Book column: Charlie Richards

It’s been a great year for books and readers, what can we say? Something here for everyone. Here is a selection from the Bookbag team.

Ocean’s picks 

I loved Curtis Sittenfield’s play on contemporary romance Romantic Comedy - a pleasure to escape with. In this book we follow Sally Milz, a sketch writer on a comedy TV show as she battles the insecurities that arise when sparks start to fly with a star doing a segment on her show. Hilarious and gripping. 

Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s debut novel is a story that oozes with love for the Caribbean. This is a love story on all levels, familial, romantic, and being in love with your environment, but it also explores mythology, folklore, and magic. When We Were Birds is the perfect book to sweep you up and transport you across the world.

The Cabinet by Un-Su Kim is a series of modern fairy tales centred around everyday people with mutations that border the definition of superpowers. This book explores the strangeness that exists in everyday life, and how the mundane continues even if you do have superpowers. If you want a bizarre read that will keep you on your toes, this is the book for you. 

I can't say I've put much thought into the history of Slime, and I wouldn't expect any one else to have either, but here comes Susanne Wedlich with a compact and engaging history of slime that begins three billion years ago! This book, Slime, spans across time, starting with the first signs of life in the Eoarchean era and ending in a hypothetical future of slime, in a post-human era. If you're looking for a new lens to view reality through, slime might be the answer. 

Charlie’s picks 

Penance, by Eliza Clarke, is a true-life crime story trapped in a novel and I mean this in the best way. A group of girls are interviewed by an unscrupulous journalist who is writing a book about a murder they committed during their school days in their scruffy Northern seaside town. Deep-diving dark Tumblr threads, trawling the haunted history archives of the small town, and investigating the bullying and he-said/she-saids, this a gruesome and compulsive book that we couldn't put down. 

Emma Warren has been writing about music and culture as a living social movement throughout her career, documenting how new culture is generated. She has a breadth of personal experience as a DJ, writer for Jockey Slut magazine, and author of cult classic Steam Down. In Dance Your Way Home, Emma mixes memoir with oral history, exploring the power of dance as a means of escape, protest and power. From youth clubs to Irish jigs, underground dancefloors to reggae sound systems, if you’ve ever lost yourself on a dance floor then this is the book for you. 

Sirisha’s picks 

“Mirror, mirror on the wall …” Belle, the main character in Rouge, the new cult classic from Mona Awad, is obsessed with her skin and skin care - a trait she inherited from her estranged mother. But when her mother dies, she inherits her debt as well as the curious search for youth and beauty that sent her mother to her grave. This book is a horror retelling of Beauty and the Beast with an intense focus on today's beauty standards that are passed down generations. 

Do you believe in ghosts? Our Share Of The Night is a story of a father trying to protect his son from his dead wife's demonic family. As you turn the pages, you will feel the confusion getting worse - what is and what isn't real here? The only way to see clearly is to blink and wait for the author to disperse the fog…a creepy, beautiful book by Mariana Enriquz.