Five Books To Get Your Brain Working, fun stuff edition

A bonus recommendation, our monthly playlist, a poem, and more

Interior by Vilhelm Hammershøi, 1890.

Welcome to this month’s Fun Stuff Edition of Five Books For, a newsletter for people who love great stories.

This month has been all about clever thrillers and I hope you’ve found something to enjoy in the recommendations.

For a bonus read, join me over at Great Adaptations where this month I take a look at Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll, a thoughtful, clever thriller which follows the story of Ani, whose traumatic adolescence catches up with her spectacularly in the perfect life she’s built as an adult. Mila Kunis turns in a brilliant performance in the movie - let me know if you’ve read or watched it!

As always for this edition, we have a bonus recommendation, a poem, a playlist and some reading links, all in keeping with this month’s theme of clever thrillers. I hope you’ll find something here to surprise and delight you. If you’re not already subscribed, you can receive this newsletter directly to your inbox by clicking the button below. Everything is free although if you’d like to support the newsletter with a paid subscription, the option is there.

Let’s dive in!

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Bonus recommendation: Something In The Water by Catherine Steadman

“…she told me not to let it make me angry, not to let it break my heart, but to remember that we all lose the things we love the most and how we have to remember that we were lucky to have them at all in the first place.”

So what’s it about? Erin and Mark are on an idyllic honeymoon in Bora Bora when they find the wreckage of a plane crash in the ocean - and amongst the wreckage is a duffle bag full of money and diamonds. They decide to smuggle the loot back to London with them, erasing their tracks from the hotel’s records along the way, and make it safely home. But when they hear that another couple who were at the resort at the same time have been murdered, it seems they might not have gotten away with it after all. Can Erin work out what is going on and who is following her before it’s too late?

What’s great about it? This is a thriller that’s not only clever, but has an almost cinematic appeal, and that combination makes for a great read. It strikes me that this would be the perfect book for Guy Ritchie to adapt - if you’re familiar with his style you'll recognise some of those same elements at play here, including some London gangsters and Erin as a truly gutsy lead. Her work as a documentary maker plays a big role in the story and the way in which she has to figure out the twists and turns is really cleverly done. It has great plotting and lots of suspense to keep you turning the pages and figure out the puzzle as well as a brilliant prologue which grips you from the very beginning.

Give it a try if: you love strong female characters; you love clever thrillers; you love stories set in London; you love stories with a gangster element; you love books with unexpected twists and turns that are well-executed.

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This month’s playlist

All this talk of suspenseful, clever thrillers got me thinking about the kind of soundtrack that might best accompany this type of book. I ended up in a bit of a rabbit hole reading about movie soundtracks and thought that this month I’d share the soundtrack to The Shining, which seems to be regarded as being particularly suspenseful. Now all I need to do is watch the movie too.

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This month’s poem

First Blood

By Ed Hack

Oh, look, she said, that tree’s turned red, and there
it was, leaves red with chill September’s blood,
and here and there as we went on we stared
at red and orange, signs before the flood
of autumn’s gorgeous, bloody fireworks,
as silent as stone’s silence is, out-loud
to ears that hear. This is the autumn’s quirk—
its gorgeous spectacle of change endows
the very leaves with knowledge of the death
of things, that death’s the other half of birth,
and beautiful and heart-breaking. Our breath
will stop. New life will breathe. This is the Earth
as it spins round its star that, too, must die,
as surely as we laugh and birds must fly.  

Source.

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This month’s reading links

The chapel under the House of Commons featured in Apple Tree Yard is in fact real, and has a fascinating history. (Wikipedia, free)

One of my favourite newsletters just turned fifteen! If you don’t already subscribe, take a look -

Shaun Usher

compiles the best letters of note, from the funniest to the most moving via everything in between.

F I F T E E N

We talked quite a bit about Jack Reacher back in July, and here is a great conversation between Lee Child and Richard Osman, author of the Thursday Murder Club series. (The Guardian, free)

On Stanley Kubrick and adapting The Shining. (LitHub, free)

An interview with Catherine Steadman on how her acting career has helped her writing. (Seattle Times, free)

Liv Constantine is in fact two sisters who write together under a single name. This interview dives into their writing process and how they make it work. (Audible blog, free)

This interview with Gillian McAllister explains how Louise Doughty’s Apple Tree Yard was the book that inspired her to start writing. (LAPL, free)

Harlen Coben on how he still suffers from imposter syndrome despite his enormous success. (The Guardian, free)

Blake Crouch talks about Dark Matter. (SciFiNow, free)

If you love suspense fiction, then

PRESENT TENSE: Suspense Fiction and More

is a brilliantly insightful read by Caitlin and Andromeda, two thriller writers who are experts in the field.

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Thanks for reading!

I hope you enjoyed this month’s theme and can’t wait to come back next month with a new one which I hope you’ll love!

In the meantime, let’s chat in the comments, or you can reply to me directly via DM or email. I’ll be back next month with more reading joy.

Happy reading!

Kate

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