Our Books of the Month for October

From wire-taut thrillers to the future's most important countries; a terrific selection of the month's best reads

A race against time through Nazi Germany, an accessible guide to the world's future geopolitical flashpoints, a deftly crafted thriller of survival and a complex children's tale of monsters and prejudice; here are the books you must curl up with this October.

Fiction Book of the Month

The Passenger

Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, Andre Aciman

£8.99 £7.49

Paperback

10+ in stock

Available

Written in the wake of the anti-Semitic pogroms of 1938, Boschwitz’s immersive novel recounts the flight of a Jewish businessman across Germany in unbearably suspenseful and disturbingly prophetic prose.

Non-Fiction Book of the Month

The Power of Geography

Tim Marshall

£9.99 £8.49

Paperback

10+ in stock

Available

Ten hotspots for the future of geopolitics explored with clarity and wit in this cogently argued volume from the foreign affairs journalist and author of Prisoners of Geography and Worth Dying For.

Thriller of the Month

Girl A

Abigail Dean

£8.99 £7.49

Paperback

10+ in stock

Available

Following the news that their abusive mother has died in prison, Lex and her siblings must face the horrors of their past once more in this arresting debut that is both a page-turning thriller and a searing portrait of survival.

Children's Book of the Month

The Monsters of Rookhaven

Padraig Kenny, Edward Bettison

£7.99 £6.99

Paperback

10+ in stock

Available

From the author of former Waterstones Children’s Book of the Month Tin comes a thoughtful and exciting story of a monster discovered by human children and the monstrous methods others will use to drive them into hiding again.

Scottish Book of the Month

O Caledonia

Elspeth Barker, Maggie O'Farrell

£8.99 £7.49

Paperback

10+ in stock

Available

Alluringly atmospheric and piercingly witty, Barker’s dazzling, gothic coming-of-age story reflects the refuge and joy to be found in nature and literature amidst an isolated life, as richly resonant today as at the time of its original publication.

Welsh Book of the Month

Dead Relatives

Lucie McKnight Hardy

£9.99

Paperback

Publisher reprinting

Temporarily out of stock

This enthrallingly dark collection brings together wild, stunningly crafted short stories about family dynamics, small-town frictions, motherhood and change from the author of Water Shall Refuse Them.

Irish Book of the Month

Walking With Ghosts

Gabriel Byrne

£9.99 £8.49

Paperback

In stock

Available

Written with rare lyricism and an exquisite sense of place and time, Byrne's memoir of working-class Ireland and his subsequent acting career in Hollywood and on Broadway makes for spellbinding, sensual reading.