From page-turning thrillers and literary heavyweights to memoirs that challenge, comfort and inspire, November brings a rich new crop of reads to shelves.
Whether you’re searching for thoughtful fiction, gripping crime, cultural insight or a standout gift-worthy title, this month’s releases offer something for every kind of reader.
Cat Zen – Mark Vette
Unlock the secrets of your feline friend with Cat Zen by animal behaviourist Mark Vette.
Drawing from over four decades of experience, Mark Vette offers a fresh perspective on understanding and training kittens and cats. Learn how to raise an emotionally resilient cat that doesn’t hunt or scratch furniture!
Exit Strategy – Lee Child & Andrew Child
The 30th pulse-pounding Jack Reacher thriller.
New Zealanders love Jack Reacher! Last year’s In Too Deep was the biggest-selling book across all categories for 2024, and made the most appearances in the #1 spot. Is it because he’s a righteous avenger for our troubled times? Or is it because Lee always speaks so fondly of how the Kiwi character is similar to Reacher’s?
Whatever the reason, this is sure to be another cracking read and Christmas/summer reading bestseller.
The Eleventh Hour – Salman Rushdie
Dazzling new short stories from Salman Rushdie that transport us around the world from Bombay neighbourhoods to elite English universities, in his first new fiction since Victory City.
Salman said, “The three novellas in this volume, all written in the last twelve months, explore themes and places that have been much on my mind -mortality, Bombay, farewells, England (especially Cambridge), anger, peace, America. And Goya and Kafka and Bosch as well. I’m happy that the stories, very different from one another in setting, story and technique, nevertheless manage to be in conversation with one another, and with the two stories that serve as prologue and epilogue to these three. I have come to think of the quintet as a single work, and I hope readers may see and enjoy it in the same way.”
The Silver Book – Olivia Laing
At once a queer love story and a noirish thriller, set in the dream factory of cinema, The Silver Book is a fictional account of real things, and an investigation into the difficult relationship between artifice and truth, illusion and reality, love and power.
Book of Lives – Margaret Atwood
The life and times of one of the most important writers of our time, from her peripatetic childhood in the Canadian far north, through the writing of The Handmaid’s Tale, to her position today as revered truth-teller and literary icon.
Margaret says,
I sweated blood over this book – there was too much life to stuff in, and if I’d died at 25 like John Keats, it could have been shorter – but I also laughed a lot.
“A memoir is what you can remember, and you remember mostly stupid things, catastrophes, revenges, and times of political horror, so I put those in – but I also added moments of joy, and surprising events and, of course, the books. I hope you’ll have as much fun reading Book of Lives as I did writing it.”
Attention – Anne Enright
A timely, moving, and piercingly intelligent essay collection from one of the world’s finest contemporary writers.
Anne Enright has always been alert to the places where public and private meet, where individual lives are caught by, or altered, by the sweep of history. These essays, collated from across Enright’s career, take us from Dublin to Galway, Canada to Honduras, and through voices, bodies and time.
Ancient Myths and Legends Without Men – Mara Gold
Legendary tales from Ancient Mythology centred around the stories of women, retold for modern audiences by an expert author, in a bold, beautifully designed, illustrated package. For fans of Mythos, Circe, Pandora and Clytemnestra.
As the days shorten and summer reading season approaches, these new releases offer the perfect excuse to slow down and settle in with a good book.
More from the FENNEC Book Club here
