October is the perfect time for stories that blur the lines – between day and night, love and loss, real and surreal. From Lily King’s tender look at love in Heart The Lover to Julian Brave NoiseCat’s powerful mix of memoir and history in We Survived The Night, these books dig deep. Strange, smart, and impossible to shake, here’s the ones we’re bookmarking this October.
The Ode To Young Love
Heart The Lover by Lily King
“‘You knew I’d write a book about you someday’. Jordan is a successful author, used to baring her soul on the page. And now she is ready to tell the greatest love story of all, her own story of lost but enduring love. A tender tale of what-might-have-been if her college romance had lasted the course, Heart The Lover is the perfect antidote if you need a break from dark academia.” – Maria Padget, Book Club Director
The Story Of Indigenous Survival
We Survived The Night by Julian Brave NoiseCat
“Julian Brave NoiseCat is an activist, filmmaker and writer, and an enrolled member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’secen in British Columbia. The book takes its name from the Secwepemctsín morning greeting and the acknowledgement that to still be here can never be taken for granted. Bringing the same rigour to the page as he did to his Oscar-nominated documentary Sugarcane about the Canadian Indian residential school system, We Survived The Night interweaves oral history with hard-hitting journalism and a deeply personal father-son journey into a searing portrait of Indigenous survival, love, and resurgence.” – Maria Padget, Book Club Director
The Ultimate Escape
House Of Day, House Of Night by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
“Ghosts, myths, cosmic dreams – Olga Tokarczuk (one of literature’s most original voices and author of Dua’s Monthly Read for January 2025, Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead) has done it again. House Of Day, House Of Night is weird, brilliant, and totally unforgettable. Set in a sleepy Polish village, it’s packed with surreal stories: bird-people, haunted borders, saints, and secrets. Fragmented but full of heart, it’s a constellation of folklore, history, and imagination. You won’t read anything else like it – and I dare you not to love it.” – Samantha de Haas, Creative Production Manager
The Epic Of Love & Family
The Loneliness Of Sonia And Sunny by Kiran Desai
“Kiran Desai won The Booker Prize in 2006 with her last book, The Inheritance Of Loss. Almost 20 years in the making, The Loneliness Of Sonia And Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people, abroad in the United States and at home in India, navigating the many forces that shape their lives: country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it’s a reminder that great art takes time.” – Maria Padget, Book Club Director
The Must-Read Short Story Collection
You Glow In The Dark by Liliana Colanzi, translated by Chris Andrews
“In You Glow In The Dark Liliana Colanzi doesn’t ease you in, she drops you straight into Latin American urban dystopias and eerie futures where Aymara myth collides with sci-fi and horror. These seven stories are fragmented, fearless, and completely original, making you flinch and question reality. It’s a bold, electric collection from a voice you won’t forget in a hurry.” – Samantha de Haas, Creative Production Manager
