{"title":"Novel's recent reads","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"dont-laugh-at-other-peoples-sex-lives-by-naokora-yamazaki-author-polly-barton-translator","title":"Don't Laugh at Other People's Sex Lives by Naokora Yamazaki (author), Polly Barton (translator)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eArt student Isogai first models for one of his tutors, the much older Yuri, then begins a passionate affair with her. As he gets to know her better, he struggles to understand his own emotions and his place in the world, just as he yearns to be closer to her and for her to share more of herself with him.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Novel Sheffield","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57246438752633,"sku":null,"price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0727\/0721\/1547\/files\/9781917092357.webp?v=1778500439"},{"product_id":"chasing-aliens-faith-and-conspiracy-in-the-ufo-heartlands-by-daniel-lavelle","title":"Chasing Aliens Faith and Conspiracy in the UFO Heartlands, by Daniel Lavelle","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eARE WE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE? Daniel Lavelle sets out on a wild road trip through the UFO heartlands to find out.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'So interesting and beautifully written' JON RONSON\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'A hugely entertaining, gonzo-style examination of UFOs, ufology and ufologists' NICK POPE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Echoes the documentaries with which Louis Theroux made his name'\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eDAILY TELEGRAPH\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Lavelle mixes sardonic wit with genuine curiosity . . . he hears about secrets that should never be made public\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan\u003e' \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eINDEPENDENT,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eNON-FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe US government has been investigating unidentified aerial phenomena in a secret division of the Department of Defence. A former intelligence official urged the US to disclose evidence of UFOs after saying the government possesses 'intact and partially intact' alien vehicles. And what about those sightings of Tic Tac, Gimbal, Go Fast and the infamous Oumuamua?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDanny Lavelle, our charming, borderline-bewildered investigator, sets out on a road trip through America's UFO heartlands to get some answers (thankfully 41% of Americans believe aliens have made contact so he has plenty of sources to choose from). Talking to those in the know in government and the UFO scene - often the same thing - Danny follows Lue Elizondo, Jeremy Corbell, attends sky watches (sometimes falling asleep in the desert), listens to alien abductees and has coffee with Starseeds (human beings who claim to be \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eactual\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003ealiens).\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhether he's smoking weed whilst holding dumortierite crystals to access his interdimensional past, or discussing 'space beads' with the Harvard astrophysicist who's convinced he's found evidence of alien life, Danny's journey becomes a deeper story about our unshakeable fascination with little green men - and our deepest wishes not to be alone in the universe.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEncountering a fair amount of religiosity, conspiratorial thinking and magical thinking, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eChasing Aliens\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is a wild journey into the soul of America - where aliens are as American as George Washington and warm apple pie. This is a book for anyone interested in our (possible) neighbours in the universe, and our ongoing search for meaning and answers to life's great mysteries, trapped as we are in the uncertainty of our short, mortal lives.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Hilarious, humane and quietly devastating' ELIOT HIGGINS\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Enthusiasm, deft writing and an attention to the strange, fascinating details of ordinary lives'\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eDAILY TELEGRAPH\u003c\/i\u003e, BOOKS TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2026\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Novel Sheffield","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57326384447865,"sku":null,"price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0727\/0721\/1547\/files\/9780241744024.webp?v=1779634502"},{"product_id":"what-am-i-a-deer-by-polly-barton","title":"What Am I, a Deer? by Polly Barton","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhat does it mean to lose yourself - and is that something you should be aiming for? \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA young woman with little interest in games takes up a job in Frankfurt at a famous gaming company, naively set on reinvention. On her morning commute, in the familiar clutches of tedium and self-loathing, she encounters a nice-eyed stranger who returns her forgotten umbrella and finds herself catapulted into a dizzying, year-long whirlwind of obsession - not just with this endlessly attractive spectre, but also with the feverish karaoke trips from which she draws the ultimate solace. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWith astonishing existential acuity, Polly Barton's formidable debut novel renders the paradoxes of modern life in all its complexity, in deliriously self-conscious prose that is at once propulsive, titillating and bitingly funny. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEchoing with the sounds of Whitney Houston and The Cure, reaching for the sublime in dark, sweaty boxes, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eWhat Am I, A Deer?\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is an exhilarating exploration of authenticity, fantasy, romance and intoxication. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Novel Sheffield","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57335902929273,"sku":null,"price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0727\/0721\/1547\/files\/9781804272176.webp?v=1779881787"},{"product_id":"you-are-the-fuhrers-unrequited-love-by-jean-noel-orengo-author-david-watson-translator","title":"You Are the Führer's Unrequited Love by Jean-Noël Orengo (author), David Watson (translator)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn electrifying novel about the Nazi who reinvented himself, Albert Speer\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Which is the most seductive, truth or fiction?'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThis is the story of Albert Speer: The protégé. The 'good Nazi'. The star. The mythmaker.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn 1969 Speer, Hitler's favourite architect and Minister of Armaments and War Production, publishes his memoirs. Rewriting his own past, claiming to have known nothing about the Final Solution, he declares himself 'collectively responsible, but not individually guilty'.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIt is one of the greatest lies in history.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eJean-Noël Orengo's electrifying novel is the story of a man who saved his skin through the countless fictions he created about himself. A man with a talent for survival, who dazzled those around him with his monuments to power and then, escaping death, reinvented himself as a bestselling author. A man once described as the Führer's unrequited love.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIt is a story of power and ambition, self-interest and self-deceit - and what happens in a war over the truth.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Novel Sheffield","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57335912071545,"sku":null,"price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0727\/0721\/1547\/files\/9780241745694.webp?v=1779881876"},{"product_id":"heart-the-lover-by-lily-king","title":"Heart the Lover by Lily King","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eSHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2026\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAN INSTANT\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eBESTSELLER\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eSUNDAY TIMES\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eBESTSELLER\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e'Touching, thoughtful, a deeply affecting love story about time and regret'\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eDAVID NICHOLLS\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e'Steeped in yearning, melancholy and the reckoning with mortality that must come to us all . . . King's writing still pierces you' \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e'Exploring how first love shapes a lifetime, here is a novel of piercing clarity' \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eIndependent\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e'Beautifully written . . . I was hooked from the first page' \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eDaily Mail\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOur narrator understands good love stories - their secrets, their highs and free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the rules.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShe was in her senior year of college when star students Sam and Yash swept her into an intoxicating world of academic fervour, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games. Their lives became quickly intertwined - with friendship but also with unpredictable passions and the intimations of first love.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDecades later, she is a successful writer, living a comfortable life with her husband and children, when a surprise visit brings the past crashing into the present, forcing her to confront the decisions and deceptions of her youth.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Novel Sheffield","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57335923081593,"sku":null,"price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0727\/0721\/1547\/files\/9781837265527.webp?v=1779881977"},{"product_id":"the-observable-universe-by-heather-mccalden","title":"The Observable Universe by Heather McCalden","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e‘A gifted writer’s brilliantly innovative approach to autobiographical non-fiction, syncing a narrative of profoundly personal emotion with the invention and evolution of today’s cyberspace.’\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e— \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003eWilliam Gibson, author of Neuromancer\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAre we ever truly lost in the internet age?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Observable Universe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is a moving, genre-defying memoir of a woman reckoning with the loss of her parents, the virus that took them, and what it means to search for meaning in a hyperconnected world.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen she was a child, Heather McCalden lost her parents to AIDS. She was seven when her father died and ten when she lost her mother. Growing up in Los Angeles in the 1990s, her personal devastation was mirrored by a city that was ground zero for the virus and its destruction. Years later, after becoming a writer and an artist, she begins to research the mysterious parallels between the histories of AIDS and the internet. She questions what it means to ‘go viral’ in an era of explosive biological and virtual contagion and simultaneously finds her own past seeping into her investigation. While connecting her disparate strands of research – images, fragments of scientific thought, musings on Raymond Chandler and late-night Netflix binges – she makes an unexpected discovery about what happened to her family and who her parents might have been.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEntwining an intensely personal search with a history of viral culture and an ode to Los Angeles, The Observable Universe is a prismatic account of loss calibrated precisely to our existence in a post-pandemic, post-internet life.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Novel Sheffield","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57336348017017,"sku":null,"price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0727\/0721\/1547\/files\/9781804270141.webp?v=1779886789"},{"product_id":"mother-naked-by-glen-james-brown","title":"Mother Naked by Glen James Brown","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe City of Durham, 1434. Out of a storm, an aging minstrel arrives at the cathedral to entertain the city's most powerful men. Mother Naked is his name, and the story he's come to tell is the Legend of the Fell Wraith: the gruesome 'walking ghost' some say slaughtered the nearby village of Segerston forty years earlier.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut is this monster only a myth, born from the dim minds of toiling peasants? Or does the Wraith - and the murders - have roots in real events suffered by those fated to a lifetime of labour?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs Mother Naked weaves the strands of the mystery - of class, religion, art and ale - the chilling truth might be closer to his privileged audience than they could ever imagine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTaking its inspiration from a single payment entered into Durham's Cathedral rolls, 'Modyr Nakett' was the lowest-paid performer in over 200 years of records. Set against the traumatic shadow of the Black Death and the Peasant's Revolt, Mother Naked speaks back from the margins, in a fury of imaginative recuperation.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Novel Sheffield","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57336356405625,"sku":null,"price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0727\/0721\/1547\/files\/9781913512484.webp?v=1779886914"},{"product_id":"four-questions-about-violence-insights-from-a-forensic-psychiatrist-by-gwen-adshead","title":"Four Questions About Violence Insights from a Forensic Psychiatrist by Gwen Adshead","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIs violence normal?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAren't they all evil?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDoes trauma cause violence?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd can we change violent minds?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFor Dr Gwen Adshead, these are the most common questions she is asked about her work as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist in secure hospitals and prisons. Her answers are drawn from over thirty years of working with violent perpetrators and the insights she has gained from listening to the stories of those who have committed brutal acts.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDr Adshead pays attention to an aspect of humanity we often find hard to comprehend and invites us to do the same as she considers the motivations, the risk factors, the social roots of violence as well as the rehabilitation of offenders. Compassion is central to her approach as she delves into the development of the mind and deepens our understanding of the human capacity for cruelty but also for change. Expanding on her galvanising 2024 Reith Lectures and including a new essay on good mental health, this is a potent, humane and transformative read.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Novel Sheffield","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57336373281145,"sku":null,"price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0727\/0721\/1547\/files\/9780571395095.webp?v=1779887100"}],"url":"https:\/\/novelsheffield.com\/collections\/kate-and-joes-favourite-books.oembed","provider":"Novel Sheffield","version":"1.0","type":"link"}