Four books we keep pressing into people's hands this month — plus Aoife Brennan reads in-store, 14 November.
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Marginalia Books

Booksellers with opinions

New In • Staff Picks • Events

Issue No. 31 · November

What we're pressing
into people's hands

Four books our booksellers can't stop talking about — recommended in their own, entirely un-blurbed words.

November on the shop floor smells like wet coats and strong coffee, and every conversation somehow ends with us walking a customer to a shelf and saying "no, but really, this one." So we wrote those down. Here are the four we handed over most this month, each defended by the bookseller who won't shut up about it.

This month's staff picks
Cover of The Salt in Our Letters

The Salt in Our Letters

Niamh Devereux · Fiction

Recommended by Cormac · Fiction buyer

I put off finishing it for three nights because I didn't want it to be over. A widow reads her late husband's undelivered letters and the whole thing aches without ever once being mawkish. Devastating. Bring tissues, don't say I didn't warn you.

Read more →
Cover of A Field Guide to Getting Lost in Cities

A Field Guide to Getting Lost in Cities

Marcus Ede · Non-fiction

Recommended by Priya · Non-fiction & travel

Right. This is the book I've been physically shoving at people. It's part urban history, part walking manifesto, and it made me get off the bus two stops early for a week just to look at things. Smart, funny, faintly obsessive — my favourite combination.

Read more →
Cover of Everything the Tide Returns

Everything the Tide Returns

Rónán Kealy · Fiction

Recommended by Saoirse · Weekend bookseller

Okay so it's a ghost story that is not really about ghosts, set on an island that is not really on any map. If that sounds annoying, trust me, it isn't — it's gorgeous and strange and I finished it in one sitting on a Sunday with cold tea beside me.

Read more →
Cover of Notes from a Borrowed Kitchen

Notes from a Borrowed Kitchen

Elena Marchetti · Non-fiction

Recommended by Fintan · Owner

A food memoir that earns the word memoir. Marchetti cooks her way through a decade of borrowed flats and other people's saucepans, and it turns out to be about belonging. I've bought three copies as gifts already. That's my whole review.

Read more →
Shop this month's picks

In-store this month

Aoife Brennan reads from her new novel

Join us on Thursday 14 November at 7pm as novelist Aoife Brennan reads from her latest book, followed by questions, a signing, and a glass of something. It's free, but the shop is small and it fills up.

Reserve a seat by calling the shop on +353 1 555 0182 or replying to this email — we'll pop your name on the list.

The Marginalia Box

Let us choose for you

Every month we pick a book we're genuinely excited about, wrap it properly, and send it to your door with a handwritten note about why. No algorithm, no filler — just one bookseller and one very good book.

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Marginalia Books, 51 Bridge Street, Dublin D02 K123, Ireland

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