BOOKS NOOK

Holiday reads

’Tis the season to cosy up with a great read or three –and also to find some well-considered presents for people with passions from grown up fairy tales to salvage diving. Meet Agony Aunts, encounter parallel worlds, browse through avantgarde transport options and find new ways of devouring toast –this selection will make everyone’s Christmas...

Bookworms old and young, rejoice: Fairy Tale by Steven King is a spellbinding novel about seventeen-year-old Charlie Reade, who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and where the stakes could not be higher –for their world or ours. Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination with this crowd-pleasing novel –perfect for long, cosy nights spent in front of the fire and the glowing lights of the Christmas tree. Hodder & Stoughton, £22 Those searching for a slightly more cerebral read might do well with Pulitzer Prize Winner Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger. A sunken jet, nine passengers, a missing body... McCarthy’s novel –his first in 16 years –tells the story of a salvage diver, haunted by loss, afraid of the watery deep, pursued for a conspiracy beyond his understanding, and longing for a death he cannot reconcile with God. Pan Macmillan, £20

Moving from the realm of fiction into the realm of non – Madly, Deeply: the diaries of Alan Rickman isfor the cinephiles. From his breakout role as Die Hard’s villainous Hans Gruber to his heartwrenching run as Professor Severus Snape, Alan Rickman remains one of the most beloved actors of all time. Rickman’s diary entries detail the extraordinary and the ordinary in a way that is anecdotal, witty, and candid; reading the entires is like listening to Rickman chatting to a close friend. Canongate Books, £19.99

Here’s another close friend in non-fic-guise: Dear Dolly: on love, life and friendship introduces Agony Aunt Dolly Alderton, or, in novelist Elizabeth Day’s words, “Nora Ephron for the Millenial generation”. Since early 2020, Dolly has been sharing her wisdom and wit with the countless people who have written in to her Dear Dolly agony aunt column in The Sunday Times Style. Their questions range from the painfully relatable to the occasionally bizarre. From breakups and body issues, to families, friendships, dating, divorce, and everything in between. Dolly leads us by the hand through the various labyrinths of life, proving that a problem shared is a problem halved. Penguin Books, £16.99

The perfect companion to a comfort read is a comfort dish –and what’s more comforting than toast? If you top it with a few cleverly paired ingredients, it can be a full meal, not to mention pure bliss. Prue Leith’s Bliss on Toast: 75 recipes for things on toast will help you make quick, delicious and versatile meals year-round –for working-from-home lunches and cosy Sunday suppers, to light bites, indulgent treats or impressive canapés. £12.99, Bloomsbury

Publishing

We’ve done toast –now how about some transport? The luxurious magazine VÉHICULE is a new high-end journal dealing in avant-garde transportation. Issue 01 explores the murkier side of offshore powerboating, starting in the 1970s, and specifically drug smuggling that is highlighted through the life and times of boat racer and smuggler Ben Kramer. £50, available from Magalleria,

5 Upper Borough Walls, Bath.

Finally here’s something to take with you into 2023, Days Like

These: An alternative guide to the year in 366 Poems

by Brian Bilston. In this playful collection, Bilston writes a poem to accompany every day of the year. Each poem is inspired by a significant – often curious – event associated with that day: from Open an Umbrella Indoors Day to the day on which New York banned public flirting; from the launch of the Rubik’s Cube to the first appearance of the phrase, “the best thing since sliced bread”. Perfect for reading aloud and sharing with friends, Days Like These will take the blues out of Monday, flatten the Wednesday hump, and amplify that Friday feeling. £16.99, Pan Macmillan

Here’s a poem from 7 February, in honour of Periodic Table Day:

Periodic Updates

Radox –Crouton –Jargon –Bourbon Brassic –Jolene –Oxymoron Decaf –Sliver –Shebanganese Aquarium –Pleather –Anti-freeze Horlix –Triptych –Pandemonium Antipathy –Einsteinagogium Zilt –Pantyline –Podum –Tedium Kimkardashium –Lint –Delirium Feline –Bosphorus –Condominium Nectarin –Vermoutb –Thanksamillium