Friday Reads: Valentine's Day Edition

Happy Valentine’s Day (or Friday, if you prefer) from all of us at Gollancz Towers.

This Friday we thought we’d share with you what the team will be reading this Valentine’s Day. *Warning, most of these are not really Valentine’s Day themed*

Gillian: Today is a manuscript-submissions days for me, so it’s not so much Valentine’s Day as an evening of publishing speed-dating. I have all kinds of manuscripts to take a look at: adventure, noir, mystery and there might be a bit of romance in there too. I wonder if any of them thought to send me chocolate . . .

Darren: This Valentine’s Day I’ll be reading a battered old copy of Orbit One – the first volume of Damon Knight’s seminal anthology series, which ran from 1966 until 1980, in which Knight gave impetus to the careers of some of the best and most inventive writers of the field, such as R.A. Lafferty, Kate Wilhelm and Gene Wolfe. I shall also, I suspect, be reading Michael Connolly’s City of Bones, if the damn-it-what-happens-next?! cliff-hanger nature of the Harry Bosch TV pilot is everything I’ve heard it to be . . .

Jen: This Valentine’s Day I’m re-reading Siege and Storm from our sister imprint Indigo. I can’t wait for the next book in the Grisha Trilogy Ruin and Rising. You can buy the first book in the series Shadow and Bone for 99p until the 3rd March. It’s a romantic, fantasy epic that  doesn’t disappoint. And honestly, it’s  impossible not to fall a little bit in love with Darkling. I’m also reading  Landline (out in July) from our sister imprint Orion Fiction. I adored Fangirl and loved Attachments. I can’t think of a more perfect book to read this weekend.  Rainbow Rowell’s books always make me smile, laugh, cry and fall a little bit in love.

Simon: I’m still reading Dining on Stones by Iain Sinclair. Nearly done. And like every other Sinclair novel I’ve read (this is the third in a row, make of that what you will) it is maddening and thrilling in equal parts. He breaks all the rules of fiction but breaks them brilliantly. And underneath the everyday paranoia, dislocation and oddness at being awash in the alien landscapes of Hackney, Hastings and Essex there are deep veins of genre sympathy. He’s an amazing writer.

Hannah: This Valentine’s day I’ll be reading some new titles from our sister list W&N. The Fair Fight by Anna Freeman (out in August) is all about 18th Century female boxers in Bristol, kicking ass and such. I’ll be alternating with a bit of non-fiction; City of Lies by Ramita Navai – a portrait of modern Tehran from the eyes of ordinary women. So, essentially, I’m sticking it to Valentine’s Day with some good quality feminist literature (and several gins).

Nina: I’m just about to start The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp, and I cannot wait. Not very SFF, sorry, but contemp YA that I have been dying to read… one of those books that you suddenly realise people have been telling you about for a while, with one of those voices that just gets into your head. (And now there is a movie, too…)

Whatever your plans are, have a lovely evening!