Five Books For When You Need An (Anti) Hero, fun stuff edition
A bonus recommendation, a links roundup, our monthly theme tune, a poem, and more
Welcome to this month’s Fun Stuff Edition of Five Books For, a newsletter for people who love great stories.
Over at Global Comment, in this month’s Great Adaptations I take a look at my new favourite TV show, Rivals, based on the Jilly Cooper book of the same name. Have you seen it yet? Have you read the book? I think it’s the most exuberantly fun book adaptation I’ve ever seen and I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on it.
As always for this edition of the newsletter, we have a bonus recommendation, a poem, a playlist and some reading links, all in keeping with this month’s theme of antiheroes. I hope you’ll find something here to surprise and delight you. If you aren’t already subscribed, then you can sign up here to receive these newsletters directly in your inbox. The newsletter is free but if you would like to support it with a paid subscription that option is also available. If you don’t have the funds for a paid subscription at the moment but would like to leave a tip instead, the button below will allow you to send an amount of your choosing as a one-off payment.
Let’s dive in!
Bonus recommendation: Butcher And Blackbird by Brynne Weaver
“He knows my darkest secrets. I know his. We can be monsters, and maybe we don’t deserve the same things that other people do. Happiness. Affection. Love. But I can’t seem to stop the way I feel when I look at every facet of Rowan, from his brightest light to his deepest, most dangerous dark. Maybe I don’t deserve it for the things I’ve done. But I want it.”
So what’s it about? If you feel like a change from the usual kind of romcom then the story of Sloane and Rowan, two rival serial killers, might just be the thing. They each specialise in murdering other serial killers and when their paths cross (in an upending of the usual romcom meet-cute), they decide to have a competition each year to hunt a new target. The competition brings them together in ways that neither of them expected, but will they be able to make a life together, or will their sins catch up with them first?
What’s great about it? The premise here is fun, if gruesome (and Weaver spares no detail in her descriptions, so there’s lots of graphic violence - another departure from genre tradition) and both Rowan and Sloane are likeable despite the fact that they’re serial killers - you can’t help but wish for them to have a happy ending. Their friendships and the supporting cast of characters are also compelling and the relationship between them is convincing, possibly helped by the fact that it’s such a slow burn. There’s also a real sense of fun in this book, almost tongue-in-cheek at points, which makes it a real pleasure to read, and various plots twists that set up the next two books in the trilogy.
Give it a try if: you love romcoms; if you liked Dexter; if you like characters who do awful things for good reasons; you like books with strong friend and family relationships; you like books where the characters must compete with each other.
Honourable Mentions
George Macdonald Fraser’s Flashman is surely one of the original antiheroes, and certainly one of the funniest. I cover him in last year’s post on funny books:
Harlan Coben writes some of the best mystery thrillers around, and my favourite character of his is Windsor Horne Lockwood III, known as Win to his friends. Win finally got his own book a few years ago and I think it’s my favourite of Coben’s. The full recommendation can be found in Five Books To Get Your Brain Working, below.
This month’s theme tune
What better song could represent this month’s books than Anti-hero by Taylor Swift? So much so in fact that I thought this month I’d share a theme tune instead of a playlist. Whatever you think of her music, Taylor Swift’s videos are some of the most creative and interesting out there, and this one is one of the best (and most darkly funny) of them. Enjoy!
This month’s poem
To Face The Dark
By Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
To face the dark, one does not need a light. Nor does one need a watch, a feather, a melody, a sword, a pen. One doesn’t even need a friend. To face the dark, one needs only to face the dark. There is something easier then about the facing, when we know we need no preparation. Nothing is asked of us except the willingness to face the dark, the willingness to pause in that moment when we cannot see, cannot know, cannot float on the sea of habit, cannot fly on the feathers of routine. But already, I’ve taken this too far. It’s so simple, the invitation, that it’s easy to miss what is asked. Not a journey. Not even a step. Just the chance to face the dark, to meet yourself in that facing— and to notice what being erased and what’s doing the erasing.
Found via my favourite poetry Substack here:
This month’s reading links
On Napoleon, a real-life antihero, and whether he was really a monster. (BBC, free)
On some of the greatest TV antiheroes: Tony Soprano (forever my favourite) and various others. Reading this made me wonder whether the preoccupation with superheroes in the cinema over the past couple of decades has driven the rise of more interesting and nuanced antiheroes in television. (LitHub, free)
Mary Harron, the writer and director of the American Psycho movie, adapted from Bret Easton Ellis’ book of the same name, wrote this fascinating piece for the LRB where she discusses how she approached adapting such a violent and controversial book - and especially Patrick Bateman, lead character and antihero of the story. I tried to read the book some years ago but had to stop as the violence was just too much for me, and similarly, I didn’t make it past the first few minutes of the movie because of the animal cruelty, but I really enjoyed reading about how it was made. (LRB, free)
Poets respond to Taylor Swift’s work. (LitHub, free)
For those of you who are more in the mood for listening this month:
Beloved Thursday Murder Club author Richard Osman discusses the new adaptation of Rivals with co-host Marina Hyde on The Rest Is Entertainment:
An interview with Mick Herron on the BBC Radio 4 Bookclub:
Kirstin Chen discusses Counterfeit on the Pop Fiction Women podcast:
An interview with Gillian Flynne, author of Gone Girl:
Thanks for reading!
As always, I’m grateful to each and every one of you who subscribes, free or paid. I know we all have such crowded inboxes these days and I feel so lucky to be sharing the joys of reading with you like this. I would love to hear from you - what have you been reading recently? Have you read or watched any of the books I've covered this month? Let me know in the comments. I’ll be back next month with a new theme and more reading joy.
Happy reading!
Kate
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