We’re hiring
We’re looking for a bookseller and marketing executive to join our small and friendly team. It’s a full-time job working Sunday to Thursday, with a roughly half-half split of bookselling and marketing responsibilities.
The successful candidate will have excellent Adobe Photoshop skills and will have experience managing a social media account for a business or other organisation.
Think that’s you? Know someone who would be perfect? Spread the word.
All the info is here. The deadline for applications is 5pm this Wednesday, 14th Feb.
Coming up at Backstory
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Alwyn Turner — Little Englanders
Wednesday 21st February, 7.30pm
One of Tom’s favourite social historians returns with a lively portrait of Edwardian Britain. Think music halls and the real Peaky Blinders, with the First World War just around the corner.
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Wednesday 28th February, 7.30pm
Picked by The Times as one of its environment books of the year, journalist Louise Gray tracks the story of our food from farm to fruit bowl, asking what impact our voracious appetites have on the planet.
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Wednesday 13th March, 7.30pm
Bone-tired, anxious and overwhelmed, the author of Wintering sought to feel more connected and at ease by exploring the restorative properties of the natural world and reawakening her sense of wonder.
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Gary Stevenson — The Trading Game
Wednesday 27th March, 7.30pm
Dubbed “the Wolf of Wall Street with a moral compass”, Gary Stevenson was a bank’s most profitable trader before winning started to feel like losing. In this “confession”, he delves into the uncomfortable realities behind how he was making all that money.
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SOLD OUT: Bryony Gordon — Mad Woman
Monday 12th February, 7.30pm
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SOLD OUT: Cathy Newman — The Ladder
Tuesday 19th March, 7.30pm
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SOLD OUT: Alice Winn — In Memoriam
Wednesday 20th March, 7.30pm
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Coming up at the Non-Fiction Book Club: Henry Marsh (And Finally), Maria Ressa (How To Stand Up To A Dictator), Tania Branigan (Red Memory)
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Coming up at the Fiction Book Club: Eliza Clark (Boy Parts), Tomasz Jedrowski (Swimming in the Dark)
SOMETHING FOR YOU from Backstory manager Rory McNeill this week, on an odd phenomenon that’s made us all chuckle. Enjoy! — Tom
SOME TRENDS IN PUBLISHING ARE OBVIOUS. Cats on covers sell books; so, apparently, do titles about killing various members of the family. Recently, though, we’ve come across a more surprising trend: there seem to be more and more books with the word “milk” in the title. What’s more, they’re actually all good, in quite different ways. And I’m supposed to be dairy-free…
So for this week’s newsletter I’ve pulled together our descriptions of our favourite of these books… A milk round, if you will. And we’ve paired each book with the most appropriate milk:
Milk Teeth by Jessica Andrews
Jessica Andrews draws us into the mind of a young woman who never allows herself to have what she wants. A will-they-won’t-they of sorts that unfolds over the cobbled streets of sunny Barcelona. Andrews’s writing is effortless.
Pair with Whole milk. Like Andrews’s writing, it’s thick and luscious. A creamy treat if you allow yourself the pleasure. (And if you’re not lactose intolerant.)
Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
Levy centres a tricky mother-daughter relationship in this taut novel set under the Spanish sun. A hypochondriac mother and her struggling twentysomething daughter go abroad in search of healing.
Pair with Skimmed milk. A slim drink for a slim but satisfying novel.
Milkman by Anna Burns
This won the Booker a few years back, and it’s no wonder. It’s a fabulous novel set in working-class Belfast during the Troubles, where nothing is what it seems — ‘Milkman’ is not, in fact, a milkman. One of those books where you have to persevere for a few pages to get into the dialect but once you do, the accents will be ringing in your ears for months.
Pair with The milk of human kindness. In short supply here.
Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang
A strange smog has ravaged the world’s crops and livestock in this novel about the pleasures of taste. A chef accepts a job with an enigmatic employer hidden away in the mountains, where strawberries and other temptations are reserved for the elite.
Pair with That weird long life milk. When resources are scarce, it won’t be the good stuff in your cupboards.
Milk Fed by Melissa Broder
Rachel struggles with an eating disorder, her Jewish identity, and the weight of an overbearing mother. Then she meets Miriam, and her problems seem to briefly disappear. Food and sex intertwine in this sharply funny story of a girl’s journey to self-love.
Pair with Breast milk (weird, I know). This novel doesn’t shy away from the body or its fluids.
Spilt Milk
Having one child changed everything for Bea. This time, she has an appointment for a termination. This is a story about trust, secrets, and the power — or danger — of words left unsaid.
Pair with The tea.
— Rory