Guest Bookseller: #YourNextBook, Recommended by Max Porter
Way back in March when we were biking books around E8, some of our favourite writers and publishers stepped up as guest booksellers on Twitter, making recommendations for #YourNextBook based on something you'd recently read and loved.
Max Porter (Lanny, Grief Is the Thing With Feathers) brought his insatiable knowledge of literally everything about books to a wild, unstoppable Twitter thread that I'll unroll here. Click on the titles to check out & buy!
All the great reads you shared are listed alphabetically by title, with the follow-up recommendations from Max. All quotations are 100% genuine Porter gold.
And you can browse the whole Guest Bookseller collection here.
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If you liked: A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys [out of print, boo!]
Max recommends: The Magic Door by Chris Torrance
"Beautifully republished by Prototype"
If you liked: All Our Yesterdays by Natalia Ginzburg [out of print, boo!]
Max recommends: Sea Monsters by Chloe Aridjis, A Legacy by Sybille Bedford, A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor, and Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles
If you liked: Animalia by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo
Max recommends: The Ancient Woods of Helford River by Oliver Rackham
"oh so good and wise and fascinating"
If you liked: Another Planet: A Teenager in Suburbia by Tracey Thorn
Max recommends: This Book Will Change Your Mind about Mental Health by Nathan Filer
"Wonderful"
If you liked: Artful by Ali Smith
Max recommends: Surge by Jay Bernard
"best book of last year (2019)"
If you liked: At the Source by Gillian Clarke
Max recommends: Erato by Deryn Rees-Jones
If you liked: Bento's Sketchbook by John Berger
Max recommends: The Quarry: Essays by Susan Howe
If you liked: Charlotte by David Foenkinos
Max recommends: Now, Now, Louison by Jean Frémon
If you liked: Circe by Madeline Miller
Max recommends: The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason
If you liked: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
Max recommends: Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromo Kawakami
"Gorgeous book"
If you liked: Darkling by Laura Beatty
Max recommends: Lost Property by Laura Beatty
"strange and brilliant"
If you liked: Death in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda
Max recommends: Time Song: Searching for Doggerland by Julia Blackburn
If you liked: Everything Under by Daisy Johnson
Max recommends: Sisters by Daisy Johnson
"🔥"
If you liked: Flesh and Blood by Michael Cunningham
Max recommends: Cleanness by Garth Greenwell
"A masterpiece. One of the greatest prose stylists alive."
If you liked: Folk by Zoe Gilbert
Max recommends: Strandloper by Alan Garner
"My favourite of his. A visionary whack about the head."
If you liked: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Max recommends: The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell
"complex clever big book big ideas"
If you liked: Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys
Max recommends: Independent People by Halldór Laxness
"A mighty mighty work of art, will keep your busy for a few days"
If you liked: Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh
Max recommends: Murmur by Will Eaves
"next level literary artistry"
If you liked: Homie by Danez Smith
Max recommends: The Tradition by Jericho Brown
If you liked: House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe
Max recommends: Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
If you liked: How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee
Max recommends: Recollections of My Non Existence by Rebecca Solnit
If you liked: Hunger by Knut Hamsun
Max recommends: The Bandini Quartet by John Fante
If you liked: Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor
Max recommends: The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijnveld
"staggeringly well translated by Michele Hutchinson"
If you liked: In the Wake: On Blackness and Being by Christina Sharpe
Max recommends: The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping by Samantha Harvey
If you liked: In the Fold by Rachel Cusk
Max recommends: Permission by Saskia Vogel
If you liked: Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi
Max recommends: In Praise of Older Women by Stephen Vizinczey [out of print, boo!]
If you liked: Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin
Max recommends: Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
If you liked: Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector
Max recommends: There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill her Neighbour's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
If you liked: Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry
Max recommends: The Wild Laughter by Caoilinn Hughes
"Some positively Barryish energy"
Max also recommends: City of Bohane by Kevin Barry
"Gangster reggae Irish dystopia knife fight bliss"
If you liked: On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Max recommends: Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
"For 'how does anyone write that well?' feelings."
If you liked: Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Díaz
Max recommends: Untold Night and Day by Bae Suah
If you liked: Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
Max recommends: How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang
If you liked: Rendang by Will Harris
Max recommends: Mixed-Race Superman by Will Harris
"Masterful"
If you liked: Salt Slow by Julia Armfield
Max recommends: Sudden Traveller by Sarah Hall
"Exquisite"
If you liked: The Beauty of the Husband by Anne Carson
"Ooooof, what a book"
Max recommends: Vertigo & Ghost by Fiona Benson
If you liked: The Cross of Redemption by James Baldwin [only available in the US]
Max recommends: Known and Strange Things by Teju Cole
"Magnificent. Very good on Baldwin"
If you liked: The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld
Max recommends: The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas
"Possibly my favourite novel."
If you liked: The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas
Max recommends: Pedro Páramo by Juan Rolfo
If you liked: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
Max recommends: Fracture by Andres Newman
If you liked: The Other Name: Septology I-II by Jon Fosse
Max recommends: The Years by Annie Ernaux
"Flawless."
If you liked: The Overstory by Richard Powers
Max recommends: Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield
"great engaging addicting distraction reading"
If you liked: The Power by Naomi Alderman
Max recommends: A Good Enough Mother by Bev Thomas
If you liked: The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Max recommends: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
If you liked: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Max recommends: The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
"A classic"
If you liked: Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
Max recommends: The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus
"Blends headfuckery with tenderness in a really good way."
