At ClickPlay, we can think of nothing better this season than finding somewhere comfy spot, next to an open fire, and settling down to let a wonderful book carry us off to a different world. So, which books best capture the spirit of the season?
As always, there are way too many to choose, but below the ClickPlay team have outlined some of our favourite Autumn reads.
Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami
This is a classic coming age story from one of the world’s best loved writers. Set in Murakami’s native Japan, the story recalls the protagonists youth, and his search for love in 60s Tokyo. The story is set more in winter than Autumn but, like the autumn, the novel is infused with a kind of nostalgia which will leave the reader with a strange sense of fleeting youth and the passage of time.
What the story reveals however, is that, even if time moves forwards, a part of us will always remain suspended in time and intertwined with the moments that formed our lives.
11.22.63, Stephen King
This time-travel novel from the master of horror and suspense, Stephen King, takes the reader to that fateful day in November 1963, when US President JFK was assassinated. The protagonist of the novel is sent back in time to stop the assassination and change the course of history.
But can he do it, and will he do it? And what about the life that gets in the way of his plans? All these questions and more are asked as this master of fiction weaves his story through Autumn in 60s America.
The Birds, Daphne Du Maurier
The Birds is a short story, but packs more into a low word-count than many authors pack into a full-length novel. Set in a coastal town in England, the protagonist watches the seasons change, and sea-storms blowing in. It’s more than just the weather that’s changing however, there’s something wrong with the birds too.
This story is masterful in building suspense and was adapted for the big screen by cinema’s own king of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. Full of swirling clouds and broiling seas, The Birds is an example of just how Daphne Du Maurier captured something of the essence of Autumn in Cornwall across her work, with stories shrouded in a mystery that clings to them like a sea fog.
The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
Autumn of course encompasses Halloween, and so no Autumn reading list would be complete without a spooky story that makes the spine tingle. For this, the Haunting of Hill House is a classic of the genre. Set in a gothic mansion high in some unspecified hill country full of dark forests and shadows, the novel tells a classic ghost story.
What makes it stand out however, and has led to numerous big screen adaptations, is the subtle approach taken by the author. The reader is disturbed as much by events in the novel that are implied rather than described. Dare you step into Hill House one gloomy evening this Autumn?
The Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis
While CS Lewis’ classic Narnia books again stray more from late Autumn and into the winter, they also, like Murakami, capture something about the magic nostalgia for childhood. They remind us of a time when it might have seemed possible to us that there was a whole new world – of witches, fauns and adventure – lurking at the back of the wardrobe.
The novels have become timeless classic for their evocative landscapes of snow and pine forest, as well as their ability to evoke a sense of a world lost, both the world as seen through the eyes of a child, and the less rational world where there was a greater sense of the world beyond our senses, that the horrors of World War Two brought a curtain down upon.
