News With List Of Books

From Ancient Greece to a future ecological dystopia, by way of African myth and a good old-fashioned murder mystery – everyone needs somewhere to escape. This broad collection of new YA novels will feed a teenager’s festive reading addiction, with each one an absolute cracker!

Now into its sixth year, the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards are the only book awards with a shortlist curated by booksellers, and winners voted for by readers. We are really excited by this year’s selection, which reflects some of the best and most popular titles published this year. 

Some of the best book recommendations come not from banners, adverts or ‘people who read this liked this’ algorithms, but from personal testimony. And, let’s be honest, it’s always good to see what other people are reading and enjoying! We’ve listed below some of the books that The Bookery staff have been loving recently – we hope that we can pass on our enthusiasm for these great titles.

Children’s activism has been pushing the environmental agenda on the world stage in an inspiring and powerful way. These books, from pre-school picture books to YA thrillers, will help engaged young people to keep riding the wave.

  The unicorns in Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre’s hilarious new book Kevin vs The Unicorns are a pretty snobby bunch. And as some of the most noble mythical creatures around with a history going back to the time of Ancient Greece, symbolic of purity and grace, they might well get a bit big-headed. However, unicorns aren’t always such arrogant creatures…and we thought it was only fair to highlight below some of the other unicorns in recent children’s books. And … Read more

  With the brooding and dramatic landscapes of Dartmoor and Exmoor, the beautiful sunny beaches of the English Riviera and the busy villages of mid-Devon, is it any wonder that the mysterious possibilities of the county have captured so many writers’ imaginations? Devon is synonymous with legendary crime writer Agatha Christie and is the setting for one of Sherlock Holmes’ most famous cases, but is also the inspiration for many more mysterious crime novels than you might realise. Here are … Read more

  Autumn is the busiest time in the publishing calendar when everyone brings out their top books in time for Christmas. Here we have picked eight of the best – some big hitters and a couple that might slip under the radar.

  Moving up to secondary school can come with a whole raft of conflicting emotions. Fortunately, there are some great books to help primary school leavers explore this time of change. So whether they can’t wait to get stuck in, want to reinvent themselves, or just want a straightforward guide to life in secondary school, this collection is a great place to start. And if your school days are long behind you? Reading these books will no doubt spark a … Read more

  We’ve been lucky enough to receive some amazing advance copies of middle grade novels for kids from our publishers recently – two due out in June and two in September! The rich breadth of storytelling in this quartet really is too good to keep to ourselves, so below we have a little summary of each and a link for you to reserve your copies now!