In brief: The Unbroken Beauty of Rosalind Bone; God Is an Octopus; His Name Is George Floyd

The Unbroken Beauty of Rosalind Bone

Alex McCarthy
Doubleday, £12.99, pp176

After famed local beauty Rosalind Bone, 16, disappears overnight, it’s rumoured that she’s been lured away from the Welsh valleys by London’s glamour. Her plain sister, Mary, never leaves Cwmcysgod, and decades later, a hidden photo of Rosalind fascinates Mary’s teenage daughter. Over the course of a summer, arson and a murder will reveal the truth, exploding local certainties. Bold storytelling, lyrical observations and a cast that includes an octogenarian drug dealer propel an atmospheric novella full of questions about female strength.

God Is an Octopus: Loss, Love and a Calling to Nature

Ben Goldsmith
Bloomsbury Wildlife, £20, pp256

In 2019, Ben Goldsmith was playing cricket when he received a phone call that “broke” the world he knew. His 15-year-old daughter, Iris, had overturned while driving a utility vehicle on his Somerset farm and would be pronounced dead before he could race home. Iris had shared his love of nature, and as he moves through shock and anger, consulting other grieving parents and dabbling in Buddhism, mediums and psychedelics, it’s this that consoles him. He’s since rewilded his land, making this harrowing, searching memoir a tribute not just to a lost child but also to nature’s regenerative power.

His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice

Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa
Penguin, £12.99, pp544 (paperback)

In the days and weeks following his murder, George Floyd swiftly became a symbol of much that is wrong in the US and abroad. But what of the man himself? In this year’s nonfiction Pulitzer prize winner, two acclaimed reporters bring painstaking rigour and intimacy to bear on their quest to know him, speaking to his family, friends and teachers, and detailing the historical and political events that shaped his experience, from slavery to mass incarceration. In illuminating Floyd’s life, this landmark biography underscores the meaning of his death.