Here are 12 books that The Offing fans have personally recommended if you like
The Offing.
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A beautiful book, written with knowledge and compassion, detailing the astonishing life cycle of the Eskimo Curlew. This was a bird that flew in such huge flocks that a single gunshot would kill 30, and maim more sentencing them to a slower death. It describes their amazing migrations and details their lives as a biography of one male bird. I knew about the mass slaughter of the American bison and total annihilation of the passenger pigeon not knowing about this other species wiped out by hunting in the US in the 1800s and early 1900. A very powerful portrait.
Driven by instinct, the graceful Eskimo curlew flies its nine-thousand-mile route from the Arctic Circle to the tip of South America and back again. Bodsworth conveys the mechanics of this single bird's remarkable flight and its instinctive search for others of its kind. The lone survivor comes to stand for the entirety of a lost species, and indeed for all in nature that is endangered.
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
An exceptional book, beautifully written, atmospheric and brave in the way Brown admits his uncertainties and deficiencies. A moving read by a self-effacing doctor, with humour and perceptive observations of all around him.
Damien Brown thinks he's ready when he arrives for his first posting with Medecins Sans Frontieres in Africa. But the town he's sent to is an isolated outpost of mud huts, surrounded by landmines; the hospital, for which he's to be the only doctor, is filled with malnourished children and conditions he's never seen; and the health workers - Angolan war veterans twice his age who speak no English - walk out on him following an altercation on his first shift.
In the months that follow, Damien confronts these challenges all the while dealing with the social absurdities of living…
My choice of books reflects a lifelong passion for literature and the natural world. I’ve always enjoyed travelling, to cities or more remote locations, learning as much as I can about the people that live there, and my first published article was about a hotel in Mali, photographed by my sister. Ten years later we published our first book, The Foraged Home. With Living Wild we wanted to look more deeply at how people lived, not just where, focussing not only on day-to-day life and their work, but their relationship with the surrounding landscape, asking big questions about our place in the world.
Six-year-old Calvin - along with his stuffed (?) tiger Hobbes - chafes against the ordinariness of his existence and ponders the meaning of life, often while strolling in the woods, or plummeting from a cliff edge in his little red wagon.
I first read Calvin & Hobbes when I was 12. Over the years, this brilliantly illustrated comic strip (which ran from 1985-1995) has only become richer and funnier and more poignant.
Calvin and Hobbesis unquestionably one of the most popular comic strips of all time. The imaginative world of a boy and his real-only-to-him tiger was first syndicated in 1985 and appeared in more than 2,400 newspapers when Bill Watterson retired on January 1, 1996. The entire body of Calvin and Hobbescartoons was originally published in hardcover as a truly noteworthy tribute to this singular cartoon in The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. Available for the first time in paperback, these four full-colour volumes in a sturdy slipcase include all the Calvin and Hobbescartoons that ever appeared in syndication. This is the…
One terrible lie, a desperate measure to save her past, just might destroy her future…
Magnolia Merryweather, a horse breeder, is eager to celebrate Christmas for the first time after the Civil War ended, even as she grows her business. She envisions a calm, prosperous life ahead after the terror…
As a teenager I loved the post-apocalyptic genre, especially John Wyndham and H G Wells, and as a scientist I’ve become increasingly aware of the threats to society, especially from climate change and pandemics. But it seems to me that any collapse will be gradual: yes, the weather will worsen, and the seas will rise; but those won’t happen overnight. We’re unlikely to see a pandemic that kills everyone, but we could well see a train of smaller ones. This is the world of Truth Sister: it’s changed, but we’ve had time to adapt. The books in my list have different takes on how a post-civilisation world might look. Enjoy!
This one’s actually the middle book of Attwood’s Maddaddam trilogy, which deals with the results of “the waterless flood,” a viral pandemic which has wiped out most of civilisation.
The Year of the Flood focuses on the lower classes, which again interests me in terms of the effect on “ordinary” people. There’s a dystopian element here, as Attwood explores the religious sect in which the protagonists find themselves.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments—the second book of the internationally celebrated MaddAddam trilogy, set in the visionary world of Oryx and Crake, is at once a moving tale of lasting friendship and a landmark work of speculative fiction.
The long-feared waterless flood has occurred, altering Earth as we know it and obliterating most human life. Among the survivors are Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, who is barricaded inside a luxurious spa. Amid shadowy, corrupt ruling powers and new, gene-spliced life…
Penned by that rare scientist with a gift for exposition, Otherlands is a tour de force.
Building on a framework of hard data from paleontological study sites around the globe, Halliday paints a picture of each period in Earth’s history since the Ediacarian, more than 500 million years ago.
What forces formed today’s continents, mountain ranges, and oceans? What and who thrived there along the way? What smells, sights, and sounds greeted them each day? Why did some species survive and flourish, while others vanished?
In superb prose, Halliday answers so many questions, yet still leaves us with a sense of wonder. Perhaps most importantly, he shows us our place in Earth’s ever-evolving ecosystem.
I don’t think I’ll ever hike another trail without wondering what lies beneath!
“Immersive . . . bracingly ambitious . . . rewinds the story of life on Earth—from the mammoth steppe of the last Ice Age to the dawn of multicellular creatures over 500 million years ago.”—The Economist
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE • “One of those rare books that’s both deeply informative and daringly imaginative.”—Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Prospect (UK)
The past is past, but it does leave clues, and Thomas Halliday has used cutting-edge science to decipher them more completely than ever before. In…
My choice of books reflects a lifelong passion for literature and the natural world. I’ve always enjoyed travelling, to cities or more remote locations, learning as much as I can about the people that live there, and my first published article was about a hotel in Mali, photographed by my sister. Ten years later we published our first book, The Foraged Home. With Living Wild we wanted to look more deeply at how people lived, not just where, focussing not only on day-to-day life and their work, but their relationship with the surrounding landscape, asking big questions about our place in the world.
At once a voice arose among / The bleak twigs overhead / In a full-hearted evensong / Of joy illimited; / An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, / In blast-beruffled plume, / Had chosen thus to fling his soul / Upon the growing gloom . . .
Hardy’s nature poems deal in darkness and light (but mostly darkness), the changes wrought not only by seasons, but by human activity and our relationship with the natural world.
In The Darkling Thrush, the poet listens to the ‘ecstatic sound’ of the bird, ‘some blessed Hope, whereof he knew / And I was unaware.’ A troubled ending, but, given WWI was just around the corner, a reminder how fragile it all is.
A selection of the writer's greatest nature poetry, selected by Tom Paulin, published in a beautiful new edition by Faber.
At once a voice arose among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom . . .
Pete West, a political columnist, travels to Prague to find a missing diplomat, later found murdered. He attempts to discover more about a cryptic note received from the diplomat and is immediately entangled in the secret Bilderberg Club’s strategy to form a world federation.
My choice of books reflects a lifelong passion for literature and the natural world. I’ve always enjoyed travelling, to cities or more remote locations, learning as much as I can about the people that live there, and my first published article was about a hotel in Mali, photographed by my sister. Ten years later we published our first book, The Foraged Home. With Living Wild we wanted to look more deeply at how people lived, not just where, focussing not only on day-to-day life and their work, but their relationship with the surrounding landscape, asking big questions about our place in the world.
A gorgeous meditation on friendship, the English countryside, art, and beauty.
Two men spend the spring and summer of 1989 creating crop circles in Wiltshire, working during the ‘arcane mystery of the humming night’ to ‘fuel the myth and strive for beauty, yes, but never the reveal the truth’ of their identities. It’s lyrical and life-affirming, yes, but also a warning.
As Calvert, an ex-soldier, remarks: ‘it’s about the land...getting people to learn to love it so that they don’t take it for granted, and then feel compelled to protect it.'
Summer 1989, deep in the English countryside — during a time of mass unemployment, class war, and rebellion . . . .
Over the course of a burning hot summer, two very different men — Calvert, an ex-soldier traumatized by his experience in the Falklands War, and his affable freind Redbone — set out nightly in a decrepit camper van to undertake an extraordinary project.
Under cover of darkness, they traverse the fields of rural England in secret, forming crop circles in elaborate and mysterious patterns, painstakingly avoiding damaging the wheat to yield designs so intricate that their…
I’m from North East England, an area of the UK under-represented in contemporary fiction. I love reading books from authors who grew up in the same area as me, and I enjoy stories that deal with issues relevant to our communities and capture the unique spirit of the people here. My writing is infused with social and political issues. I’m passionate about stories that explore the world around us and how it impacts people, and all these books do that in very different ways.
This brutal, beautiful book with a powerful, authentic northern voice captured my attention. Set in County Durham, the story follows young Traveller John-John after he is released from a young offender’s institution for a violent crime and tries to turn his life around. Despite his good intentions, he is soon caught up in a fight with local drug dealers.
I loved this book because it took an unflinching look at a community not often depicted in contemporary fiction and featured a complex, conflicted character (who loves dogs) who struggles to escape his past.
The book is by an author I admire. He writes gritty, dark northern fiction that focuses on the fringes of society. Originally published by independent presses, he has gone on to be very successful, and as an independent northern author, I would love to emulate that career trajectory.
WINNER OF THE GORDON BURN PRIZE An unflinching portrait of contemporary Traveller culture by the award-winning author of The Gallows Pole John-John wants to escape his past. But the legacy of brutality left by his boxer father, King of the Gypsies, Mac Wisdom, overshadows his life. His new job as an ice cream man should offer freedom, but instead pulls him into the dark recesses of a northern town where his family name is mud. When he attempts to trade prejudice and parole officers for the solace of the rural landscape, Mac's bloody downfall threatens John-John's very survival.
I’m from North East England, an area of the UK under-represented in contemporary fiction. I love reading books from authors who grew up in the same area as me, and I enjoy stories that deal with issues relevant to our communities and capture the unique spirit of the people here. My writing is infused with social and political issues. I’m passionate about stories that explore the world around us and how it impacts people, and all these books do that in very different ways.
I loved Eliza Clark’s debut novel, Boy Parts, and was keen to read her follow-up. Part crime fiction, part social critique, the author shines a light on the popularity of true crime stories and how we deal with tragedy in our communities. She also weaves the online world into her writing in a way that will be relatable to anyone (like me) who spends too much time on the internet and social media.
She has an original voice that reflects her relationship with North East England. Not many writers from this area make it into publishing, so I seek out the work of those who do, especially if they write northern stories.
A Guardian Best Book of the Year A Dazed Best Novel of 2023
'An unmissable banger.' ALICE SLATER 'A meta-meditation on the mysteries, malice, and minutiae of adolescence.' TOM BENN 'You've never read anything like this.' JULIA ARMFIELD
Do you know what happened already? Did you know her? Did you see it on the internet? Did you listen to a podcast? Did the hosts make jokes?
Did you see the pictures of the body?
Did you look for them?
It's been nearly a decade since the horrifying murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson rocked the small seaside town of Crow-on-Sea. Based…
I’m from North East England, an area of the UK under-represented in contemporary fiction. I love reading books from authors who grew up in the same area as me, and I enjoy stories that deal with issues relevant to our communities and capture the unique spirit of the people here. My writing is infused with social and political issues. I’m passionate about stories that explore the world around us and how it impacts people, and all these books do that in very different ways.
Written by a disabled, northern author, this magical middle-grade novel has such a warm, compassionate voice, and I loved how it reflected the story’s locations, which are inspired by real places in North East England.
The story is full of magic and features a cast of disabled children who live in a lighthouse by the sea and get caught up in an adventure. I think it’s important for all kids to see themselves in fiction, and this book does a wonderful job of improving disability representation.
Although it’s aimed at children, there’s plenty for adults to enjoy, and I thought this was a beautiful book full of illustrations by a local artist, which helped me to picture the characters and setting.
"A charming tale of found families and mermaids, with my favourite kind of hero at its heart" - Elle McNicoll, award-winning author of A Kind of Spark
A stunning literary adventure from an incredible debut talent, perfect for fans of Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Cerrie Burnell and Katherine Rundell.
I was Haven Point's first Wreckling, but I certainly wasn't the last. There are forty-two of us now, not including the mermaids. When you're a Wreckling, you mainly spend your days squabbling, eating and planning adventures. Oh, and Wrecklings also carry out wreckings, which is how we got our name . .…
