Tom Wigan
Tom has worked at the bookshop for the past little while. Originally from Scotland, he has taken to Suffolk life and spends his time bass fishing and foraging coastal plants for the pot.
Delia Owens
Where the Crawdads Sing
Paperback £9.99
Set deep in the marshlands of North Carolina, Where The Crawdads Sing is the tale of Kya, the marsh girl. Abandoned by her family and ostracised by her community, Kya ekes out a living foraging plants and selling shellfish to a local gas station owner.
Her story is pierced with tragedy and pain. The more hardship she experiences the stronger her bond with the marsh becomes.
This life of raw survival, in the end leads to great accomplishments. Her wooden shack becomes a museum of collected shells, feathers, fungi and insects. Soon, a living is earned through her talent as an artist and knowledge of the marsh. The story demonstrates the drive and passion that can be spurred on by terrible circumstances.
The dead body of a local man is the tensioner throughout the book.
A subtle, artistic flare flows through the whole story, effortless and natural. It is also filled with some extraordinary back country quotes that will tempt you to reach for your notebook. ‘Skinny as a tic on a flag pole,’being one, another, ‘Crazy as a three eyed rat.’
Recycled Bottle Pen
£1
If you’re flooded with guilt every time you pick up a pen, this could be the one for you.
Made almost completely from recycled bottles, this beautiful San Pellegrino Jade pen is a dream to write with. It has a wonderfully, satisfying slide when met with paper and if like mine, your handwriting looks like a deranged 5 year old’s, it does a good job of keeping it under control.
80% of the pen is made from recycled bottle, this is impressive. I’m guessing the 20% left over is for the ink tube, nib and spring for the click mechanism.
One pound. One pound! Not many things can be bought for a humble pound these days, perhaps half a dozen eggs from a Suffolk smallholders driveway but even some of these have now ramped up to one fifty. Next time a pound is staring you in the face and you don’t know what it wants, come down to the Aldeburgh bookshop and give it us. We will give you one of these fantastic pens in return.
Thomas Hardy
The Trumpet Major
Paperback £12.99
It’s easy to sideline the old classic writers when so much brilliant new prose is on offer. Reading Thomas Hardy’s, The Trumpet Majorreminded me why it’s sometimes worthwhile taking a step back, then taking a step forward toward the classics shelf.
This smooth-rolling romance is set in the South West of England during the Napoleonic wars.
It tells the tale of Anne Garland who, the single daughter of a widow, is riding through the complexities of young love. This is made more complex by the fact that every man within firing range is madly in love with her.
The son of the local miller returns from an overseas posting and is shortly followed by a mysterious woman he met on his travels. Hardy goes into such wonderful detail about the preparation for her arrival. The bedroom floors are scrubbed with suds dripping to the rooms below, chickens are culled, a pig is slaughtered, and the enormous milking pale is used to stir the pudding. It’s all very wholesome and all very lovely.
Beautiful landscape descriptions run through the book and as always Hardy sees through a wide lens. The gently sloping hills of South West England are painted perfectly.
Throughout the book, Hardy digs deep and brings to the surface the emotional strains of his complex and realistic characters. He has a wonderful way of celebrating what it is to be human and leaves you eager to know what decisions will be made next. This is certainly a page-turner in its own slow-burning way.
David Whyte
Consolations
Hardback £14.99
David Whyte is a poet and philosopher who spent his younger years sheep farming in Northern Wales and writing poems from his caravan.
In Consolations, everyday words are broken down in order to reap the full depth and meaning behind each one. Words we perceive as negative such as Despair and Loneliness are turned on their head encouraging the reader to see what can be born from these difficult mind states.
Whyte blurs the line between positive and negative experience allowing us to see the whole, as opposed to getting lost in the discomfort we often feel.
With endless wisdom and insight he tells us what we already know but is so easily forgotten. He conveys his message in clear language, rolling along with a rhythm only an accomplished poet could achieve.
Consolations is a good book for when we are feeling unwell and in a world where anti depressants are popped like smarties it should be a household must have.
Mary Oliver
New and Selected Poems
Paperback £16.99
If you find poetry a bore, have a go at Mary Oliver before throwing in the towel. Her poems are clear, deep and easy to understand making them a joy to read and accessible to all.
Fixated by the natural world, Mary Oliver soaks up the messages of the wild and feeds them back to us with seemingly effortless grace.
Her relationship with all things natural is at an almost religious pitch and can only have been gained through years and years of observation and fascination.
An innocence and purity flows through her work and a consistent message is always present, no matter what is happening in our human lives, we are part of a system far bigger than we can comprehend and it will continue to surge forward.