FICTION HARDBACKS
Last
weekWeeks in
top 101
Run Rose Run
Dolly Parton and James Patterson
(Century £20)
A young singer-songwriter strives to
escape her dark past and make it in
Nashville (3,650)142
Wild and Wicked Things/Francesca May
(Orbit £12.99) After the First World War, a young
woman is drawn into a world of dark magic (3,420)—13
Vanished/Lynda La Plante
(Zaffre £18.99) Detective Jack Warr investigates the
truth behind an eccentric widow’s wild claims (2,945)—14
Again, Rachel/Marian Keyes
(M Joseph £20) Successful and nearing 50, Rachel
Walsh has her life upended by an old flame (2,515)275
The Man Who Died Twice/Richard Osman
(Viking £18.99) Stolen diamonds worth £20 million
cause chaos for the Thursday Murder Club (2,370)3296
French Braid/Anne Tyler
(Chatto £16.99) The effects of a family holiday taken
in 1959 ripple through the generations (2,055)427
The Match/Harlan Coben
(Century £20) A killer targets a secret community
committed to exposing anonymous online trolls (1,925)538
The Empty Room/Brian McGilloway
(Constable £16.99) A mother wakes one morning to
find her teenage daughter missing after a party (1,695)—19
The Paris Apartment/Lucy Foley
(HarperCollins £14.99) A locked-room mystery set in
an old, elegant apartment building in Paris (1,690)7510
Galatea/Madeline Miller
(Bloomsbury £6.99) A skilled marble sculptor’s statue
brought to life yearns for her independence (1,335)10 5FICTION PAPERBACKS
Last
weekWeeks
in top 101
Better Off Dead
Lee Child and Andrew Child
(Penguin £8.99)
Jack Reacher comes to the aid of an army
veteran searching for her twin brother
(21,945)—12
Three Cheers for the Shipyard Girls/Nancy Revell
(Penguin £7.99) The final book in the series set in
Sunderland during the Second World War (11,660)—13
It Ends With Us/Colleen Hoover
(Simon & Schuster £8.99) A first love’s reappearance
threatens a woman’s present relationship (9,945)3314
The Missing Sister/Lucinda Riley
(Pan £8.99) The six D’Aplièse sisters search the globe
in their mission to complete their family (8,120)135
Klara and the Sun/Kazuo Ishiguro
(Faber £8.99) The tale of a lifelike android bought
to be a companion to an ill teenage girl (7,990)656
Not Dark Yet/Peter Robinson
(Hodder £8.99) A rape caught on video could cast a
double murder in a different light for DCI Banks (7,595)—17
Bridgerton: The Viscount Who Loved Me/Julia Quinn
(Piatkus £8.99) Anthony Bridgerton wants to settle
down after years indulging in rakish pleasures (6,675)—28
Where the Crawdads Sing/Delia Owens
(Corsair £8.99) The coming-of-age tale of a
reclusive girl abandoned by her family (6,600)7599
The Thursday Murder Club/Richard Osman
(Penguin £8.99) Four friends in a retirement village
team up to solve a murder on their doorstep (6,360)94710
Still Life/Sarah Winman
(4th Estate £8.99) Two strangers share an evening in
a Tuscan villa’s ruined wine cellar in 1944 (6,335)85CHILDREN'S
1
Last
week
12
Weeks
in top 10
3Five Little
Easter Bunnies
Martha Mumford and
Sarah Jennings
(Bloomsbury £6.99)
A lift-the-flap adventure
for Easter (7,040)2
Last
week
7
Weeks
in top 10
3Supertato: The Great
Eggscape!
Sue Hendra and
Paul Linnet
(Simon & Schuster £6.99)
A chocolatey Easter
caper (6,900)3
Last
week
18
Weeks
in top 10
4We’re Going
on an Egg Hunt
Martha Mumford and
Laura Hughes
(Bloomsbury £7.99)
Easter bunnies hunt for
Easter eggs (5,160)4
Last
week
19
Weeks
in top 10
1Peter Rabbit: The Great
Big Easter Egg Hunt
Beatrix Potter
(Puffin £6.99) Peter hunts
for Easter eggs after
knocking over a basket
full of them (4,280)5
Last
week
—
Weeks
in top 10
1Little Sticker Dolly
Dressing: Easter
Fiona Watt
(Usborne £5.99)
Dress dolls as they
discover springtime
activities (4,255)been put into proximity with
the queer imagination”. The
case wasn’t about books, but
rather about the library as
moral arbiter.
Smith deals smartly
with serious questions of
“censored” books, from Mein
Kampf to American Dirt, but
also with the iconography of
transgression. She inspects,
for instance, the famous Eve
Arnold portrait of Marilyn
Monroe reading Ulysses in- Had she really been
engrossed in it or was she just
holding it as a prop (“Sex
Goddess Reads Dirty Book”)?
Smith argues that she
deliberately chose to be
snapped with the 1934 US first
edition, which had survived a
famous obscenity trial in 1933.
Since Monroe was reading the
book’s final pages — Molly
Bloom’s eye-poppingly candid
soliloquy — the author
suggests that, for her, “this
specific hardback is a symbol
of sexual and intellectual
liberation”. Perhaps she’s
right, but I’ve always thought
Marilyn just looks blushingly
startled by the words used in
Molly’s memories of her life in
bedroom and bathroom, and
that this photograph should
come with a think bubble
saying “Blimey!”
I like the way Smith
explores the physical qualities
of “bookhood” that snare our
attention and engage our
senses, even when we’re not
reading. She explores the
impact of paper texture,
typeface design, stitched
bindings, dog-eared pages,
cracked spines and the gamut
of book smells (in 2017 some
researchers came up with a
“historic book odour wheel”
whose categories include
“almonds, rotten socks,
smoke, vinegar and musty”).
This fascinating, slyly
amusing book carries an
undertow of personal
affection for the curious,
rectangular, multileaved
objects with which we’re so
familiar. And every reader
will have their own version
of the author’s favourite
possessions: “My battered
large format Asterix comic
books... or my grandmother’s
Edwardian school-prize
poetry book, its spine
repaired by a local bookbinder
EVE ARNOLD/MAGNUM PHOTOS for her eightieth birthday.” cEngrossed Marilyn Monroe
reading Ulysses in 1955
PAPERBACK
OF THE WEEKPowers and Thrones
by Dan Jones
Apollo £12From AD410
to 1527, a
thousand
years race by
in a colourful
narrative
history,
with all the
confidence, bravura and
swift judgments essential to
an overview of such a vast
timespan. Jones explains
the movements of the
period with crystal clarity.
This is now simply the best
popular history of the
Middle Ages there is.
Christopher HartST DIGITAL
FOR MORE PICKS, AND OUR
CHOICE OF THE BEST OF 2022,
GO TO THESUNDAYTIMES.
CO.UK/CULTURE10 April 2022 25