Here are 80 books that A Festive Juxtaposition fans have personally recommended if you like
A Festive Juxtaposition.
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Until the millennium, I was a features journalist with an abiding fascination in Sixties counter-culture. Being a friend of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, I heard Syd’s story first-hand.
After having my own breakdown and psychiatric treatment, I decided to apply my experience and interests in writing an account of Syd’s short but sweet creative life.
With Gilmour’s tacit blessing, his contemporaries – including Floyd co-founder Roger Waters – gave me access. And through interviewing them, I came to my own understanding of Barrett: by turns a crazy diamond and a dark globe.
No one captures the self-loathing and paradoxical liberty of the moneyed junkie as well as St Aubyn (except perhaps Anna Cavan). The second novel in his almost-autobiographical Patrick Melrose series, Bad News finds our fucked-up anti-hero on a gargantuan smack binge in New York at the age of 22. How the author – now clean – can reconstruct his frame of mind is remarkable; how he can do it with such precision and wit is mind-blowing.
Bad News is the second of Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels, adapted for TV for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic addict, Patrick.
Twenty-two years old and in the grip of a massive addiction, Patrick Melrose is forced to fly to New York to collect his father's ashes. Over the course of a weekend, Patrick's remorseless search for drugs on the avenues of Manhattan, haunted by old acquaintances and insistent inner voices, sends him into a nightmarish spiral. Alone in his room at the Pierre Hotel, he pushes body and mind to the very edge -…
I was educated in a catholic school surrounded by family built on lasting love. My father and mother were married for 50 years. I longed for that type of forever love, but didn’t find it. So, I started thinking, what could prevent people from finding that one true love. Then it came to me, fate, spells, or gods and goddesses acting behind the scenes to create love gone wrong. Taking Latin in high school introduced me to Greek and Roman mythology. I became fascinated with that ideology. Since I grew up in New Orleans, I thought the swamp, as a backdrop, would add a bit of realism and mysticism to my storyline. Voila! Creole Moon was born.
I love all of Stephanie Laurens’ books about historical London and high society during the Regency period or “the ton”, as it was called. The Bar Cynster series doesn’t disappoint. These books are fun to read and in keeping with the true romance books of boy meets girl themes and girl tames the cagy, self-proclaimed bachelor. Each book deals with a different brother or cousin in the Cynster dynasty and a specific event around their daily lives. The reader gets a sense of current events and the lifestyle of the rich during this period and how money and power can evade or remove any adverse effects on the family.
There are six books in this series and I highly recommend reading all six. They are fun, light-hearted, and easy to read. I even like their nicknames of “scandal”, “rake”, and “devil”. It makes them seem like the bad boys of…
When Devil, the most infamous member of the Cynster family, is caught in a compromising position with plucky governess Honoria Wetherby, he astonishes the entire town by offering his hand in marriage. No one dreamed this scandalous rake would ever take a bride. And as society mamas swooned at the loss of England′s most eligible bachelor, Devil′s infamous Cynster cousins began to place wagers on the wedding date.
But Honoria wasn′t about to bend society′s demands and marry a man "just" because they′d been found together virtually unchaperoned. No, she craved adventure, and while solving the murder of a young…
I'm a lifelong lover of all things fantasy and a passionate member of the LGBT+ community. It means so much to me every time I pick up a book to find characters with different sexualities on the pages and seeing them in fantasy books is even better! It gives me a thrill each time to feel like people like me are being acknowledged in my favourite books. Because of this, I also strive to be as inclusive and diverse in my own books.
Did you fall in love with tales such as Lord of the Rings and other great fantasy classics about the battle between good and evil growing up? Then Dark Rise is the perfect book for you. It's an epic full of twists and where nothing is ever as it seems. And, of course, getting to read a book with such a classic fantasy feel to it, with the inclusion of some queer rep, was just so refreshing and exciting.
* Instant New York Times Bestseller * Indie Bestseller *
In this stunning new fantasy novel from international bestselling author C. S. Pacat, heroes and villains of a long-forgotten war are reborn and begin to draw new battle lines. This epic fantasy with high-stakes romance will sit perfectly on shelves next to beloved fantasy novels like the Infernal Devices series, the Shadow and Bone trilogy, and the Red Queen series.
Sixteen-year-old dock boy Will is on the run, pursued by the men who killed his mother. Then an old servant tells him of his destiny to fight beside the Stewards,…
I have always been drawn to community, meaning how people get together, live, love, and support each other. That love drew me into caring about cities, in all their various forms, because cities are places for people to gather and build lives together. This can be in an Italian hilltown from the 1000 AD, a 15th-century neighborhood in Barcelona, an elegant street on the Upper East Side of New York City, or a subdivision near a highway interchange in Phoenix. Once I started caring about cities, I started asking why these places are the way they are, and this produced my book.
I can still remember so much from this book. A great stat Hawes included was that in the year 1870, 90 percent of upper-class New Yorkers lived in townhouses or other types of single-family homes. By 1930, 90 percent lived in apartment buildings or “French flats,” as they were sometimes called. Basically, almost alone among American cities, New York chose to emulate Paris in its model of urbanism rather than London.
New York developers built and sold “French flats” that were large and ostentatious, like the Ansonia and the Dakota, which are still there today. These iconic apartment buildings were built along the streetcar and subway lines. Hawes was a writer for The New Yorker, so this is very readable.
Recounts New York City's transformation from a provincial, Victorian town to a bustling city, focusing on the architectural emergence of the apartment building after the Civil War and its influence.
In a previous life, I was a City trader and as such have always been fascinated by the ridiculous and the absurd. Now a full-time writer and poet, I live on the west coast of Ireland and have written a number of books including A Curious Guide to London, A Splendidly Smutty Dictionary of Sex, and The Men Who Stare At Hens. I also have a blog on all matters arcane.
The daddy of all London books, an encomium to a city of myth. Its buildings hold and hide legends. Its rivers are lost underground. Its backstreets vanish into fable. Its characters are blurred between fact and fiction. Truths have been twisted by fantasy. Tourists are rendered blind, stepping around beggars to photograph the past, and sit in parks reading of a city that only springs to life in the mind, for in reality only the faintest outline traces now remain. A truly remarkable tour de force.
Much of Peter Ackroyd's work has been concerned with the life and past of London but here, as a culmination, is his definitive account of the city. For him it is an organism with its own laws of growth and change, so this book is a biography rather than a history. Ackroyd reveals the dozens of ways in which the continuity of the city survives - in ward boundaries unchanged since the Middle Ages, in vocabulary and in various traditions - showing London as constantly changing, yet forever the same in essence.
From books to television, one of my favorite qualities of good writing is a rich, inter-generational cast of characters, especially ones that feature significant roles for characters young and old. These stories do not span multiple generations; instead, they showcase characters of all ages interacting at one time, which makes for dynamic plots and relationships.
Easily one of my top favorite books, this novel captures so much: the great character of Lovejoy, the realities of post-war London, and a plot that reflects the human search for beauty amid horror, life amid death.
The motifs, settings, and themes have such a strong impact on me to this day after having read it for the first time so long ago. There is something neat about the older folks thinking of the neighborhood “orphans” as sparrows, frittering away at the building of something special.
'A masterpiece of construction and utterly realistically convincing' JACQUELINE WILSON
'Author Godden here tries her deft writing hand at landscaping a child's heart' TIME
'It is a sentimental tale, well told, with an unlikely and entirely satisfactory ending' NEW YORKER
Someone has been digging up the private garden in the Square. Miss Angela Chesney of the Garden Committee is sure that a gang of local boys is to blame, but her sister, Olivia, isn't so sure. She wonders why the neighbourhood children - 'sparrows' she…
I love studying history and reading books informed by the past because of the ways such study elucidates and complicates my understanding of the present moment. I also think the best stories should entertain as well as teach; that is, books should be enrapturing and never didactic. I’m a professor of English at a liberal arts university in Kentucky, and every time I assign a short story, novel, play, or poem, I always do so with the conviction that reading the assigned text should enthrall my students as much as it teaches them about a particular literary movement or historical moment.
The books I love the most are those that deliver on the promise of a big “hook” but also delve deeper in unexpected ways, making me feel excited and satisfied.
Penner’s book is a perfect example. The promise of the complex mystery surrounding the “apothecary murders” is delicious, but how I felt about the characters emotionally was unexpected and kept me turning the pages.
Named Most Anticipated of 2021 by Newsweek, Good Housekeeping, Hello! magazine, Oprah.com, Bustle, Popsugar, Betches, Sweet July, and GoodReads!
March 2021 Indie Next Pick and #1 LibraryReads Pick
“A bold, edgy, accomplished debut!” —Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network
A forgotten history. A secret network of women. A legacy of poison and revenge. Welcome to The Lost Apothecary…
Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised…
Europe’s finest masterpieces drew me from Seattle, Washington to the Netherlands, where I earned a master’s degree in art history. During my study, the restitution of artwork that had been looted during WWII was a hot topic, and one that deeply fascinated me. Ultimately, my classes and work for several Dutch cultural institutions inspired me to write my series of art history mysteries.
This complex novel is akin to going on a highly enjoyable journey through gorgeous settings and two distinct periods of time. A multitude of seemingly unrelated stories set in London, Venice, and New York City, slowly intertwine and merge throughout the novel. Revenge drives one character, the desire to reach a higher social standing another, fame and perhaps wealth motivates a third, and memories of better times keep a fourth going. Yet all of their stories are connected via a single painting, Titian’s Man With the Blue Sleeve. To find out how and why, you’ll have to read this captivating novel.
It is 1576 and Venice is in chaos, ravaged by plague and overrun by crime. In the midst of the anarchy we find those brave souls who have chosen not to flee the city. Titian, most celebrated of Venetian painters, his health failing badly. Sebastiano, a gondolier who is the eyes and ears of the corrupted and crumbling city. And Tullia, the most notorious courtesan of the age, who must fight to retain her status as well as her worldly possessions. In the present day, the echoes of what happened centuries earlier still ripple as the lives of ordinary people…
Many years ago I was outside, clothespins in hand as I hung damp towels on the clothesline at our small beach house. A yard over, I heard a mother and daughter arguing loudly. I didn’t pick up all the details, but it was clear that the mother and daughter’s expectations were miles apart. At that moment, I found myself frozen solidly in the center. Was I mother? Was I daughter? I connected equally. Since that time I’ve been interested in the dynamics and criticality of the mother-daughter relationship, and I knew my first novel would be an exploration of that theme.
Sometimes a mother fails. In My Name is Lucy Barton, the title character fled her home because of her abusive father. Although her mother loved Lucy and her siblings, she was unable to protect her children. Many years later when Lucy falls ill and her mother visits her, the two reconnect and develop a shared understanding. Strout addresses the imperfection of a mother while retaining the magnetic pull between mother and daughter.
LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2016 AND THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016. A #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.
An exquisite story of mothers and daughters from the Pulitzer prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge
Lucy is recovering from an operation in a New York hospital when she wakes to find her estranged mother sitting by her bed. They have not seen one another in years. As they talk Lucy finds herself recalling her troubled rural childhood and how it was she eventually arrived in the big city, got married and had children. But this unexpected visit leaves her…
I am the author of two novels, and I currently teach fiction writing in the MFA program at the University of Missouri – St. Louis. I’ve long been fascinated with journeys both real and literary. In the early 1990’s I lived in Taiwan and traveled across China—from Guangzhou to the far northwestern desert province of Xinjiang, an extraordinary journey that informed my first novel.
It’s 1764 on Manhattan Island, and a stranger from London arrives at a small town called New York. He expects to receive a thousand pounds. A cast of dynamic characters appear. There are intrigues and adventures. All writers try to be vibrant on the page—to write smart, vivid, witty descriptions and dialogue. And then you come upon a writer like Francis Spufford, who is able, somehow, do it a degree or two better than everyone else.
'Best book of the century' Richard Osman 'Just wonderful' Jan Morris 'Dazzlingly written' Sunday Times 'Every bit as superb as everyone says' Sarah Perry
Winner of the Costa First Novel Award 2016 Winner of the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2017 Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize 2017 Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2017 Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2017 Shortlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2017 Shortlisted for the British Book Awards Debut Novel of the Year 2017
A SUNDAY TIMES TOP 100 NOVEL OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
