We can already feel the autumnal breeze rustling through the trees. While the foliage may be turning, we have also been leafing through the pages of these books. From examining systemic issues to looking at dark aspects of history that have been recently unearthed. Happy reading!

📖 Books read in August: 6

• 📚 The Teachers: A Year Inside America’s Most Vulnerable, Important Profession by Alexandra Robbins (2023). A year-long look at the challenges and triumphs of three American teachers. Read the review on The Teachers.
• 📚 I Can’t Save You: A Memoir by Anthony Chin-Quee (2023). A moving memoir about a young man’s journey to recovery from addiction and mental illness. Check out what we thought about I Can’t Save You.
• 📚 And Then What? Despatches from the Heart of 21st-Century Diplomacy, from Kosovo to Kiev by Catherine Ashton (2023). A candid account of the challenges of international diplomacy from a former European Union foreign policy chief.
• 📚 The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann (2023). The true story of a 18th-century shipwreck and the mutiny and murder that followed. We analysed what it means to have unreliable narratives in Grann’s book The Wager.
• 📚 Yellowface by R. F. Kuang (2023). This psychological thriller looks at ethical issues of pigeonholing writers of colour and the problems with lack of diversity in the publishing industry. We look at whether telling someone else’s personal story is a form of stealing in this review of Yellowface.
• 📚 Night Wherever We Go by Tracey Rose Peyton (2023). An intimate look at the domestic lives of enslaved women, the book is an evocative meditation on resistance and autonomy, on love and transcendence and the bonds of female friendship in the darkest of circumstances.

Tell us what your favourite books were in August!

Finally…

If you found these themes interesting, then check out the interview with Stolen History author Sathnam Sanghera, as well as a look into autofiction and Brett Easton Ellis’ new book The Shards.

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