Kemps Book store in Malton give their new year round up of the best books to read in January.

Happy New Year everyone! This month, we thought we would do our best impression of Janus, the Roman God of beginnings and endings, and bring you some of the books to look forward to in January while also looking back to some shop favourites of 2022. Among the books that flew off our shelves in 2022 were those that reflected the UK best-seller list such as the ever-popular Richard Osman’s The Bullet that Missed and Raynor Winn’s marvellous Landlines. However, equally popular were publications from local academic, John Smith whose fascinating biography of the Seventeenth Century benefactress, Lady Lumley took a well-deserved place on our best-seller list as did books from our some of our event authors: Emma Well’s Heaven on Earth, Madeleine Bunting’s, The Plot and Michael Stewart’s Walking the Invisible.

So, what better place to start the year than in Pickering with Kate Giles’ biography of Pickering Church? Giles reveals a fascinating history of both the medieval frieze on the internal wall of the Church and the process of uncovering it that was undertaken in the Victorian period. Giles underscores just how historically important these paintings are and, for anyone with an interest in the local area, this book and a visit to encounter the paintings first-hand is a must.

January is often the month where we take a little more notice of our eating and cooking habits. Pinch of Nom is now a well-loved brand that combines fewer calories and big tastes to create recipes that will become firm favourites. Their new book, Pinch of Nom: Enjoy puts the emphasis on easy recipes that will be reliable ‘go-to’ dishes for the working week. On similar lines but perhaps even more stress-free in style is Sarah Flower’s Comfort Food from Your Slow Cooker: Simple Recipes to Make You Feel Good. This recipe book is packed with delicious recipes that make the most of one of the most enduring of kitchen gadgets. It covers all manner of dishes from starters to desserts, meat to veg and even baking and preserves and it has impressed us so much that three of our team bought it straight away!

As soon as A Terrible Kindness arrived on the bookshelves last January, it became an instant bestseller and, for those who prefer paperbacks, the wait is over. It tells the story of the fictional William Lavery, a recently qualifies embalmer, who finds himself volunteering in the wake of the Aberfan disaster of 1966. The horrors he is faced with that night bring to the surface personal traumas from his own childhood. It is a thought-provoking read that, as its title suggests, is both challenging and humane – a novel that will excite the full spectrum of the reader’s emotions. For a lighter read (and one that will bring out a few smiles), try A Man Called Ove. First published in 2013 but reissued this year with a cover depicting a scene from the film featuring Tom Hanks, this is an endearing novel about a curmudgeonly and solitary old man whose rigid life is turned upside down when a lively family move in next door to him. We think Tom Hanks is the perfect choice for the role of Ove but, like all good booksellers, we say, ‘read the book first!’.

Holly Jackson is a popular British Young Adult author whose crime novels, full of twists and turns, are as popular in the US as they are in the UK. Her new novel, Five Survive, is a New York Times best-seller and reads like a scary teen movie. Six friends are on a road trip heading for the beach during Spring Break when their RV is hit by a bullet. Someone has followed them and is now pursuing one of the friends whose secret has endangered them all. What ensues in the claustrophobic space of the RV is a desperate attempt by the group to work out which one of them is responsible for putting them into this cat-and-mouse situation and how they can get out of it. Knowing only five of the survive makes the reader into an armchair detective and gives us a very good reason for turning those pages.

Finally, a rather lovely new children’s book released this January is Maria Nilsson Thore’s A Pack of Your Own which follows a lonely young daschund who is trying to find some friends. With rather sweet illustrations of many breeds of dogs, the story asks thoughtful questions about what it takes to fit in – do we really need to like the same things to stay friends and can we look as different as a daschund and a poodle but still enjoy each other’s company? With a message that celebrates friendship and being yourself, it’s a great way to start the new year.

• The wall paintings of Pickering Church: their discovery, restoration and meaning, by Kate Giles published by Shaun Tyas, Hardback RRP: £20, ISBN: 9781915774019

• Pinch of Nom: Enjoy, by Kate and Kay Allinson, Hardback, published by Macmillan, RRP: £20, ISBN: 9781529062267

• Comfort Food from Your Slow Cooker: Simple Recipes to Make You Feel Good by Sarah Flower, published by Little Brown Book Group, Paperback, RRP: 16.99, ISBN: 9781472147738

• A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe, published by Faber & Faber, Paperback, RRP: 8.99, ISBN: 9780571368310

• A Man Called Ove by Frederik Backman, Paperback, published by Hodder and Stoughton, RRP: £8.99, ISBN: 9781399713269

• Five Survive by Holly Jackson, published by HarperCollins, Hardback, RRP: £14.99, ISBN: 9780755504404

• A Pack of Your Own by Maria Nilsson Thore, published by Pushkin Children’s Books, Hardback, RRP: 12.99, ISBN: 9781782693581