Must-Read Books You Haven’t Heard Of chosen by Jenna Smith

/ Claire Fuller / 6 Comments

Read This: Books under the Radar is a weekly post usually written by a guest author – often a friend of mine, someone I’ve met on my writerly travels, or an author I admire. But this time I’m delighted that we have a book blogger on, recommending three books she thinks deserve more recognition. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, please click on the covers and give these hidden gems some love. You can see the full list of books which have been selected, on Bookshop.org, where you can have a browse and buy any that take your fancy. Happy reading!

Read This: Jenna Smith

Jenna Smith a force for books! She runs The Book Taster book clubs – groups online and in person around the country where people gather to discuss books. Who better to choose three books which have gone under the radar. And I’m delighted that I will be her guest author for her online book club on 24th November, where we’ll be discussing The Memory of Animals. Here’s what she has to say about herself:

Jenna has been book blogging under the name @book_club_mumma since 2017 & is the founder of The Book Taster- an online and in person book club community which started in 2019. Jenna hosts one online and two in person book clubs a month whilst facilitating 22 Book and Pudding Clubs across the U.K. Bringing people together in bookish conversation and building a community of readers is Jenna’s passion and drive. A mother to two girls and an excitable black Labrador – Jenna always has a book on the go & never re-reads a book or cracks a spine! 

Find Jenna online at:
www.instagram.com/bookclubmumma
www.instagram.com/thebooktaster
www.thebooktaster.com

Here are her recommendations:

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Discover Alice Peterson’s Favorite Under-Read Books

/ Claire Fuller / 6 Comments

Read This: Books under the Radar is a weekly post written by a guest author – often a friend of mine, someone I’ve met on my writerly travels, or an author I admire – who recommends three books they think deserve more recognition. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, please click on the covers and give these hidden gems some love. You can see the full list of books which have been selected, as well as the author’s latest book on Bookshop.org, where you can have a browse and buy any that take your fancy. Happy reading!

Read This: Alice Peterson

Alice Peterson’s novel, The Saturday Place was selected as the Big Book Club read for Winchester Books Festival in April 2024, and I had the great pleasure of hosting the event where people who had read the book gathered to discuss it with Alice. There were so many things to discuss and Alice was delightful. Keep an eye out on the festival’s website for who we’ve picked for next year’s Big Book Club read. (I’m already excited.) And I’m so pleased that Alice agreed to select three under-read books for Read This. Here’s what she has to say about herself:

I was always ‘Alice the tennis player’. Aged 18, and about to sign a tennis scholarship to America, I experienced pain in my right hand, which developed into severe rheumatoid arthritis – a condition which is incurable. In my early 20s, a friend encouraged me to write my story, hoping it could help me to grieve the loss of my old life. My first book is a memoir about my tennis days and overcoming a harrowing, relentless illness by rebuilding my life as an author. My novels are infused with adversity, love, support, community and friendship. My most recent, The Saturday Place touches on volunteering and homelessness, and how love can heal the most broken of people. Alongside my writing, I am a psychotherapist and counsellor.   
Here are Jane’s recommendations:

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Must-Read Underrated Novels selected by Anna Mazzola

/ Claire Fuller / 7 Comments

Read This: Books under the Radar is a weekly post written by a guest author – often a friend of mine, someone I’ve met on my writerly travels, or an author I admire – who recommends three books they think deserve more recognition. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, please click on the covers and give these hidden gems some love. You can see the full list of books which have been selected, as well as the author’s latest book on Bookshop.org, where you can have a browse and buy any that take your fancy. Happy reading!

Read This: Anna Mazzola

I first met Anna many years ago on a weekend writing retreat in Dorset hosted by my artist / writer friend Emma Scattergood. Anna had won a place and I think she must have been writing her first novel, which was of course picked up by a publisher, and since then she’s gone on to have five very successful novels. I’m so excited to read her next one, Notes on a Drowning. It sounds amazing. Here’s what she has to say about herself:

Anna is the author of five historical crime or Gothic novels. Some of her books have won awards. Some have lost them. Her debut, The Unseeing, won an Edgar Allan Poe award. Her fourth novel, The House of Whispers, won a Fingerprint Award for Best Historical Crime. Her fifth novel, The Book of Secrets, was a Times Historical Novel of the Month. Her first legal thriller, Notes on a Drowning, will be published by Orion in January 2025 under the name Anna Sharpe. When not writing, Anna works as a human rights and criminal justice solicitor acting for survivors of crime. She lives in London, with one husband, two children, a black cat and a snake.

Find Anna online at:
http://annamazzola.com
https://www.facebook.com/AnnaMazzolaWriter/
https://www.instagram.com/annamazzolawriter/ 
Here are her recommendations:

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Join the Arvon Editing Retreat in January 2025

/ Claire Fuller / Leave a comment

I’m delighted that I’ll be back at Arvon in January 2025 teaching Editing Fiction and Non-fiction again.

Are you currently editing a novel or some non-fiction? In January 2025 I’ll be back teaching on an Arvon residential writing week in Shropshire on how to edit fiction and non-fiction, this time alongside fellow writer, Mike Parker. Mike’s books include the bestselling Map Addict, republished last year, On the Red Hill, which was Highly Commended for the Wainwright Prize and won the Wales Book of the Year, and his most recent, All the Wide Border, named by Waterstones as one of the best ten travel works of 2023.

And I’m very excited that our guest author, visiting for an evening discussion is Kit de Waal, author of novels, My Name Is Leon, The Trick to Time, as was short stories.

From a developmental review to the fine detail of the line edit, from comprehensive rewrites to the final polish, using exercises, readings, discussions and tutorials, we’ll share techniques, tips and best practices which will help you hone your voice, clarify your thoughts and transform your writing. Along the way, we’ll talk about the detail of hitting word-editing counts, creating and working with book maps, and how to break down your edit into manageable tasks. You will leave with a better understanding of how to know what needs changing, and how to know when it’s done. Whether you’re already published or just starting out, this course is for anyone with a draft that they want to bring to its best.

The week includes group teaching, workshops, one-to-ones with the tutors, as well as evening activities, accommodation and all meals. This writing week is held at wonderful house called The Hurst set in beautiful and inspirational grounds in Shropshire.

Arvon residential weeks are immersive, energising, and great fun!

More information / to book.

Discover Hidden Reads: Jane Borges’ Picks

/ Claire Fuller / 3 Comments

Read This: Books under the Radar is a weekly post written by a guest author – often a friend of mine, someone I’ve met on my writerly travels, or an author I admire – who recommends three books they think deserve more recognition. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, please click on the covers and give these hidden gems some love.

Read This: Jane Borges

What I hoped for with Read This: Books under the Radar is starting to happen. A previous guest, Susmita Bhattacharya selected Bombay Balchão by Jane Borges, and when Jane saw and liked my post on Instagram, I asked her if she would like to take part and select three books of her own. And here we are! Here’s what she has to say about herself:

Jane Borges is a senior Indian journalist, author and oral historian. In 2022, she won the RedInk Award for Excellence in Indian Journalism. Her debut novel, Bombay Balchão (2019), was shortlisted for the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puruskar instituted by India’s National Academy of Letters, and Atta Galatta Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize. She has also co-authored the non-fiction Mafia Queens of Mumbai: Stories of Women from the Ganglands (2011) with S. Hussain Zaidi. A chapter from the book was adapted into the Bollywood film Gangubai (2022) by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. She is the co-founder of Soboicar, an oral history archive chronicling the lives of Catholics who migrated from the Konkan to Mumbai. She lives in Mumbai. 
Here are Jane’s recommendations:

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Insights from Festival America 2024: Authors and Connections

/ Claire Fuller / 5 Comments

I have just returned from Festival America – a literary festival held in Vincennes on the outskirts of Paris, and what a wonderful, inspiring, energising and creative time it was. I was there talking about my novel Terre Fragile (aka Unsettled Ground) which was published by Editions Stock in France in January.

It’s the eleventh year of Festival America, which happens every two years. And this year for the first time, the festival also invited authors from Europe, bringing our total to 80. France does literary festivals differently to UK festivals. Firstly, French audiences are so engaged and enthusiastic! That’s not to say that UK audiences aren’t, but they are much smaller. Even for the events with authors who might not be today’s ‘literary stars’ (me included), the turn-out was always more than 100. There are no questions from the audience, but after the event the authors sit in the signing tent behind their piles of books, sometimes for up to three hours. (In the UK, books are sold and signed immediately after each event – sometimes in the bookshop; sometimes just outside the event room, and authors aren’t expected to sit behind their books while potential buyers walk past.) What I really love is that authors and books are selected for panels based on a theme, and that means that authors of my level are often sat next to the ‘literary stars’ talking about a particular subject. The picture above was a panel about ‘What use is literature to the world today’, hosted by a bookseller, with me, Colson Whitehead and Stephen Markley (and our amazing interpreters). I’m certain 95% of the audience were there to see Colson, 4% to see Stephen (sorry Stephen) and 1% me – but that meant lots of people bought my books who had never heard of me before, which is a wonderful thing.

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I got to thank Lauren Groff (and give her hug) for her wonderful quote that she gave for Unsettled Ground. I did three separate school events in one day. I got to meet the whole of my Stock publishing family. I met Donal Ryan for the first time, and we talked about silence in fiction with Antoine Wauters. I sat a seat away from Richard Ford in the signing tent (he’s also published by Editions Stock). I love his writing and I introduced myself and well, we mostly talked about the weather in Paris and Missouri. I was on a panel about families with Szilvia Molnar, and I was so interested in what she had to say that I bought her book (in English – Shakespeare and Co had a stall in the signing tent). And then same happened when I talked about ‘On the margins’ with Jakob Guanzon. I saw a dog on the back of a motorbike, wearing glasses. I met Matilde, my French translator who has been translating my books for eleven years, but this was the first time we’d met in person. I bumped into Susan Barker, who was there with her author partner Glen James Brown. (Susan’s brilliant and scary novel, Old Soul will be published by my UK publisher, Penguin Fig Tree next year.) I laughed about with Colm Tóibín – mostly nonsense – and we pulled silly faces for no reason at all.

Sorry – not sorry – for all the name-dropping. It’s exciting meeting your literary heroes (and have them live up to expectations), but it is even more wonderful to meet so many writers who are new to me and discover their books.

Thank you, Festival America, for the invitation, the fun and the hard work.

Overlooked Literary Treasures: Must-Reads by Alice Winn

/ Claire Fuller / 11 Comments

Read This: Books under the Radar is a weekly post written by a guest author – often a friend of mine, someone I’ve met on my writerly travels, or an author I admire – who recommends three books they think deserve more recognition. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, please click on the covers and give these hidden gems some love, or to see the full list and buy from Bookshop.org UK, while supporting independent bookshops, go here.

Read This: Alice Winn

I was sent a proof of Alice Winn’s debut novel, In Memorium, by her UK editor and I instantly loved it. And so did many other people around the world – it went on to win Waterstone’s Novel of the Year and was Sunday Times bestseller. I had the privilege of interviewing Alice at Hay Festival and more recently at Winchester Books Festival, and I can tell you that she is a very nice person, a great interviewee, as well as a wonderful writer. Here’s what she has to say about herself:

Alice Winn is the author of In Memoriam (Viking, 2023), a novel about forbidden love among soldiers in the First World War. She is American and Irish and grew up mostly in England and France. You can find her on Instagram.

Here are Alice’s recommendations:

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Jo Leevers’ Hidden Gem Books: Grown Ups, The Home Corner, The Woman Upstairs

/ Claire Fuller / 7 Comments

Read This: Books under the Radar is a weekly post written by a guest author – often a friend of mine, someone I’ve met on my writerly travels, or an author I admire – who recommends three books they think deserve more recognition. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, please click on the covers or visit Bookshop.org UK to see the full list, and give these hidden gems some love.

Read This: Jo Leevers

I think Jo and I met first when I was teaching on an Arvon creative writing week and she was working on her debut novel. She was of course already a writer and set on a course for success with her fiction too. I’m so delighted that her work is getting recognised and read. Here’s what she has to say about herself:

Jo Leevers has a background in journalism. She was longlisted for the Bath Novel Award in 2020 and her debut novel Tell Me How This Ends was published in 2023. It went on to be a BBC Radio 2 Book Pick and a bestseller and her latest novel, The Last Time I Saw You, is out now. You can find her on Instagram and X (Twitter).

Here are Jo’s recommendations:

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Unveiling Literary Treasures: Three Under-Recognized Book Picks from Barney Norris

/ Claire Fuller / 13 Comments

Read This: Books under the Radar is a weekly post written by a guest author – often a friend of mine, someone I’ve met on my writerly travels, or an author I admire – who recommends three books they think deserve more recognition. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, please click on the covers and give these hidden gems some love.

Read This: Barney Norris

I know Barney Norris as a novelist, but as you’ll see below he is also a theatremaker and if you’re interested in finding out more about his theatremaking skills, his latest play, The Band Back Together, is running at the Arcola Theatre in east London until 28th September. I know him primarily as a wonderful novelist, and I’m pretty sure I was first introduced to him via a Winchester Waterstones bookseller called Bob – who has since retired. I have interviewed Barney about his books and he’s interviewed me. Always enthusiastic and full of life. Here’s what he has to say about herself:

Barney Norris is a writer and theatremaker whose novels include Five Rivers Met On A Wooded Plain and Undercurrent, and whose plays include Visitors, Eventide, Nightfall and The Wellspring. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford, has won many awards for his writing and been translated into ten languages. Undercurrent is available here and you can follow him on X and Insta: @barnontherun.

Here are Barney’s recommendations:

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Clare Mackintosh’s Hidden Gems: Our Holiday, Zina Pavlou, Breaking and Entering

/ Claire Fuller / 12 Comments

Read This: Books under the Radar is a weekly post written by a guest author – often a friend of mine, someone I’ve met on my writerly travels, or an author I admire who recommends three books they think deserve more recognition. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, please click on the covers and give these hidden gems some love.

Read This: Clare Mackintosh

Clare Mackintosh is a writer I hugely admire: not just for her terrific novels (and I am very much looking forward to reading her latest book which is a memoir) but also for her self-promotion. If that seems like a strange thing to admire, let me say that most authors need to get a little better at this – publishers only have so much time and resources so we need to do it ourselves without embarrassment. But Clare isn’t just about pushing her own books; she’s also incredibly supportive of others – one of the reasons why she agreed to give me her choices for Books under the Radar. Here’s a bit more about her:

Clare Mackintosh is the multi-award-winning author of seven novels, including the global bestseller I Let You Go and the critically acclaimed DC Ffion Morgan series. Her books have sold more than two million copies and been translated into 40 languages. Together, they have spent more than 65 weeks in the Sunday Times top ten. In 2024, she released a memoir, I Promise it Won’t Always Hurt Like This, based on her experiences of grief following the death of her son.  

You can find her on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok as @claremackwrites

Here are Clare’s recommendations:

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