SEPTEMBER BOOK OF THE MONTH

FICTION PAPERBACK
NORTH WOODS
BY DANIEL MASON

FOUR CENTURIES. A SINGLE HOUSE DEEP IN THE WOODS OF NEW ENGLAND.

A young Puritan couple on the run. An English soldier with a fantastic vision. Inseparable twin sisters. A lovelorn painter and a lusty beetle. A desperate mother and her haunted son. A ruthless con man and a stalking panther. Buried secrets. Madness, dreams and hope.

All are connected. The dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

Exhilarating, daring and playful, NORTH WOODS will change the way you see the world.

Twelve interlinked stories, accompanying us through the months of the year as the seasons change and set across several generations of a New England house.

Daniel Mason’s writing is beautifully evocative, and so full of natural imagery that it feels akin to nature writing. Through his stories, he documents how the land changes, and why: cultural advancements, climate changes, human interference, or the simple passage of time.

The stories’ focal characters range from painters to twin sisters, all with the backdrop of New England. Some of them are dark, even with the occasional supernatural element. This really is a book for people who ‘read anything’ and enjoy a wide breadth of genres, or hoping to safely explore outside of their comfort zone.

NON FICTION PAPERBACK
NOT THE END OF THE WORLD
BY HANNAH RITCHIE

We are bombarded by doomsday headlines that tell us the soil won’t be able to support crops, fish will vanish from our oceans, that we should reconsider having children. But in this bold, radically hopeful book, data scientist Hannah Ritchie argues that if we zoom out, a very different picture emerges.

The data shows we’ve made so much progress on these problems, and so fast, that we could be on track to achieve true sustainability for the first time in history. Packed with the latest research, practical guidance and enlightening graphics, this book will make you rethink almost everything you’ve been told about the environment, from the virtues of eating locally and living in the countryside, to the evils of overpopulation, plastic straws and palm oil. It will give you the tools to understand what works, what doesn’t and what we urgently need to focus on so we can leave a sustainable planet for future generations.

These problems are big. But they are solvable. We are not doomed.

We can build a better future for everyone. Let’s turn that opportunity into reality.

A brilliant, insightful look at our climate crisis through a hopeful lens – what more could you ask for?

Similarly to Rutger Bregman’s Humankind which offers a positive spin on history and argues that it is realistic to assume ‘goodness’ in people – Hannah Ritchie offers hope and clarity on a topic a lot of us find stressful and hard to discuss.

Of course, Ritchie can only present facts with her opinion, with the disclaimer that it is not necessarily realistic for most governments to completely change tact at the drop of a hat. However, she backs up her statements with evidence from around the world, proving that even small changes have made big improvements.