants to take, to her favourite authors to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter. Because at seventy-three, Sybil has used her correspondence – witty and wise – to make sense of the world.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut beyond the page, she has spent the last thirty years keeping the people who love her at arms’ length... Until letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life. Now, Sybil must send the letter she has been writing for all these years - and find forgiveness within herself in order to move on.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSybil Van Antwerp’s life of letters might not be an extraordinary one, but she also might be one of the most memorable characters you will ever read.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56450909962620,"sku":null,"price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781405971553_The_Correspondent.jpg?v=1786348520"},{"product_id":"womens-prize-for-non-fiction-longlist-2026-mother-mary-comes-to-me-arundhati-roy","title":"WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION SHORTLIST 2026 | Mother Mary Comes to Me - Arundhati Roy","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eArundhati Roy’s first work of memoir, this is a soaring account, both intimate and inspiring, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her relationship to her extraordinary, singular mother Mary, who she describes as ‘my shelter and my storm’. Distraught and even a “little ashamed” at the intensity of her response to the death of the mother she ran from at age eighteen, Arundhati began to write \u003cem\u003eMother Mary Comes to Me\u003c\/em\u003e. The result is this astonishing, disconcerting, surprisingly funny chronicle—unique and simultaneously universal, of the author’s life, from childhood to the present, from Kerala to Delhi.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWith the scale, sweep, and depth of her novels and the passion, political clarity, and warmth of her essays, \u003cem\u003eMother Mary Comes to Me\u003c\/em\u003e is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace—a memoir like no other.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56471848059260,"sku":null,"price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781405978477_Mother_Mary_Comes_to_Me.jpg?v=1781117360"},{"product_id":"international-booker-longlist-2026-taiwan-travelogue-yang-shuang-zi","title":"INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE WINNER 2026 | Frankie recommends... Taiwan Travelogue - Yang Shuang-zi, translated by Lin King","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrankie says... A worthy winner of the International Booker Prize. This is the sort of book that makes you appreciate what the novel form can achieve, and how beautifully tender that language can be. Shuang-zi and King are like dancers, bringing the text to life through touching word choice and rare moments of shining narrative gems. It was an utterly convincing \"mid-century novel\" that deftly approached colonialism, classism and queerness so carefully that you won't even realise its power, so that by the end - like a frog in a slowly boiling pot - you are overcome with the heat, power and raw emotion of Chi-chan and Aoyama-san's orbits. So impressive and immersive. 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Set in May 1938, the young novelist Aoyama Chizuko sails from Japan to Taiwan where her interpreter proffers tantalising glimpses of island life and helps her to taste as much of cuisine as her larger-than-life appetite can bear.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56471981818236,"sku":null,"price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781916751651.jpg?v=1773145343"},{"product_id":"pre-order-underdogs-louise-powell","title":"Underdogs - Louise Powell","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'These hands,' he said, and spread the paira them out wide so we could see the callouses and the little lines of coal dust underneath his skin; 'these hands were made to pick out summat precious from somewhere that doesn't wanna give it up.'\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCounty Durham, 1998. 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Has all the pacing of classic crime, with the ambience of the great Kazuo Ishiguro and the off-kilter characters of Ottessa Moshfegh. \u003cstrong\u003eIncredibly\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e \u003c\/strong\u003eimpressive for a debut, I can't stop thinking about the murky underground of Osaka and the innocent women caught up in its web. Midorikawa's voice is so strong, so polished and so haunting, her writing produces tangible sensations of dread, anticipation and fright, while slowly enfolding you into the ominously threatening back streets of Japan, without even lifting a finger. This book proves that the less you tell, the more frightening the truth can be. All the evidence of a future crime classic!! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e---\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"yiv4787481561msonormal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnna has never met anyone like the enigmatic Loll: a British hostess at the Moonglow bar, in the Japanese city of Osaka. While Anna teaches bored students by day, Loll passes the nights in smoky, dim-lit rooms where she pours men's drinks, lights their cigarettes and laughs playfully at their jokes. With her blonde wigs, shimmering dresses and bejewelled nails, Loll cuts a mesmerising figure. But her skin bears unexplained bruises beneath its glittering facade, and Anna's concern slowly begins to grow. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShe is troubled by the secret of the carved jade stone necklace that her glamorous new friend seems determined to protect; the mysterious identity of Loll's best client with shadowy links to the city's underworld crime bosses; and the sight Anna witnesses one afternoon: Loll teetering alone on the edge of a railway track, caught in the deafening rush as a train hurtles by.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"yiv4787481561msonormal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eUnlike Anna who has come to Osaka to learn more about her half-Japanese heritage, Loll seems to have no clear reason for being there and no easily discernible past. And so when she suddenly disappears, there are only the barest of clues as to where she might have gone. But, desperate to find her friend, Anna refuses to give up. Soon she is thrown onto a trail that will take her into the darkest corners of the neon-choked metropolis - hidden, forbidden places from which those who know the city best warn her to stay away.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56697647235452,"sku":null,"price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781786584793.jpg?v=1777456656"},{"product_id":"bothy-in-search-of-simple-shelter-kat-hill-signed-copies","title":"Bothy: In Search of Simple Shelter - Kat Hill","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA bothy is a remote hut in the wilderness that you can’t reserve, with no electricity, mod-cons or running water. The doors are always unlocked, you just need to step inside. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrom the rugged cliffs at the northern tip of Scotland to the fairy-tale valleys of Wales, historian Kat Hill tours us across the UK exploring the history of these wild shelters and her fellow wanderers – past and present.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003eBothy \u003c\/em\u003eis a stirring, beautiful book for anyone who longs to run away to the wilds.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56731985281404,"sku":null,"price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9780008619039_Bothy.jpg?v=1777970767"},{"product_id":"yesteryear-caro-claire-burke","title":"Yesteryear - Caro Claire Burke","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMy name is Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive…\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNatalie lives a traditional lifestyle – and her followers are sick with envy. Her charming farmhouse on her working ranch is artfully cluttered, her husband is a handsome cowboy, her homemade sourdough boules are each more beautiful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers and industrial-grade ovens behind the scenes? What her followers don’t know won’t hurt them.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen, one morning, Natalie wakes up in a strange, horrible version of reality. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Is this a hoax? A reality show? A test from God? Natalie knows just two things for sure: this isn't her perfect life, and she must escape, by any means possible.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs darkly funny as it is shocking and gripping, Yesteryear is an electrifying examination of tradition, fame, faith and the grand performance of womanhood, from a thrilling new talent in fiction. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56780461572476,"sku":null,"price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9780008742768_Yesteryear.jpg?v=1778832555"},{"product_id":"people-in-love-claire-daverley","title":"Emma recommends... People in Love - Claire Daverley","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEmma says... Surely we've all wondered \"what if?\" - and here is a novel that brilliantly and beautifully explores all the nuance of regret, nostalgia, and the road taken. There is a kind of raw honesty in this book about the complexities of our closest relationships, with a question mark that keeps you gripped, but all told with an understatement and perceptiveness that makes the story highly relatable. Wonderful.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e---\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOne bright blue day, on a bench by the river, Nora’s partner Robin proposes. It is unexpected; they’d always agreed that they didn’t need a wedding. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut after a decade of in-jokes, dancing in the low-lit kitchen and sharing morning toast in bed, Nora says yes. Why wouldn’t she? The answer lands on the night of their engagement party, when Bren turns up on her doorstep.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGrowing up, Bren and Nora were the sort of best friends who everyone swore would end up together. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut when a sudden heartbreak turned their lives upside down, Bren left, Nora stayed, and the silent longing between them remained unspoken. Now, he’s back, and their tentative yet undeniable spark reignites, forcing Nora to ask herself: How can you know your heart, if it feels like it’s split in two?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTender and compelling, \u003cem\u003ePeople in Love\u003c\/em\u003e is a story about what-ifs and maybes, and the moments of misunderstanding that can shape our lives. It’s a book about living one life while musing on another, exploring how our choices shape our relationships and inform our regrets, and revealing, in the end, that the real love story is not always the one you'd expect.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56831202492796,"sku":null,"price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9780241614594_1.jpg?v=1780394166"},{"product_id":"pre-order-presence-a-hidden-history-of-the-female-body-erin-maglaque","title":"Presence: a Hidden History of the Female Body - Erin Maglaque","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAn immersive hidden history of the female body, with radical implications for how we understand our bodies today...\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSex and abortion, pregnancy and birth, feeding and rocking and washing: these are embodied practices with a deep past. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eYet the history of the female body remains largely unknown – even unimagined. Combining memoir with archival research, from fragments in medical texts, trial transcripts, legal treatises, prayerbooks, letters, and diaries, Erin Maglaque assembles a chorus of women’s voices from the pre-modern past. We encounter a vanished past both strikingly recognisable and strange, when ideas of the female body, sexuality, work and pleasure were more varied, more unruly, and sometimes freer.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThis is the invisible history of the female body – birthing, caring, working, desiring. Reaching deep into the shared history of women’s lives, \u003cem\u003ePresence \u003c\/em\u003epoints towards a radical new way of understanding our bodies today.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56831262458236,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781787335356.jpg?v=1780395430"},{"product_id":"pre-order-frankie-recommends-pale-mistress-naomi-kelsey","title":"Frankie recommends... Pale Mistress - Naomi Kelsey","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrankie says... \u003cspan\u003eSo vivid, so masterful, and so raw in its portrayal of one woman’s journey amid the darkness of men’s envy and ambition as well as the chafe of female friendship amongst deception, pride and personal integrity. Bianca is a flawed, deeply layered heroine, who is brought to life from her tiny but pivotal role in Shakespeare’s text with a vitality very often missing from reimaginings. It’s just brilliant and I know how much people will love this!!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e---\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCyprus, 16th century.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMurder, lies and vengeance has left lovers dead, promises broken and no one to trust. Only one woman survives, Bianca. The slain? History knows their names: Emilia, Desdemona, Othello. But why do we not know Bianca? Who was the pale mistress? Liar or lied to? Instigator or victim?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn telling one woman’s story, Naomi Kelsey dazzlingly recasts a Shakespearean tragedy as a psychological thriller of jealousy and gaslighting, ambition and envy, and the making and breaking of one of Shakespeare’s most notorious villains, Iago.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57085973528956,"sku":null,"price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/PaleMistress_NaomiKelsey.jpg?v=1782233248"},{"product_id":"emma-recommends-long-wave-daisy-johnson","title":"Emma recommends... Long Wave - Daisy Johnson","description":"\u003cp\u003eWe're excited to be welcoming Daisy Johnson to Collected to discuss \u003cem\u003eLong Wave\u003c\/em\u003e on Friday 14 August, 7.30pm. Get your tickets for the event \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/collectedbooks.co.uk\/products\/daisy-johnson-long-wave-friday-14-august-7-30pm\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Event tickets: Daisy Johnson on Long Wave\" rel=\"noopener\"\u003ehere\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e---\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEmma says... I already knew Daisy Johnson was pretty special (I will literally NEVER forget where I was when I finished reading \u003cem\u003eEverything Under\u003c\/em\u003e) but this book has absolutely confirmed that she is. Packed with gorgeously poetic and yet highly specific language, vivid imagery and characterisation - Johnson's ability to pin down seemingly amorphous, indescribable experience is astounding. At the same time, \u003cem\u003eLong Wave\u003c\/em\u003e is a very grounded story of precarity, of those who live on the margins, of adoptive family. A deeply affecting exploration of how the inevitable consequence of love is the fear of separation, \u003cem\u003eLong Wave\u003c\/em\u003e is sublime and I can feel it firmly lodged in my heart and my mind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e---\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eClose to the shore is the island: uninhabited, wild, with only a storm-beaten lighthouse for shelter. Ori was found there as a small child with a handful of stones, no memories and no mother.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen she has a baby of her own, the job of motherhood feels immense and sleepless nights begin to shatter her grip on reality. Her head fills with the sound of stones knocking against each other and the mystery of her past begins to unravel, opening up a path to the mother she lost, and the mother she could become. Years earlier, on a sweltering summer day, ten-year-old Ruth sees a woman and her baby walk into the river and disappear.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut she is the only witness, and the water yields no trace. Ruth’s mother, Edith, locks her daughter away – first to restrain these wild imaginings, and later, when she falls pregnant, to hide the shame. Ruth longs to escape and dreams of the nearby island, where she and her baby can finally be free.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57183668011388,"sku":null,"price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781787332300.jpg?v=1784278208"},{"product_id":"frankie-recommends-gentle-things-danielle-giles","title":"Frankie recommends... Gentle Things - Danielle Giles","description":"\u003cp\u003eJoin us for a conversation with Danielle Giles about her new novel \u003cem\u003eGentle Things\u003c\/em\u003e - Wednesday 16 September, 7.30pm. Get your tickets \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/collectedbooks.co.uk\/products\/danielle-giles-gentle-things-wednesday-16-september-7-30pm\" title=\"Event tickets - Danielle Giles on Gentle Things\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ehere\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e---\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrankie says... Sarah Waters x Lucy Rose. How strange, how gothic, how unnerving!! Seventeenth century London is brought to shimmering, stinking life from one of the new masters of historical fiction. Danielle Giles blends madness and medicine in this creepy tale of secrets, manipulation and disguise. Who can Lucy trust after her new marriage? Who's voice can she hear in her head? Why has her new husband locked her in...?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e---\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe plague has passed, the fire has cooled, and Lucy North is in desperate need of a husband... \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrom the acclaimed author of \u003cem\u003eMere \u003c\/em\u003ecomes a thrilling new tale of medicine, marriage and madness set in seventeenth-century London.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLondon, 1668. Though the streets hum with promise following the restoration of the crown, Lucy North is trapped. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHer father’s recent death has left her mother saddled with debts she cannot pay. Lucy must marry the first man willing to take her without a dowry. So when she meets Thomas Ashwell, a young and charming apothecary, Lucy quickly identifies an attractive route out.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShe falls in love easily, and when Thomas proposes she believes her future is finally secured. But when Lucy falls and injures her head during their wedding party, things start to warp. Confined to her bedroom her dreams refuse to leave her at daybreak, and the voice in her head no longer sounds like her own. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs Thomas plies her with tinctures and cures, a creeping fear takes root: Has this marriage saved her? Or will it bring about her end?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57184294797692,"sku":null,"price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781035051274_GentleThings.jpg?v=1784295721"},{"product_id":"frankie-recommends-the-girl-with-a-thousand-faces-sunyi-dean","title":"OCTOBER FANTASY BOOK CLUB READ | The Girl With a Thousand Faces - Sunyi Dean","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhy not sign up for our October Fantasy Book Club? - Friday 2 October, from 7.15pm. We'll be reading and chatting about this haunting dark urban fantasy set in historical Hong Kong, where ancient myths and local legends combine in a story of ghosts, grief and women who will not forgive - \u003cem\u003eThe Girl with a Thousand Faces \u003c\/em\u003eby Sunyi Dean.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGet your ticket \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/collectedbooks.co.uk\/products\/fantasy-book-club-on-the-girl-with-a-thousand-faces-by-sunyi-dean-friday-2-october-from-7-15pm\" title=\"Event tickets: October Fantasy Book Club\"\u003ehere\u003c\/a\u003e!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e---\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA haunting dark urban fantasy set in historical Hong Kong, where ancient myths and local legends combine in a story of ghosts, grief and women who will not forgive… \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMercy Chan is a triad exorcist with a mysterious past. After washing up on the shores of Hong Kong with no memory during World War II, she found a home in Kowloon Walled City, an infamous, ghost-infested slum full of lost and traumatised civilians. Since the war ended, Mercy has rebuilt her life and found work as a ghost-talker for the local triad, dealing with the angry and bitter spirits who haunt this place.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut the past she can’t remember won’t let her go. An unusually powerful ghost lurks in Kowloon’s waterways, drowning innocents and threatening the district. Unnervingly, it claims to know Mercy – and her forgotten childhood.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs Mercy is drawn into a deadly cat-and-mouse game with this malignant spirit, she begins to realise that the monster she fights within these walls may well be one of her own making.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57253115429244,"sku":null,"price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9780008479497.jpg?v=1785948726"},{"product_id":"frankie-recommends-booker-longlisted-may-we-feed-the-king-rebecca-perry","title":"BOOKER PRIZE LONGLIST 2026 | Frankie recommends... May We Feed The King - Rebecca Perry","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrankie says... Structurally challenging debut fiction from poet-cum-novelist Rebecca Perry, proving that fiction - and particularly historical fiction - is at its most exciting\/ thought-provoking when its limits are tested. Investigating historiography, storytelling and the tales we choose to tell in lieu of facts, \u003cem\u003eMay We Feed The King \u003c\/em\u003eit at once frustrating but also magical, sparse in prose but intense in emotion, whimsical but also deeply sad. I will always have time for experimental historical fiction, and this twinned story of curator and King is a shining display of a sharp new talent.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e---\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShe is a curator, who spends her time dressing the rooms of historic buildings to bring them to life. But in the lush private quarters of a medieval palace, she finds herself so transfixed by the reign of an almost-forgotten King that the edges of her life begin to blur. He is a reluctant ruler with no hunger for power, rushed to the throne after the untimely deaths of his older brothers.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut it isn't long before whispers begin to fly around the court. And with the growing belief that the King is not fit for the throne comes the idea that another might rule in his stead. May We Feed the King dances between the lives of a historical subject who risks the future of his kingdom and a woman who turns to the past to hide from her present.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLaced with desire and longing, it is a playful, stirring meditation on history and storytelling: on what makes a King 'Great', and a life meaningful.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57255360659836,"sku":null,"price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781803513867.jpg?v=1786025886"},{"product_id":"booker-prize-longlist-2026-the-things-we-never-say-elizabeth-strout","title":"BOOKER PRIZE LONGLIST 2026 | Frankie recommends... The Things We Never Say - Elizabeth Strout","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrankie says... Well colour me stoked. This was the most surprising read for me this year!! I've been avoiding the Strout hype but it is well and truly deserved. She's got this crystal ball directly centered on the banalities and deep sadness of everyday life in this current political climate, capturing the fluttering moments of hope and the small, everyday acts of selfhood (both lonely and empowered) that make up life. This novel in particular is an almost perfect display of the craft of writing, and I'd go so far as to say she was the American Claire Keegan: beautiful, exacting, clear-toned prose that resonates and echoes right around the heart. Best summed up by an endorsement: 'she writes extraordinary fiction about ordinary people'.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e---\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eArtie Dam is a man with a secret. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHe spends his days teaching history to high schoolers, expanding their young minds, correcting their casual cruelties, and lending a kind word to those who need it most. He goes to holiday parties with his wife of three decades, makes small talk with neighbours, and, on weekends, takes his sailboat out on the beautiful Massachusetts Bay. He is, by all appearances, present and alive.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut inside, Artie is plagued by feelings of isolation. He looks out at a world gone mad—at himself and the people around him—and turns a question over and over in his mind: how is it that we know so little about one another, even those closest to us? And then, one day, Artie learns that life has been keeping a secret from him, one that threatens to upend his entire world. Once he learns it, he is forced to chart a new course, to reconsider the relationships he holds most dear—and to make peace with the mysteries at the heart of our existence.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWith exquisite prose and profound insight, Elizabeth Strout captures the way grief reverberates through decades, the comfort found in deep friendships and the freedom that comes when we break free of our secrets. \u003cem\u003eThe Things We Never Say\u003c\/em\u003e is a stunning new novel from one of our most acclaimed observers of the human heart.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57265186963836,"sku":null,"price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9780241814307_TheThingsWeNeverSay.jpg?v=1786349491"},{"product_id":"booker-prize-longlist-2026-helen-of-nowhere-mackenna-goodman","title":"BOOKER PRIZE LONGLIST 2026 | Caly recommends...Helen of Nowhere - Mackenna Goodman","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA wonderfully shapeshifting and unpredictable read that carefully interrogates our relationships to the structures that hold us - the people and places we exist within - and the potential we have to change within this. Witty, rhythmic, funny and unpredictable in the best of ways...\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e---\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn the middle of the countryside, a realtor is showing a disgraced professor around an idyllic house. She speaks not only about the home's many wonderful qualities but about its previous owner, the mystifying Helen, whose presence still seems to suffuse every fixture.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThrough hearing stories of Helen's chosen way of living, the man begins to see that his story is not actually over – rather, he is being offered a chance to buy his way into the simple life, close to the land, that's always been out of reach to him. But as evening fades into black, he will learn that the asking price may be much higher, and stranger, than anticipated. Philosophically and formally adventurous, at once intimate and cosmic in scope, \u003cem\u003eHelen of Nowhere\u003c\/em\u003e asks: What must we give up in exchange for true happiness?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57265187848572,"sku":null,"price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781804272206_HelenofNowhere.jpg?v=1786349614"},{"product_id":"booker-prize-longlist-2026-the-palm-house-gwendoline-riley","title":"BOOKER PRIZE LONGLIST 2026 | Emma recommends... The Palm House - Gwendoline Riley","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEmma says... Surely this has \"Booker Winner\" written all over it? A novel in which very little happens and yet the whole of the human condition is laid bare, through prose that enjoys the precision of poetry, and pitch perfect dialogue. There is such clear-sightedness here of the ways in which we know - and yet never really can know - each other, the experiences that shape us and yet stay largely private, of lazy, everyday cruelty, and the quiet comfort of steadfast friendship (the motif of crisp packets opened out to share on a pub table beautifully bookends). Intense and wry, sad and beautiful, controlled and expansive - incredible.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e---\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLaura and Putnam have been friends for a long time. Theirs is a happy meeting of minds, with long evenings spent huddled in an ancient pub by the Thames, where they share office gossip, reflect on their teenage passions, and lament the state of the world.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eRecently, though, Putnam has been harder to reach: he has lost his father, and the magazine to which he has dedicated his life has been hijacked by an insufferable new editor, Simon ‘call me Shove’ Halfpenny. Laura has her own problems: with a prickly mother and a tricky past, and in a beautiful and indifferent city, her day-to-day life is precarious. But as Putnam starts to sink into despondency, she must try to bring him back.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Palm House\u003c\/em\u003e offers us Gwendoline Riley’s trademark keen observation and wit, and leaves us - somehow - with a curious sense of possibility. 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Dark academia meets climate fiction - for fans of the vibes of Julia Armfield's \u003cem\u003ePrivate Rites \u003c\/em\u003eand Mona Awad's \u003cem\u003eBunny.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003e---\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn a famed but crumbling university city overrun by vegetation, where power is held in a fragile balance between the academics and a contingent of rogue gardeners, Agathe spends her days listlessly propping up the career of her fraudulent professor boss. One day, a campus scandal erupts: Adam, a contrarian and the pet student of her boss, comes into heated conflict with a rising young professor, with both men claiming discrimination.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs the crisis consumes the university, Agathe’s boss instructs her to gather information by befriending Adam. Agathe soon finds herself both caught up in the events tearing the city apart and increasingly drawn towards the alluring student at the heart of it all. But can anyone be taken at their word in a struggle over the truth? Coursing with icy suspense and rendered with violent precision, \u003cem\u003eThe Vivisectors\u003c\/em\u003e is a new kind of love story for a broken era and a novel of blazing spiritual reckoning.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57265195975036,"sku":null,"price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9780008725280_TheVivisectors.jpg?v=1786350000"},{"product_id":"booker-prize-longlist-2026-the-shadow-of-the-object-chloe-aridjis","title":"SEPTEMBER BOOK OF THE MONTH | BOOKER PRIZE LONGLIST 2026 | Caly recommends... The Shadow of the Object - Chloe Aridjis","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCaly says... This was an incredible, sensitive and unexpected read - after an unusual connection is formed between an elderly German woman and protagonist Flora, we follow the unfolding and shifting repercussions of this chance encounter. A thoughtful and atmospheric novel about grief, deception, disguise, ownership and what can and cannot be recreated. An ode to the endless possibility of the present.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e---\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA magnificent work of shadow-play and a meditation on desire, metamorphosis and mortality. Flora is visiting home in Mexico when the family dog leaps up and bites her hand. She winds up in hospital where she undergoes several surgeries under anaesthesia and meets Wilhelmina, an elderly German woman with pneumonia, who collects pre-cinema toys and instruments.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe two of them embark on a series of dream-like conversations in the hospital corridors. Wilhelmina puts on a magic lantern show for Flora, leaving her spellbound. When things take an unexpected turn, Flora finds herself entrusted with an important mission.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShe returns to London, where she resumes her job polishing silver at a jewellery shop, and strikes up a strange friendship with Wilhelmina’s son, Max. As Flora dips in and out of her imagination, she is increasingly aware it’s not only the magic lantern that projects, and her perception of reality is subtly altered.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57265201480060,"sku":null,"price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781784746377_TheShadowoftheObject.jpg?v=1786350184"},{"product_id":"september-book-club-a-real-piece-of-work-freya-bromley","title":"SEPTEMBER BOOK CLUB READ | A Real Piece of Work - Freya Bromley","description":"\u003cp\u003eAuthor Freya Bromley will be joining us for our September Book Club to discuss her debut novel, \u003cem\u003eA Real Piece of Work\u003c\/em\u003e - Wednesday 23 September, 7.30pm. FREE but please get in touch to sign-up and grab a copy of the book to read ahead!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e---\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNola McConkey has made it. \u003cem\u003eAnimal Oracle\u003c\/em\u003e, the memoir she has written about her beloved late sister Darina, has become a hit. People read it, critics loved it, producers now want to make it into a movie. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThere’s only one problem: everyone in her family has an opinion about the book – and none of them are good.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNow, someone has made an anonymous complaint to her publisher about \u003cem\u003eAnimal Oracle\u003c\/em\u003e. Nola is sure that only someone in her secretive, chaotic family could be to blame. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs her parents and three remaining siblings prepare to spend the fifth anniversary of Darina’s death together on the isolated island of Lundy, Nola knows this is the perfect opportunity to convince her accuser to pull the complaint before it causes irreparable damage – but first, she must discover who made it.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003eA Real Piece of Work\u003c\/em\u003e is a sharply observed, by turns tender and funny, novel about family, sisterhood, and finding beauty in the everyday.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57265488855420,"sku":null,"price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781529155433_ARealPieceofWork.jpg?v=1786352457"},{"product_id":"september-social-club-read-it-lasts-forever-and-then-its-over-anne-de-marcken","title":"SEPTEMBER SOCIAL CLUB READ | It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over - Anne de Marcken","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eJoin us for September Social Club where we'll be chatting all about this completely original take on the zombie apocalypse story. Get your tickets \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/collectedbooks.co.uk\/products\/september-social-club-on-it-lasts-forever-and-then-its-over-by-anne-de-marcken-thursday-10-september-from-7-15pm\" title=\"Event tickets - September social club\"\u003ehere\u003c\/a\u003e!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e---\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe heroine of the spare and haunting \u003cem\u003eIt Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over\u003c\/em\u003e is voraciously alive in the afterlife. Adrift yet keenly aware, she notes every bizarre detail of her new reality. And even if she has forgotten her name and much of what connects her to her humanity, she remembers with an implacable and nearly unbearable longing the place where she knew herself and was known—where she loved and was loved.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTraveling across the landscapes of time and of space, heading always west, and carrying a dead but laconically opinionated crow in her chest, our undead narrator encounters and loses parts of her body and her self in one terrifying, hilarious, and heartbreaking situation after another. A tale for our dispossessed times, and one of the sharpest and funniest novels of recent years, \u003cem\u003eIt Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over\u003c\/em\u003e plumbs mortality and how it changes everything, except possibly love.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57319782842748,"sku":null,"price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781804270745_ItLastsForever.jpg?v=1787041073"},{"product_id":"september-walk-talk-book-club-read-finding-albion-myth-folklore-and-the-quest-for-a-hidden-britain-zakia-sewell","title":"SEPTEMBER WALK\u0026TALK BOOK CLUB READ | Finding Albion: Myth, Folklore, and the Quest for a Hidden Britain - Zakia Sewell","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhy not join us for our September Walk\u0026amp;Talk book club, discussing \u003cem\u003eFinding Albion\u003c\/em\u003e? Sunday 27 September, 4-6pm - more details and ticket bookings \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/collectedbooks.co.uk\/products\/walk-talk-book-club-finding-albion-by-zakia-sewell-sunday-27-september-4-6pm\" title=\"Event tickets: September walk\u0026amp;talk book club\"\u003ehere\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e---\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eZakia Sewell is on a quest for another Britain. Traversing the length and breadth of our island from Somerset to Scotland, she's seeking out a different story - one that lies beyond divisive national myths and symbols.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn\u003cem\u003e Finding Albion\u003c\/em\u003e, Zakia uncovers an alternative spirit of Britain that is vividly alive today. It is found in otherworldly folk songs, ancient legends, Celtic seasonal rites and mystic stone circles that punctuate our landscape. Her journey begins as the sun rises on the spring equinox over Glastonbury Tor, where she meets neopagans reclaiming traditions from our pre-Christian past.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAt summer's peak at Notting Hill Carnival she hears cultural echoes that passed along the slave trade routes from the Caribbean. On All Hallow's Eve she encounters the ghosts of Empire that are still haunting the nation, and in the depths of a Cornish winter she asks if today's new folk revival could unite our increasingly divided country?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003eFinding Albion\u003c\/em\u003e brings a hopeful story of Britain out from the shadows, giving us a deeper sense of who we are, and heralding the promise of a brighter future.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57321886024060,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781399735902_FindingAlbion.jpg?v=1787075324"},{"product_id":"land-beneath-the-waves-nic-wilson","title":"Land Beneath the Waves - Nic Wilson","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhy not join us for an evening of conversation with Guardian country diarist Nic Wilson, talking about this - her first book? Get your tickets \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/collectedbooks.co.uk\/products\/nic-wilson-on-land-beneath-the-waves-wednesday-21-october-7-30pm\" title=\"Event tickets: Nic Wilson on Land Beneath the Waves\"\u003ehere\u003c\/a\u003e!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e---\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen Nic Wilson begins researching the history of her local landscape and its wildlife, the last thing she wants to do is consider her own past. But as she unearths tales of giant sequoias, puss moths, nightingales and chalk streams, Nic realises her affinity with the nearby wild began as a way to handle growing up with a mother who lived with a debilitating chronic illness.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNow in her forties, and struggling with mental and physical health herself, Nic revisits her childhood to trace the influence of the natural world on her life. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs she grapples with revelations from the past, the boundaries between self and land become increasingly porous, and the lure of the wetlands around her home threatens to engulf her. 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In the spirit of Betjeman, Rachel Morley’s book captures the magical experience of poking around a dusty village church, only to have it transform – through her expert eyes – into a portal to the past, one that brings England’s people and history to life in the most colourful, moving and unexpected ways.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThrough their wall-paintings and monuments, their graffiti and plaques, their jumble of furniture and curios, Morley shows these buildings to be the expression of centuries of communal memory and folk culture – time capsules of connection to ancient and medieval ways of thinking, to revolutions and wars, to lives both glorious and humble.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57383128793468,"sku":null,"price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9781847928009_ChurchCrawling.jpg?v=1788251526"},{"product_id":"the-agatha-christie-cure-what-reading-the-queen-of-crime-taught-me-about-life-cathy-rentzenbrink","title":"The Agatha Christie Cure: What Reading the Queen of Crime Taught Me About Life - Cathy Rentzenbrink","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOne Christmas, Cathy Rentzenbrink finds herself drained by life's upheavals. In need of comfort and escape, she turns to her first literary love: Agatha Christie. As Cathy delves into Agatha's novels and her mysterious disappearance in 1926, she discovers more than she expected. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBeyond the hidden jewels, detectives and thrilling escapes on trains and automobiles, Cathy unearths an adventurer and innovator who hid - within the pages of her own books - the secrets of how she survived a personal crisis and started life again. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWith the Queen of Crime at her side, Cathy soon begins finding answers to questions she hadn't even realised she was asking.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA literary detective story and a memoir of finding hope in reading, this journey into the heart of the most successful writer of the 20th century is the perfect tonic for anyone in search of life-affirming resilience, and proof that if ever you're lonely, tired and in need of solace, getting in the bath with an Agatha Christie is always an excellent idea.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57383155106172,"sku":null,"price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/Cover-TheAgathaChristieCure_10September2026.jpg?v=1788252018"},{"product_id":"heroes-or-zeroes-myths-and-legends-from-the-bad-boys-of-ancient-greece-lizzy-tiffin","title":"Heroes or Zeroes? Myths and Legends from the Bad Boys of Ancient Greece - Lizzy Tiffin","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhy not join us for an evening of conversation with the brilliant Lizzy Tiffin on her new book? - Thursday 17 September, 7.30pm. Get your tickets \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/collectedbooks.co.uk\/products\/lizzy-tiffin-heroes-or-zeroes-myths-and-legends-from-the-bad-boys-of-ancient-greece-thursday-17-september-7-30pm\" title=\"Event tickets: Lizzy Tiffin on Heroes or Zeroes?\"\u003ehere\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e---\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrom the author of \u003cem\u003eBad Girls of Ancient Greece\u003c\/em\u003e comes a new collection, covering tales of lore from bad boys and more…\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMyths and legends would be nothing without their shining star of a hero at the forefront, right? But what about those sidekicks and minor characters so often scrubbed out of the story? From honoured heroes such as Heracles, to savage scoundrels like Tityus, or even the unexpected underdogs Iphicles and Philoctetes, Lizzy Tiffin tells the stories of the dashingly handsome and oh-so-brave men of antiquity with her signature wit and humour. Uncovering the unsung heroes and side guys, Lizzy has us ask, what is it to be a ‘hero’? And should the so-called ‘zeroes’ be the real stars of the show? So, dive in and prepare to decide who deserves their place in history.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57383181418876,"sku":null,"price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/9780008791322_HeroesorZeroes.jpg?v=1788252325"},{"product_id":"october-book-club-read-the-family-sara-mesa","title":"OCTOBER BOOK CLUB READ | The Family - Sara Mesa","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThere are no secrets in this family!' proclaims Damian, the father, triumphantly. A secular idealist obsessed with morality and order, he is blind to the cracks in his home's foundations, the oppression that pervades it, and the elaborate fictions his wife and four children devise to survive it. While he quotes Gandhi and expounds on the virtues of education, charity and thrift, the children retreat into humiliated compliance or seek freedom in the most dangerous of places.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThrough a mosaic of interlinked tales, spanning decades, acclaimed Spanish author Sara Mesa turns her unflinching gaze to the family as institution: the ideologies that shape it, the silences that underpin it, and the authority you can never quite escape.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Collected","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57383210025340,"sku":null,"price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0578\/5662\/2637\/files\/TheFamilyWebCoverSpine.jpg?v=1788252459"},{"product_id":"booker-prize-longlist-2026-emma-recommends-switzy-emma-cline","title":"BOOKER PRIZE LONGLIST 2026 | Emma recommends... Switzy - Emma Cline","description":"\u003cp\u003eEmma says... An incredibly empathetic and nuanced depiction of the impact of early onset dementia and a journey towards the end of life by euthanasia. Cline's exploration of David's patchy and pot-holed reality will move you to laughter and tears. There is also a lot here about death as the great leveller - although how different that experience can be if your wealth and privilege allow you to pay someone else to manage it for you...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e---\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA private plane cuts through the winter night, somewhere over Greenland. David, a retired executive, sits back in his leather seat, playing solitaire on his phone. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eClick. Click. Drag. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eClick. In his pocket is a notebook filled with urgent reminders — but he can no longer read his own handwriting. 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