Andy Miller Recommends #YourNextBook
By Burley Fisher Books
Andy Miller Recommends #YourNextBook
By Burley Fisher Books
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. And now we're doing it again, with one final guest star to see out 2020 with a bookselling bang…
Who better than Andy Miller, author of The Year of Reading Dangerously: How 50 Great Books Saved My Life, contributor to 2020's ultimate gift book The Gifts of Reading, and host of Backlisted, to recommend #YourNextBook?
Over on Twitter 🐦@burleyfisher Friday 4 December, 2-3 pm, Andy showed us how a professional bookseller does it with these incredible recommendations. Check the annotations to see which books people had been reading & why Andy recommended the title he chose as #YourNextBook.
I Used to Be Charming: The Rest of Eve Babitz
Molly Lambert and Eve Babitz
£17.99 £17.09If you liked Woman in Black Andy says "a collection of her 70s and 80s pieces, she is just the most laid-back but somehow sharp prose stylist around. So funny and stylish."
Everything Flows
Vasily Grossman
£9.99 £9.49If you liked Quiet Flows the Don Andy says: "not just the Don, quietly"
The Housing Lark
Sam Selvon
£8.99 £8.54If you liked Nine Stories (Salinger) Andy says "a short-yet-rich book, brimful of humour and character. I think you'd enjoy it"
The Complete Short Stories of Saki
Saki
£10.99 £10.44If you liked J G Ballard's Collected Short Stories Andy says "When did you last read Saki? More elegant than Ballard but no less bleak, funny or intellectual."
I’ll Sell You a Dog
Juan Pablo Villalobos
£10.00 £9.50If you liked Flames Andy says "Mexico City has never been so hilariously unappealing. Really good novel and not really like any book by anyone other than Juan Pablo Villalobos."
The Orchard on Fire
Shena Mackay
£9.99 £9.49If you liked Beyond Black Andy says "I recommend the queen of suburbia Shena Mackay, probably starting with The Orchard on Fire - similarly funny/bleak/shoppingprecinct"
Angel: A Virago Modern Classic
Elizabeth Taylor
£9.99 £9.49If you liked Silver on the Tree Andy says "by the third goddess, Elizabeth Taylor"
The Corner That Held Them
Sylvia Townsend Warner
£8.99If you liked The Blue Flower Andy says: "Another masterpiece of the historical novel by an incredibly intelligent and waspish writer. Warning: contains olde pandemic."
Something in Disguise
Elizabeth Jane Howard
£9.99 £9.49If you liked The Friend Andy says "Whatever I thought it was going to be it wasn't, in the most surprising way."
The Bookshop
Penelope Fitzgerald
£8.99 £8.54If you liked A la recherche de temps perdu Andy says "An amazing reading experience"
The Blue Fox: Winner of the Swedish Academy's Nordic Prize 2023
Sjon
£8.99 £8.54If you liked There There Andy says: "A very short novel with an entire country (Iceland) packed into it'
The Unfortunates
B S Johnson
£20.00 £19.00If you liked Steppenwolf Andy says "how to follow up one unclassifiable book? With another one of course!"
Cold Hand in Mine
Robert Aickman
£9.99 £9.49If you liked War in Heaven Andy says "For something intellectual, fantastic but also really quite disturbing"
I Wanna Be Yours
John Cooper Clarke
£20.00 £19.00If you liked The Dry Heart Andy says: As I suspect JCC is well aware, there is something epigrammatic and quotable ON EVERY SINGLE PAGE.
The Watch Tower
Elizabeth Harrower
£8.99 £8.54The Great Believers Andy says "horribly convincing and deeply moving"
Sacred Hunger
Barry Unsworth
£12.99 £12.34If you liked Now We Shall Be Entirely Free Andy says: Have you ever read Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth? It seems to have drifted out of public consciousness but NWSBEF reminded me of it - attention to historical detail but ruthlessly selective at the same time."
Under the Volcano
Malcolm Lowry
£9.99 £9.49If you liked Xstabeth Andy says: "David Keenan would want me to say - and I always agree with him - Under the Volcano, even if you have read it before. Every reading of that novel is prep for the next time."
Lunch Poems: 50th Anniversary Edition
Frank O'Hara
£12.99 £12.34If you liked Angle of Repose Andy says "a little book one can never really finish"
Train Dreams
Denis Johnson
£8.99If you liked A Year in the Country Andy says "a) short, b) accessible and c) beautiful."
Follow us on Insta @burleyfisher to find out our Book of the Year for 2020!