Kate Atkinson's 'Our Noble Selves' Explores the Festival of Britain and Collecting

Key facts

• Kate Atkinson's new novel "Our Noble Selves" was released last week.
• The novel is set in 1951, the year of Atkinson's birth, and follows Harry Flynn and colleagues preparing for the Festival of Britain.
• Harry works in the Department of Rooms, tracking down items from the past for displays of British life.
• Much of the plot turns on the baking of a festival cake.
• Harry tries to solve a murder of which he's been accused, but the mystery comes across as an afterthought.
• Atkinson's début work, "Behind the Scenes at the Museum," was described by her as a repository for the past and her own museum.
• Atkinson writes domestic novels, war novels, and detective fiction, beginning with her 2004 book "Case Histories."
• Malcolm Gladwell's "The American Way of Killing" comes out on September 29th.
• Rebecca Perry's "May We Feed the King," long-listed for a Booker Prize, publishes on September 29th.
• Marcia Chatelain's "How Bright the Path Grows" is available on September 29th.
• Barbara Trapido's "Brother of the More Famous Jack" is reissued on October 6th.
• Colleen Hoover's "Verity" adaptation, starring Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, and Josh Hartnett, comes out next week.
• Virginia Feito's "Victorian Psycho" adaptation, starring Maika Monroe, is in theatres next month.