A shop-front round-up of book recommendations from Wales – with Alexia Wdowski at The Bookshop by the Sea.
Good morning book lovers. 2025 is here and spring is springing. I saw yellow daffodils today and the sun is shining on the frosty grasses. I am lucky enough to work as Store Manager in a lovely indie bookshop, The Bookshop by the Sea, in Aberystwyth, and at the moment the aforementioned sea is blue and shimmering.
It feels apt to pluck out of the fertile earth a shiny selection of books, and share my recommendations for new and recently published titles. These are books our bookshop team and customers have loved in 2024, or are especially looking forward to reading in 2025, and span genres from historical fiction to crime to poetry. Join us in opening some new pages and spring into reading action!
This was a personal favourite from 2024, a sublime and tender story in the style of Clare Keegan where we as a society are asked to account for our actions through the characters’ choices. Welsh author Carys Davies brings her knowledge of landscape and language to this lonely island tale set in 19th century Scotland where an impoverished minister leaves his wife behind to take the strange job of clearing the last inhabitants of a remote island – one man, his horse Pegi and some sheep. The man, Ivor, is the last speaker of the Norn language and cannot understand the English-speaking man who washes ashore. The clearing, of course, does not go according to plan, and the result is a perfectly formed meditation on morality, love, language and belonging, set within richly described windswept landscapes.
There’s something not quite right in the village. The disgraced Henry Talbot takes a position as doctor in a remote Welsh village where he discovers the last doctor died under mysterious circumstances. This novel has it all, occult books, superstition, a mysterious death, and an unlikely ally in the lady of the isolated creepy manor. This historical gothic thriller is now out in paperback and is a perfect read for fans of books like The Essex Serpent by Sarah Parry. A well-plotted page turner, this atmospheric novel will delight lovers of magic, history and mythology. Secrets abound.
A slender yet complex book made up of powerful vignettes, this one has made waves across Europe, winning prestigious literary Prizes both in Poland, and in the author’s native Slovakia. The English translation is being published by Cardigan-based Parthian Books, and like My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell, it explores themes of sexual abuse and grooming and the psychological consequences of a predatory relationship between a teacher and a student. Translated by award-winning husband and wife team Julia and Peter Sherwood, the nuanced language, often surreal and grotesque, explores themes of paedophilia, power and desire.
In April 2019, 74-year-old retired photography lecturer Gerald Corrigan was murdered with a crossbow on Ynys Môn in a senseless crime which sent shock waves throughout the community. At the time, local BBC Journalist Sion Tecwyn covered the case which grew into North Wales’ biggest manhunt. Written with Meic Parry, an award-winning audio producer and sound engineer from Llandwrog, North West Wales, Murder on Ynys Môn grew out of his BBC Sounds podcast ‘The Crossbow Killer’. A fascinating look at the darker sides of human nature in rural landscapes, Murder on Ynys Môn is a must for true crime fans, full of new content and insight from an experienced journalist who followed the case from its start.
A self-help book for people who don’t read self-help books. This book promises you it will be the only book on productivity that leaves you doing less and feeling better for it. An ex-Aberystwyth University student, Youtube video essayist and author Leena Norms has written an unlikely call to inaction where the insidious demands of modern digital life are called out for being actually impossible, and it reminds us to create a life where we can focus on the important, like our ethics, our projects, or our planet, and half-arse the rest guilt-free. It is divided into chapters exploring areas like home, career, body and choices, and is astute, politically informed and packed full of hilariously rubbish diagrams and witty observations on the tangled ethics and desires of modern life.
Bethany Handley is a Welsh writer, poet, and Disabled activist who advocates for Disability rights and access to nature. In 2024, she was named to the Shaw Trust Disability Power 100 list, recognized as one of the 10 most influential Disabled people in politics, law, and media, as well as one of the 100 most influential Disabled people in the UK.
Her debut poetry pamphlet, Cling Film, takes readers on a journey through her experience of living in a society designed for the non-disabled. It explores the daily intrusions and frustrations that wrap the world in an invisible layer of cling film—cloying plastic that separates and dehumanizes her. The poems capture her anger at a world that consistently impedes her ability to live fully, while also celebrate her joy, dignity, and agency in realizing that it is the ableist society, not her body, that disables her. These poems are witty, political, funny, and sharp, their playful use of form moving freely across the page.
A previous Hay Festival Writer at Work, one of The Observer‘s 10 Debut Authors to Watch in 2025 and of course a contributor to Issue 001 of Folding Rock, we can’t wait to see Anthony’s debut out in the world at last. Read our review here!
Another of our brilliant contributors, and the latest offering from the bestselling author of Submarine. This time it’s memoir… and we’re itching to read it.
Celebrating 60 wonderful years of Poetry Wales, this special issue contains the work of no fewer than 60 New Welsh poets. Amazing.
Beyond / Tu Hwnt by multiple authors, Lucent Dreaming, January 2025
One Woman Walks Europe by Ursula Martin, Honno, March 2025
The Water Remedy: Folklore, ritual and wisdom by Clare Gogerty, Calon, April 2025
Boundary Waters by Tristan Hughes, Parthian, May 2025
By Your Side by Ruth Jones, Transworld, May 2025
Queer Welsh Icons by Emily Garside, Calon, May 2025
We are The Bookshop by the Sea, an award-winning community-focused bookshop who bring creatives of all kinds together and offer access to creative writing classes, poetry evenings, live music, children’s story times, author talks, book clubs, art workshops and more.
We bring together both students at the university and local community members to create a warm and welcoming environment where the arts are encouraged and community is celebrated!
Our bookshop motto is Community, Connection, Conscience! Join us as we grow our community of like-minded readers.
Alexia Wdowski is Store Manager and Creative Community Coordinator at The Bookshop by the Sea. She has an MA in creative writing, and writes about outsiders, risk-takers, wilderness and the surreal qualities of daily life. You can find more of her work at alexiawdowski.co.uk
Co-founder, Editorial Director (non-fiction)
Kathryn is a writer, editor and creative producer from the south coast of Wales. She has worked with independent publishers such as Parthian and most recently as the programme and content producer for New Writing North. She is the recipient of a Rising Star award from both The Bookseller and The Printing Charity. Kathryn’s own work has been widely commended and published, including an essay collection, Seaglass, with Calon Books in May 2024 and articles for the likes of The Guardian, The Scotsman and The Bookseller. Her essay, ‘Return to Water’, was a category winner in the New Welsh Writing Awards in 2021.
Kathryn takes the lead on creative non-fiction, as well as focusing on publicity, events, partnerships and fundraising.
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