#YourNextBook LIVE! with Brixton Review of Books: Catherine Taylor, Jen Calleja, Lauren Elkin and Yara Rodrigues Fowler Recommend

by Sam Fisher October 22, 2021

During lockdown, we asked you on Twitter to tell us the last book you'd enjoyed, and we got some fantastic guest booksellers to recommend #YourNextBook during some frenetic, inspired online chats. You can read all their recommendations here.

For BFDay21, our 5 1/2th birthday indie lit fest, we decided to try #YourNextBook LIVE. And it rocked – entirely due to our phenomenal panel from Brixton Review of Books, celebrating the launch of their autumn 2021 issue: Catherine Taylor chaired three of this issue's contributors to hear what our audience had been reading and make recommendations for what to read next. To follow how it unfolded live, catch up with our Twitter thread from the event…

#BFDay21 with @BrixtonBooks! Launching the autumn issue with recommendations for #YourNextBook from @KatyaTaylor @niewview @LaurenElkin @yazzarf 💓 pic.twitter.com/KZUR8GPeD5
— Burley Fisher Books (@BurleyFisher) October 15, 2021

Don't forget that you can find copies of Brixton Review of Books in-store! And you can order all the titles below by clicking the links.

What's #YourNextBook if you loved but couldn't finish Middlemarch…

[Burley Fisher recommends Open Pen's novelettes as a palate cleanser & revitalisation via fiction of the perfect length! Includes novelettes by our BFDay21 showcase panellists Bonny Brooks, Sarah Manvel and Morgan Omotoye, and chair Fernando Sdrigotti.]

#YourNextBook panel recommends:

Silas Marner or The Mill on the Floss as alternate George Eliot novels to attempt; or try the short stories – also about love and disappointment – in Duanwad Pimwana's Arid Dreams, translated by Mui Poopokasaeul

What's #YourNextBook if you didn't love Jonathan Coe's Middle England but did love his previous books?

Go back to Jonathan Coe's Number 11 and his first novel What a Carve Up!. For satire from further afield, the panel recommended:

Oldladyvoice, Elisa Victoria, translated by Charlotte Whittle

The Hungry and the Fat, Timur Vermes, translated by Jamie Bulloch

Under the Frog, Tibor Fischer

Death and the Penguin, Andrey Kurkov, translated by George Bird

The Sun on My Head, Giovanni Martin, translated by Julia Sanchez

What's #YourNextBook if you loved the playful, serious hybridity of The Things We've Seen, Agustín Fernándes Mallo, translated by Thomas Bunstead?

The Luminous Novel, Mario Livrero, trans Anne McDermott

Experiments in Imagining Otherwise, Lola Olufemi (order directly from Hajar Press)

Talking to Ourselves, Andrés Neuman, translated by Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia

What's #YourNextBook if you were compelled by the courage and clarity of Ahmet Altan's I Will Never See the World Again: The Memoir of an Imprisoned Writer, translated by Yasemin Çongar

Aftermath, Preti Taneja

Lecture, Mary Cappello (not available in the UK)

Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline, edited by Malu Halasa, Nawara Mahfoud, and Zaher Omareen

Manaschi, Hamid Ismailov

What's #YourNextBook if you were roused and transformed by Gioconda Belli's revolutionary memoir, The Country Under My Skin? [email us to special order]

Slash and Burn, Claudia Hernandez trans Julia Sanchez

Milkman, Anna Burns

Family Lexicon, Natalia Ginzburg, translated by Jenny McPhee