This week we’ve seen the publication of everything from cookbooks, memoirs, novels and essay collections! Here’s a few that caught our eye... My Body by Emily Ratajkowski explores power, beauty, shame and the male gaze. Each essay is framed against experiences which have been formative in Ratajkowski’s life. Her writing is compulsively readable - partly because her lifestyle is fascinating and unfamiliar - but mainly because her voice is very engaging and sincere. She writes with clarity and honesty, not glossing over her flaws or internalised misogyny. Another intriguing hardback release is Nina Simone’s Gum by musician and composer Warren Ellis, in which he reflects on the nature of objects and the spirituality we imbue them with. His starting point is certainly an interesting one, as he centers the book around a piece of chewed gum he took from Nina Simone’s changing room after one of her last performances. It is an ordinary Thursday and things should finally be returning to normal. Except trouble is never far away where the Thursday Murder Club are concerned. A decade-old cold case leads them to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers. Then a new foe pays Elizabeth a visit. Her mission? Kill or be killed. As the cold case turns white hot, Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), while Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim chase down clues with help from old friends and new. But can the gang solve the mystery and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again? The immense cultural contribution made by two maverick Scottish independent music labels, Fast Product and Postcard, cannot be underestimated. Bob Last and Hilary Morrison in Edinburgh, followed by Alan Horne and Edwyn Collins in Glasgow helped to create a confidence in being Scottish that hitherto had not existed in pop music (or the arts in general in Scotland). Their fierce independent spirit stamped a mark of quality and intelligence on everything they achieved, as did their role in the emergence of regional independent labels and cultural agitators, such as Rough Trade, Factory and Zoo. Hungry Beat is a definitive oral history of these labels and the Scottish post-punk period.