Emily Cushion (Arts editor) – Circe

If you’re a third year, I’m sure you have about 50 friends who are doing the tragedy paper. Personally, I feel like I haven’t picked up anything newer than Shakespeare since about mid July, except for one brief intervention (inevitably still tragedy related). Having burned through Song of Achilles in an evening as a teenager, I had high hopes for Circe – hopes that were exceeded by Miller’s incredible re-telling of the Odyssey that takes the epic and makes it novel. While Odysseus certainly features, it is Circe, the exiled sorceress daughter of god Helios and nymph Perse, whose perspective the story is told from. Miller’s retelling of Homer is one full of magic, motherhood, and murder (much like all good Greek myths). Her ability to revolutionise the way we understand mythology while harbouring such an extensive knowledge of the classics is truly refreshing. Miller has been working on another mythical retelling since 2021, this time of Persephone’s story. While this could still be a while coming – Song of Achilles took 10 years to write – I can’t wait to see how Miller takes a myth that has become so popularised on social media (I know you’ve seen the questionable pomegranate poetry), and turns it into a novel as beautiful as Circe.

Sophie Smout (Arts writer) – Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is one of my favourite books. Blending technology with a reverence for print, we follow a laid-off tech worker who ends up working night shifts in a dreary San Francisco bookstore. But behind the dusty bestsellers lies a quiet owner and a handful of mysterious patrons who run in at all hours for the next cryptic, leather-bound book from the ridiculously high shelves. A blend of fantasy and realism (Google plays a larger role than you expect, but so does the fictional font Gerritszoon), the cosy bookish mystery opens the door to a world of cryptology while asking the reader about what it means to be truly remembered and loved. Despite the chaos of Michaelmas, Robin Sloan’s 2012 novel reminds me that reading should be an enjoyable experience, rather than just one of the chores that come with writing an essay.

Mia Apfel (Arts writer) – Ethan Frome

Set against the stark, snow-trodden landscape of New England, Wharton’s austere novella darkens with the coming winter. The embers of domestic warmth glow, but all affection is inevitably extinguished by chilling tragedy. Human connection and communication becomes hardened under years of repressed feeling. Characterised as a man of reticence and Gothic gloom, Ethan Frome, Wharton’s titular protagonist, is frozen in a state of moral dilemma. Fraught with the psychological torture of forbidden love, action becomes impeded. Ethan’s final choice between head and heart can only reveal an unfortunate fate. Discomfort and deformity must prevail.