Latest from Marie Claire UK in Books

Yesteryear Author Caro Claire Burke on Her Writing Process, Silencing Self-Doubt and the Books That Shaped Her

Victoria Lancaster — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 07:00:00 +0000

Caro Claire Burke’s inauguration to the publishing world is one most fledgling authors can only dream of. She has written Yesteryear, the buzziest debut novel of the year - so buzzy, in fact, it’s already being adapted for screen with Anne Hathaway set to produce and star in the feature film iteration. But the novel’s premise, and its thrilling execution, really does live up to its billing.

Natalie Heller Mills, a tradwife influencer living on her exquisitely curated ranch, Yesteryear, watches her sourdough starters rise like her Instagram following, until she one day wakes up horror-stricken in 1855 on her “not ranch, ranch” to her “not husband, husband” and “not life, life.” Burke’s prose grabs you by the wrist and doesn’t let you go, all the way up to the novel’s much anticipated and unguessable (yes, truly, unguessable) twist.

Caro and I tune into our conversation from our respective homes an ocean apart, yet the distance almost immediately melts with her relatability. As I express awe at her antiheroine Natalie’s capacity for seemingly constant procreation (she has five children and a sixth on the way), we discover we are both pregnant with our first child. It feels like kismet that motherhood looms for Burke whose novel concerns the pressures of being a mother in a social media-miraged world. Burke riffs on the idea that sometimes life mimics art and vice versa.

I talk to Caro just before she’s about to set off on a transcontinental book tour. She tells me about the “pinch me” moment of selling her novel and working with Anne Hathaway. She also talks about the evolution of the tradwife phenomenon and her podcast, Diabolical Lies.

So many congratulations are in order! But first and foremost, for the success of Yesteryear. How does it feel?

I feel like I need German words! I haven’t journalled in a long time, but I just got a journal for when I’m on tour, because there are so many emotions going on at once. The experience with Yesteryear has been so far beyond my expectations that it’s hard to process. It’s a crazy experience, and maybe in twenty years I’ll have more eloquent language to describe it. I'm feeling grateful, and horrified, at how relevant Yesteryear feels at the moment. I’m proud of the book, but now the book belongs to the world.

Do you remember when the inspiration for the novel first hit? What kind of research did it involve?

In the winter of 2024, I was already involved in the online tradwife discourse, so that was the seed of inspiration. I already had the opportunity, through work and my personal time, to research and spend time thinking about women in fundamentalist communities. But there was a specific morning when I woke up with the title of the novel and the synopsis of a woman who wakes up in a different time period. I emailed my agent, a wonderful creative partner, and she was super on board. From the start, Yesteryear felt like such a big, bold story.

Natalie’s voice is so brilliantly distinct. It takes real endurance to sustain such a high-octane pitch!

Thank you! I found Natalie’s voice quickly. And then I thought, okay, everything has to come from here. I wanted the novel to be incredibly claustrophobic, and I knew I was going to let Natalie be all the (controversial) things without inserting an authorial or morally righteous voice. I wanted to trust that the reader would understand, because I like to be trusted very much. Natalie has such a specific set of morals and understandings about the world. When those clicked into place, I knew how she would behave in any environment. As soon as I decided I wasn’t going to make an effort to clarify her behaviour, I was able to write the first draft quickly.

Were you conscious of how readers might react to Natalie?

Natalie behaves in very despicable ways. And I have been kind of surprised by the book's reception. I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of people who won't like the book and they’re justified to that opinion. But I was surprised that so many liberal people supported it, like in the publishing industry specifically, because I really didn't make an effort to clarify Natalie’s behaviour or to make a moral statement myself.

How do you feel about Yesteryear being out in the world now, at this moment in time?

You never really know how something's going to go or be received. There was excitement when I sold the book. But there was a four month period when we thought Kamala Harris was going to win the presidency. So I was aware of the publishing cycle and the timing being right. I asked myself: What is the world going to look like when this book comes out?

Speaking of writing quickly, what was your process like?

There is no one trick I deploy to get something done. I will deploy any trick I can. I tried to get Yesteryear out as quickly as I could. I had to get it out before I had time to second guess or doubt myself. I tried to write 2,000-4,000 words per day without thinking too much about it. Forcing myself to drive forward allowed the novel to have that pacy feel.

It’s so pacy. You must have a secret.

I constantly asked myself: What’s the next thing that’s going to happen? I knew the big twist, but I didn't know all the little steps along the way. Every morning, I sat down to write and thought about my next step and typed it out. I rode a momentum that felt different to how I'd written before.

Oh, my goodness—the twist! That’s all I’ll say. How early did you know how it would end?

I knew the twist from very early on, but I didn’t know how exactly I was going to make it work. I knew it around the same time I sent my agent the first thirty pages.

What other books did you look to for inspiration?

I looked to Gone Girl for pacing, because that novel moves like a freight train. I flipped through and thought: Okay, how does Gillian Flynn meter out plot events? Generally speaking, I wasn't reading anything while I wrote Yesteryear to not disrupt my flow.

What surprises you about how the tradwife phenomenon has evolved since you started writing Yesteryear?

Something I have been happy to see is that I don't think we have any evidence people have been convinced to change their ideology or their relationship to power dynamics as a result of this cultural moment. But I do think like we're starting to see the economic outcome of a world where this type of propaganda exists. The tradwife phenomenon, like these other big cultural moments, start out with a clear political lens, and then they become increasingly brand washed, until eventually it's just a bowl. It's just a bowl at Target.

At one point, Natalie calls motherhood its “own kind of curation.” I don’t know about you, but my algorithm is trying to sell me so much baby paraphernalia at the moment.

Yes! My algorithm is going crazy right now, too. There are so many layers of curation to our lives. It's so inescapable. Corporations are always trying to convince people that what they have is not correct. There’s a section in the book where Natalie talks about the great lie that women tell one another about being a mother. I don't have shared opinions with Natalie, but I am very interested in how women teach one another and how they raise children.

Tell me about your podcast Diabolical Lies. It does a great job dissecting the “right now.”

I co-founded the podcast with Katie Gatti Tassin several months after I sold Yesteryear. I think they are different ends of the same project. In the podcast and the new fiction I’m working on, I'm very interested in this idea of the performance of womanhood, and all the contradictions and fictions and fantasies that are sold within that. Diabolical Lies explores this from a nonfiction lens, which requires a different part of my brain.

The Yesteryear film adaptation in the works with Anne Hathaway—how involved have you been in the process?

It’s a major pinch me moment. Anne Hathaway is a genius, and the people who are working on the film are so smart and creative. I made the decision not to be the screenwriter, and it's the happiest decision I've ever made. I want to be a novelist. But I am an executive producer on the film, and so I have spent a decent amount of time working on the adaptation. I speak with the screenwriter Hannah Friedman often, and she's brilliant. She's great at what she does. The work she has done to adapt the novel has been incredible to behold. Anne is going to be a crazy good Natalie too, so it'll be really fun to see the story come to life.

Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke

The electric debut from Caro Claire Burke that follows tradwife influencer Natalie who suddenly wakes up in 1855 - and is forced to face the harsh truth of her new reality.

Caro Claire Burke's Book Recs and Writing Advice

Last but not least, some bookish and writing questions. What is…

…the last book you recommended to a friend?

In Memoriam by Alice Winn.

…the first book that ever made you cry?

Looking for Alaska by John Green.

…the book that made you fall in love with reading?

The Secret History by Donna Tart.

…the book that shaped you into the person you are today?

David Foster Wallace’s essay This is Water.

…a book you wish you could read again for the first time?

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason.

…the most important piece of writing advice anyone ever gave you?

Don’t let anyone mess with your prose.

…a piece of popular writing advice that everyone should ignore?

Show, don’t tell.

…one thing you would tell all new writers at the start of their journey?

You have to put in time. It’s about putting in time so much more than it is about having talent.

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke is published in the UK by 4th Estate, and is available to buy now.

Revenge Dramas, Body Horror and Illicit Love Affairs —These Are the Scintillating Spring Reads to Have on Your Radar

cjarvie@cjarvie.com (Catherine Jarvie) — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 07:00:00 +0000

The leaves on the trees aren’t the only things sprouting this spring. We’ve unearthed an exceptional crop of new fiction – from revenge dramas and body horror, to a high-concept tale of an illicit love affair and a trip through an Andean music festival – that’s set to breathe new life into your reading list. And for all you aspiring writers out there, there’s also a ‘reverse engineering book’ featuring short stories by some truly exceptional writers, which are then disassembled by their authors to offer insight into how they work and write. Leaving just one question: which one will you break the spine of first?

Editor's Picks

Under Water, Tara Menon

Marissa was living in southern Thailand with her father, a marine biologist, when the boxing day tsunami hit in 2004. With her best friend Arielle among the many missing and presumed dead, she has spent the past decade trying to escape the shadows of her past, moving back to her childhood home, New York, where she drifts through her days working for an online travel magazine and sleeping with strangers. But as the city begins to go into shutdown for Hurricane Sandy, the memories of that fatal Christmas loom ever nearer. Menon draws an extraordinary portrait of grief – for those lost in the disaster; for the death of her mother when she was a child; and for natural world. Her descriptions of the infinite, complex beauty of life beneath the waves and the ocean’s fragile ecosystem crash brutally against the horrors of the days and weeks following the tsunami, and Marissa’s own fragile hold on her sense of self and purpose since underscore both. A deftly told and wonderfully heartfelt debut.

Permanence, Sophie Mackintosh

Mackintosh gives good high-concept. She’s done it before with young women being allotted the right to give birth or otherwise in Blue Ticket, and in her depiction of a French town given over to madness in in 2023’s Cursed Bread. Here, it’s the land for illicit lovers in which we first meet gallery worker Clara and married art historian Francis. The pair have been surviving on snatched hours together since beginning their affair some months before. On this day, however, they wake up together in a beautiful apartment in an unknown city populated solely by couples. Before long, it becomes clear that they’re in a parallel land where unfaithful lovers can spend seemingly unlimited time together – until a harsh word or thought sends them back to the real world. Over time, the pair learn how to return to the city, becoming attuned to its shifting weather patterns, geography and appearance, which change in line with their moods and behaviour. The relationship first blossoms then strains under the weight of their affair, carrying echoes into their real lives, despite no time seeming to have passed between visits. It’s a playful, clever fable about love, fidelity and what two people driven by desire actually want and are willing to give to the other.

Minor Black Figures, Brandon Taylor

Taylor’s third novel is set in a hot post-pandemic New York summer where queer Black artist Wyeth is working two jobs – as an assistant in an art gallery and for a private art restorer – while trying to establish his own career. Popping out of his studio one night he runs into Keating, a former priest, in a bar. The pair go for a walk. Exchange numbers. Indulge in a relationship neither man is quite able to give themselves to. They are both suffering their own crisis of faith: Wyeth in his art (why, he questions, is Black art assumed and required to ‘represent’, rather than serve a purely aesthetic purpose), while for Keating the struggle is more literal, having lost all belief in what had set him on the path to priesthood. This is a novel in which there is a lot of talking and analysis: of identity, belief, what makes great art – and who gets to decide that point – all of which are carefully and thoughtfully explored against the backdrop of Wyeth and Keating’s sizzling hot will-they-won’t-they relationship. A fascinating portrait of identity and becoming.

Transcription, Ben Lerner

Ben Lerner is back with an intriguing work about technology and memory that opens with an account of our narrator returning to the college town where he studied, having been commissioned to conduct what’s expected to be the final interview of his 90-year-old former mentor, Thomas. When a dropped phone leaves him without a recording device, he continues on to the meeting as planned, documenting what follows as what appears to be an uncannily faithful account of that conversation. When it’s later revealed that his final interview was more proximation than accurate record, Lerner flips things around, presenting the closing part of the novel as a transcription of a conversation between his friend, and former mentor’s son, Max. Their discussion trips and falls into differing recalls of past events, covering an astonishing array of subjects – from history and philosophy to the science of sound, physics, food disorders, screen time and (dis)connection... – to become a meditation on generational memory, the collective consciousness, and more. If that sounds convoluted, it isn’t. In Lerner’s hands, it is smart, bold, funny and clever. How does he do it?

Upward Bound, Woody Brown

Write what you know. One of the most cliched pieces of advice for would-be writers gains extra meaning in Brown’s debut, which centres on the residents and staff of a Californian day care facility for individuals with severe disablities. As a non-verbal autistic person, it’s a classification that was placed upon Brown from an early age (his acknowledgements offer thanks to, among others, those he says helped him ‘out of the pit of ignorance and isolation’), until he learnt to communicate with a letterboard, in large part through his mother’s persistence and support. All of which makes Brown’s hard-won journey to become a published author all the more impressive. But that in no way takes from the skill of Brown’s writing – which stands firmly on its own merits – and the emotional insight he brings to the intimacies and connections of his cast of characters. ‘Being friends without speaking requires faith,’ he writes of an interaction between two non-verbal autistic characters. ‘The faith that allows you to believe that your friend feels for you what you feel for them. Even when you can’t show it or speak of it.’ Told from multiple viewpoints in a series of interlinking stories, it is compassionate, insightful, funny – and at times quietly, righteously angry at the slights and prejudices the community faces. Just beautiful.

From Heated Rivalry to Hamnet, These Are The Most Popular Recent Book-To-Screen Adaptations

jadietroypryde@gmail.com (Jadie Troy-Pryde) — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Some of the best-selling books of the last few years have successfully transformed into record-breaking and award-winning TV shows and films. This year, Chloé Zhao's adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's novel Hamnet quickly established itself as an Academy Award contender, while Rachel Reid's Heated Rivalry has been a phenomenal hit, instantly launching the careers of its stars, Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams.

But what are the most popular recent book-to-screen adaptations? Experts at McLuck compared the original book's GoodReads rating with the screen adaptation's IMDB rating to analyse which TV shows and films have been most successful. The results probably won't be too surprising to those who either fell in love with the original material or found themselves gripped to the screen. From We Were Liars to Frankenstein, to The Thursday Murder Club, these are the most popular book adaptions according to their research.

Most popular book to screen adaptations

While there have been countless adaptations of classic literature, the methodology focused on the on-screen adaptations of the last couple of years, creating a seed list from articles and data found in culture publication Variety, publishing house Penguin, and film rating site IMDB. The researchers then cross-referenced the IMDb and GoodReads reviews to create a score out of ten. Here's what the data found:

Top 10 books adapted for TV and film

	Book	Author	GoodReads Score /5	IMDB Score /5	% Between review scores
1	Heated Rivalry	Rachel Reid	4.31	8.9	-3.1%
2	Frankenstein	Mary Shelly	3.91	7.5	4.3%
3	Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West	Gregory Maguire	3.51	6.7	4.8%
4	Hamnet	Maggie O'Farrell	4.2	8	5.0%
5	We Were Liars	E. Lockhart	3.65	6.8	7.4%
6	Shy	Max Porter	3.57	6.4	11.6%
7	Die, My Love	Ariana Harwicz	3.43	6.1	12.5%
8	The Map That Leads to You	Joseph Monninger	3.56	6.2	14.8%
9	People We Meet on Vacation	Emily Henry	3.85	6.7	14.9%
10	The Thursday Murder Club	Richard Osman	3.86	6.5	18.8%

Read the books behind the shows and films

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid

This hockey romance has seen a huge surge in sales following the success of the HBO show.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley's classic was adapted for Netflix in 2025, directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Jacob Elordi.

Wicked, by Gregory Maguire

This is the global bestselling story behind the musical phenomenon, most recently adapted into major movies starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.

Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell

The film adaptation of of Maggie O'Farrell's novel starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley is currently winning big during awards season.

We Were Liars, E. Lockhart

Almost a decade after its release, E. Lockhart's YA thriller We Were Liars became one of the biggest TV series of 2025.

Shy, by Max Porter

Max Porter's bestselling novel quickly became a Netflix film adaptation, retitled Steve and starring Cillian Murphy.

Die, My Love, by Ariana Harwicz

Ariana Harwicz's 'brutal' depiction of a motherhood and womanhood is now a major motion picture starring Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence.

The Map That Leads to You, J. P. Monninger

This popular romance was turned into a film for Amazon Prime last year, with Madelyn Cline and KJ Apa at the helm.

People We Meet on Vacation, by Emily Henry

The recent Netflix film starring Emily Bader and Tom Blyth brought new fans to Emily Henry's popular romance.

The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman

Richard Osman's record-breaking debut was adapted for Netflix, starring Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Celia Imrie and Ben Kingsley.

7 Scandalous Books About Women in Hollywood to Read Before the Oscars

Mischa Anouk Smith — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 15:23:25 +0000

The Oscars are almost here, and ahead of Hollywood’s most prized night, I thought I’d lower the tone slightly by diving into the murky depths of La La Land’s underbelly. While the Academy Awards celebrate the industry at its most polished, all diamonds, designer gowns, and tearful speeches about artistic triumph (let’s just hope Timothée repents for his recent comments on the high arts), the history of Hollywood is just as often defined by scandal, ambition, and spectacular misbehaviour.

Hollywood isn’t always known for its glittering treatment of women, and these books reveal some dark truths alongside plenty of frothy gossip, salacious secrets, and hilarious (and sometimes sinister) tidbits. Behind the studio gates and red carpets lies a long tradition of power struggles, exploitation, reinvention, and survival, and the women at the centre of these stories are often far more interesting than the carefully managed images the studios tried to sell.

Over the decades, actresses, starlets, socialites, and strivers have walked the tightrope of an industry that could make careers overnight and destroy them even quicker. The result is a treasure trove of anecdotes, outrageous behaviour, and cautionary tales, which, of course, make for delicious reading.

So, settle in as we cruise through Laurel Canyon to Beverly Hills by way of Beachwood Canyon, the home of the world’s most famous sign. Incidentally, our story starts here, in 1932, when actress Peg Entwistle plunged to her death in search of eternal fame in the afterlife after failing to make it in the land of the living. Her tragic leap from the “H” of the Hollywoodland sign has since become one of the most enduring (and eerie) legends of early Hollywood(land).

They don’t call it the City of Angels for nothing, you know. A place built on dreams has always had a habit of collecting a few ghosts along the way.

To quote the doyenne of all things Hollywood history, Karina Longworth, join me, won’t you…

Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood by Karina Longworth | £18 at Amazon

No reading list would be complete without an entry by Hollywood historian Karina Longworth (honourable mention goes to Hollywood Frame by Frame).

Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood serves as a stark reminder that abuse and exploitation by moguls didn’t start with Harvey Weinstein. Longworth tells the tale of dozens of actresses who sought stardom and found themselves trapped in a system that profited from them but rarely valued them.

Longworth gives colour and context to women that Howard Hughes saw as (at best) one-dimensional trophies, (at worst) chattel. Whether profiling silver screen legends like Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn, and Ava Gardner or lesser-known actresses like Jean Peters who found themselves adrift in Hughes’ oppressive orbit, Longworth’s extensive research and vivid detail grants these women full lives beyond the Texan oil tycoon’s grasp. Leonardo DiCaprio and an ageing Warren Beatty have depicted Hughes on screen, but this book reveals him beyond his glitzy pioneering persona and infamous germ phobias. It bursts at the seams with glorious details like Jane Russell’s bra in The Outlaw.

Further listening: You Must Remember This: The Many Loves of Howard Hughes

She Found It at the Movies: Women Writers on Sex, Desire and Cinema by Christina Newland | £12.50 at Amazon

Ok, I’ll admit it, I bought this book because of the cover, but as if to prove that sometimes you really can judge a book by its cover, this juicy read is as delicious as the artwork suggests.

She Found it at the Movies reads as a love letter to cinema. Organised into sections, such as Innocence and Experience and The Female Gaze, the book comprises essays from guest writers from The Guardian, Vulture, and more, all centred around the topic of women’s relationships with the movies. Some read like salacious teenage diary entries (I say that with the utmost respect to this humble medium), while others are more like cultural deep dives (very Laura Mulvey, indeed).

Celebrated feminist film critic Molly Haskell, of the powerfully titled From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies, put it best when she described the book as “For anyone who thinks sexy feminism is an oxymoron.”

Further reading: Jayne Mansfield and the American fifties

I Am Not Ashamed by Barbara Payton | £57 at Amazon

“Barbara Payton was the post-war Julia Fox: uncannily gorgeous, a talented actress, and caught up in one of the biggest tabloid love triangles of the day,” says Sarah Waldron of my favourite literary Substack Book Duel. Again, an honourable mention goes to Molly Young’s legendary Read Like The Wind.

“Unlike Fox, Payton didn’t reinvent herself as an It Girl. It all went horribly wrong, as this sometimes funny, sometimes sad memoir testifies,” adds Waldron. This book is so much more than a scorched woman revealing all. It’s raw, unapologetic, and sometimes downright discomforting to read - as all memoirs should be, in my humble opinion. Read this if you enjoy sardonic humour, Cat Marnell’s How to Murder Your Life (or Julia Fox’s Down the Drain, for that matter) and florid lines like this one:

“If I hadn’t worn a low-cut gown at a dance so that a gawky Air Force Captain noticed me, I’d never have gotten to Hollywood. So, brethren, hark. Next time you go to a dance be careful how you dress. You just might end up a Hollywood star.”

Further listening: You Must Remember This: Barbara Payton, Dead Blondes Episode 10

The Star Machine by Jeanine Basinger | £16.99 at Blackwell's

This slot was originally reserved for something from the legend that is Pauline Kael, but to my shame, I still haven't gotten around to reading any of her twenty-something books.

Instead, I dedicate spot four to another celebrated film scholar, Jeanine Basinger, who The New York Observer once described as "the Rosalind Russell of film historians," I assume in reference to her sassy quips and withering put-downs.

The Star Machine is dense but also delicious, straddling the line between academic text and Confidential magazine. It examines the Golden Age of Hollywood—which some list as 1915-1963, while others put it at 1929-1945—and, in particular, the conveyor belt of talent the "star system" churned out.

Further reading: Silent Stars, Valley of the Dolls

Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger | £8.99 at Waterstones

Steamy tales, salacious gossip, and thinly-veiled grievances - this book has it all. The antithesis of those academic tomes you’ll find up top, Kenneth Anger’s iconic (and believe me when I say I use that description sparingly) is stuffed with outright (and outrageous) lies.

New York Times critic Peter Andrews described it as a “306-page box of poisoned bonbons,” so you know it’s a riot to read. As the ever-fastidious Karina Longworth explains in her 19-part special on the subject (Fake News: Fact Checking Hollywood Babylon), most of the sordid scandals are the stuff of fiction, but as that other famous gossip monger Truman Capote used to quip (the quote actually belongs to Mark Twain); “never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” This once-banned book has good stories in spades, no wonder it’s become more famous than the lives it lays (or should I say lies) bare.

Further viewing: Babylon

Women vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film by Helen O'Hara | £10.99 at London Review Bookshop

While many explorations into the forgotten women of film history focus on maligned movie stars and silenced starlets, Women vs Hollywood by Empire’s ‘geek queen’ Helen O’Hara takes a 360-degree approach, delving into the lives of early pioneers from behind the camera, like Dorothy Arzner and Mabel Normand, as well as those in front of it.

Examining the changing roles of women in Hollywood, from Mary Pickford to Margot Robbie, it offers a comprehensive overview of a century-old industry. From the Silent Era to New Wave, New Hollywood and today’s Blockbuster Era, O’Hara covers it all and pays homage to the women behind the scenes and on the screen.

Further reading: The Female Gaze

Eve’s Hollywood by Eve Babitz | £10.65 by Amazon

What to say about Los Angeles It Girl Eve Babitz? Earl McGrath, former president of Rolling Stone Records, had this to say, “In every young man’s life there is an Eve Babitz. It’s usually Eve Babitz.”

Ahh, if only I’d had an Eve Babitz in my life. Sadly, I never have, so I’ve had to make do with Eve’s too-few books. Chief among them is the sublime Eve’s Hollywood. Sure, this is LA, as seen through the singular gaze of a self-described “daughter of the wasteland” who often lacks self-awareness, but Eve’s Hollywood is a place I wish I could visit. Her high school haunts (she literally went to Hollywood High and hung out in cafes immortalised for launching the careers of icons) have already been so mythologised, but Eve manages to capture them anew. You can’t help but gobble down her Rainier Ale-drenched musings and enviable anecdotes— like getting driven home by an older guy who turned out to be Johnny Stompanato, gangster and Lana Turner’s lover (until her daughter killed him)—like one of Eve’s beloved taquitos.

I’ll leave the last word to Eve; “I did not become famous but I got near enough to smell the stench of success. It smelt like burnt cloth and rancid gardenias, and I realized that the truly awful thing about success is that it’s held up all those years as the thing that would make everything all right. And the only thing that makes things even slightly bearable is a friend who knows what you’re talking about.”

Further reading: Hollywood’s Eve, Slow Days Fast Company

6 Books That Shaped Marie Claire UK's Editors, in Celebration of World Book Day

jadietroypryde@gmail.com (Jadie Troy-Pryde) — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 15:50:04 +0000

As someone who spent my entire childhood with my nose buried in books, there's a certain nostalgia in looking back at the reads that stay with you long into adulthood. Like so many other avid readers, I grew up on a very 90s book diet, generously seasoned by the likes of Jacqueline Wilson, R. L. Stine and Roald Dahl. Then, as a teenager, I took a sharp (and somewhat self-serious) pivot towards Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë and Virginia Woolf. And, decades later, I can still remember exactly how these books made me feel the first time I read them.

Now that my nieces and nephew are devouring their own beloved books and series, it got me thinking about the magic of reading as a child, and then as a teenager, and the particular pang of love you have for the stories that still linger in your mind many years later. For World Book Day 2026, and in support of the National Year of Reading campaign, I asked some of my fellow Marie Claire UK editors which books they remember most. Here are the books that shaped them, fascinated them, or offered a refreshing new perspective for their younger selves.

Marie Claire UK Editors on the Books That Shaped Them

The Illustrated Mum by Jacqueline Wilson

Picked by Mischa Smith, News and Features Editor: "I cannot overstate the impact Jacqueline Wilson had on my life as a tremendously shy and lonely child. The Illustrated Mum had the most profound impact on me; it gave me my first experience of reading about addiction, and the impact that it has on everyone in the addict’s orbit."

The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpurgo

Picked by Amelia Yeomans, Junior Shopping Editor: "The first book I remember properly sitting down to read was The Butterfly Lion, and it made me fall in love with reading. I can hardly recall the story now, but there are certain details and descriptions from it that have stuck with me."

Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman

Picked by Jadie Troy-Pryde, News Editor: "Noughts & Crosses was the first book that ever made me cry - like real, blubbering sobs. I vividly remember racing through the pages, finishing it, and then weeping until I fell asleep."

Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison

Picked by Maggie Joyner, Junior Social Media Editor: "I loved Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging so much as a teen growing up in Australia. It's how I learned about British culture, and it's what made me want to move to the UK. I re-read it a million times."

Ellie's Doorstep by Alison Catley

Picked by Katie Thomas, Beauty Editor: "My parents used to read this to me all the time, and when I'd go on school trips or to sleepovers they'd put a note in my bag with the final paragraph written out for me. I now read it to my children."

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

Picked by Ana Ospina, Senior Art Editor: "I have absolutely no idea why, and it's a bit of an unusual one, but I became obsessed with The Da Vinci Code when I was a teenager. I don't even know if I really understood it - but I ended up reading the whole series, and was hooked."

How Different Is Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” Compared to Emily Brontë’s Book?

Caitlin Elliott — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 07:00:00 +0000

Ever since the release of the “Wuthering Heights” trailer, the internet has been flooded with talk about how loyal the Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi film will be to the original Emily Brontë novel of the same name.

First looks at the highly anticipated movie sparked curiosity (and concern) among fans of the literary classic, who were confused by some of the more avant garde costumes, as well as the controversial casting and design choices in director Emerald Fennell’s latest project. Not to mention, there have been endless questions about why the title of the timeless love story has been decorated with quotation marks - and what this means for the adaptation.

So, is “Wuthering Heights” true to the novel? How much has been changed for Emerald’s retelling of the iconic tale? And what's with those quotation marks?

(Image credit: Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures)

Why does “Wuthering Heights” have quotation marks in the title?

First, let’s delve into Emerald’s decision to wrap the title of her Brontë reboot in quotation marks. Naturally, she’s been asked about it several times during the press tour (which also provided fans with some unexpectedly gushy Margot and Jacob moments).

Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that “Wuthering Heights” does have differences from the novel - and isn't an exact adaptation by any means. The director claims it's her own remembering of the story, with a liberal helping of her own imagination - including a healthy dose of what she wished had happened in the 1847 classic.

"The thing for me is that you can’t adapt a book as dense and complicated and difficult as this book. I can’t say I’m making Wuthering Heights. It’s not possible," she told Fandango.

Emerald, who also directed Saltburn, continued to explain, "What I can say is I’m making a version of it. There’s a version that I remembered reading that isn’t quite real. And there’s a version that I wanted stuff to happen that never happened. So it is Wuthering Heights and it isn’t. But really, I’d say that any adaptation of a novel, especially a novel like this, should have quotation marks around it."

When asked how closely her film will follow the Wuthering Heights book rather than her own vision, Emerald told The Hollywood Reporter: "The thing is that it’s my favourite book in the world. Like many people who love this book, I’m kind of fanatical about it, so I knew right from the get-go I couldn’t ever hope to make anything that could even encompass the greatness of this book. All I could do was make a movie that made me feel the way the book made me feel."

Why are the costumes in “Wuthering Heights” historically inaccurate?

When the world was treated to first release images of the “Wuthering Heights” costumes, there was instant controversy. During the film, Margot Robbie appears on screen as Cathy Earnshaw in a mixture of historically inaccurate dresses - from a red latex corset to a shimmering puff-sleeved wedding gown, and an iridescent tulle number. People were quick to point out that the film’s fashion choices are a far, far cry from the Victorian era it's set in.

“Wuthering Heights” costume designer, Jacqueline Durran, told British Vogue that around 50 costumes were used for Cathy throughout the film - and explained that a blend of multiple decades' worth of fashion was the inspiration behind the styling in Emerald’s vibrant reimagining. Through the costume visuals alone, we now know it certainly doesn’t adhere to every element of the original.

(Image credit: "Wuthering Heights")

"Emerald had been working on Wuthering Heights for maybe a year, maybe longer, by the time we met to talk about it. She had this massive range of references, which had a bit of everything – the Tudor period, the 1950s, contemporary things sprinkled throughout," Jacquenline said. "Our dates are all confused in the sense that we’re not representing a moment in time at all – we’re just picking images or styles that we like for each character."

Is the plot of “Wuthering Heights” different from the book?

While the general plot of Cathy and Heathcliff’s beloved love story has been maintained for the “Wuthering Heights”, we don’t know exactly how many details of the original novel have been tweaked for Emerald’s adaptation. What we do know is that the film is far raunchier than the book, with erotically charged sex scenes set to heavily feature. Comparing the racier take to the book, Margot emphasised just how much the kissing has been ramped up in an interview, stating: "They never really kissed in the book, but we kiss a lot. We kiss everywhere."

(Image credit: "Wuthering Heights")

The casting of Jacob and Margot as the famous “Wuthering Heights” pair isn’t totally reflective of the characters in the book, either, which hasn't gone unnoticed. In the novel, Cathy is a teenage girl while Heathcliff is older than her, although Margot Robbie was 34 years old at the time of filming and Jacob Elordi was 28. Additionally, Brontë was deliberately ambiguous about Heathcliff's ethnicity in the book to highlight the differences between him and the other characters, causing backlash from the book's fans with regards to Jacob Elordi's casting.

It’s undeniable that “Wuthering Heights” isn’t a precise retelling, but that seemingly hasn't deterred film fans. In fact, according to a report in Deadline, the film is predicted to have an enormous opening, to the tune of $40m.

"Wuthering Heights" is set for UK release on Friday 13th February 2026.

The Key "Wuthering Heights" Details You Need To Know Before Its Release

Caitlin Elliott — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 07:00:00 +0000

If your social feeds are anything like ours, you probably can’t avoid the "Wuthering Heights" hype taking over the internet right now. From Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi’s gushy IRL bond to the press tour corsets dividing opinion, there’s a whole lot of chatter about Emerald Fennell’s latest creation that’s got us raring to get to the cinema this weekend.

Here’s everything you need to know about "Wuthering Heights" - including the release date, plot, cast, filming locations, and whether it really is an adaptation of the popular Emily Brontë book.

When is "Wuthering Heights" out in cinemas?

"Wuthering Heights" premieres worldwide on Friday 13th February 2026. Packed full of yearning, steaminess, and romance, the sultry period drama is set to be the perfect watch for Valentine’s Day weekend.

"Wuthering Heights" main cast and characters

As if a Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi combination wasn’t enough, the casting for Emerald Fennell’s "Wuthering Heights" has been a huge talking point ahead of its release. The film is boasting some serious talent, from Adolescence star and Golden Globe winner, Owen Cooper, to Jacob’s haunting on-screen sister in Saltburn, Alison Oliver. Margot even revealed a juicy nugget of info about the original casting plans for the film.

Here’s the main cast list:

Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff
Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw
Alison Oliver as Isabella Linton
Hong Chau as Nelly Dean
Ewan Mitchell as Hindley Earnshaw
Shazad Latif as Edgar Linton
Martin Clunes as Mr Earnshaw
Owen Cooper as Young Heathcliff
Charlotte Mellington as Young Catherine

(Image credit: David Jon/Getty Images to Warner Bros. Pictures)

What is the plot of the "Wuthering Heights" movie?

"Wuthering Heights", starring Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie, tells the passionate and intense love story of Catherine (Cathy) Earnshaw and Heathcliff - an orphan who was taken in by Catherine’s wealthy family when the two were young.

Based on Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel of the same name, the film sees the obsessive and forbidden bond between Catherine and Heathcliff blossom - but things become bitter and vengeful when Catherine marries wealthy Edgar Linton. A scorned and jealous Heathcliff is left heartbroken - and goes on to seek some pretty nasty revenge against Cathy and Edgar’s families.

Why is the Wuthering Heights title in quotation marks?

While "Wuthering Heights" is, of course, based on Emily Brontë’s iconic novel and tells the powerful love story of Catherine and Heathcliff, director Emerald Fennell says the movie isn’t actually a direct adaptation of the book. This is why the film’s title is in quotation marks. Emerald explains that her iteration of "Wuthering Heights" isn’t an exact retelling of the book, rather a 'version' of it, and has been spiced up by a hefty dose of her own imagining of the story.

"The thing for me is that you can’t adapt a book as dense and complicated and difficult as this book. I can’t say I’m making Wuthering Heights. It’s not possible," she told Fandango. "What I can say is I’m making a version of it. There’s a version that I remembered reading that isn’t quite real. And there’s a version that I wanted stuff to happen that never happened. So it is Wuthering Heights and it isn’t. But really, I’d say that any adaptation of a novel, especially a novel like this, should have quotation marks around it."

(Image credit: Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures)

Who sings the "Wuthering Heights" soundtrack?

The official "Wuthering Heights" soundtrack is sung by Charli xcx, whose new album of the same name is set to be released on February 13th 2026 to coincide with the film’s launch.

Charli’s viral track, Everything Is Romantic, which featured on her 2024 album Brat, was used in the official "Wuthering Heights" teaser, released in September 2025. This provided an early hint at the unexpected tie between her new album and the film. Margot plus Jacob plus Charli is a combo we’re so here for.

Where was "Wuthering Heights" filmed?

Set in the Yorkshire moors like the Emily Brontë novel, Fennell's "Wuthering Heights" was filmed in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The likes of Arkengarthdale, Swaledale and the village of Low Row make appearances in the film, and cast members stayed at the Simonstone Hall hotel in Hawes during production.

Is Wuthering Heights a real place?

No, Wuthering Heights is not a real place. However, the iconic fictional location from Emily Brontë’s novel is inspired by remote villages in the Yorkshire countryside, where it’s set.

Watch the "Wuthering Heights" trailer

The official full-length trailer for "Wuthering Heights" was released in November 2025, following a raunchy teaser clip shared back in September. You can watch the official trailer below.

The 13 Books I Cannot Wait To Read This Year, From Buzzy Debuts to New Stories From Firm Favourites

jadietroypryde@gmail.com (Jadie Troy-Pryde) — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 15:28:32 +0000

Back in 2024, after a run of stagnant book-free years, I decided it was time to commit to a reading goal. With my Goodreads challenge set, I forced myself to remember why I bloody love books, and whenever I found myself in a bit of slump I returned to an old favourite to jumpstart some momentum (a book hack that I promise will hurl you out of a reading rut).

As a result, I've read - or re-read - some of my favourite books of all time in the last couple of years. I discovered the magic and poetic wonder of Oisín McKenna's Evenings and Weekends, and dove into the world of short stories, which led me to Bora Chung's Cursed Bunny - a collection that I think about almost daily. It also drew me back to beloved classics, like Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway and Ian McEwan's First Love, Last Rites.

Suffice to say, by the time we arrived in the 2026 I was well and truly back in my reading era. As well as following book trends on social and listening to tastemaker podcasts, I'm also reading as many pre-releases as I can while keeping an eye on industry buzz. The result? I've put together a list of 13 books that are set for release in the first half of the year, and they're the ones I'm most excited about. From debut authors to firm favourites, take a look at some of the biggest book releases of 2026.

Quick links to pre-order 2026 book releases

Half His Age, Jeanette McCurdy - now £8.49 (50% off, Amazon)
Chosen Family, Madeliene Gray - now £15.99 (20% off, Amazon)
Belgrave Road, Manish Chauhan - now £12.99 (24% off, Amazon)
Eating Ashes, Brenda Navarro - now £12.15 (19% off, Amazon)
Hooked, Asako Yuzuki - now £7.49 (50% off, Amazon)
200 Monas, Jan Saenz - now £15.63 (8% off, Amazon)
The News from Dublin, Colm Tóibín - now £12.49 (38% off, Amazon)
Kin, Tayari Jones - now £14.25 (25% off, Amazon)
Son of Nobody, Yann Martel - now £18.40 (8% off, Amazon)
Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke - now £14.19 (16% off, Amazon)
Molka, Monika Kim - now £18.99 (Amazon)
Honey, Imani Thompson - now £15.63 (8% off, Amazon)
Land, Maggie O'Farrell - now £12.50 (50% off, Amazon)

Must-read books of 2026

January Book Releases

20th January

Half His Age, Jennette McCurdy

Jennette McCurdy follows up I'm Glad My Mom Died with her debut novel, the highly-anticipated Half His Age. When a creative writing student starts a passionate affair with her married (and older) teacher, what unfolds is a 'funny and sad' exploration of sex, power and desire.

29th January

Chosen Family, Madeleine Gray

After the success of her debut Green Dot, Madeleine Gray returns with Chosen Family which follows high school besties Nell and Eve, who spend almost two decades toeing the line between love and friendship.

29th January

Belgrave Road, Manish Chauhan

Manish Chauhan's debut Belgrave Road tells the story of Mira and Tahliil, two strangers in Leicester who gradually fall in love - drawn together by proximity, but living lives that are worlds apart.

February Book Releases

19th February

Eating Ashes, Brenda Navarro

Brenda Navarro's award-winning tale is set for UK release this February. It dissects the complicated weight of guilt and grief through the eyes of a woman grappling with both in the wake of her brother's death.

March Book Releases

12th March

Hooked, Asako Yuzuki

From Asako Yuzuki, author of Butter, comes Hooked. Eriko is successful, ambitious and lonely. Shōko is a blogger and unconventional housewife. When Eriko decides to befriend Shōko, the lines between friendship and obsession begin to blur.

12th March

200 Monas, Jan Saenz

It's the debut that's been called outrageous, frenetic and playful - 200 Monas follows Arvy, a college student who finds hundreds of rare orgasm-inducing pills in the wake of her mum's death - and must find a way to get rid of them all within 48 hours.

26th March

The News From Dublin, Colm Tóibín

This collection of short stories from Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn and Long Island, focuses on love, longing and loss while living away from home, with the protagonists pondering the pull of their pasts and fragility of their futures.

26th March

Kin, Tayari Jones

Tayari Jones' Kin follows Vernice and Annie, inseparable childhood friends who eventually drift apart. But, despite forging different paths, fate draws the women together once again in this exploration of motherhood, sisterhood, class and race.

April Book Releases

Son of Nobody, Yann Martel

In this colourful retelling of the Trojan War, Life of Pi author Yann Martel explores the 'universal song of homesickness and regret, ambition, love and grief', and the threads that tie together the past and present.

Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke

Dubbed The Stepford Wives meets The Handmaid’s Tale, Caro Claire Burke's debut follows a modern-day 'trad wife' who finds herself transported back to 1805 - facing the stark reality of her new (old) life.

Molka, Monika Kim

After the success of her punchy debut The Eyes Are The Best Part, Monika Kim is back with Molka. One colleague indulges in voyeurism, the other in revenge - and it culminates in this feisty, feminist horror.

May Book Releases

Honey, Imani Thompson

The hotly-anticipated debut from British author Imani Thompson, Honey is a dark tale which throws light on the intersections between politics, race, sex, violence and love through the eyes of a female serial killer.

June Book Releases

Land, Maggie O'Farrell

With Hamnet dominating awards season, author Maggie O'Farrell presents Land. A multi-generational epic set in mid-19th century Ireland, it's a tale of resilience and survival in the wake of the famine.

Why Everyone Is Talking about Heated Rivalry Right Now (and the Books You Need to Read ASAP)

jadietroypryde@gmail.com (Jadie Troy-Pryde) — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 07:00:00 +0000

We're just two weeks into 2026, and you've probably noticed that Heated Rivalry is already dominating every social feed, group chat and viral award season clip. The TV show, which is based on the queer sports romance books by Rachel Reid, has become a phenomenal success since its release, premiering in the US in late November before finally reaching UK viewers on January 10th.

So - what can fans expect from Heated Rivalry? What's the storyline, who stars in the show, and will there be a second season? Plus - how can you read the popular books if you haven't yet? Here's everything you need to know about the show that everyone is talking about.

Heated Rivalry - the Trailer, Plot, Cast and Ending

From the show's stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, to the season one finale, plus all the info we have on Heated Rivalry season two - here's the lowdown on the TV adaptation of Rachel Reid's popular books.

Heated Rivalry - The Main Cast and Characters

Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams)
Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie)
Scott Hunter (Francois Arnaud)
Cliff Marleau (Franco Lo Presti)
Hayden Pike (Callan Potter)
Jackie Pike (Kamilla Kowal)
Svetlana Sergeevna Vetrova (Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova)
Christopher 'Kip' Grady (Robbie G.K.)
Yuna Hollander (Christina Chang)
David Hollander (Dylan Walsh)
Rose Landry (Sophie Nelisse)

What's the storyline of Heated Rivalry season one?

The book follows the popular enemies-to-lovers romance trope, and the show stays relatively faithful to Rachel Reid's original story. Heated Rivalry season one follows Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, two professional ice hockey stars who play opposite one another in competing teams. In public, their sporting rivalry is well-documented by the media and buoyed by their fandoms - but behind closed doors, the pair start a fling that ultimately leads to a lot more than they initially bargained for. As they juggle their careers and burgeoning romance, Shane and Ilya must decide if they can have love and success.

The show is based on the books by Rachel Reid - where can I find them?

The Game Changers series by Rachel Reid includes: Game Changer, Heated Rivalry, Tough Guy, Common Goal, Role Model, The Long Game, and Unrivaled (which is set for release in 2026). The show has been so popular with Australian viewers that Booktopia has been selling more than 100 copies of the book per day.

Heated Rivalry

The second book in Rachel Reid's Game Changers series, it follows Shane and Ilya's love story both on and off the ice.

The Long Game

The follow-up to Heated Rivalry, Shane and Ilya's love story picks up ten years later when the pair must make the choice between love and hockey.

Game Changer

If you loved Heated Rivalry, Game Changer is the first book in Rachel Reid's series and follows Scott and Kip's secret romance.

Where can I watch the trailer?

The trailer is currently available via YouTube, and you can watch the full teaser below:

How does season one end?

At the end of the season, Shane is enjoying a summer getaway with Ilya when his father arrives at their cottage unexpectedly and sees them kissing. They decide it's time to tell Shane's parents together, and drive over to their home; he comes out to them, and Ilya calls him his boyfriend. After sharing how much they love one another, Shane's parents are kind and supportive, and the couple drives off into the distance together.

Will there be a Heated Rivalry season 2?

Yes! Since the release of season one, it was confirmed that Heated Rivalry season two is happening. According to Connor Storrie, filming could even begin as soon as this summer. In an interview with TODAY on January 14th, he said: "I think Jacob [Tierney]'s still writing it. I think we're going to be filming... I don't know when, exactly."

When the host asked if "soon" could mean the summer, Storrie added: "Yeah, I think about then."

8 Books That the Marie Claire UK Team Couldn’t Put Down in 2025

jadietroypryde@gmail.com (Jadie Troy-Pryde) — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 07:00:00 +0000

When you need a good book recommendation, the Marie Claire UK team is an excellent resource. Copies of our favourite reads are on always on rotation here at MC HQ, and I've picked up some truly brilliant recs over the years thanks to the impressively speedy readers I work with. Whether you're looking for gripping page-turners or a book for your beach bag, the best LGBTQ+ books or powerful feminist literature, there's always an editor on hand with superb suggestions.

So, in an attempt to catch anything I might have missed in 2025, I turned to some of the team's biggest readers to find out what they devoured this year. While I've thoroughly enjoyed exploring the world of short stories, we have Editors who fell in love with contemporary classics, some who dove into conspiracy theories, and others who revel in the joy and chaos of romantic relationships.

Here are the 8 books MC UK 's editors loved in 2025.

Marie Claire UK editors pick their favourite books of 2025

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung

Picked by Jadie Troy-Pryde, News Editor: "I came across this surreal and brilliant collection of short stories by Bora Chung, and fell instantly in love with the weird and wonderful tales. Dancing somewhere between magical realism and horror, the self-contained narratives feel like a set of slightly unnerving fairytales - some laced with humour, others with a much darker edge. I devoured them all in two days, and I'm a painfully slow reader. You'll be utterly gripped."

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

Picked by Amelia Yeomans, Junior Shopping Editor: "If you love books that are character-led, this is the perfect read. It follows four sisters in Chicago and one of their partners, and it's so beautifully written. With themes of sisterhood, grief, romance, and religion, it touches on crucial parts of the human experience with an ultimately uplifting conclusion. I read it in record speed."

Evenings and Weekends by Oisin McKenna

Picked by Ally Head, Senior Health and Sustainability Editor: "Several editors on the MC UK team recommended this book last year, and I finally got around to it in January. It's so beautifully written, the characters are so real and raw, and the way that Oisin McKenna writes about London is incredibly vivid. Nothing else I've read this year has had the same impact on me."

Four Stars by Joel Golby

Picked by Dionne Brighton, Social Media Editor: "Given to me by a bar owner in Margate, Four Stars: A Life. Reviewed became my absolute favourite read of 2025. It's funny, it's witty, and so painfully relatable. When I finished it, I found myself reviewing everything I did. A solid five stars."

Stoner by John Williams

Picked by Nessa Humayun, Beauty Editor: "I’ve put off reading this book for years, but felt drawn to it this year. It’s a remarkable story in both its fact and fiction; published to very little fanfare back in 1965, Stoner had a resurgence in the early aughts—which is when I first purchased it. It’s a simple story of a man’s unremarkable life, which sounds bleak but it’s a reminder that meaning can be found in even the smallest of moments. I won’t say more because it’s so very worth a read."

Verve Books

Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth

Second pick by Amelia Yeomans, Junior Shopping Editor: "Following a young girl's first love and exploration of her sexuality in a small town in Ireland, Sunburn is a tender coming-of-age novel about society's expectations, and how the protagonist changes as she grows up. A very sweet but, at times, heart-wrenching read with compelling character observations."

Green Dot by Madeleine Gray

Second pick by Jadie Troy-Pryde, News Editor: "This book made me laugh and stressed me out in equal measure. Author Madeleine Gray balances humour and heartbreak in this story about infidelity, from the view of 'the other woman'. As the protagonist's affair with a married man unfolds, you'll be frantically turning the pages - torn between wanting to talk some stern sense into her, and giving her a big hug."

Conspiracy by Ian Shircore

Picked by Maggie Joyner, Junior Social Media Editor: "There's nothing that relaxes me more on a holiday than kicking back with a cocktail and a good book. And if you think conspiracy theories and poolside reading don’t go hand in hand, think again. This book isn't just full of wild theories - it aims to analyse historical events without bias, and ultimately, leaves it up to draw your own conclusions. Super interesting if you like digging deeper into conspiracies and unsolved mysteries."

Spotify Wrapped Is Finally Here – and These Were the Most Popular Audiobooks in 2025

jadietroypryde@gmail.com (Jadie Troy-Pryde) — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 13:01:00 +0000

The tree is finally up, you've maximised your 2026 annual leave and there's a constant trail of Celebrations wrappers on the arm of the sofa. It can only mean one thing; it's Christmas, and the Spotify Wrapped numbers are in. Maybe you've been listening to West End Girl on repeat since October, or perhaps the release of Wicked: For Good reminded you just how much you love a belter of a musical theatre number. Either way, it's time to find out about your listening habits in 2025 - and it's at this point in the year that you realise you might just be a Swiftie.

While the annual Spotify Wrapped data is a fun way to remember (and, if you're brave, share) the musical soundtrack to your year, the platform is now including audiobook data for the first time. Audio content has positively exploded in popularity in recent years - the podcast industry is reportedly worth a whopping $30 billion - and now, more readers than ever are leaning into audiobooks to reach their Goodreads target. In 2025, Spotify Audiobooks Wrapped will tell you the total number of audiobooks you listened to, your top genre, and it'll also include a top audiobook image cover as a social share card.

And if you're wondering how your audiobook consumption compares to the rest of the UK, the nation is hooked on - quelle surprise - fantasy fiction, with the likes of Rebecca Yarros, Sarah J. Maas and George R. R. Martin making the top 10. But it was former financial trader Gary Stevenson's book, The Trading Game, that came out on top.

Take a look at Spotify's top 10 audiobooks in 2025:

Top 10 Audiobooks in the UK - Spotify Wrapped 2025

The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yaros
The Hotel Avocado by Bob Mortimer
The Fellowship of the Ringby J.R.R. Tolkien
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Mass
Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
Mythosby Stephen Fry
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Mass
The Thursday Murder Clubby Richard Osman
A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book One by George R.R. Martin

(Image credit: Spotify)

When it comes to a full breakdown of the UK's favourite audiobook genres, however, the numbers look a little different. The top genre is mystery and thriller, followed by fiction and literature, and sci-fi and fantasy finish in third place. Other notable genres include romance, biography and memoir, and history.

Top 10 Audiobook Genres in the UK

Mystery and Thriller
Fiction and Literature
Sci-Fi and Fantasy
Romance
Biography and Memoir
History
Kids and Family
Self-Help
Teen and Young Adult
Arts and Entertainment

Happy Spotify Wrapped day!

Radical Reads, Dark Gems and Big Ideas—The Books Everyone Will Be Talking About This Winter

cjarvie@cjarvie.com (Catherine Jarvie) — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 16:08:59 +0000

Your winter reading just got radical. Hot on the heels of our Autumn books list, it’s our last books roundup for 2025, and we’re seeing out the year much as we started. From an epic Booker-Prize shortlistee to a 50-years-young dystopian tale that offers the chance to live forever (at a price), via a dark peek inside Italy’s cinematic dream factory and the dinner party from hell—these are the titles you really want to be reaching for right now. See you on the other side.

The Winter Reading List

EDITOR'S PICK

1. The Dinner Party, Viola van de Sandt

We meet Dutch thirtysomething Franca a year after the events of the dinner party of the title – a booze-soaked affair hosted by Franca and her English fiancé Andrew on the hottest day of the year in which everything that could go wrong does go wrong. A night that went so spectacularly wrong, in fact, she’s moved country and is seeing a therapist, trying to make peace with both the events of that evening and ‘That business with the knife’. Through those sessions and a series of letters she writes to her estranged friend Harry, the details of both the dinner party – recounted in brilliantly visceral prose – and the events leading up to it are gradually exposed. As we learn about Franca’s lonely childhood growing up in the Netherlands, the close friendship she and Harry formed at university in Utrecht and the whirlwind romance with Andrew that brought her to the UK, what we know of the evening is continuously reframed. What could have operated as a simple comedy of errors full of broken fridges, pompous guests and a wayward kitten, is revealed as something both far darker and more deeply emotionally compelling. A blistering debut.

EDITOR'S PICK

2. The Silver Book, Olivia Laing

It’s 1974 and young artist Nicholas has just arrived in Venice after fleeing England in the wake of an undisclosed tragedy when he is picked up by Danilo. The older man is in fact Danilo Donati – the real-life set designer for two greats of Italian cinema, Federico Fellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini. From this set-up, fact and fiction continue to intertwine. The pair’s one-night stand develops into a passionate affair. Before long, Nicholas is installed as Danilo’s assistant on the sets of Fellini’s extravagant Casanova and Pasolini’s brutal fascist parable, Salò – the last film the director made before being murdered in mysterious circumstances in 1975. Deploying Nicolas as their fictional muse, Laing weaves the threads of what is known about each of the three real-life men and the projects they were working on at the time into a richly elaborate tapestry that imagines the circumstances that led to Pasolini’s death. As rich, seductive and decadent as the golden era of Italian cinema itself.

EDITOR'S PICK

3. Freezing Point, Anders Bodelsen

What price would you be willing to pay – and what would you be willing to sacrifice – for immortality? While originally published in 1969, Bodelsen’s darkly satirical and eerily prescient novel wrestles with many of the questions that occupy our current longevity-obsessed, biohacking culture today. We first meet Bruno – a successful magazine fiction editor – in 1974, shortly before he is given a fatal cancer diagnosis. While there’s no treatment or cure, he’s offered the chance to be one of the first to be ‘frozen down’ – effectively kept in a state of suspended animation – until one is found (the novel was originally published two years after the first human being was cryogenically frozen). But when he’s woken 20 years later it is to a very different world, full of self-driving cars, bio-engineered food and lab-grown organs. Unable to adapt, he obsesses about a young ballerina who is herself now frozen down. He goes under ice again in the hope of reuniting with her in the future, but each time Bruno’s bought up for air the world he once knew is further away than ever.

4. Flat Earth, Anika Jade Levy

This wry, nihilistically jaded take on Gen Z life and competitive cool-girl frenemy-ship opens as post-grad arts students Avery and her best friend Frances go on the road in rural America in search of subjects for the ‘experimental documentary about rural isolation of right-wing conspiracy theorists’ Frances is shooting as a summer project. For aspiring writer Avery, the trip is a distraction technique as much as anything – an Adderall shortage has left her without the meds she needs to focus on the ‘book of cultural reports’ that is her own project (excerpts of which pepper the novel). Upon returning to NY, Frances drops out of college and marries a blue-collar boy back home. If that ratchets Avery’s envy up a notch, said envy is sent positively stratospheric when Frances’s finished documentary becomes the toast of their cultural milieu. Broke and still struggling to write, Avery takes a job at a new dating app called Patriarchy, dabbles in a little light sex work and generally feels sorry-not-sorry for both herself and the state of contemporary-ish America. Spoiler: it’s not looking good…

5. Will There Ever Be Another You, Patricia Lockwood

If Lockwood’s follow-up to her Booker shortlisted fiction debut, No One is Talking About This, reads like a fever dream, that’s because in many ways it is. Having contracted Covid in March 2020 during the first wave of the pandemic, Lockwood found herself in an entirely shifted reality: unable to read, barely able to write, living in a world where her memory ‘had fallen out of my mind like chunks of plaster’. If that sounds unrelentingly grim, it isn’t – as ever Lockwood’s writing is left-field and funny, filled with long looping segues and hilarious observations on a world turned upside down. (‘I wrote it insane and edited it sane,’ she has said of her process for this book.) Our advice? Just roll with it and trust you’re in safe hands. Alternately dazzling and baffling it may be, but as ever with Lockwood, it’s most definitely worth the ride.

6. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai

At just shy of 700 pages, this Booker Prize-shortlisted doorstopper is an epic in pretty much every sense of the word. It sprawls across countries and generations, ostensibly telling the will-they-won’t-they love story of its eponymous protagonists. Sunny is an early-career journalist in New York, desperate for both a green card and his big break, whereas would-be writer Sonia flees Manhattan to return home to Delhi (where they’re both from) after a toxic love affair with an artist three decades her senior goes horribly wrong. This is much more than ‘just’ a love story, however. Alongside its Dickensian mass of characters (everyone from house staff to friends earns their place on the illustrated family trees), the novel posits various topics and themes that range from immigration, alienation, class and cultural appropriation to magical realism, art, fame – and what separates a good kebab from a bad. Complex and funny, this tale of family and connection will steal your heart.

7. A Love Story From the End of the World, Juhea Kim

A household name in Korea, Juhea Kim remains little known in this part of the world. This collection of short stories should challenge that. Broadly speaking, each one grapples with the precarity of life on our small blue planet – be it an imagined near-future where the air is so toxic Seoul is covered by a protective biodome, or the very contemporary threat posed by a proposed geothermal energy plant to the inhabitants of a reservation in rural America – but always in tandem with emotional precarity of the individuals who populate them. There’s playfulness to be had, too. In Notting Hill, for example, an American crossed the Atlantic to take up a job offer from an environmental charity in London, where she rents a flat in ‘the house with the blue door’ and flips the romantic dynamic of the film of the same name on its head. Just lovely.

8. Big Kiss, Bye-Bye, Claire-Louise Bennett

Following the end of a long relationship with a much older man (he’s the one to break it off, refusing to accept her wish to transition it from love to friendship), our narrator moves to the Irish countryside where she has plenty of time to reflect on this and other romantic entanglements over the years, including one with a former teacher that may or may not have been abusive. As far as plot goes, that’s pretty much it, but it’s ideas rather than narrative that Bennett is exploring here – about relationships, sex, connection and, crucially, perspective. She captures the failings and yearnings on both sides through long passages of dialogue bursting with things unsaid, and intersperses the rest with pithy observations on the daily charms (cold swimming) and frustrations (an upselling florist) of an intensely analysed life.

EDITOR'S PICK

9. Bad Bad Girl, Gish Gen

More playing with form here. As its author notes in the opening pages, her original intention was to write a memoir of her late mother’s life – only to realise she didn’t know enough about it, despite her repeated attempts to encourage her mother to share memories of growing up in China before moving to the US aged 23. Instead, she took what she did know to create this mashup of biography with fiction, to tell a ‘forged truth’ that, like Wild Swans before it, relates the stories of three generations of Chinese women. To call Gen’s mother difficult is an understatement – not nurtured in her own childhood (her mother scolded her for being ‘too smart for your own good’), she wasn’t about to change that because she was raising her daughter – who slips into first-person to tell her side of the story – in America. Despite a childhood marked by verbal admonishments (the author being the bad, bad girl of the title) and physical punishment, Gen displays a genuine and heartbreaking affection for mother. It is a sad, shocking, beautiful tale of brutal histories and, ultimately, compassion.

10. On the Calculation of Volume III, Solvej Balle

‘Tara Seltzer is no longer alone…’ proclaims the front flap on the third (of a planned seven) instalment of Balle’s time-loop epic about a woman trapped inside a single day. She has met someone – a man named Henry – who, like her, wakes up each morning to find time has reset itself to 18 November. And what a treat it is for what has to be one of the most fascinating literary experiments of recent times to be back on course after a somewhat (and rather ironically) repetitive second instalment. Without giving too much away, it seems like Tara and Henry might not be the only ones, as they set about trying to find a missing person in a world where everyone thinks ‘everything can wait until tomorrow’.

11. A State of Siege, Janet Frame

After years spent caring for her sick mother, newly retired art teacher Milfred leaves the home where she has lived all her life to move to a small island off the coast of Auckland, New Zealand, in this rerelease of the author’s propulsive and unsettling 1966 novel. She plans to paint new things and redefine herself. A few nights after her arrival, however, a stranger comes knocking at her door just as a storm blows up. Milfred spends the night awake and terrified, as – in her mind – the stranger takes on the forms of those she has left behind. If Milfred’s circumstances are a little old-fashioned for contemporary readers (a fiftysomething woman starting again on her own is not – praise be – the social novelty presented here), her night terrors and fears are all too familiar for anyone who’s lain awake at night projecting their deepest fears into the dark.

Britney Spears Responds to ‘Extremely Hurtful’ Claims in Kevin Federline’s Memoir

jadietroypryde@gmail.com (Jadie Troy-Pryde) — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 13:06:08 +0000

Britney Spears has responded to claims made by her ex-husband, Kevin Federline, in his upcoming memoir You Thought You Knew. In the book, which is set for release later this month, Kevin details his two-year marriage to Britney and makes a number of claims about her parenting and mental health.

The former couple divorced in 2007 and share two sons, Sean Preston and Jayden James, with Kevin obtaining sole physical custody of their children in the same year. In his memoir, the former dancer makes a number of shocking accusations about the singer, including allegations of drug use while breastfeeding and erratic behaviour around their sons. In an excerpt of the book published in the New York Times, Kevin claims that their children would wake up 'to find [Britney] standing silently in the doorway, watching them sleep – "Oh, you’re awake?" – with a knife in her hand' before she'd 'turn around and pad off without explanation.'

Britney has since responded to the allegations in Kevin's memoir, writing in an Instagram post on Wednesday (16 October): "The constant gaslighting from ex-husband is extremely hurtful and exhausting. I have always pleaded and screamed to have a life with my boys. Relationships with teenage boys is complex. I have felt demoralized by this situation and have always asked and almost begged for them to be a part of my life.

"Sadly, they have always witnessed the lack of respect shown by my own father for me. They need to take responsibility for themselves. With one son only seeing me for 45 min in the past five years and the other with only four visits in the past five years. I have pride too. From now on I will let them know when I am available."

She continued: "Trust me, those white lies in that book, they are going straight to the bank and I am the only one who genuinely gets hurt here. I will always love them and if you really know me, you won't pay attention to the tabloids of my mental health and drinking. I am actually a pretty intelligent woman who has been trying to live a sacred and private life the past 5 years. I speak on this because I have had enough and any real woman would do the same."

In an official response from Britney's team, a spokesperson told The Independent: "With news from Kevin’s book breaking, once again he and others are profiting off her and sadly it comes after child support has ended with Kevin. All she cares about are her kids, Sean Preston and Jayden James and their wellbeing during this sensationalism. She detailed her journey in her memoir."

Kevin also writes about the #FreeBritney movement in his memoir, stating that while it 'started from a good place' that it's 'no longer about freedom. It’s about survival'. As per The Guardian, he writes: "This situation with Britney feels like it’s racing toward something irreversible. It’s become impossible to pretend everything’s OK. From where I sit, the clock is ticking, and we’re getting close to the 11th hour. Something bad is going to happen if things don’t change, and my biggest fear is that our sons will be left holding the pieces."

In her own memoir, Britney discussed the reality of her 13 year conservatorship and claimed that during their custody battle, Kevin had 'tried to convince everyone that I was completely out of control'.

The Woman in Me: Britney Spears

In Britney Spears' record-breaking autobiography, The Woman In Me, the popstar opens up about life behind the scenes - sharing her personal stories, in her own words, for the first time.

Britney's best-selling memoir, The Woman In Me, will be turned into a feature-length film with Wicked director Jon. M. Chu confirmed to be steering the biopic.

The Page-turners, Heartbreakers, and Big-Idea Books of Autumn 2025

cjarvie@cjarvie.com (Catherine Jarvie) — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 06:00:00 +0000

Autumn is made for reading. And not just because shorter days and longer nights equals more time curled up in your favourite chair with your soon-to-be-favourite novel, but because it’s also the season when publishers unleash some of their biggest releases of the year. And so it proves to be. From a heartwrenchingly beautiful campus romance and sprawling multigenerational saga to tales of forbidden love and an eerily disquieting dystopia – this month’s list is a doozy.

EDITOR'S PICK

1. Heart The Lover, Lily King

Fans of King’s Writers and Lovers rejoice. While not being sold as a literary bedfellow to her 2020 novel, Heart the Lover takes us firmly back into that world. We meet our protagonist in college where she falls in with best friends and star students, Sam and Yash. The trio form a knotty and emotionally complex bond that swiftly develops into a classic love triangle – and we all know how those turn out. Or rather, we don’t, because King – one of the sharpest observers of love, relationships and the human condition writing today – is too good at what she does for that, elevating every page to create an accessibly erudite three-act tale of paths not taken and loves misaligned. Equal parts witty, wise and full-box-of-tissues heartbreaking, Heart the Lover is hands down one of the emotionally uplifting stories you’ll read this year.

EDITOR'S PICK

2. Half Light, Mahesh Rao

When a landslide closes the road to the Darjeeling hotel in which Pavan works, the stolen glances he has been sharing with flirtatious young guest Neville are given the opportunity to tip into forbidden romance. But this is India in 2014, where homosexuality is not only frowned upon but still illegal, and their brief happiness ends when tragedy strikes. Roll forward four years and the pair’s paths cross again at the luxury hotel in Mumbai where Pavan now works. Once again, Neville’s sexual precocity threatens to bring down the quiet, closeted life Pavan has so painstakingly constructed for himself. Rao’s sheds light without judgement, creating enormous sympathy in his tale of two very different gay men constrained by India’s rigid social mores at a pivotal point in India’s history (same-sex relationships were finally legalised in the country in 2019). Thoughtful, tender storytelling at its finest.

3. TonyInterrupter, Nicola Barker

‘Is this honest? Are we all being honest here?’ This interjection by an audience member during a trumpet solo at an experimental jazz concert in Canterbury goes viral when the trumpeter in question is caught on camera melting down about the audacity of ‘…some dickweed, small-town TonyInterrupter…’ ruining his flow. The result is a freeform – and very funny – play on everything from art and authenticity to cancel culture. Fans of Barker’s distinctive brand of literary comedy will not be disappointed. Newbies, welcome to the party.

EDITOR'S PICK

4. The Definitions, Matt Greene

Greene’s deceptively simple tale opens with a group of students discussing their first memories. A common enough topic you may think, but it very quickly becomes clear that things are rather stranger than they first seem. The students are survivors of a virus that has wiped out their memories and are part of an experimental ‘re-education’ that, if successful, will allow them to graduate back into the society from which their illness has left them disenfranchised. They attend classes on topics such as ‘Politeness’ and ‘The History of the 21st-Century’ and – since the virus has wiped all traces of their identities – take their names from the educational ‘cartridges’ screened nightly (one particularly popular show, we’re trold spawned ‘countless Rachels, thirty or so Chandlers, twenty-six Phoebes and just as many Joeys’).

In a lesser novel, the dissonance created by such pop-cultural breadcrumbing – which is applied to everything from mealtimes to courtship rituals – would be satisfying enough on its own. Here, it’s merely the frame on which a much deeper, investigation is built. What are we without our memories? Without context, what does any word – or indeed society itself – even mean? As our unnamed narrator searches for some understanding of who she is and where she has come from, she tries on words like dresses, discarding some, accessorising others, never quite finding the perfect fit. Greene’s rich, elliptical, beautifully written novel performs a similar feat, refusing to be pinned down and defying easy definition to the very last page. A masterclass in storytelling and what it is to be human.

5. We Love You, Bunny, Mona Awad

Awad’s 2019 satirical campus horror about a quartet of rich mean-girls who call each other Bunny and the oddball student, Samantha, who called them out was a hit on release and continues to rack up readers today. Deservedly so – it was as sharply plotted as it was sharply observed and it’s a deliciously dark pleasure to be back in their world. Samantha – now a successful writer – has been taken captive by the bunnies who each take their turns narrating a version of their origin story to her. It may not quite pack the punch of the original, but there’s still plenty of punch to be had.

Duckworth

6. A Splintering, Dur e Aziz Amma

Raised in poverty in rural Pakistan, Tara dreams of escape. She envies the opportunity and freedom afforded to her only brother, Lateef, but despite being educated beyond her sisters, knows the only way out is for her to marry well. When she’s set up with dull accountant from the city, she seizes on it as her ticket to a new life. But Tara is not easily satisfied. Her exposure to the comforts of a middle-class life only makes her aspire for more – and for a woman of her background and circumstance that aspiration comes at a price. It is a price she is only too willing to pay – especially after Lateef moves to the city and she sees the ease with which he is able to access everything she has worked so hard towards having – but at what cost to them both? Tara is by no means an easy character to like, but love her or loathe her, you’re not likely to forget her. A complex and compelling exploration of class and gender in Pakistan today.

7. Buckeye, Patrick Ryan

VE Day has just been announced in the small Midwestern US town of Bonhomie when Margaret Salt wanders into the hardware store where newly minted husband Cal Jenkins works with his father-in-law. The pair share a kiss that, in its surprise and intensity, goes on to ripple down both sides of their families for decades and generations to come. Ryan has a sharp eye for character and storytelling and Buckeye delivers on both. If you’re a fan of long and winding multigenerational sagas in which hearts are broken and lessons learned, this one’s for you – perfect for curling up with over the long autumn evenings ahead.

EDITOR'S PICK

8. A Truce That Is Not Peace, Miriam Toews

The Women Talking author has nodded to the deaths of both her father and sister by suicide before – most famously in her bestselling 2014 novel, All My Puny Sorrows. She treads similar ground here, in a piece of life writing that places her own struggles with dealing with such fundamental losses front and centre. Struggling to write an essay on ‘Why I Write’, set by the organisers of a writers’ festival, Towes picks at and explores the subject, looping back and forth through her present and past relationships with family, former husbands and lovers – even the ‘deranged skunk’ that is attempting to burrow its way back into her house. In the process, she takes us and herself into the fundamentals of both her craft and her past in a piece of life writing that is euridite, deeply, darkly moving and heart-wrenchingly funny.

9. What We Can Know, Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan has written across multiple genres, received or been nominated for most major literary awards, and the number of his novels that have adapted into films is well into double figures. And yet he still has the capacity to surprise. In this instance, by taking us 100 years into a flood-ravaged future Britain and building his 18th published novel around a lost poem and a lengthy and what at first appears to be a somewhat dull dinner party. Bear with however, because this is a man who knows his craft and at the final third things take a decidedly sharp turn. McEwan upends his own carefully constructed tale with an unexpected twist of the kind the author has built his name on.

10. Boy From The North Country, Sam Sussman

Growing up, Sam Sussman was repeatedly told how much he looked like Bob Dylan. And as one glance at his author’s photograph reveals, he does indeed look a lot like the artist formerly known as Robert Allen Zimmerman. The twist in this tale is that Sussman has come to believe that he is in fact the offspring of the American singer-songwriter (his mother who had an on-off relationship with Dylan that was last ‘on’ nine months before Sussman was born). Which makes for a great anecdote, sure – but a novel? In this case, yes. And not for the reasons you might think. Evan, who narrates the tale, is in London when his mother, June, calls to tell him she has cancer. Returning home to see her, the pair retrace the story of their life together and June’s life before Evan was born. As you may have guessed from that precis, the beating heart of this novel is not the potential for starry paternity, but the depth and beauty of the mother-son relationship at its centre. And it’s all the better for that.

11. Pick A Colour, Souvankham Thammavongsa

Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of all the clipping, buffing and polishing at your local nail salon? Thammavongsa’s debut novel lifts the lid. We spend a summer’s day with salon owner Ning – a former boxer – and her rotating staff of Susans (all so-named for the convenience of her customers) as they attend to hen parties, single ladies and entitled pro sportsmen alike. Sharply observed and viciously funny, whether it’s the snide comments they share at their customers’ expense or the hidden trauma that’s slowly chipped away from Ning’s brittle professionalism as the novel progresses, there’s darkness under the shine.

12. House Of Day, House Of Night, Olga Tokarczuk

There is a touch of the Brothers Grimm to Tokarczuk’s latest book to be translated into English. The International Booker winner has described it as a ‘constellation’ novel. And indeed, this dreamlike, fragmentary – and at times downright hallucinatory – work eschews linear storytelling and standard plot and replaces it with a series of fascinatingly macabre, tales about the residents of and assorted visitors to Krajanow, the town in rural Poland where it’s set. If you’re looking for an alt to traditional Halloween reading, this is it.

I’m an Avid Reader, Writer and Bookshop Dweller – These Are the Literary Festivals Not To Miss This Autumn

jadietroypryde@gmail.com (Jadie Troy-Pryde) — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 06:30:00 +0000

I've always loved books. As a child I spent countless nights frantically page-turning when I was supposed to be sleeping, and over the last twenty years I've built a robust collection of paperbacks from cute bookstores, friends and endless charity shops. Admittedly, I was locked in a reading slump for a few years and my TBR pile neither expanded nor shrank, but after moving to Brighton and becoming a seasoned cafe-hopper I'm well and truly in my Book Era 2.0.

Since leaving London, I've also spent more time on creative writing - something which has largely taken a back seat since becoming a journalist nine years ago. But I've been desperate for some structure and inspiration; I've joined writing groups, attended local workshops and managed to start (and abandon) The Artist's Way approximately nine times in the last six months. I'm trying.

But it wasn't until recently that I realised just how many incredible literary festivals take place in the UK during my favourite season: autumn. From author panels to inspiring practical workshops, industry insider talks to open mic nights for new voices, had I taken this into account during my book dry spell I might have read more than one book a year, or written my first novel by now. Or, finished The Artist's Way.

For anyone who loves to read, wants to write, or hopes to forge connections within literary community, now is the perfect time to do it. Over the next three months, there are so many incredible events happening - from large city events in London and Manchester, to smaller festivals in seaside towns like Whitby and Hastings. And for those who fancy heading further afield, you'll find epic literary cruises, luxury Italian writing retreats and iconic European book fairs.

So if you want a novel getaway (ha), these are some of the best literary festivals and book events taking place this autumn.

Book Festivals and Literary Events 2025 - UK

London and South East

Black British Book Festival

Europe's largest Black literature festival is now in its fourth year, and 2025 brings a jam-packed day of panels and sessions at the Barbican. Expect talks from the likes of Sir Lenny Henry, Jordan Stephens and Dame Denise Lewis DBE, plus a book marketplace to pick up your next reads.

WHEN AND WHERE: 19 October 2025, Barbican Centre, London. Tickets and more info here.

London Literature Festival

This two-week celebration of all things literature is bursting with big names - the likes of Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, celebrity bookworm Reese Witherspoon, best-selling thriller writer Harlan Coben and former Vice President Kamala Harris will take the stage throughout the festival. Enjoy talks from Zadie Smith and Malala Yousafzai, too, plus a roster of workshops and learning days from industry leaders.

WHEN AND WHERE: 21 October to 2 November 2025, Southbank Centre, London. Tickets and more info here.

Cliveden Literary Festival

(Image credit: Courtesy of Cliveden Literary Festival)

It's 'the most dignified and beautiful literary festival on the planet' according to author Alain de Botton. Taking place at the stunning Cliveden House in Berkshire, it prides itself on blending 'lively discussion, innovative ideas, and political debate' and this year festival goers can expect talks from the likes of Salman Rushdie, Tina Brown and William Boyd.

WHEN AND WHERE: 11 - 12 October 2025, Cliveden House & Spa, Berkshire. Tickets and more info here.

The Coast is Queer

A celebration of LGBTQ+ literature, this four day event at the University of Sussex includes talks on publishing and queer thriller writing, as well as film screenings and practical workshops.

WHEN AND WHERE: 9 - 12 October 2025, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, University of Sussex, Brighton. Tickets and more info here.

Hastings Book Festival

Further along the coast, the Hastings Book Festival is taking over the East Sussex seaside town with a helping of book fairs, photo exhibitions and open mic nights, as well as writing sessions - including an interactive workshop exploring the link between wellness and storytelling.

WHEN AND WHERE: 12 - 20 September 2025, events across Hastings, East Sussex. Tickets and more info here.

North and Midlands

Whitby Lit Fest

(Image credit: Courtesy of Whitby Lit Fest)

The Whitby Lit Fest is a brand new four day event, honouring the seaside town's literary heritage. For its inaugural year, there are over 50 authors taking part in panels, poetry performances and fiction and non-fiction workshops.

WHEN AND WHERE: 6 - 9 November 2025, various venues across Whitby, Yorkshire. Tickets and more info here.

Durham Book Festival

With 25 events over three days, the Durham Book Festival boasts a wide range of speakers - from retailer Mary Portas to presenter Jeremy Vine. There are also illustration classes, poetry reads and an Edinburgh Fringe-approved storytelling show.

WHEN AND WHERE: 10 - 12 October 2025, Gala Theatre, Clayport Library and Collected Books, Durham. Tickets and more info here.

Manchester Literature Festival

This epic two-week festival will showcase iconic literary voices like Irvine Welsh, Zadie Smith, Elizabeth Day and Kiran Desai. You can also find talks on how to get published and the power of translation as activism.

WHEN AND WHERE: 11 - 26 October 2025, venues across Manchester. Tickets and more info here.

Ilkley Literature Festival

Running for over fifty years, the Ilkley Literature Festival encourages the discovery of new writers and ideas. This year, there are Dostoyevsky reading nights and wholesome book quizzes alongside talks from foodies like Jay Rayner and Ruby Tandoh, plus practical sessions for poetry, short stories and finding your voice in fiction.

WHEN AND WHERE: 3 - 19 October 2025, various venues across Ilkley, Bradford. Tickets and more info here.

Stratford Literary Festival

(Image credit: Stratford Lit Fest)

This literary festival based in Stratford-upon-Avon is back for the autumn series, with an array of writing sessions and author talks. But there are also a number of additional creative workshops - from comedy to crafts to games cafes, there's something for everyone.

WHEN AND WHERE: 30 October - 2 November 2025, Stratford-upon-Avon. Tickets and more info here.

South West England

Cheltenham Literature Festival

The world’s longest-running literature festival is back next month, with over 400 events and 500 speakers. If you want to immerse yourself in all things storytelling, this one is for you with talks spanning everything from books to beauty, fashion to fiction.

WHEN AND WHERE: 10 - 19 October 2025, various venues across Cheltenham. Tickets and more info here.

Marlborough Literature Festival

The historic market town welcomes thousands of book lovers every year for the Marlborough Literature festival, and that includes open mic poetry events and prose nights for new voices to share work. There's even a Children's Lit Fest schedule for little ones to enjoy, too.

WHEN AND WHERE: 25 - 28 September 2025, Marlborough, Wiltshire. Tickets and more info here.

The Jane Austen Festival

With Regency dress parades, guided walks and costume balls, Bath will host a ten day celebration of Jane Austen to mark her 250th birthday. Follow character trails, turn pages at the Sense & Sensibility book club or enjoy a game of croquet. Those travelling for the event can fully immerse themselves in all things Austen - the nearby Lucknam Park Hotel & Spa is offering Jane Austen themed packages as an extra helping for literature lovers.

WHEN AND WHERE: 12 - 21 September 2025, Bath. Tickets and more info here.

Scotland

Edinburgh Women's Fiction Festival

A new literary festival which aims to celebrate 'writing for, by, and about women', the Edinburgh Women's Fiction Festival will take place later this month in the Scottish capital. There are panels on magic and mythology, the women behind gothic fiction, plus free masterclasses with authors and literary agents.

WHEN AND WHERE: 26 and 27 September 2025, Edinburgh. Tickets and more info here.

Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival

Crime fans, this one's for you. The Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival invites readers and writers to explore the genre in Stirling, Scotland over three jam-packed days - whether you're after author talks, or true crime walking tours.

WHEN AND WHERE: 12 - 14 September 2025, Stirling. Tickets and more info here.

International Book Breaks

Literature Festival at Sea Cruise

Cunard Cruises are taking bookish holidays to the next level with this literary voyage. Sailing from New York to Southhampton in December, the Literature Festival at Sea 2025 will bring authors, journalists and book lovers together on the trip of a lifetime with a smattering of exciting workshops and Q&As.

WHEN AND WHERE: 8 - 15 December 2025, 7 night voyage from New York, US to Southhampton, UK. Tickets and more info here.

Creative Writing Weekend at Villa la Massa, Florence

If you're looking for a creative writing retreat with difference, there's a rather unique opportunity to hone your craft at the stunning Villa La Massa in Florence, Italy this October. The four day gathering, hosted by Italian authors Leonardo Colombati and Edoardo Nesi, gives writers the chance to engage in storytelling sessions, supper clubs and workshops while soaking up the endlessly enchanting Tuscan countryside.

WHEN AND WHERE: 24 - 27 October 2025, Florence, Italy. Tickets and more info here.

The Frankfurt Book Fair

The world's largest trade fair for books is back in October, so if you fancy an autumnal book-themed Euro getaway the Frankfurt Book Fair will include networking opportunities, discussions on AI and rights, and free masterclasses in the lead up to the event.

WHEN AND WHERE: 15 - 19 October 2025, Frankfurt, Germany. Tickets and more info here.

Hot Books, Strange Tales —From Haunted Love to Literary Thrillers, Your August Reading Just Got Wild

cjarvie@cjarvie.com (Catherine Jarvie) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 06:00:00 +0000

Following on from our bumper summer books reading list, we’re at that period of summer that used to be called the ‘silly season’, and while the novels featured in this month’s handpicked crop are anything but silly, it’s fair to say many of their writers are getting playfully inventive. Just for starters, we have a novel narrated by the Helm Wind, a mail-order bride kidnapping caper-turned deeply personal reflection on the war in Ukraine and a journey into a Dante-esque underworld to bring a Cambridge professor back from the dead, and a puma on the loose in settler-era Australia.

With the longlist just announced, it’s also the beginning of Booker Prize season, and a couple of our new releases come freshly minted off that. There’s also more than one star-crossed romance, a mind-bending supernatural mystery-thriller, a heartbreakingly funny divorce novel, some breathtaking short fiction and lots, lots more.

So lay out your blanket or pull up your beach chair – with this lot to keep you company, you ain’t going anywhere.

The Compound, Aisling Rawle

Lily wakes from a drugged sleep to find herself on the set of a long-running reality TV show in which women and men have to couple up – and stay coupled up – to remain in the game. They are watched on a continuous live feed and given prizes for a variety of group and personal tasks, the value of which increases the longer they stay in the game (or, more tellingly, the higher the personal stakes might be). There is an underlying sense of threat from the outset – and not only because the desert location is both desolate and dangerous; they have to play for even basic resources to secure the property and even fresh drinking water. As the game continues, we begin to understand that the world outside is not quite as we know it, with continuous war and the imminent threat of all-out climate catastrophe. Added to the sense of menace inside the compound and it becomes a game that’s less Love Island and more survival of fittest Lord of the Flies-style, adding an unsettling edge to this clever spin on the locked-room premise.

The Catch, Yrsa Daley-Ward

Estranged sisters Clara and Dempsey are reunited after Clara sees a woman who looks exactly like their mother, Serene, who has been missing, presumed dead, since last being seen on the banks of the Thames decades before. But while Clara is convinced this woman – who hasn’t aged a day – is their mother back from the dead, Dempsey is equally convinced this Serene is a con artist, out for all she can get. If that sounds like a straightforward enough premise for a thriller, The Catch is anything but. Clara is a best-selling writer whose latest work appears to be a word-for-word take on original Serene’s own unpublished writings before she disappeared and Daley-Ward has a lot of fun playing with the surreal, supernatural fantasticness of this against the practical realities Clara is determined to prove to be true. Even beyond this pretty mind-bending premise there’s plenty more going on – not the least of which are the sisters own sibling rivalry and differences after growing up in two very different homes in the wake of their mother’s disappearance. Don’t overthink it. This knotty exploration of everything from adoption and addiction to fame and sexual control – with a heavy sprinkling of metaphysical magic thrown in for good measure – is a fascinating debut. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

EDITOR'S PICK

Slanting Towards the Sea, Lidija Hilje

Ivona is 38 years old. Childless, divorced and living with her sick, widowed father in the post-war Croatian town where she grew up, she is still deeply in love with her ex, Vlaho, and emotionally entrenched in the life he shares with his new partner and children. So far so typical of one of any of a number of disillusioned and disenfranchised female protagonists in recent fiction. Yet there is much more to Ivona – and to Hilje’s debut novel – than the tropes of sad-girl literature, and Hilje unveils them with skill. There’s that deep, complicated bond she and Vlaho still share, for one (her world, ‘softly tipping into his direction, as if he himself were the sea’ since their first kiss as students a decade earlier). And there is Croatia itself – struggling in its emergence from a brutal conflict, its citizens are continuously blindsided by bureaucracy and trapped in a kind of half-and-half existence as they wait to join the EU – frustrations that reflect Ivona’s own thwarted ambitions and trapping within a fist of toxic relationships. As she struggles to save her father’s family home and olive farm from foreclosure, she is forced to confront the limitations of her life, test what she is willing to do to move past them, and reckon with what remains. It all adds up to deeply compassionate account of a women attempting to come to terms with her relationships, history and herself. Just beautiful.

Flashlight, Susan Choi

What came first – the short story or the seed of the idea for the longer book? The opening chapter of Choi’s sixth, Booker-longlisted novel first came to public light as a short story of the same name, in which we met 10-year-old Louise in the office of the psychiatrist she’s been referred to for acting out and petty theft not long after her father, Serk, slipped and went missing – presumably drowned – on a beach in Japan. From there, the story quickly opens out into a thematically and geographically wide-ranging work covering four generations of absence, exile and estrangement. But personal loss and tragedy are just the start of it. Choi is interested in much broader political themes, and as the novel plays out these are revealed gradually at first, then show-stoppingly. No spoilers on that (you’ll thank us for it, promise) – just read it and discover its full impact for yourself.

EDITOR'S PICK

Night of the Living Rez, Morgan Talty

We fell hard for Talty’s debut novel last year, and lucky us because now his first full-length work – published to great acclaim in the US in 2022 – is now also getting a UK release. Night of… is a series of interconnected short stories that by the very nature of its set-up, is a slower burn than Fire Exit – its standalone-story set-up means that it takes time for the various threads that weave the collection together to reveal their full impact. It’s well worth the wait, wending its way back and forth across several decades in the life of David, a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation who lives on the reservation (the ‘rez’ of the title) where the stories are set, en route.

Talty’s mastery of his craft is evident on every page. This is a community at once tightly interconnected and rudderless: unemployment, addiction and petty crime are part and parcel of everyday life on the rez and that staggering, back-and-forth timeline is no accident, serving to slowly reveal the lives of and backstories of his characters and inviting us, as readers, to better understand what drives them without expectation or judgement.

‘I wonder if How’d we get here? is the wrong question,’ a teenage David asks himself at one point. ‘Maybe the right question is How do we get out of here? Maybe that’s the only question that matters.’ In Talty’s hands, all the questions matter and if few come readymade with easy answers, each and every one is handled with the writer’s trademark empathy and compassion. To which all we can say is – bring on book three...

Helm, Sarah Hall

There are very few writers who could pull off a novel in which the main character is not a person or anything else commonly considered ‘living’, but a weather phenomenon. The Helm Wind is the UK’s only named wind (think la Mistral relocated to Cumbria), and Hall draws on its characteristics – playful, mischievous, ever-present – to create an eons-long narrative with Helm at its core, narrating and overseeing all the other players. We are there at the very beginning, as Helm is formed along with the earth itself, and then through early human habitation right up to the present day, ticking off major periods, events and timelines in human history – Neolithic, Medieval, Industrial – right up to the climate-challenged present day with a cast of characters from shaman to medieval wizard to meteorologist and many, many more. Hall’s prose is inventive, puckish, fun and sometimes downright puerile (‘Helm’ we learn ‘loves a fart joke’), using Helm to pull all the disparate threads of human existence together in a wide-ranging narrative filled with hope and awe.

Endling, Maria Reva

A tale of two very distinct halves – for two very distinct reasons – Reva’s Booker longlisted debut novel opens in Ukraine in 2022 and centres of Yeva, a scientist committed to breeding rare snails, some of which are endlings (the last known living member of a species). To fund her work, she joins so-called ‘romance tours’ as a fake potential match for would-be Western men looking for mail-order Ukrainian brides – and it’s on one of these that she meets two sisters with a plan to disrupt what they see as the anti-feminist evils of the marriage industry by kidnapping a vanload of bachelors and holding them hostage. So far, so fun and so funny. But then midway through, the real-life Russian invasion happens and the entire novel comes to an abrupt halt – complete with acknowledgements and a Note About the Author – before being restarted with the war very much front and centre. It’s a brilliant illustration of the disruption the war enacted upon Reva’s writing process, directly addressing her concerns for her Kherson-based grandfather who is refusing to leave his frontline home. Funny, clever, heartbreaking – Endling has it all.

EDITOR'S PICK

Maggie; or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar, Katie Yee

Brooklyn-based writer Yee’s short, pithy debut is a tale of two Maggies – the first, the woman her husband is leaving her for; the second, the name she gives to the lump she finds in her breast shortly afterwards, when she is subsequently diagnosed with cancer. So this is a divorce novel and a cancer novel, but – as both that set up and its punchline-to-come title suggest – it is anything but a typical representation of either genre. Covering the months that follow both discoveries, it eschews chapters for anecdote-length passages that are both funny-sad and ha-ha as she struggles to make sense of both while keeping her focus firmly and lovingly on her two young children. In-between there are knock-knock jokes and bedtime retellings of tales of Chinese folklore gifted to her from her late mother and the beginnings of The Guide to My Husband: A User’s Manual as she tries to make sense of her own personal and wider family history. Beautiful and heartfelt, it doesn’t shy away from any of the realities of either situation but nor does it wallow or dwell.

Dusk, Robbie Arnott

Itinerant twins Iris and Floyd – the outcast children of ‘killer thieves’ who scrape a living picking up odd jobs on sheep farms and the like – are in somewhere resembling rural Tasmania looking for work when they hear about a large bounty placed on an escaped puma. The setting is Australia at an unfixed point after the first generations of colonial settlers have been there long enough to have established themselves to have become the dominant citizens of the country, and to upset the delicate balance of the land – by introducing deer, then pumas to kill the deer – with disastrous consequences. The big cat in question, Dusk, is the last of its kind in the area – and the most deadly. But the bounty is too big for the twins to not try to succeed where a steadily increasing number of others have failed. As the twins set about tracking Dusk, we learn more of their childhood on the run and the deep, loving connection the siblings share with each other and the land around them. Arnott’s prose is expansive and beautifully rendered, bringing the harshness and beauty of the landscape to life, both of which are given an almost dreamlike heightening by the mystery of the time and setting. A lush, immersive read.

EDITOR'S PICK

Every One Still Here

This phenomenally good debut by the mysterious Northern Irish writer (Liadan Ní Chuinn is a pseudonym; the jacket only reveals the year of their birth – 1998, the same year the Good Friday agreement was signed) bristles with pain, compassion and controlled fury. While each of the six stories in the collection present self-contained worlds in which their characters are driven by their own lives and problems (a medical student struggling with the reality of his first anatomy classes; a young teenage girl who reveals she is pregnant to her brother’s girlfriend; the emotional fallout triggered by the reveal of a fake fertility clinic), it is the history of Northern Ireland itself and the long, lingering legacy of the Troubles that provides the emotional fuel throughout. Something that’s made devastingly clear in the story – and the notes that follows – that brings this brilliant collection to an end.

Moderation, Elaine Castillo

When social media moderator Girlie is offered a new job at the VR site the company she works for has acquired, the numbers are too big for her not to say yes. But like any offer that’s too good to refuse, there is more to Playground than meets the (virtual) eye. Playground is built from technology that was originally intended to be used as a therapeutic tool, but after its creator died in mysterious circumstances it is left to psychologist and the best friend of that founder, William, to try and steer its course through its new market. Meanwhile Girlie – a Filipina-American with a large, dysfunctional family with a penchant for high-end consumer goods – has spent her life trying to moderate her feelings and her past, and that includes no falling in love. Her resolve on every level is tested by Playground and by William himself. As the truth about the company’s plans for the new technology is gradually revealed the pair are put to the test in more ways than one.

Havoc, Rebecca Wait

The I’m Sorry You Feel That Way author is back with painfully funny new novel set in a remote girls’ boarding school in southern England that becomes plagued with a mysterious illness. From the outset, 16-year-old Ida – who finds herself there after fleeing a hinted-at family disgrace in Scotland – is determined to remain stoically unfazed by the school’s peculiarities (a head teach obsessed with the Cold War and threat of the bomb; a roommate with a reputation for arson – just how bad were things at home…?). But as the number of girls falling prey to the symptoms of the illness – jerking limbs and all – increases only one question matters: are the schoolgirls in the grip of a mass hysteria or are they being poisoned? Irreverent and funny throughout, Wait has a lot of fun with both her set-up and characters – a great book-club read.

I Want Everything, Dominic Amerena

The debut novel from Australian writer Dominic Amerena is a gleefully caustic – not to mention somewhat spiteful – tale of literary theft, a la Yellowface. In this case, the writer in question is not dead, but long disappeared; a fabled Aussie author with a plagiarism scandal behind her who hasn’t been seen or heard of for 50 years when a struggling writer just happens to stumble across her at his local pool. He is immediately aware of the potential in being the one to ‘uncover’ and retell her story – and he will do everything it takes to get the scoop of the century. But it’s his own unfaltering ambition that will be the making or breaking of him in what follows. Amerena loads his tale with creative rivalries and backbiting. The question in an increasingly cat-and-mouse game is: who will break first?

Necessary Fiction, Eloghosa Osunde

A novel in name, if not entirely in structure – while the chapters and (huge cast of) characters do interconnect, but the work can arguably also be approached more as a series of stories – Osunde’s follow-up to their acclaimed debut Vagabonds follows an intergenerational array of queer characters in Nigeria. Osunde’s writing and descriptions are both beautiful and, at times, visceral; family in all its guises – not least those created by personal circumstance and choice – is a running theme. However you do choose to read it, go slowly and enjoy – this is prose worth spending time with and it rewards either way.

Pan, Michael Clune

Acclaimed non-fiction writer Clune’s debut novel is a strange elliptical read that presents itself as one thing – a coming-of-age tale; a glimpse into mental illness; a parable of first love – then shifts deftly into something else, never quite allowing itself to be pinned down. We meet Nicholas shortly after he’s been sent to live with his divorced father and just before her starts having panic attacks that, in time, blow into an all-out panic disorder that he comes to decide are being directed by the Greek god Pan. Nicholas, his best friend Ty, and high-school crush, Sarah, start hanging out in a barn with some of the cool kids from school and the neighbourhood, losing themselves in a haze of drugs and teenage musings on the meaning of life (and Boston’s 1970’s classic More than A Feeling). And it’s here that things get decidedly weird, with cultish rituals and metaphysical discussions that lead to dead mice and house arrests, among other things. This is not a novel you come to for plot, however, it’s one mood, for vibes – and on that level it very much succeeds.

Katabasis, RF Kuang

What else is a wannabe magician to do after accidentally killing her Cambridge professor, but go to hell and bring him back from the dead to enable her to graduate and gain tenure at a great magic university exactly as she’s been working towards all these years? Kuang’s latest is a sprawling, erudite tale of magic set in a Dante’s Inferno-esque underworld, teeming with intelligence, ideas and humour (‘Meteorologically,’ Alice observes on first entering the underworld, ‘Hell didn’t seem much worse than an English spring.’) The author has form in the world of dark academia – her 2022 historical, speculative fantasy Babel was set in the hallowed halls of Oxford. Which isn’t to say there isn’t a certain amount of whiplash to be had in finding yourself in a world of potions and spells after her hit publishing satire, Yellowface but it doesn’t last long. Because if there’s one thing Kuang knows how to do in whatever genre she’s working in, it’s storytelling – and Katabasis is quite the ride.

One Yellow Eye, Leigh Radford

Medical researcher Kesta was devasted to witness her husband, Tim, become infected by a zombie virus that closed London off to the rest of the UK and the world – and while the city is recently reopened, she’s not ready to let him go. For Tim is not dead, as widely assumed, but being kept chained up under lock and key – and heavy sedation – in the couple’s east London flat as Kesta searches desperately for a cure. When she’s invited to join a secret lab that’s determined to win the race to discover a vaccination for the virus, she stumbles onto the real secret of patient zero, endangering both her life and those of the entire city and – potentially – the world. If the zombie-virus as stand-in for the pandemic isn’t exactly lightly-handled, Radford tells her story with humour and heart, and will have you rooting for her – and zombie-Tim – till the end.

The Only Books You'll Want in Your Beach Bag—Sharp, Sexy Stories With Substance and a Side of Scandal

cjarvie@cjarvie.com (Catherine Jarvie) — Sat, 31 May 2025 06:00:00 +0000

We’re saying hello to summer with a selection of new fiction releases that are sure to keep you gripped from park to poolside.

We all know the old adage about not judging books by the cover, but what about the impact a name can have? That’s the question posed in one of the highlights of this month’s list. There’s also a sharp, funny exploration of culture, power and consent, emotionally searing takes on relationships and family in all their forms, a thrilling ride through one friendship group’s attempts at making their fortune in cryptocurrency – and one very special sexual fetish. Enjoy!

EDITOR'S PICK

Bring the House Down, Charlotte Runcie

Baby Reindeer meets MeToo in Runcie’s razor-sharp debut. Set over the four-week span of the Edinburgh Fringe, it’s narrated by newspaper culture writer Sophie, a young mother only recently returned to work from maternity leave who’s been sent to cover the festival with the paper’s embittered yet charming theatre critic, Alex. When Alex sleeps with a performer having just filed a brutal one-star review of her show, the actress, Hayley, retaliates with a swift, sarcastic rewrite that puts Alex at its centre, turning it into a five-star sensation overnight. As the sold-out run continues, more women come forward with tales of Alex’s sexual misdemeanours and bad behaviour, turning Alex into a pariah – and Sophie very quickly into his only friend. But her feelings towards him are far from uncomplicated. As the festival builds to its climax the stage is set for a series of personal and professional reckonings. Runcie presents all sides of the argument in her multistranded tale with depth and emotional intelligence in a novel that is both tender and furious – not to mention very, very funny – with the festival brought so vividly to life, it’s almost like being there. It’s a solid five stars all round.

EDITOR'S PICK

The Benefactors, Wendy Erskin

Set in modern-day Northern Ireland, Erskin’s debut novel tells the story of a working-class teenage girl, Misty, who has accused three young men of sexual assault during a party. They are the sons of three very different wealthy and privileged women who come together to shield their families from the fallout of Misty’s accusations. Misty’s family, meanwhile, are looking to fight their battle in their own way. That description, however, fails to capture the astonishing feat of polyphonic storytelling Erskin deploys across the narrative, which gives a voice to dozens of the town’s residents and onlookers into the drama unfolding around them. Serving as a kind of modern-day Greek chorus, they offer observations and personal stories that add texture and detail to build a complex and nuanced picture of both the central drama and much wider issues around class and society, leaving the moral judgements and opining very much up to the reader to decide. Just brilliant.

Sky Daddy, Kate Folk

Ever since her first turbulent flight triggered her teenage sexual awakening, Linda has believed it is her singular destiny to find and ‘marry’ her soulmate plane – by dying in a fatal crash. Despite squirrelling away every penny she earns in her job as an online content moderator to fly as often as she can, that destiny remains frustratingly elusive until friend and colleague Karina invites Linda to join her friends at vision-boarding brunch to manifest whatever her heart desires. And so we enter the weird, wild, wonderful world of Sky Daddy. Folk dials up the comedy with a perfectly straight face, taking Linda’s passions and proclivities seriously to create an absurdly sharp satire of contemporary culture that is tender, funny and wise.

EDITOR'S PICK

The Names, Florence Knapp

Knapp’s clever debut novel plays ‘what if’ with nominative determinism in a three-stranded narrative that tests the theory that we are all, to some degree, defined by the names we’re given. It’s 1987 and Cora is on her way to officially register her newborn son’s birth. Her husband, Gordon, is determined that he be named after him, as family tradition dictates. Cora’s own preference would be to call him Julian, while her nine-year-old daughter suggests Bear. From there, the story unfolds in alternating chapters that follow Gordon/Julian/Bear’s life across the decades, revealing the impact of Cora’s decision on that crucial day. Knapp weaves the threads of her narrative seamlessly, writing with a lightness of touch that doesn’t shy away from the sensitivities of the darker aspects of her characters’ journeys – through, grief, addiction, domestic violence and more. It all adds up to a superb book-club read that’s already proving itself to be one of this year’s literary big-hitters. What’s in a name, indeed.

The Propagandist, Cécile Desprairies

Celebrated French historian Desprairies draws on her own dark family history (her mother was a propagandist for the fascist Vichy France regime during WWII) as the set-up for this, her debut novel. Set in 1960s post-war Paris, it offers a child’s eye view of its narrator’s mother, aunts and grandmother preening and gossiping and complaining during their daily descents on her family home. Both fascinated and confused by these visits, it’s not until she comes across her mother’s old identity card that the girl realises her mother had been married before and begins to piece together the family’s complicated political past – and the role its members played as supporters of Nazi Germany. Desprairies’ prose is precise to the point of scathing, but it makes no attempt to preach to or manipulate its readers. Rather, we’re invited to draw our own conclusions from its unsettling glimpse into the fascist mindset and the beliefs and entitlement that come with it. Fascinating.

EDITOR'S PICK

Gunk, Saba Sams

Award-winning writer Sams made a justifiably big splash with Send Nudes, her debut collection of furious and funny feminist short stories. In this, her first novel, she prises out some of the ideas – around love, expectation, young womanhood and more – in a thoughtful, knotty investigation into motherhood, love and belonging. The story is narrated by Jules, who we meet at the top of the novel when she’s left quite literally holding the baby after the child’s mother does a flit from hospital, then work our way back from there – to the Gunk of the title that is the name of the rundown Brighton nightclub where Jules works alongside her womanising ex-husband, Leon. When Jules hires the young, mysterious Nim to tend bar, the pair begin to form a tentative friendship, throwing Jules’s small, disappointed life into disarray, leading to a tangled emotional reckoning that may well be the making or breaking of all of them.

Sunstruck, William Rayfet Hunter

When a young, working-class British Jamaican accepts an invitation to holiday in the south of France at the summer home of Lily, a friend from university, the experience proves to be lifechanging – not only is he introduced to a previously unimaginable level of privilege, he falls fast into a deep passionate relationship with Lily’s charismatic brother Felix. But can the intoxication of their summer romance survive a move to London and the next step into their adult lives? William Rayfet Hunter’s tale of class, race, ambition and power is richly evoked and quietly furious, building from its Saltburn-like beginnings into a roar about the state of modern Britain that never loses sight of the questions around family, friendship and belonging at its emotional core.

The Book of Guilt, Catherine Chidgey

The ghost of Ishiguro’s dystopian classic Never Let Me Go hangs heavy over New Zealand author Chidgey’s latest novel. It’s 1979 in rural southern England and in a rundown house at the edge of the New Forest, things are not quite as they seem. The building is home to identical triplets Vincent, Lawrence and William, who are tended to by three ‘mothers’ with their every move and dream noted and recorded. They are the last remaining residents of the state-funded experimental Sycamore Homes, the functions of which become gradually, creepily clear. While the boys do their best to beat ‘the bug’ that endless rounds of medicine never quite seem to quash and dream of being well enough to be sent to ‘the big house’ in Margate, we move beyond their village to meet single-child Nancy, whose loving parents keep her prisoner in her home and the member of Her Majesty’s government who has been tasked with bringing Sycamore Homes to a close. If anything, there’s almost too much going on, but Chidgey keeps control of the many strands of her narrative to weave an unsettling and affecting read.

Love Forms, Claire Adam

Trinidadian author Adam’s follow up to her acclaimed debut Golden Child tells the story of a woman’s search for the daughter she gave up for adoption decades before. After becoming pregnant as a teenager, Dawn was smuggled from her Caribbean home to Venezuela to birth in secret in a bid to avoid bringing shame to her family, after which she established a new life for herself in England. Now divorced with two grown-up sons, she lives a quiet and, in many ways, contented life, but remains haunted by what might have become of her lost daughter. When she’s informed of a potential match by one of the adoption websites she uses in the hope of tracing her way back to her first child, Dawn is once again drawn into her past and the memories and regrets that have shaped her. A slow, quiet, affecting look at mistakes made, and what family – in all its forms – means.

Ordinary Love, Marie Rutkoski

Mother-of-two Emily has just separated from her volatile, emotionally abusive husband and is struggling to establish a new life for herself when she runs into Olympic athlete Gen – her one-time school friend and first love – at a party. The pair reconnect, but will they be able to move beyond their troubled history together and get a second chance at love? Rutkoski paints a vivid picture of both past and present in a sweeping, decades-spanning tale of queer desire and thwarted ambition as we plot each woman’s respective paths to their current situation. Beautifully rendered and touchingly told, this is one for romance fans everywhere.

Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong

Vuong’s lyrical and much lauded debut, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, turned the Vietnamese-American poet into an international literary sensation. This, it’s follow-up, is a bigger story in every sense. A sprawling tale of immigration, addiction, ill health and the impact of the failing US health system on working class Middle America, we meet college dropout and prescription pill popper Hai – a Vietnamese refugee recently returned to the rundown Connecticut town of East Gladness where he grew up – as he’s stopped from taking a fatal dive from a bridge. His rescuer? Octogenarian widow Grazina, a Lithuanian immigrant falling prey to dementia. The pair set up house together with Hai taking a job in a fast-casual food restaurant that opens us to another broad sweep of quirky, yet salt-of-the-earth characters to create a funny, moving tableau of America’s contemporary working class.

Bitter Honey, Caryl Lewis

A three-time winner of The Welsh Book of the Year Award, Lewis’s latest release is an assured, sensitively told tale of three women – estranged sisters Hannah and Sadie and an unknown younger woman – brought together by the secrets revealed in the wake of the death of Hannah’s husband, an academic and beekeeper. The novel is part-narrated through a series of letters left for Hannah that give structure to the novel and do much to inform its backstory using the ‘language’ of bees and nature’s cycle to help explain her husband’s actions to his grieving wife. The real power of the story, however, is not in the cause, but its effect as, having finally been freed in their various ways from the constraints of traditional family models and expectations, all three women develop the strength and knowledge to shape their own desires and destinies.

To The Moon, Jang Ryujin

While trigger warnings have become a regular feature in book publishing, the disclaimer at the top of South Korean author Ryujin’s debut novel that this book ‘is not intended as financial or investment advice’, is a first for us. Then again, this modern-day fairy tale is centred on a very modern-day premise: the rollercoaster world of cryptocurrency. It tells the story of three very different friends and co-workers who work in low-level jobs at a confectionary company and yearn for financial independence. The financial risk-taker of the group, Eun-Sang, urges narrator Dahae (who is desperate to move to a bigger apartment) to throw all her savings into crypto, even while the third member of their group, Jisong, holds out. As the pair chase their way through the rises and falls of this most volatile of markets, Jisong finally joins them, only for the market to crash. The trio hold on for dear life – will they be able to take it to the moon as they dream of doing or is a sudden – and lethal – fall to earth set to be their fate?

Consider Yourself Kissed, Jessica Stanley

Australian author Jessica Stanley’s first novel to be published in the UK marries heart and head in a decade-spanning novel that parallels the ups and downs of one couple’s relationship against the ups and downs of British politics. London-based Aussie Coralie has only recently moved to London when she meets – and swiftly falls for – Adam, an ambitious political journalist and divorced single father of one, in 2013. And yes, it is as tender, funny, serious – and at times frustratingly ‘real’ (Brexit, Boris and the pandemic all get their moment on the page) – as all that suggests. Yet Stanley keeps the couple – and Coralie’s feelings – front and centre throughout in a funny, moving romantic saga for the modern age.

Failed Summer Vacation, Heuijung Hur

Another South Korean writer with an acclaimed pedigree, Hur was awarded the prestigious Korean Literature and Society New Writer Award and this, her first collection of short stories is rightly described as ‘genre defying’. From missed meetings and opportunities to surreal, almost dreamlike tales, she weaves a fascinating narrative web. And while not every one’s a winner, there’s more than enough to intrigue and delight to keep you coming back for more.

The spring reading list—the page-turners that will have you hooked

cjarvie@cjarvie.com (Catherine Jarvie) — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 06:00:20 +0000

Welcome to spring. And with it, your new spring reading list – which sees a welcome return from some brilliant favourites (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Natasha Brown among them), alongside a handful of truly fine debuts and other gems.

We have a prize-winning short story collection, a sharp, dark, funny look at London’s rental crisis, a One Day-style love letter to the noughties music scene and the first in a startling new (to English language readers) literary series that pushes that well-worn trope, the timeloop, into bold – even profound – new territory. And that’s only the start. So settle in – it’s going to be a thrilling ride.

EDITOR'S PICK

Dream Count, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Americanah author returns with her first novel in 10 years. Opening into March 2020 just after the first wave of global lockdowns have been announced, this is not, many will be pleased to know, a pandemic novel as such. Rather, Adichie uses the isolation and strangeness of that time as a framing device for lead character Chiamaka – a wealthy Nigerian-born travel writer who is based in the US – to look back on her life and relationships and ponder (in every sense) where next. Its rich, multistranded tale is broken into four main voices: Chiamaka, her best friend, the housemaid she sees as ‘family’, and her closest cousin. Each one builds on the last, opening out the narrative and offering differing perspectives and insights into the women’s relationships and ambitions, turning hot-topic issues around motherhood, race, gender politics, FGM and sexual assault into profoundly moving personal insights. In short, Dream Count lives up to both the anticipation and hype.

A Beautiful Lack of Consequence, Monika Radojevic

A collection of 30 short stories – some just a single page long – from the winner of the Merky Books New Writers Prize. Radojevic is a poet and women’s rights activist and her ear for both the rhythm of language and the causes and frustrations that shape our times are present and correct in what is a funny, playful, irreverent – but always sharply on point –examination of contemporary women’s lives. Subjects range from bodily autonomy to the price many women pay to navigate a so-called smoother path through life (‘She was born fierce, with a pair of wings, but somewhere along the way she sold them,’ Radojevic writes of her unnamed universal ‘girl’ in Blood Ridden). But there’s plenty of joy being celebrated in here too: in friendship, self-discovery and the pleasures of falling deeply, genuinely, in love.

EDITOR'S PICK

Kingfisher, Rozie Kelly

A queer young writer who has so far failed to live up to his early creative potential (‘The world is at your feet, they said,’ he notes at one point. ‘I stamped all over it.’) is working a short-term contract as a creative writing tutor when he meets – and falls for – ‘the poet’. The poet is older, highly esteemed – and a woman. While in theory, that should be able to be accommodated in the open relationship he shares with his handsome live-in boyfriend, Michael, their burgeoning friendship-slash-relationship threatens to undermine every part of all their lives. Throw in a homophobic mother and hidden family secrets and you could, on paper, have a recipe for something that’s more salacious than sensitive, but Kelly is far too nuanced for that, crafting a tenderly written meditation on art, love and life that’s as much about the search for self as for connection.

I Want To Go Home But I’m Already There, Róisín Lanigan

Lanagan’s razor-sharp debut introduces twentysomething couple Aine and Tom as they prepare to move in together – a decision made as much from economic practicality as one of relationship intent. They find a suspiciously cheap (though still barely affordable) flat in a pocket of the city with a 24-hour organic supermarket on the corner, but no decent transport links. Once they move in, however, things begin to change. A mysterious mould blooms from the basement, threatening Aine’s physical health, while an even more mysterious neighbour – the old man who lives in the flat upstairs – does the same to her increasingly fragile mental state. Are we witnessing a ghost story or just another tale of the very real nightmare that is London’s rental culture? Lanagan’s genius rests in her ability to keep both narrative balls very much in the air throughout – with plenty of dark laughs along the way.

Universality, Natasha Brown

Brown’s debut, Assembly, heralded her as one of the brightest in Britain’s then emerging crop of young writers. This, her follow-up, sees the author pushing the spare, tight narrative style of her debut in different directions. It opens with what’s quickly revealed to be a long form online article about a gold bar that was stolen from a Yorkshire farm that was squatted and shut down after hosting an illegal rave during lockdown. Penned by Hannah, a previously struggling freelance book reviewer, it became a viral sensation, securing a Netflix deal that allowed Hannah to hook a big toe onto the lowest rungs of London’s property market. But as the novel progresses and different characters move to the forefront – shock journalist Lenny and banker Richard among them – it becomes clear that things as reported by Hannah are considerably murkier than they first appear. If Brown’s satirical brush is a little broad at times, Universality remains a smart, thought-provoking and pacy read about class, capital (cultural and financial) and the general state of divided Britain today.

EDITOR'S PICK

On the Calculation of Volume, Solvej Balle

We meet Tara on 18 November in the house of one Tomas Selter. Tomas, we learn, is Tara’s partner and she’s here, hiding from him in her own house, aware of every sound and move he’ll make before he makes it, because time, she tells us ‘has fallen apart’. She was visiting Paris on business when she woke up and experienced the same day for the first time 121 days before and has been caught in a timeloop ever since. Intriguingly, she’s not entirely stuck on repeat: a burn to her hand goes through stages from infection to healing; she is able to travel home to Tomas in rural France – but many other things are lost. Including Tomas’s memory, which resets each day.

As first the weeks, then the months, rack up, Tara’s hope of finding a way into the next day wears increasingly thin. But even as her plight deepens, she finds ever more to discover in the endless repetitive shape of a day lived again and again. And it’s through this exploration that Balle transcends the classic Groundhog Day conceit to create a narrative that explores much bigger and wiser themes about what it is, in every way, to be human – and keeps it gripping throughout.

In Balle’s native Denmark, On the Calculation… has become a literary sensation, with five volumes (out of an intended seven) in the series published so far. Only Volume I and II have been published in English so far – the first of which has, deservedly, earned the author and its translator Barbara J Haveland a spot on this year’s International Booker longlist. Is it too soon to ask for more?

Deep Cuts, Holly Brickley

One Day meets High Fidelity in Brickley’s sparky debut – two rather fittingly vintage references for a Noughties-set novel about music-obsessed wannabe writer Percy and budding musician Joe. We follow the will-they-won’t-they push and pull of their relationship from their musical meet cute at college (the pair bond over, of all things, a Hall & Oates song, which might be a litmus test too far...) and across the first two decades of the new millennium. While their relationship – professional and personal – flounders as Joe becomes a bone fide rock star, the question of the pair’s attraction for one another, it’s no spoiler to say, is never really in doubt. Rather, it’s in the narrative ‘deep cut’ – which follows Percy’s long and winding route to finding herself and discovering her talents – that the story really sings.

EDITOR'S PICK

Elegy, Southwest, Madeline Watts

Eloise and Lewis set off on a two-week journey through the American Southwest that’s part work (Eloise is an academic studying drying of the Colorado River; Lewis works for an art foundation that’s funding an epic piece of land art buried deep in the desert), part Great American Road Trip. The couple are young and in love but as the journey continues, the pair become increasingly emotionally isolated from each other. Lewis is grieving the death of his mother, Australian ex-pat Eloise is dealing with the question of whether she may or may not be pregnant. As the name suggests, this was never a journey that was going to end well. It’s a credit to Watts’ skills as a writer that she’s able to foreshadow that so plausibly, while still keeping us guessing as to just what exactly the end – and its cost – will be. Tender and hauntingly sad.

Call Me Ishaelle, Xiaolu Guo

Herman Mellville's Moby Dick tends to poll highly in those polls of the classic novels people haven't actually read. Guo’s infinitively enjoyable (and thoroughly readable) retelling is unlikely to suffer a similar fate. We’re in Victorian England when we first meet the Ishmaelle of the title who, orphaned and grieving the loss of her infant sister, binds her breasts and cuts off her hair to pass as a boy before heading off for a life on the high seas – eventually joining the whaling boat, Nimrod.

Guo’s retelling, however, is not simply a gender-swap, but a cultural one, too. In her version, Nimrod’s captain, Seneca, is a Black man of mixed heritage, and his obsessive hunt for the great white whale that drives him to the brink of madness is riven with racial trauma. It’s a propulsive, powerhouse of a read that doesn’t just stand on its own literary feet, it does so with such skill and verve that it might – just might – have you turning to its source material in a new light.

Tilt, Emma Pattee

Nine months pregnant, Annie is ‘milling in the crib section’ at IKEA in Portland, fretting about the state of her finances, her career and her marriage when, seemingly out of nowhere, a monumental earthquake (the ‘Big One’) hits. She makes it out of the store alive with only one mission – to find her way to husband Dom. Over the course of the day that follows, Annie narrates their story to their unborn baby, Bean, charting the path of their life together. We witness their shift from hopeful young artists (Annie was an aspiring playwright, Dom still aspires to become an actor) to disillusioned thirtysomethings struggling to make the even basic building blocks of modern American life work and, in the process, Annie re-evaluates the ways to live a life. Pattee, a climate journalist by day knows of what she speaks – Portland lies smack bang in the heart of the very real Cascadia fault line, which has been estimated as having a one-in-three chance of triggering the Big One in the next 40 years – and she doesn’t shy from the horror of such a devastating event. In Annie, however, she’s able to render it funny, tender and hopeful, as well as frightening.

Theft, Abdulrazak Gurnah

Nobel laureate Gurnah’s first novel since he was awarded that very prestigious gong in 2021, is a multigenerational coming-of-age saga set in postcolonial Zanzibar and Tanzania that follows three characters from three very different backgrounds across several pivotal decades in both their own lives, and that of their country. Left to live with his grandparents after his mother flees her forced marriage to a much older man, young Karim is determined he will do better. Early on, his fate is twinned with that of Badar, who moves into the household as a young servant boy. But as Karim’s star rises – he attends university, meets and marries his wife, Fauzia, the third major cog in this narrative wheel – Badar’s is thrown into disarray by an accusation that sets off a chain of events that, in time, changes all their lives irrevocably .

EDITOR'S PICK

Flesh, David Szalay

In many ways, Szalay's charting of one man’s life from his youth in Hungary to adulthood in London and beyond serves as a sort of companion piece to his exceptional 2016 Booker-shortlisted novel-in-stories All That Man Is. Like that novel, it’s revealed in a series of interlinked stories, but the focus on a single character, István – who we first meet as a teenager in small-town Hungary heightens the sense of dislocation that has become something of a hallmark for Szalay. István is someone who moves through life as if it’s something that happens to him, rather than a person with any real agency. However shocking the things he encounters – and he encounters a lot, from sexual abuse and prison time to witnessing a friend die in his arms while serving in the Middle East – István soldiers on. He moves to London where his fortunes – largely guided by the whims and actions of others – continue to rise and fall until a single spectacular act on István’s part lights the fuse that will blow his world apart.

All the Other Mothers Hate Me, Sarah Harman

Harman’s voice-driven debut is a fun, pacey, comedy-thriller in which ex-girlband singer and single-mom Flo will do anything – anything – to protect her beloved son 10-year-old Dylan. When one of his classmates – the heir to a fast-food empire and ‘little shit’ who has been terrorising Dylan at the posh west London school he attends – suddenly and mysteriously disappears, that anything extends to doing whatever she can to prove her son is not responsible, despite growing evidence to the contrary. All while trying to kickstart her dead-in-the-water singing career and fend off the threat of local serial killer, the Shepherd’s Bush Strangler. Enlisting the help of fellow expat Jenny, a lawyer whose no-nonsense approach serves as a great foil to Flo’s flakiness, she sets out to crack the case. As an American-in-(West) London herself, Harman has a great outsider’s eye for the various hierarchies and snobberies of the capital’s postcodes and class system. Very, very funny.

The Dream Hotel, Laila Lalami

Museum archivist Sara Hussein is returning home to LA from London when she’s taken aside for questioning by security. We’re in a near-future US in which data from a sleep device designed to relieve insomnia, monitors your dreams and flags any propensity to commit future crimes to the state and Sara’s dreams suggest she wants to do physical harm to her husband. She’s transferred to the Dream Hotel of the title for further monitoring and – like the Hotel California – once you’re in, it’s pretty much impossible to leave. Newly longlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, Lalami’s propulsive fifth novel is proof that the trend for dystopian fiction isn’t going anywhere.

Sour Cherry, Natalia Theodoridou

Are monsters born or made? That’s one of the central questions underpinning Theodoridou’s dark, bloody retelling of Bluebeard – the story of the French nobleman and who killed his wives for disobeying a so-called simple trust exercise and kept their bloodied bodies in the basement of his castle for the next wife to discover and, in due course, meet a similar fate. As that suggests, this is not a light read. It is beautifully, poetically written. Rich, dense – and just a little relentless – this is one for fans of the new generation of dark, feminist body horror.

The Women's Prize for Fiction shines a light on personal freedom and the search for human connection

Mischa Anouk Smith — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 10:05:46 +0000

Good storytelling transcends generations, cultures, and experiences; this year’s authors shortlisted in The Women's Prize for Fiction prove that without question. Historically, women’s voices have often been marginalised—something The Women's Prize has always aimed to combat—but as more (though not enough) women take centre stage in the literary, cinematic, and art worlds, our narratives continue to break boundaries, challenge norms, and inspire change.

In this landmark year, the 2025 selection features multi-generational perspectives and a strong showing of debuts, with four of the six books written by new authors.

Kit de Waal, Chair of Judges added: "Now that we arrive at the announcement of our shortlist, what seems absolutely apparent to me is how perfectly each of these six novels exemplify the original tenets of the Prize: originality, accessibility and sheer brilliance. Our selection celebrates rich, multi-layered narratives that will surprise."

Writers like Miranda July and debut author Sanam Mahloudji—both on this year's shortlist—not only reflect diverse experiences, but through their writing, they give us the tools for empowerment. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, The Women’s Prize continues to not only offer a space for women to reclaim their stories, it gives writers and readers alike inspiration to shape the future.

The stories in this year’s shortlist are rich with emotion, strength, vulnerability, and wisdom, offering a window into the complexities of the female experience. Pour yourself a coffee and let's dive into this year's six shortlist winners.

The Women's Prize for Fiction Shortlist

Good Girl: Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2025

Aber delves into the complexities of identity, cultural expectations, and the struggle to reconcile one's personal truths with societal norms. Through lyrical and evocative language, she explores themes of belonging, love, and the search for self in a world often defined by rigid roles.

"Good Girl by Aria Aber explores the complexities of a dual-cultural identity, for a teenager born in Germany ashamed of and hiding her Afghan heritage," reads the official statement from the judges.

All Fours

All Fours is a captivating and quirky exploration of human connection, intimacy, and the awkwardness that often accompanies it. The multi-disciplined author, director, and actress brings her signature blend of dark humour and emotional depth to an assemblage of characters who are at once eccentric and relatable.

"All Fours by Miranda July is an irreverent, funny novel which questions the restrictions of marriage, motherhood and sexuality in relation to artistic autonomy. Its narrator, grappling with midlife, immerses herself in a temporary reinvention on a thwarted road trip."

whsmith

The Persians: Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2025

The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji is a beautifully crafted and insightful exploration of cultural identity, family dynamics, and the nuances of diaspora life. Through a series of interconnected stories, Mahloudji delves into the complexities of growing up as a Persian immigrant, navigating the delicate balance between heritage and assimilation.

"The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji is a family drama told through five passionate women whose fate is intertwined with that of modern Iran. Spanning the 1940s to the 2000s, this story explores the question of whether it’s ever possible to free ourselves from our past."

waterstones

Tell Me Everything: Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2025 (lucy Barton, 5)

Set in a small town, the story unfolds through the eyes of a woman named Lucy Barton, a recurring character in Strout's works, who reflects on her past relationships and the choices that have defined her. As Lucy grapples with her memories, we're drawn into a meditation on the nature of intimacy, vulnerability, and the emotional weight we carry from the past.

"A slow burn, classic-style novel with characters that you think about long after you've closed the book. A murder mystery unlike any other, quiet and unassuming, it's absolutely fascinating right to the last page." - Kit de Waal

The Safekeep - Yael Van Der Wouden

Haunting and atmospheric, The Safekeep explores themes of survival, trust, and the complexities of human relationships in times of crisis. Set against a backdrop of societal collapse, the story follows a group of people who seek refuge in a secluded and seemingly safe location. The Safekeep is a gripping and thought-provoking read that will stay with you long after the final page.

"This is an intense, absorbing mystery about a relationship between two women with a dark, hidden history that lies beneath them. I found it gripping and completely consuming. A debut written with the mastery of a seasoned novelist, it will keep you engrossed right up until the end." - Diana Evans

Fundamentally: Longlisted for the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction

Through a series of introspective essays, Younis delves into her own experiences as a Muslim woman navigating the intersections of culture, religion, and personal belief. Her writing is both raw and reflective, offering deep insights into the challenges of reconciling tradition with modernity, and the tensions between societal expectations and individual truth.

"Fresh, fierce, and above all, incredibly funny. I’ve never, ever experienced anything like it; highly original and unusual, it sums up brilliantly the madness of the world from all perspectives." - Bryony Gordon: ‘

Forget leaving the house this month—with our edit of must-read books, you’ll be hooked

cjarvie@cjarvie.com (Catherine Jarvie) — Sat, 15 Feb 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the first instalment of your go-to reading list for 2025 – where we bring you all the very best new book releases of the year. So, if you’re looking for a new book, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve got you covered with our edit of this year’s must-reads.

Our picks are a proper treat – a monstrous game of tit-for-tat played out on the edge of the Nile, a couple of sharped-eyed looks at millennial ennui that showcase two very different sides of Berlin and a devastating reflection on one of the darkest incidents in South Korea’s history are just for starters.

We also roam the globe trying to trap an ancient evil soul, bunk off school for the day during a long, hot 1980s English summer, follow a young neurodivergent girl as she navigates the tricky path into young adulthood and lots, lots, more.

EDITOR'S PICK

Perfection, Vincenzo Latronico

Anna and Tom are young digital creatives living the dream in those heady years when all the promises of the new millennium looked set to pass. They rent an enviable apartment in an enviable neighbourhood in Berlin – complete with mid-century furniture, a large, leafy plant collection and carefully curated selection of vinyl. The couple have swapped, they believe, the nine-to-five yoke of their parents’ generation for a bold, individual lifestyle – they go to gallery openings, experiment with sex and drugs, tip in cash and boycott Uber. Just like every single one of their peers...

Latronico’s portrait, as he charts the couple’s surfacely shiny, social media-friendly lives, is wryly – at times wince-inducingly – funny (we are all, after all, a Tom or an Anna to some degree). But he does more than take simple pot-shots at their ‘identical struggle for a different life’. Underneath its coolly teasing assessment, Perfection offers a deeper look at a generation who grew up after ‘the collective upheaval of the 20th century was over’ only to discover that their dreams of ‘liberation’ were just yet another invitation to exit by way of the gift shop. And who are now left wondering where to go next.

Dark Like Under, Alice Chadwick

A slow and absorbing piece of literary fiction, Chadwick’s polyphonic, 1980s-set debut is set across a single English summer’s day. It follows the students and teachers of an elite high school at the end of term as news of the death of a much-loved teacher, Mr Ardenne, becomes known. Like a modern-day Songs of Innocence and Experience, she captures the fierce intensity of these not-quite adults who are eager for a life beyond the close world of family, friends and school they’ve known, and passes it back through the prism of their teachers’ lives as they reflect on their knowledge of all that the years which separate them can bring. Chadwick’s prose is delicate, precise and not without a little humour. It stays on the right side of sentimentality throughout, reaching its peak with subtle, almost transcendent, grace in the novel’s coda, as the truth about Mr Ardenne’s final moments is revealed. Just lovely.

EDITOR'S PICK

Life Hacks for a Little Alien, Alice Franklin

The Little Alien of the title, is a young neurodivergent girl growing up outside London in the 1990s and her struggles with school and her general place in the world. That is until she discovers the power of written language – and one mysterious ancient book in particular, which some believe to have been delivered to Earth by an alien life force – upon which, she slowly, steadily comes into her own. Tender, playful and funny, the novel’s singular narrative voice reveals the world as its unnamed narrator sees it (complete with footnotes), while simultaneously shining a light on the lives and all-too-human failings of those around her. It might still be too soon in the year to call it, but this looks set to be one of the most affecting and original reads of the year.

EDITOR'S PICK

We Do Not Part, Han Kang

The International Booker winner and Nobel laureate returns with a slippery tale that is part ghost story, part brutal historical record. Kyungha, a writer living in Seoul, is contacted by a former colleague and friend, Inseon, who is in hospital after a near-fatal injury in her carpentry workshop. She begs Kyungha to go to her home on Jeju Island to save her pet bird, which has been left caged and abandoned without food or water. After battling a snowstorm to reach the remote house where Inseon grew up, Kyungha wakes the following morning to find herself in a half-world, unsure of what – or who – is real. Over the course of the day that follows, the island’s dark past (Jeju was the site of a real-life massacre that saw tens of thousands killed shortly before the Korean War) is gradually revealed.

The narration veers from plain-speaking accounts of these horrors and poetic discourses that range from the paradoxes of snowflakes and candle flames to the fragile strength of a bird’s skeleton. It is altogether an elliptical, uneasy read. Then again, how else to hold a mirror to the horrors of what lies hidden in our collective histories when they all too often do so in plain sight?

Good Girl, Aria Aber

Another visit to Berlin. This time, our dip into the grimy depths of its drug-swirling, noughties techno party scene is navigated by Nila, 18-year-old daughter of Afghan refugees who fled their prosperous lives in Kabul for the grim realities of immigrant life and, in the wake of 9/11, rampant anti-Arab racism. (Should anyone ask her, Nila ‘identifies’ as Greek). Returning to the city from boarding school after her mother’s sudden death, Nila is ‘ravaged by the desire to ruin my life’. A key part of that involves willingly sacrificing her dreams of studying photography for the dubious (in every sense of the word) affections of thirtysomething Marlowe – a once feted American writer whose star is quite clearly on the wane. As befits all good coming-of-age stories there are lessons aplenty to be learnt here and Nila’s are as touching as they are hard won.

Old Soul, Susan Barker

What would you do to live forever? Barker’s edge-of-your-seat literary horror is a page-turningly gripping read about a centuries-old woman who willingly and continuously sacrifices everything to do just that. We get to know her over the course of two feverish days in the wilds of the New Mexico desert in 2022 as she sets out to take down her next victim. This present-day action is interspersed with deftly told testimonies that track the paths and fates of her previous victims as recorded by Londoner Jake who, after a chance meeting in Osaka airport brings her nefarious dealings into the light, is determined to avenge the friend he lost to the woman by putting a stop to her quest once and for all. Can he succeed where all before him have failed?

The Edges, Angelo Tijssens

What’s that line about never going back? Our unnamed narrator battles through a storm to visit the boy he first fell in love with after returning to the town he grew up in to settle his late mother’s affairs. The complications and confusion of their shared past resurface over the course of the night they spend together – and continue to echo alongside those of his troubled childhood the next day. ‘We thought we were big and strong and all sorts of other things that we later learnt we weren’t and what’s more, never would be,’ he recalls of a day the two boys spent together as kids. Screenwriter Tijssens (Closer, Girl) has form when it comes to queer coming-of-age narratives and in this, his debut novel, he explores that duality – the push-me-pull-me hesitancy between child and adult, between who we wish to be seen as and what we are desperate to hide – beautifully.

EDITOR'S PICK

Havoc, Christopher Bollen

Bollen’s gloriously waspish thriller is an out-and-out romp. After several years’ hotel-hopping her way through Europe, widowed American Maggie has been holed up at a faded grand hotel in Luxor, Egypt, where she has settled into a routine of morning stretches, lunchtimes by the pool and sunset watches with her fellow guests. She has a gift, she tells us, for spotting unhappy relationships and, in the past, had taken it upon herself to ‘free’ her fellow guests from such shackles by fair means or foul. Yet, after a meddle too far, Maggie is determinedly on hiatus. They don’t call it a ‘calling’ for nothing, however. Compelled into action one more time, Maggie is spotted planting (false) evidence of an affair by eight-year-old Otto, a new arrival to the hotel who immediately sets out to blackmail her and an increasingly monstrous game of tit for tat ensues. As one bad act begets another and another, Bollen leans into said monstrousness with glee and things quickly escalate to hilarious and horrific effect. Brilliantly fun.

Sweat, Emma Healy

The Elizabeth is Missing author returns with a striking novel about coercive control and bodily autonomy. Cassie is working as a personal trainer when her controlling ex-boyfriend books a PT session in her gym. The twist? Thanks to a benign tumour pressing on his optic nerve, Liam is now blind. While yes, the sensible option would be for Cassie to swiftly exit stage left, she can’t resist getting up close and personal with her former tormentor. With a spray of Armarni Code and a change to her accent, ‘Steph’ sets to training, testing – and exacting some revenge – on the ex who put a lock of the fridge, confiscated her house keys and fed her an emetic when she dared to fancy a little cake. It’s a credit to the quality of Healy’s writing that despite the implausibility of the set-up she largely keeps the reader on the right side of suspending their disbelief. By leaning into it, she reveals how the patterns of such a toxic, coercive relationship, once established, aren’t so easy to shake off.

EDITOR'S PICK

The City Changes Its Face, Eimear McBride

When the story opens in a shabby corner of London’s Camden in 1996, Eily and Stephen (from McBride’s 2016 novel The Young Bohemians) have been together for two years. She is a 20-year-old drama student, he an actor-turned-filmmaker, twice her age at 40, and their relationship is on dangerously rocky ground. If that sounds like just another novel furrowing that well-trodden narrative path signposted: Relationship In Crisis, think again. McBride, who turned the coming-of-age novel on its head with her searing, prizewinning debut A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing and who is rightly championed for her experimentation with language and form, would never opt for anything so straightforward. And so it is here. Told in dual timelines, McBride carefully peels back the layers of Eily and Stephen’s personal histories and that of their relationship to reveal all that brought them to the flashpoint of their current crisis. As ever with McBride, it is visceral and brutal. Child abuse, drugs, self-harm and more are all picked up, turned around and revealed in new and startling ways by her command of form and language. Read it and weep.

Show Don’t Tell, Curtis Sittenfeld

The Romantic Comedy author returns with a funny and astute collection of (deceptively simple) tales of American lives. Her subjects are largely well-to-do-ish middle-aged midwestern women, caught somewhere in the gulf between who they were and where they are now – quite literally in the case of ‘Lost But Not Forgotten’, which features Lee Fiora, protagonist of Sittenfeld’s debut novel, Prep, returning to school for her 30-year reunion. Alongside its dissections of friendship and marriage (and the strengths and failings thereof), Sittenfeld’s customary sharp-eyed takes on privilege, class, fame, creative freedom and more abound. A delight.

Mothers and Sons, Adam Haslett

The son and mother of the title are Peter – an immigration lawyer living and working in NYC – and Ann, who runs a spiritual retreat with her lover, Clare, in rural Vermont. Their relationship is complicated to the point of estranged, and Haslett takes his time peeling back the layers on why and how this has come to be: the easy answer, that Ann left Peter’s father for years before, is only the start of it. For Peter, the trigger into a proper reflection into his past comes from the case he takes on of a young, gay Albanian asylum-seeker who is petitioning on the grounds of homophobic persecution in his home country. As mother and son both begin to face their pasts, their stories come together to reveal subtle truths about the ties that tear us apart as much as bind.

Disappoint Me, Nicola Dinan

Dinan follows up her acclaimed debut, Bellies, with a fresh take on tangled relationships and millennial ennui in the tale of Max, a would-be poet who works as a lawyer for a tech start-up where she poses as ‘Owl’, the company’s AI. Throwing herself back into the dating scene after a messy breakup, she meets City boy Vincent, who appears to be too good to be true. Told in dual narratives, there is indeed more to Vincent’s backstory than first appears and Dinan unpicks the complications of both their pasts with delicacy and care.

The Artist, Lucy Steeds

Steed’s elegantly confident debut is an explosive portrait of the artist as monster. Edouard Tartuffe (Tata) has spent years shuttered away in Provence with only his art and niece Ettie for company. The arrival of aspiring young journalist Jacob in the summer of 1920 disrupts the household’s careful balance, unleashing secrets and giving fire to Ettie who, after so long living in Tata’s shadow, is beginning to understand ‘there is something inside her reaching towards the light’. She begins to follow it – but at what cost and to whom?

Hero, Katie Buckley

Wary of commitment despite being happy living with the man she loves, our hero – the Hero of the title – is given seven days by said love in which she must to decide whether or not to accept his offer of marriage. As the days tick down, Hero explores myth, folklore and fable as she wrestles with the sacrifices and challenges she believes to be inherent within the marriage contract. Can she (re)write her own happy ending or is she forever doomed to rinse and repeat?

The TikTok Book Awards shortlist is here - these are the reads to have on your radar

jadietroypryde@gmail.com (Jadie Troy-Pryde) — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 06:30:00 +0000

Whether you're looking for captivating classics, trending titles or a list of recommendations to make your TBR pile quiver, #BookTok is one of the biggest online communities for bookworms and budding authors alike. This ever-growing corner of TikTok boasts a staggering 34 million posts on the platform, proving that there's a huge social media appetite for all things bookish.

To celebrate the flourishing authors, creators, independent bookshops and fan favourite titles, the TikTok UK and Ireland Book Awards is back for a second year - and it's set to be even bigger. Last year, the likes of Holly Jackson, Bolu Babalola and Eden Victoria were crowned winners in their respective categories, and now it's time for the TikTok community to vote once again for the best book, author, creator, rising star and Indie bookshop of 2024.

The shortlist has finally been announced, and this year's judges included TikTok creators Jack Edwards and Eden Victoria, as well as CEO of the Publishers Association Dan Conway, Black British Book Festival CEO & Founder Selina Brown, and authors Samantha Shannon and Sara Cox.

Editor of The Bookseller Philip Jones, who is also a judge in this year's panel, said: "Judging the awards this year has been an absolute delight... I found the shortlists, and the people behind the shortlists, broad in their outlook, diverse in their perspectives and incredibly generous in their approaches to the different genres, books and authors that were the subject of the BookTok lens.

"These awards are then a moment to celebrate all the hard work that is made to look so effortless, but also a time to reflect on the importance of these voices and what they do. My congratulations to all of the shortlistees."

Keen to see the full list of nominees? Read on...

TikTok Book Awards UK and Ireland 2024 - Shortlist

TikTok Book of the Year (UK & Ireland)

None Of This Is True - Lisa Jewell
Gwen & Art Are Not In Love - Lex Croucher
Small Worlds - Caleb Azumah Nelson
The Rachel Incident - Caroline O'Donoghue

None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell

Gwen & Art Are Not In Love by Lex Croucher

Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue

TikTok Book of the Year (International)

Yellowface - R.F Kuang
Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros
Sword Catcher - Cassandra Clare
Chain Gang All Stars - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare

Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

BookTok Breakthrough Author

Ben Alderson
Martin Knights
Talia Hibbert
Claire Wright

BookTok Creator of the Year

@maisie_matilda
@zai_rambles
@cultofbooks
@literaryfling

BookTok Rising Star Creator

@greendragonbooknooks
@fictionalfates
@jpreads6
@booksonthebedside

Indie Bookshop of the Year

Imaginarium Books
The Book Shop By The Sea
The Little Bookshop
House of Books & Friends

TikTok Shop Book of Year

To be revealed at the TikTok Book Awards event on Thursday, 25 July. As per TikTok, the winner 'will be decided based on TikTok Shop sales data and the impact the book has had on TikTok.'

How to vote in the TikTok Book Awards UK and Ireland 2024

Last year over 160,000 people voted - and if you want to get involved with the TikTok Book Awards 2024, you can have your say via the TikTok voting Hub here. The platform is also encouraging users to share their thoughts, feelings and favourites using #TikTokBookAwards, and the winners will be announced on Thursday 25th July 2024.

Happy reading!

The hottest accessory this summer? A book

Mischa Anouk Smith — Mon, 03 Jun 2024 09:22:57 +0000

Kendall Jenner reclining on a beach lounger with a book in hand is a summer mood I wish to recreate (alas, minus the abs). From high-profile book clubs (Kaia Gerber, Reese Witherspoon, Emma Roberts, and Florence Welch all have one) to Dua Lipa’s Monthly Read, celebs are losing themselves in literature. Books have long been a means of escape, and while A-listers surely have better access to the tropical destinations and five-star retreats most of us could only dream of, that doesn’t mean they’re immune to the whims of wanderlust. Luckily for us all, the desire to escape the drudgery of daily life can be soothed by burying your head in a book. Here, we round up six new releases that’ll satiate your need for adventure.

Caribbean

For Such a Time as This

Having recently returned from St Kitts island, I’m desperate for anything to help me drift back to the Caribbean (if only in my thoughts).

In this short story collection—which has been praised by the brilliant Bernardine Evaristo—a group of young, Black British friends work their way through life's winding path of ups and downs. Prepare to be transported from London's Woolwich to Jamaica.

Worlwide

Violet Syrup

Author and content creator Sophia Molen describes her debut book as both semi-autobiographical and “a strange mix” of mental health issues, existentialism, travelling, Taoism, and more. So, naturally, I was hooked.

The novel follows Ophelia as she leaves her home in Amsterdam (Molen is also Dutch but now lives in Lisbon), searching for self-discovery. Her quest takes her to Lanzarote, Arizona, California and Bali. Molen says, Violet Syrup is a love letter to life.

South Africa

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years

An atmospheric and haunting novel that transports you from India to Durban across a hundred years in search of answers to a long-forgotten love story. Perfect for fans of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca, Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees and Neema Shah’s Kololo Hill.

Japan

Gate to Kagoshima

Gate to Kagoshima is an action-packed adventure that opens in Scotland and makes its way to Kagoshima, Japan, as our heroine flees the ghosts of relationships past only to find new loves—and new heartbreak. Set at the close of the Samurai era, the story blends Outlander by way of Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

Paris

The Paris Novel

It had me at “Heartburn meets Mrs Harris Goes to Paris”. Described as the feel-good book of the summer, The Paris Novel from bestselling author and food writer Ruth Reichl, follows Stella around 1980s Paris as she breaks free from the structure of her life as a copywriter in New York’s power-broking heyday. Expect romps around literary haunts like Shakespeare and Company and Les Deux Magots.

Tokyo

Butter

If you weren’t already sold from the cover (forget what they say about never judging a book by its cover), then the glittering reviews from some of the starriest names in the literary galaxy might sway you. Pandora Sykes hails it as “Compelling, delightfully weird, often uncomfortable”, while foodie Nigel Slater reports being “glued” to Asako Yuzuki’s new novel.

The cult Japanese bestseller is inspired by the true story of “The Konkatsu Killer”. It follows a female gourmet chef in a Tokyo Detention Centre who has been convicted of luring lonely businessmen with her hearty home-cooking only to murder them. Our protagonist, Manako Kajii, won’t speak to the press, that is, until a journalist requests one of her recipes. It’s a must-read for fans of Killing Eve.

We’ve found the best books of 2024 to curl up with

cjarvie@cjarvie.com (Catherine Jarvie) — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 07:01:52 +0000

What better way to spend your down time between the whirl of the party season than curled up on your favourite chair with a new favourite book?

Our final selection of releases for 2024 delivers mightily on this, with everything from creepy tales from the master of British folk horror and dystopian cli-fi (aka climate change fiction) to a brilliantly unnerving story of erotic obsession about a troll (yes, really).

Throw in a novella about—fittingly—the life-changing impact of a night spent at a party and a couple of sharp short story collections and you’ll be sorted until we return with a brace of sparkling new fiction for 2025. Slàinte!

The best new books of 2024

EDITOR'S PICK

Troll: A Love Story, Johanna Sinisalo

Young advertising photographer Angel is stumbling home drunk after a night out when he stops a group of teens terrorising a juvenile troll. Immediately beguiled by this strange forest creature, he takes it home with him and attempts to nurse it back to health. As Angel tries to learn more about how he can help his new roomie – who he calls Pessi – readers are treated to a fascinating history of trolls, drawn from both real excerpts from folk tales and popular songs and fictional encyclopaedia entries and news reports (the story is set in a parallel Finland where trolls – while rarely seen – are officially verified as a species). But the longer Pessi is with him, the more Angel is drawn under his spell – and the greater the danger to all those who encounter them both.

Originally published in Finland in 2001, Sinisalo’s debut novel won the prestigious Finlandia Award. With its focus on queer desire and ‘beasts’ of all kinds, this updated translation – which also nods to climate change and society’s othering of what it doesn’t know or understand – reads as if it could have been written yesterday. Clever, funny, dark and tender – it’s the love story you never knew you needed.

Set My Heart on Fire, Izumi Suzuki

A legend of Tokyo’s underground scene in the 1970s and 1980s, Suzuki was a model, indie film star and prolific writer of science-fiction stories and essays about Japanese counterculture, and has been steadily building up a cult following since her suicide in 1986. This, her first novel to be published in English (it was published in Japan in 1983), tells the story of a young twentysomething Izumi hanging out at gigs and nightclubs and making terrible – and we mean terrible – decisions about men. Booze, drugs, depression and ennui are all rife. It’s chaotic and nihilistic, with much speculative mirroring of its author’s life. Fascinating.

EDITOR'S PICK

Everest, Ashani Lewis

Lewis’s debut, Winter Animals, revealed her as a writer with a sharp, observational eye and this follow-up collection of short stories confirms it. She possesses a rare ability to write with both solemnity and ironic humour across the pages of a single story (and some of these are very short, almost to the point of flash fiction) – sometimes in the same sentence. ‘Linda’ – about a young woman who sees her childhood therapist in the faces and haircuts of middle-aged women everywhere – is a case in point: it closes with a killer line straight out of the psychotherapy workbook. Funny and astute, Lewis has a keen eye for both the echoing loneliness and transcendent moments of connection in our increasingly atomised lives.

EDITOR'S PICK

The Mighty Red, Louise Erdrich

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author returns with a dense, multi-layered novel about a small farming community in North Dakota’s Red River Valley. Set in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, a tragedy hinted at from the top leads the love triangle at the heart of the story as 18-year-old Gary presses his unlikely high school sweetheart Kismet into marrying him, unaware that she’s sleeping with former classmate, Hugo. Gary’s mother is thrilled at the union, while Kismet’s is distraught, another of the dynamics that power this tale of inheritance and legacy.

There are other, wider, themes and stories being addressed here, too. But Erdrich’s messaging about greed, capitalism and the damage done to both land and community from one-size-fits-all agribusiness and large-scale mining hide in plain sight alongside the day-to-day concerns and travails of her characters. (A passage about a section of land that has been rewilded, as seen through Kismet’s eyes, is a particularly powerful and memorable paeon to respecting nature.)

In true Erdrich style, there’s a nod to the supernatural in here, too, treated similarly lightly. Gary, we learn at the start, has always been unusually lucky, seemingly protected by a ‘guardian angel’ – but is he under the watchful eye of something more nefarious?

This almost impossible to categorise novel is funny, touching and full of big ideas. But most of all, it’s a story of love of all kinds and at all stages of our lives. Hard recommend.

EDITOR'S PICK

The Safekeep, Yael van der Wouden

As the only title on this year’s Booker shortlist we didn’t cover on release, it would be remiss not to include this exceptional debut in our Best Books for 2024. Set in the Netherlands in the early 1960s where the legacy of the Nazi occupation still looms large, Isa lives a perilous, isolated life in the house acquired for her family by their uncle when they were evacuated out of Amsterdam during the war. Having dedicated herself to nursing her mother through her illness before she died and with only sporadic contact with her two brothers, she is lonely and vulnerable; paranoid and brittle – convinced the maid is stealing from her and distrustful of almost everyone. And then along comes her brother’s girlfriend, Eva – brassy of hair and slippery of manner – who moves into the house while Louis is away for work, disrupt what little calm Isabelle has carved for herself. Van der Wouden’s terse, tight prose paints a beautiful portrait of fear, desire and need as the two become closer and the house slowly but surely gives up its brutal secrets. Wonderful.

The Party, Tessa Hadley

Hadley is equally well known for both her short stories and full-length novels. Now, she brings her considerable talents to a new form – the novella. The tale of two sisters, Evelyn and Moira, who attend at a bohemian party in a derelict dockside pub in post-war Bristol, followed by another, very different, but equally revealing second party at a grand, if rundown, house, hosted by two men they met at the first. Sexual awakenings and follies follow as Hadley’s keen eye follows the sisters through a coming of age that leaves them both on the brink of something they may or may not be as life-changing as it first appears. And it’s all the more fascinating for that ambiguity.

Barrowbeck, Andrew Michael Hurley

Since the publication of his debut, The Loney, in 22014, Hurley has proved himself to be one of the masters of a very British kind of folk horror and this novel of interlinked stories about the supernatural and spooky goings on of a small, forgotten, fictional village in the north of England shows why. It traces the eponymous location from its founding by Celtic farmers throughout its history, with stories dedicated to different times periods over the centuries, right up to the present day and into the near future. As ever with Hurley, it’s the sense of place that’s both so chilling and alluring. A great mid-winter read.

Juice, Tim Winton

Winton’s cli-fi blockbuster comes billed as Mad Max meets The Road and it doesn’t disappoint on either front. We’re in a near-future Australia where the once-slow creep of climate change has long since turned into all-out catastrophe with people forced to live in armed settlements and underground to defend provisions and escape the searing heat and drought. Our unnamed narrator is travelling with a young girl who it’s clear is not related to him in any way but for reasons as yet unknown has decided to help when they seek refuge in an abandoned mine that, it turns out, is not so abandoned after all. Locked up overnight as their guardian decides whether to treat them as friend or foe, the man begins to narrate his life, One Thousand and One Nights-style in an attempt to prove their credibility. What follows is a rollicking, shocking tale of what Winton clearly believes might just be our future should we continue on our present course with regard to how we treat our planet. At 500-plus pages, it’s a meaty – almost to the point of intimidating – read but once it has you in its clutches, you won’t want to put it down.

She’s Always Hungry, Eliza Clark

The Boy Part’s and Penance author’s first short story collection is a riotous mix of body horror, fairy tale and dystopia – with a little sci-fi thrown in for good measure. The women are complicated and the men are problematic; parasites and tapeworms abound. Subtle it is not, then, but it’s clearly not meant to be. Fun and at times surprisingly thoughtful, this is Clark at play with ideas and genres that, while they don’t always come off, are always entertaining.

The City and its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami

A new novel by Japan’s biggest-selling novelist is a big deal. Murakami’s much-anticipated latest hits all his usual marks: the lovelorn mid-lifer unable to move on from the mysterious loss of his first love; the magical realism of the city that may or may not be a manifestation of said character’s subconscious or truly occupy another dimension, and so on. If you’re a fan, these will be familiar not only as Murakami tropes, but because the writer has already told versions of this story in two source works (a short story and much earlier novel), returning to them because, he says, he felt there was more to explore in what they had to say.

The best books in September / October

Autumn in book world is traditionally the season for much-anticipated releases by big-name authors, and September/October 2024 doesn’t disappoint.

Elizabeth Strout, Rachel Kushner, Rumaan Alam, Richard Powers and – of course (drumroll, please…) – Sally Rooney are just some of the established heavy-hitters in this edition of our round-up. But there’s plenty of fresh talent coming to bookshelves near you, too, starting with Morgan Talty’s poignant debut about belonging and legacy.

So pull up a chair and get cosy with this lot in your reading pile for the next two months, you’re not going anywhere.

EDITOR'S PICK

Intermezzo, Sally Rooney

Exactly as the title suggests, Rooney’s piercing fourth novel tells a story of in-between. Two estranged brothers – 22-year-old Ivan and Peter, 32 – push and pull against one another in the wake of their father’s death. Ivan is a chess prodigy who’s been struggling with his form since his father became ill, while Peter – on the surface a successful barrister with all the trappings of successful urban life – is simply struggling, and has been, we quickly come to realise, for years.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a Rooney novel if there weren’t entanglements of the sexual kind, too. On one side of the board, we have the triangle between Peter and his young (Ivan’s age) student girlfriend, Naomi, and first love Sylvia. On the other, the burgeoning love affair between Ivan and rural arts centre programmer Margaret who, at 36 is considerably closer to Peter’s age. When the dots between the brothers’ respective hypocrisies – over affairs of the heart and more – connect, sparks (and fists) duly fly.

As Peter becomes closer to unravelling, Rooney flirts with a Joycean stream-of-consciousness to narrate the jumble inside his head. This is a writer pushing herself to test and explore both her characters and her art. It doesn’t always sit neatly with her trademark cool detachment, but her willingness to do so is further proof that this so-called ‘voice of a generation’ is in it for the long haul. As are we.

Tell me Everything, Elizabeth Strout

Strout has been circling this for a while now. Her last novel, Lucy By the Sea, brought Lucy Barton and Bob Burgess – beloved characters of previous Strout novels – together when Lucy and her partner William escaped New York for Maine during lockdown, with a passing mention of the mighty Olive Kitteridge thrown in for good measure. Now, with Lucy and William’s move to Maine made permanent, we get them all together.

Perhaps surprisingly, it’s Bob who really gets to take centre stage as he comes out of retirement to defend a reclusive young man who has been accused of murdering his mother, while at the same time falling into an intense friendship with Lucy that threatens his decades-long marriage. Elsewhere, Lucy has been summoned to the retirement home where Olive now lives to listen to a story. The pair fall into a semi-regular pattern, sharing extraordinary tales of ordinary lives. ‘People…People and the lives they lead. That’s the point,’ notes Lucy. ‘Exactly,’ Olive replies. Few writers illustrate that point more astutely than Elizabeth Strout.

EDITOR'S PICK

Fire Exit, Morgan Talty

Charles has spent most of his adult life watching his daughter, Elizabeth, grow up on the other side of the river that serves as a dividing line between the Penobscot Nation and the ‘rest of the state of Maine’. She, meanwhile, has no idea who he is. As a non-Native, Charles was forced to leave the reservation when he came of age; to spare Elizabeth suffering a similar fate, she has been raised as the daughter of another (Native) man, securing her place on the official Penobscot census. But the time has come, Charles has decided, to tell her the truth, not least because ‘blood is messy and it stains in ways that are hard to clean’.

And so begins this thoughtful, complex – if disarmingly simply told – story of birthright, belonging and legacy. ‘We are made of stories, and if we don’t know them…how can we ever be fully realised?’ Charles asks at one point. The problem with stories, of course, is that while the broad facts might remain the same, the perspective and meaning changes according to who’s telling and who is receiving them. As Charles wrestles with his conscience and his past, mistakes happen and historic – potentially tragic – patterns repeat. Talty guides the reader through all of it with compassion and care. We may not be blameless, he seems to tell us, but that is not to say we are to blame. Just stunning.

The Unfinished Harauld Hughes, Richard Ayoade

Oh, somebody’s having fun! Multihyphenate funnyman Ayoade’s latest is an audacious piece of metafiction in which the writer sets out to rescue his fictional doppelganger Harauld Hughes – a once celebrated playwright and filmmaker currently lingering in the footnotes of cultural history – from obscurity. This book is a fictional record of the fictional documentary he sets out to make to do just that, recorded in excruciatingly awkward comic detail. Ayoade has created a whole Hughes universe (a Hughesiverse?), with an additional three works of Hughes’s ‘backlist’ also hitting the shelves. Here’s hoping the ‘forgotten’ films and plays themselves are in the works too.

EDITOR'S PICK

The Hotel, Daisy Johnson

Johnson’s slim volume of superbly creepy stories is perfect reading for spooky season – there hasn’t been a hotel this evocative of all that goes bump in the night since Stephen King immortalised The Overlook in The Shining. This hotel is a mysterious, nameless place, built on a troubled, non-specific site on the Fens where even photographic records of the building ‘have a habit of going missing’. Its superb, self-named opener delivers a potted history of all that’s to come: from the women drowned there as a witch to the student filmmakers who disappeared from the site after breaking in to record its alleged hauntings on the night The Hotel burned to the ground, leaving only their scanty recordings behind, Blair Witch-style, in Room 63. Brilliantly chilling.

Untold Lessons, Maddalena Vaglio Tanet

Local schoolteacher Silvia goes missing the day after one of her pupils commits suicide. Rumours abound as word of both incidents spreads through the small Italian village where they live. Tanet, however, isn’t interested in turning this into a will-they-won’t-they-find-her thriller. As readers, we quickly come to know the missing teacher has followed a trail and found refuge – fairy tale-style – in a dilapidated cabin deep in the woods. And, shortly after, that someone watchful knows where she is. Instead, the author chooses to take her narrative into far more intriguing psychological territory as we disappear into the heads of various town residents for their take on the incident and the wider machinations at play throughout the villagers’ lives. With a strong, almost magical, undertow in its depiction of Silvia’s woodland surroundings and her mental state, this is a powerful exploration of the fragility of the ties that bind us to society and loved ones. That it’s based on a real-life incident in which a relative of the author disappeared in similar circumstances makes more extraordinary still.

The Empusium, Olga Tokarczuk

Shy, sickly student Mieczyslaw Wojnicz arrives in the Guesthouse for Gentlemen – a health retreat, high in the mountains of what is now Poland – on the eve of WWI. Returning to his lodgings, he finds a woman dead – the wife, he is informed, of the establishment’s owner, who seems more put out by the general irrationality of women than the specific loss of his spouse. Readers of the Nobel Prize-winning writer’s work will recognise this as familiar-ish territory for Tokarczuk. There’s much more for readers old and new to enjoy in this slyly funny folk horror where magic mushrooms and parasitic worms are on menu and the ‘landscape takes its sacrifice’ annually around the time of the November full moon. A deliciously off-centre delight.

EDITOR'S PICK

Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner

Former federal agent Sadie Smith is now a solo spy-for-hire after a case she was working on collapsed at trial due to alleged entrapment of the accused. These days, however, Sadie’s honeytrapping skills and lack of anything close to a moral compass are exactly what her clients pay her for. In this instance, the infiltration of a group of eco-warriors living on a commune in rural southern France who she gets to know long before she meets them after hacking email correspondence between the group and their leader’s mentor, Bruno. This veteran of Paris’s 1968 May Day protests is now living off-grid and, in part, completely underground nearby. His presence and philosophical discourses on Neanderthal man, the cosmos and more add a fascinating and fierce sidebar to what is otherwise modelled as a traditional spy novel, with hard-drinking sex bomb Sophie a match for anything that genre has seen before. More than deserving of its place on this year’s Booker shortlist, this is funny, intelligent, genre-bending writing at its best.

Duets, Various authors

A collection of eight new short stories, each of which – as the title suggests – has been written by two writers working together. It’s a clever premise and fascinating to see how two creative brains co-mingle on the page, from the relatively straight approach of the sweet-turned-deliciously-dark approach of Ely Williams and Nell Stevens’ ghost-story opener Merrily Merrily… to considerably more esoteric and experimental treatments, such as those by Gurnaik Johal and Jon McGregor in Junction 11. It’s a credit to the calibre of the writing talent on display and their respective willingness to give into the process that what could so easily have resulted in discord does in fact, for the most part, deliver a suite of clever harmonies. A treat.

Yr Dead, Sam Sax

Award-winning poet Sax’s debut novel opens on a trigger-warning premise, telling the story of young queer activist Ezra in the liminal period between life and death after setting himself on fire as an act of protest at a rally outside Trump Tower in 2016. What could have led him to this shocking act is explored in fragmented, lyrically forensic prose that stretches back – through the friendships and alienation of first school, then college; through Ezra’s first romantic and sexual awakenings in the small US town of his childhood; and through stories (and folk stories) of his Jewish ancestors. The result is a rich, densely woven patchwork of a life that is at times bleak, at others funny, yearning, and – ultimately, surprisingly, given the context – hopeful.

EDITOR'S PICK

Dear Dickhead, Virginie Despentes

When novelist Oscar posts a derisory comment about movie star Rebecca online, she responds with the salutation of the title, setting both the scene and the tone for what follows. Related as a series of email exchanges between the pair – interwoven with posts by Zoe, a feminist blogger who has MeToo’d Oscar for his behaviour towards her when she worked as his PR – the mutual antagonism of their early correspondence evolves into something more pressing when Covid strikes and France goes into lockdown.

For Oscar, who has previously declared getting ‘blitzed’ as the ‘Tabasco’ he always reached for to spice up the blandness of everyday life, Rebecca becomes the proverbial port in the stormy seas of his sobriety; a favour that is reciprocated when career junkie Rebecca – refusing to be forced to order her drugs in ‘office hours’ while Paris is under curfew – decides to do the same. But this is no holier-than-thou tale of paths to enlightenment. Despentes – a rock ’n’ roll novelist if ever there was one – revels in her characters’ flaws as she rages against the machine, offering insights and assessments into everything from addiction and class to sexism, ageism, digital pile-ons and more. Wry, intelligent, often laugh-out-loud funny – definitely not one to miss.

Playground, Richard Powers

Powers’ doorstopper of a new novel is expansive in every sense, opening with the Tahitian creation myth in which supreme being Ta’aroa uses the shell of the cosmic egg that’s housed him to create the universe (styled here as being driven by a desire to escape the emptiness of his solitary existence). It’s a beautiful metaphor for all that’s to come – a looping, lyrical dive into our threatened oceans, narrated in part by Todd, a lonely boy obsessed with board games who grows up to establish a vast, networked computer game called Playground, who we meet just as he’s been diagnosed with a form of dementia. His estranged friend Rafi, meanwhile, lives on a tiny island in French Polynesia with artist Ina (a mutual friend from college) where the already fragile ecosystem is under threat from a consortium determined to build a floating city off-shore. The now elderly scuba diver who first inspired Todd’s fascination with both the ocean and computing when he was young, just happens to live nearby. So yes, there’s a lot going on. But Powers knows what he’s doing and this lyrical love letter to our planet – and our oceans, especially – is a delight.

The Blue Hour, Paula Hawkins

The Girl on the Train author is back with a thoughtful tale – more mystery than the thriller it’s described as – that follows art expert Becker as he attempts to track down the missing pieces from a bequest by a reclusive artist Vanessa Chapman. After a piece of her work has been revealed to contain what appears to be a human bone, Becker travels to the remote Scottish island that served as the artist’s home and studio for the last decades of her life to meet Grace, the executor of her estate. Chapman’s estranged husband disappeared without a trace 20 years before – could the bone be his?

If the set-up sounds explosive, the novel itself for the most part is not, which is not to say it isn’t fascinating. Propulsively and richly told, it focuses instead on a clear-eyed and thorough analysis of Chapman’s artistic practice alongside her tangled life and relationships, much of it related through journal entries that offer insights – and may well hold the key – to both the missing work and the ghosts of the past.

Entitlement, Rumaan Alam

If the subjects our novels are written about are a reflection of the times we live in, then one of the key obsessions of our time is money – who has, who wants it, what they do with it and what they’ll do to get it. Unsurprisingly for an author fascinated by class, race and society, Alam’s follow-up to dystopian bestseller, Leave the World Behind, is a fully paid up member of this flourishing sub-genre (see also Taffy Brodesser-Akner and Kiley Reid, whose 2024 releases tread similar thematic ground). We meet former teacher Brooke as she lands a promotion at a New York non-profit foundation funded by an ageing billionaire who has decreed his legacy lies in giving away his money to good causes before he dies. Greed, inevitably, overtakes Brooke’s good intentions – and Alam has a lot of fun watching her fall.

What a Way to Go, Bella Mackie

The How To Kill Your Family author’s follow-up is another eat-the-rich caper chock full of characters for its readers to love to hate. Ponzi-scheming hedge funder Anthony dies in thoroughly inauspicious circumstances at the peak of his lavish 40th birthday celebrations, leaving wife Olivia and their four adult children to clean up the mess. Anthony watches on from the afterlife, unable to move on until he remembers his own cause of death as secrets and lies are revealed – aided by a wannabee podcaster, whose naked desire for fame is dressed up as a delusional pursuit of ‘truth’ at all costs. Everyone is vile, which is rather the point, even if it does leave the reader with nowhere to place their allegiance or sympathy. But it is funny – and bound to be another enormous hit.

More September/October books in brief:

Our Evenings, Alan Hollinghurst: The Line of Beauty author returns with a decades-long tale of two men, Dave and Giles, from their first encounter as schoolboys to their very different careers as actor and politician, respectively. Now in his sixties, the novel is narrated by Dave, as he looks back on his life and loves as a gay man coming of age in a rapidly changing world.
Night of Baba Yaga, Akira Otani: This queer gangland Japanese thriller is styled as Kill Bill meets The Handmaiden meets Thelma and Louise – and from violence to sex to friendship, that pretty much nails it on all fronts.
Our London Lives, Christine Dwyer Hickey: It’s 1979 and teenage runaway Milly lands herself a job in a central London pub just after arriving in the capital from Ireland. There she meets rising boxer Pip, and a faltering, decades-long friendship and on/off love affair between the pair ensues. As much a love letter to – and lament for – the changing face of London as a chronicle of Milly and Pip’s star-crossed story.
Annihilation, Michel Houellebecq: The enfant terrible of French literature is back with the English translation of his most recent novel (published in France in early 2022) and he’s claiming it to be his last. Expect his usual provocative fare in the politics of the thriller set-up, but there’s a softer, sadder side inside this too, with love and death, depression and grief all met head-on.

The best new books of July / August

We’re back with this year’s offering of brilliant new reads that are sure to keep the pages turning for you throughout 2024. In the spirit of that newness, we’ve given ourselves a little refresh, with a more detailed, bimonthly offering of fully reviewed must-reads and recommendations, supported by a flurry of additional favoured titles in brief.

Whether you’re spending it pool- or city-side, what better to keep you company through these long, lingering days and nights of high summer than a healthy stack of new releases.

From a heartbreakingly vivid contemporary ghost story to a triumphant – and chilling – take on the myths of Ancient Greece via Jazz Age New York and, er, Eastbourne, we’ve got you covered. Just don’t forget the SPF.

EDITOR'S PICK

The Echoes, Evie Wyld

Wyld’s quietly devastating fourth novel is her most accomplished yet – and that’s saying something for an author who has been garlanded with praise and awards since her 2009 debut. Separated broadly into three timelines, it opens in London where freshly minted ghost Max is surprised to find himself haunting the Tulse Hill flat he until very recently shared with his girlfriend, Hannah. As Max tries to piece together his final moments, Hannah’s own past unfolds to the reader – not only in the weeks before Max died, but further back, to her complicated childhood in rural Australia, where secrets of all sorts lay literally and metaphorically buried. Wyld manages the complexities of both her characters and her narrative with control, compassion and more than a little well-judged humour as truths are excavated and revealed. It all adds up to a deeply moving portrait of decisions made and paths not chosen and the ripple effect as their impact echoes across generations and lives.

Long Island Compromise, Taffy Brodesser-Akner

The follow-up to Brodesser-Akner’s whip-smart debut, Fleishman is in Trouble, is a bigger novel in every sense. Where her debut was largely focused on the marriage and milieux of the couple in question, Long Island… sprawls – across generations, decades, geography and the corrupting influence of wealth on both those who have it and those who do not. It opens at breakneck speed in 1980 with the kidnap of millionaire Carl Fletcher from outside his home, and barely lets up from there. When Carl is returned, the family do their best to put the incident behind them. But that is not, as we all know, the way trauma works and Brodesser-Akner follows each member of the family, with a particular focus on Carl’s children – sex- and drug-addicted Hollywood screenwriter Beamer, anxiety-riddled lawyer Nathan, and anti-capitalist Jenny – as they wrestle with its fallout.

The Voyage Home, Pat Barker

In the six years since Barker published the first instalment of her reinterpretation of Homer’s epic poem The Iliad, told from the perspective of the women caught up in the 10-year battle for Troy, feminist ‘retellings’ of Greek legends have become a publishing phenomenon. But as this – the final part of her trilogy – reveals, no one does it quite like she does. The fates of Cassandra and Clytemnestra take centre stage here as warrior king Agamemnon returns to the island from which he sacrificed his daughter in exchange for fair winds to sail his men into battle a decade earlier. Both women have good reason to want to see him dead and Agamemnon’s end, when it comes, is as viscerally satisfying as it is inevitable. A chilling and triumphant end to the trilogy.

EDITOR'S PICK

Highway Thirteen, Fiona McFarlane

A thoroughly satisfying new collection of stories by the writer of last year’s Walter Scott Prize-shortlisted The Sun Walks Down, each of which is connected – by varying degrees and across decades and continents – to a 1990s serial killer who plucked his victims from the highway of the title and buried them in a forest south of Sydney. If that all sounds rather grim, far from it. With stories ranging from a group of teenage girls on a school trip to Rome to the presenters of a pair of ‘murder-adjacent, comedy-adjacent’ true-crime podcasters via a Hollywood actor hoping for reinvention, McFarlane brings deliciously dark humour to her sharp-eyed insight into the human psyche, and delivers it in crystal clear prose. A delight.

Women and Children First, Alina Grabowski

Grabowski’s quietly commanding debut is a novel of interlinked stories divided between the ‘Before’ and ‘After’ of the sudden death of a teenage girl in a small coastal US town. Each chapter is narrated by a different woman who is more or less directly related to the tragedy – the disillusioned student guidance teacher who discovers a secret relationship between a colleague and a student; the grieving mother whose guilt continues to tear at her; the teenager who fled the scene, and so on. Together, they build up a picture of a town riven not only by grief, but the legacy of economic failure in contemporary USA. Complex and considered, it refuses to deal in easy answers.

EDITOR'S PICK

Mamele, Gemma Reeves

In this profoundly moving study of family, motherhood and relationships, Edie – who has been living in a kind of arrested development as the third party in wealthy socialites Joanna and Harry’s polyamorous marriage since shortly after being thrown out of home aged just 16 – is forced to face her past when her long-estranged mother dies. Now in her fifties, Edie is forced back into the narrow world of her childhood when she returns to London for the funeral and to help half-sister Simone clear out her mother’s flat. As she sieves through the detritus of the apartment in which she was raised and family secrets are revealed, Edie begins to see how the patterns of the past have bled into her present. Is she finally ready to face her own reckoning?

Little Rot, Akwaeke Emezi

The You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty author’s new release is not going to be for everyone: subtle it is not. But assuming you do have the stomach for the sex, lies and video that proliferate throughout, let’s just say it is quite the ride. Set over the course of a weekend in the fictional city of New Lagos, it opens on a heartbroken Aima preparing to leave Nigeria once and for all having broken up with her boyfriend Kalu for refusing to put a ring on it. She gets as far as the airport before changing her mind. The odyssey of drugs and sexual experimentation that follows is matched by the antics of her ex, who throws himself into a sex party in an attempt to forget his heartache and ends up with a price on his head. Add two prostitutes back in the city for the weekend, a corrupt pastor and a whole lotta drama and it all adds up to a tale that is so wilfully decadent it quickly veers into the highest of high camp.

EDITOR'S PICK

The End of Drum-Time, Hanna Pylväinen

The unforgiving beauty of 19th-century Lapland serves as the backdrop to Pylväinen’s transcendently epic love story. Lutheran minister Mad Lasse is finally beginning to have some success in his attempts to convert the local Sámi people to his faith when young reindeer herder Ivvár meets – and falls for – the minister’s daughter, Willa, who sets out with the herders on their annual migration. What follows is a soaring yet powerfully intimate tale of a people, culture, history and landscape that for all its careful research – Pylväinen spent six months living with Sámi herders in Finland – remains very much a tale of the heart all the way to its shattering end. Stunning.

God of the Woods, Liz Moore

This sprawling, multi-generational saga captures the brittleness of generational wealth and the divide between the haves and have-nots of a community in the unforgiving Adirondack Mountains in Upstate New York. It opens in 1975, on the morning Barbara Van Laar – wayward teenage daughter of the family who own much of the surrounding land – is reported missing from summer camp. Her disappearance echoes that of her brother, Bear, several years before and coincides with the prison escape of the serial killer widely believed to have been responsible for that incident. As the news spreads and the search begins, the dark secrets at the heart of the Van Laar family and residents of the nearby town begin to be revealed. Superbly plotted, it’s a great poolside read.

There’s Nothing Wrong With Her, Kate Weinberg

Vita has been laid up in bed for months with a mystery illness that continues to escape diagnosis. She hasn’t spoken to her sister in weeks and partner, Max – a busy surgeon – has to leave her for long stretches on her own, with only her goldfish Whitney Houston and the ghost of a centuries-dead Italian nobleman for company. When a leak from upstairs threatens to turn into a flood, Vita is forced to journey upstairs to the neighbouring flat, which sets her on the path to a tender, tentative friendship with recently bereaved neighbour Mrs Rothwell and her lodger, Jesse. As stories and intimacies pass between them, Vita gradually reconnects to long-buried traumas that have brought her here. A sensitive, astute, gently funny study of the powerful intersection between body and mind.

Mammoth, Eva Baltasar

Baltasar’s intriguing follow-up to her International Booker-shortlisted Boulder comes in at just a little over 100 pages, in which not a sentence is wasted. We meet our unnamed narrator on the day she has determined she will become pregnant. A handful of pages later that attempt has failed, her growing disquiet has seen her leave her university research job, dabble unsuccessfully in a handful of others and determine the only way forward is to ‘flee’ from her life. So begins a quest to live off-grid in the mountains, reconnect with nature, herself and a fair number of random strangers – and all the while the search for meaning goes on.

We Were the Universe, Kimberly King Parsons

Young mother Kit has been struggling with parenthood, work, the truth – all of which is related to her ongoing grief from her sister Julie’s recent death. A weekend away with her gay best friend is supposed to help, but when Kit returns home closer to unravelling than ever, it’s clear something has to change. This sharp, funny, howl-of-pain of a novel has much to say about sisterhood, motherhood, friendship and love.

Death by Numbers, Jo Cunningham

If you’re after a little cosy crime to keep you company on your sun lounger this summer, then Cunningham’s debut – a funny, off-beat murder mystery – is the one to pack. Risk-averse life insurance actuary Una is horrified to learn that a sudden spike in deaths in the seaside town of Eastbourne (where, by chance, her widowed mother lives) has thrown her numbers out and sets out to find out why. Once there, she uncovers to a link to a local lottery syndicate, led by her mother’s new fiancé, Ken. Can she uncover the truth about the murders before the next one – which according to her calculations is scheduled for Ken and her mother’s wedding day – takes place?

A Woman of Opinion, Sean Lusk

Lusk’s second novel tells the real-life story of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (who, incidentally, inspired Aunt Harriet in his debut The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley), whose many achievements include introducing an early form of inoculation for smallpox to Britain in the early 18th century. Mary was, as the title suggests, neither shy, nor retiring by nature, making as many enemies as she did friends. Lusk captures her complexity with wit and compassion in a globe-trotting plot that’s sure to be catnip to historical fiction fans.

Test Kitchen, Neil DA Stewart

Stewart’s culinary whodunnit blends Boiling Point with The Bear and serves it up with a sprinkle of surrealism and more than a soupcon of black humour on the side. Waitress Marley is in the kitchen of London restaurant of the moment, Midgard, waiting for her shift to begin when she realises something’s not quite right; she appears to be trapped between the refrigerators and unable to move or call for help. The truth about her circumstances gradually unfolds over the course of what is revealed up top to be the final night of the service. Told in extended chapters focused around each of the restaurant’s seven tables, A little rich in places perhaps, but overall, it’s a fun and pacey summer read.

How We Named the Stars, Andrés N Ordorica

Affecting coming-of-age tale of thwarted first love, written as a series of journal entries by narrator Daniel to his college roommate, best friend and sometime lover, Sam, who we learn in the opening pages has just died. Where the novel really comes into its own is in the parallel story of Daniel’s deepening understanding of his family history on a summer visit to his Mexican homeland where he learns about his namesake and over the course of several weeks becomes more confident in exploring and understanding his own sexuality.

More July/August Books in Brief

The best new books of 2024

Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good, Eley Williams. That title – taken, weather watchers and insomniacs will be aware, from the shipping forecast – says everything about the funny, offbeat-to-the-point-of-nerdy nature of Williams’ newest short story collection. And that, in our book, is a very good thing.
Heart, Be at Peace, Donal Ryan. A return to the landscape – and characters – of Ryan’s widely acclaimed first novel, The Spinning Heart. Each short chapter is narrated by a different member of the community, building up a similarly moving and incisive take on small-town Ireland life.
The Instrumentalist, Harriet Constable. This vivid retelling turns the spotlight on forgotten 18th-century Venetian violinist and orphan Anna Maria dells Pietà – who studied under Vivaldi and was a true star of her day.
Ex-Wife, Ursula Parrot. Billed as the summer’s hottest rediscovered classic, Parrott’s debut about a young divorcee trying to find her way in Jazz Age New York was a bestselling sensation on release. The men are cruel, the women are feisty but inevitably – sometimes brutally – put-upon.
Wife, Charlotte Mendelson. Fledging academic Zoe falls for department senior, Penny, right from the off and a whirlwind relationship ensues. Years later and she’s trying to extricate herself – and their two daughters, conceived with and co-parented by the brother of Penny’s ex – from this most complicated and toxic of relationships. Grimly funny.

Best Books from May/June

Our May/June round-up of new fiction releases lands just as the weather is heating up and has all you need to start building your ultimate summer TBR pile.

In the mood for a stonkingly good (and swooningly romantic) time-travel caper? Or perhaps a sharply observed marriage story featuring an AI sex doll is more your bag? Or how about a masterful, end-of-days spin on King Lear?

Alongside these, we have two very different – yet equally heart-breaking – tales of small-town Ireland, a love letter to big city life set across one scorching hot London weekend, a century-spanning art-murder mystery and a whole lot more. Read on!

EDITOR'S PICK

The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley

After six rounds of interviews for a job so top-secret she has no idea what the role actually is, our unnamed narrator – a British Cambodian translator-consultant at the Ministry of Defence – becomes a handler for one of a handful of individuals (‘expats’) who have been plucked from history. ‘We have time travel,’ she is informed, ‘like someone introducing the coffee machine’ – and the shrug that comes with those lines sets the tone for the rollicking tale that follows.

Her charge is the devilishly handsome and charismatic Commander Graham Gore (based on the real-life Victorian polar explorer who died in the Arctic in 1845). Bradley has a lot of fun with the fish-out-of-water time clash as Gore and the other expats get to grips with everything from modern plumbing to Spotify. But as our pair fall inevitably, swooningly in love, the battle to get hold of the device that allows all these hijinks in the first place builds to its page-turning climax. Pacey, witty, intelligent, with a deft handle on some big themes – immigration and colonialism among them – The Ministry of Time is quite simply a cracking read.

Hey, Zoey, Sarah Crossan

High school teacher Dolores is aware that all is not entirely well in her marriage, but it’s only when she discovers a programmable AI sex doll (the Zoey of the title) hidden in the garage that she realises just how bad things have become. Left alone in the marital home, she begins to chat with Zoey who serves as a sounding board to her insecurities and fears. What could have been played for easy laughs or simple shock-factor becomes a fascinating dig into Dolores’s past as she begins to grapple with her emotional frailties and confront long-buried traumas. A funny, insightful tale of love and complicated families.

EDITOR'S PICK

Long Island, Colm Tóibín

There’s nothing showy in Tóibín's follow-up to his 2009 novel, Brooklyn, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t pack its own quietly powerful emotional punch. It picks up the story 20 years on from when Eilis sailed back to America from her trip home to Ireland (and romance with local lad, Jim Farrell) to settle down with secret husband Tony. The couple are now living on Long Island with their two teenage children. Both life and marriage, while not entirely without their frictions, are steady enough. That is, until a man arrives on the doorstep and calmly tells Eilis that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child.

Eilis’s response to that bombshell is a steadfast refusal to accept what others see as inevitable. She sets an ultimatum and returns to Ireland for her mother’s 80th birthday. There, a delicate and complicated chain of events is set up and disrupted as the key characters from Brooklyn are brought back together and forced to reckon with the consequences of paths not taken. A masterclass in subtle, complex emotion.

Private Rites, Julia Armfield

Set in a near-future city teetering on the brink as rising waters threaten all-out climate collapse, Armfield’s follow-up to Our Wives Under The Sea follows three queer sisters – Irene and Iris and half-sister Agnes – as they come together in the wake of their father’s death. The set-up is a clear and knowing riff on King Lear, and like Shakespeare’s great tragedy, this is ultimately a tangled emotional tale of inheritance and legacy. But what, exactly, is being inherited and whose legacy is it? With each sister narrating their own story, we’re given a powerful insight into the traumas and events that have shaped all three of them. But it is the fourth narrator – the drowning City itself – that underscores the novel’s wider themes and the eerie sense of creeping dread that, as the waters rise, builds to its catastrophic denouement.

EDITOR'S PICK

Evenings and Weekends, Oisín McKenna

Mostly set over one hot (in every sense) weekend in June 2019, McKenna’s debut is an exhilarating, freewheeling love letter to London. It centres around a group of friends who have known each other since childhood and moved to the city to fulfil dreams, pursue ambitions or simply escape the narrowmindedness of small-town life, but who now, aged 30, are beginning to question their choices and consider what follows.

Broke and pregnant, failed artist Maggie is on the cusp of leaving the city with her partner, Ed, who has not been entirely honest to either Maggie or himself about his past and desires. Her best friend Phil is in love with his housemate, Keith, whose open relationship with his long-term boyfriend is proving to be difficult to navigate. Phil’s mother Rosaleen, meanwhile, grapples with her own complicated history as she attempts to share some difficult news with her son. As the city rallies round the story of a whale that has become stranded in the Thames, the friends and their friends’ friends, and their friends’ friends (and so on) come together at a house party to end all house parties. Truths are aired, secrets are revealed and confusions laid to rest. Now bring on the summer!

The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby, Ellery Lloyd

Three novels in and husband-and-wife writing partnership Ellery Lloyd are carving out a clever niche for themselves: ingenious, well-written plots with thought-provoking, zeitgeisty themes (‘lost’ women in art history serving as a key one here) that never come at the expense of pacing or plot. This one – an art-murder mystery set over three timelines that span roughly a century – is another winner from the pair, a darkly glamorous and twisty caper that is their most ambitious and compelling to date.

EDITOR'S PICK

The Coast Road, Alan Murrin

Murrin is an acclaimed writer of short stories, which may go some way to explain how this, his debut novel, is such an astonishingly assured piece of writing. Set in 1994, as Ireland’s divorce referendum is about to be put back on the political table, it centres around the lives – and loves – of the women in a small Donegal town as bohemian poet Colette returns, having left the lover she fled to Dublin to be with several years before. Desperate for her estranged husband to let her to see her children, she enlists the help of Izzy, whose decades of marital frustration with regard to her controlling local politician husband, James, make her sympathetic to Colette’s plight. But as Colette spirals, the town closes ranks. An intricate and deeply compassionate study of women’s lives and the forces that shape them.

All Fours, Miranda July

In this, July’s second novel, her unnamed protagonist – a semi-famous, middle-aged, multidisciplinary artist who may or may not resemble the writer herself – leaves her husband and child in their LA home and sets out on a cross-country road-trip to New York. She gets as far as a neighbouring suburb, where she checks into a motel, remodels the room, falls hard for a young, married, wannabe dancer and ends up staying for the full three weeks of her vacation. The stay is a catalyst for the entire upending of life as she and her husband know it as she explores her sexuality, analyses perimenopausal lust (of which – warning – there is a lot), and generally changes her life in any and every way she can. Vivid, frank, and for all its endless naval-gazing, very, very funny – this is menopause, baby, but not as you know it.

EDITOR'S PICK

Scaffolding, Lauren Elkin

As you might be expected from the author of meaty non-fiction works Art Monsters and Flâneuse, there’s a lot going on under the hood in Elkin’s debut novel. Set in the same Paris apartment over in two timelines it tells the story of two couples. French American Anna – a psychotherapist who has suffered a breakdown following a miscarriage and is unable to work – and her largely absent lawyer husband, David, open the novel in 2019 as Anna strikes up a friendship with younger neighbour and guerrilla feminist Clementine. Later, we meet nascent feminist and psychotherapy student Florence, who lived in the apartment her husband, Henry, in 1972. Both women are converts to the ideas of controversial French psychoanalyst Lacan. Both women are wrestling with ideas around fidelity, desire and motherhood. As the novel progresses, its themes and to some degree characters intertwine. A challenging and satisfying read about the lives we project onto others as much as those we build for ourselves.

Behind You Is The Sea, Susan Muaddi Darraj

Darraj’s debut – told in a series of interlinked stories – explores the lives and ties of a diverse community of Palestinian Americans with humour and compassion. A teenage girl’s discomfort over the racial implications of her high school production of Aladdin is handled with wit and nuance, while the slow-drip horror of a husband and father’s possible implication in an incident that sets the internet alight is unveiled with a restraint that makes its revelation all the more chilling. Elsewhere, intergenerational differences and the clash of the old world (Palestine) and new (America) are explored from both sides with keen-eyed humanity and understanding. But it’s the closing story, in which police officer Marcus honours his dead father’s wish to have his body returned to Palestine for burial, that ties the novel’s many themes and threads together in an extraordinarily moving tale made all the more powerful by our knowledge of all that’s come before.

Blue Sisters, Coco Mellors

Mellors’ bestselling debut Cleopatra and Frankenstein explored the messy, complicated romance of the bohemian couple at its centre. For her follow-up, the author turns her attention to the messy complicated lives of three sisters – Avery, Bonnie and Lucky Blue – who are drawn together in the wake of their fourth sister’s accidental death by overdose. In both, addiction and self-destructive behaviours are rife. Blue Sisters, however, uses familial patterns and rivalries to dig deeper into Mellors’ exploration of dependency of all kinds.

Company, Shannon Sanders

There are undeniable shades of Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Women, Other in this debut, which follows the lives of the extended family and friends of four sisters across several decades in and around Washington DC across 13 interlinked stories. Sanders has fun playing with her characters as alignments and allegiances shift and change with the perspectives, points of view and timeframes of each story’s narrator.

Un Amor, Sara Mesa

Thirtysomething translator Nat moves to an oppressively small rural town where she rents a rundown property and adopts a skittish, badly trained dog. Struggling to fit in and afraid to deal with the threat of her bullying landlord, she accepts the terms of an unusual offer that shifts her standing within the community and her own understanding of herself. Nat’s inability to ‘translate’ her own actions and behaviours drives this intriguingly ambiguous tale of autonomy and power.

More May/June Books in Brief

Openings, Lucy Caldwell. The third collection of stories from the 2021 National Short Story Award winner offers 13 tales of relationships, family and motherhood, all written with Caldwell’s characteristic clear, concise prose and keen eye for the space between who we are and who we present ourselves to be. A delight.
Bright I Burn, Molly Aitken. Aitken’s lyrical second novel tells the story of Alice Kyteler, the first recorded person in Ireland to be condemned as a witch. It may be set in the 13th century, but its fierce rebuke of the patriarchal constraints that lead Alice to her fate resonates powerfully to this day.
Hold Back the Night, Jessica Moor. Former nurse Annie reflects on the path that led her from her training as a naive student in a private psychiatric hospital to a widow taking in a series of HIV-positive lodgers at the height of the AIDS crisis in 1980s London.
A Cage Went in Search of a Bird, various authors. 2024 is the centenary of Kafka’s birth and this collection of determinedly ‘Kafkaesque’ stories from a storied list of writers (Ali Smith, Yiyun Li, Naomi Alderman and Helen Oyeyemi among them) has been specially commissioned to celebrate. A mixed, but intriguing, bag.
(Paperback release of the month) August Blue, Deborah Levy. A celebrated concert pianist blows up her career by walking off stage mid-performance in this tale of other lives and paths not taken. In a market stall in Greece, she is drawn to a woman she fancies as her doppelganger and a chase of sorts ensues as each woman pursues the other across Europe.

Best books from March/April

Where to start? Our March/April top-notch selection takes us from dystopian futures to new romance, spans centuries past and future, and sees magical realism sit happily alongside the gritty realities of a teenage girls’ boxing tournament.

Let’s just say it’s a knock-out.

EDITOR'S PICK

Headshot, Rita Bullwinkel

Bullwinkel’s debut novel is set over two days of a teenage girls’ championship boxing tournament in Reno, Nevada, and puts you right there in the ring with the eight fighters slugging it out. Told as a series of linked stories from the point of view of each pair of boxers as the fight is underway, it gets into their minds, backstories and motivations, without ever losing the thrill of the action. Right at the top, for example, we learn that underdog and part-time lifeguard Andi Taylor is reeling from a boy dying on her watch at the pool. The wages she used to pay her fee to fight in this tournament, she notes, now ‘feels like blood money’. The novel’s prose as taut as the novel’s structure, with knock-out literary punches throughout. It may be early to call it, but this has to be one of the most dazzling debuts of the year.

We Are Together Because, Kerry Andrew

It’s summer in the South of France and sisters Thea and Violet are spending the week in their father’s holiday home with half-brothers Luke and Conner, before their father – a busy international lawyer – flies in from China to join them. It’s the first time the four of them have spent any real time together and the unease in their dynamics as they struggle to get to know each other is palpable – especially between Thea and Conner, with their undercurrent of forbidden attraction. That, however, is soon to be the least of their worries. From the unidentifiable sound only Conner can hear to a plane that appears to drop from the sky, Andrew spins an elegantly unsettling web from the start. If there are inevitable echoes of Rumaan Alam’s masterful Leave The World Behind in its set-up, as it becomes increasingly clear that something very strange indeed is going on, Andrew’s dystopian tale takes on a vivid, haunting life of its own.

EDITOR'S PICK

Say Hello To My Little Friend, Jennine Capó Crucet

Cuban-born, Miami-based Ismael (‘Call me Izzy’) is making a living working as an unofficial Pitbull lookalike when he receives a cease-and-desist letter from the rapper’s legal team. His solution? To model his life on the star of another infamous Miamian – drug lord Tony Montana, aka Scarface, in the Al Pacino movie of the same name. This brings him to the attention of Lolita, a captive orca stolen from her pod decades before and now stuck in a tiny tank at Miami Seaquarium, going slowly mad with loneliness. Lolita sees something in Izzy – who lost his own mother during their perilous illegal crossing from Cuba to Miami when he was a child – and forms a psychic connection with him that serves as the second motor of what you may have already guessed is no straightforward plot. In lesser hands, this – not to mention the host of meta-narratives and divergences that Crucet throws on top – could have resulted in one big unholy mess. Crucet, however, is in charge at every step. A pacey, knowing, smartly insightful read that is laugh-out funny and desperately sad.

EDITOR'S PICK

Stone Yard Devotional, Charlotte Wood

A woman returns to her home town, not to see her parents (she visits their graves ‘for the first time in 35 years’ on her way there), but to seek refuge in an austere monastery run by an order of nuns. She is disillusioned, it’s implied, by her work and her marriage, and while incredulous at the piety of the nuns and their routines (she doesn’t pray or believe in God herself), she finds a solace in the quiet that she returns to, eventually moving in with the order fulltime. That peace is disrupted, however, when a near-biblical plague of mice coincides with the return of the human remains of one of the order’s sisters from abroad. Overseeing their return is a ‘celebrity nun’ and activist from the town who our narrator went to school with, forcing her to reckon with unfaced truths from their entangled pasts as well as her own. Masterfully understated and all the more powerful for it.

The Start Of Something, Holly Williams

The lives of 10 people living in and around Sheffield and Manchester cross and recross through a series of sexual encounters that range from joyous to transactional to downright troubling over the course of one long, hot summer. Recently separated Will kicks things off with a Tinder date with Manda, who is not impressed to learn he’s bisexual after they’ve had sex – an exchange that sets the scene for the various misunderstandings and misalignments that occur as each character takes charge of their story. Williams corrals a diverse cast – an artist, a sex worker, a drag queen and a welder among them – to create a fun, big-hearted and at times thought-provoking read about the search for connection in an all-too-busy, atomised world.

EDITOR'S PICK

Clear, Carys Davies

It’s 1843 and John Ferguson is a minister without a ministry. Sorely in need of the money he hopes will re-establish his congregation, he agrees to travel to a remote Scottish island to deliver the news that its remaining inhabitant, Ivor, must leave the home that has served his family for generations after its landowner decides to populate it with sheep (a practice in line with those of Scotland’s historic Highland clearances). When John suffers an accident, Ivor nurses him back to health, and the pair gradually build an understanding and connection over the days and weeks that follow. Back on the mainland, however, John’s wife Mary grows restless for her husband’s return and sets off on the long journey to bring him home. A profoundly intimate tale of loneliness, longing and the lengths you will go to for love.

Anita de Monte Laughs Last, Xochitl Gonzalez

‘If it weren’t for what happened later, everyone would have forgotten that night entirely,’ narrates mid-1980s emerging art star Anita de Monte of the night of her death (an incident that mirrors a notorious real-life event in the same year). The irony being that forgotten is exactly what Anita is by the time Puerto Rican-American art history student Raquel Toro stumbles on her story nearly 15 years later as part of her research into world-famous minimalist artist, Jack Martin – Anita’s husband – whose alleged involvement in his wife’s death has been carefully covered up. Set across dual timelines in which both so much and so little has changed, this is a smart, funny – and furious – shout out to agency, ownership and the female creative spirit in the face of art world hierarchies, hypocrisies and -isms.

Choice, Neel Mukherjee

This novel in three parts opens with what at first appears to be a gentle domestic scene, as father of twins Ayush announces his plan to swap out his children’s usual cosy bedtime story with a ‘surprise’ video. The video in question, however, quickly subverts what’s happening into something starker, darker and considerably more challenging, and serves as an arresting introduction into the subtly interlinked narratives that follow. Mukherjee isn’t setting out to tell us what to think, he’s telling us to think – about the lives we live and the impacts of the decisions we can all so easily and blithely make. A beautifully written and provocatively compelling tale of lives at the crossroads.

EDITOR'S PICK

James, Percival Everett

If it takes a bold writer to take on Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it takes a brilliant writer to do it with the style, vigour and wit Everett brings to the story. James being, of course, Jim – the Black slave who runs away after learning he may be sold ‘down the river’ and ends up escaping on a raft with Huck. This, however, is Jim’s story first and foremost, not Huck’s, and Everett has a lot of fun playing with the tropes and expectations of the original (in this version, the language and speech patterns Jim and other Black slaves employ – so problematic to many contemporary readers – is a put-on for ‘white folks’ who ‘expect us to sound a certain way’). Following his Booker shortlist for The Trees in 2022 and current success of American Fiction, the Oscar-winning script for which was based on his 2001 novel, Erasure, Everett is on a much-deserved roll. James adds to that momentum brilliantly.

EDITOR'S PICK

Barcelona, Mary Costello

If you haven’t read Irish writer Mary Costello before, now’s the time – this is a writer so fully in control of her craft, she makes it look easy. Across its nine short stories entire histories are excavated and explored as family feuds, bitter marriages, lost dreams and more, quietly and desperately come to a head in settings as mundane as a car journey or mid-range hotel room. Costello’s prose remains coolly distant throughout, creating a dissonance that delivers its emotional insights and blows all the more powerfully. Just superb.

Whale Fall, Elizabeth O’Connor

Beautifully observed debut set on an island off the Welsh coast in the late 1930s, where the arrival of a beached whale – shortly followed by two English strangers there to record its residents’ traditional ways before they’re lost forever – augurs ill to locals, not least because rumours of another looming war are beginning to swirl. To 18-year-old Manon, however, the strangers offer a promise of potential escape from the life she feels trapped within on the island. But these are dark and suspicious times, and things – including Manon’s new friends – are not entirely as they seem. A shimmering coming-of-age story.

The Fetishist, Katherine Min

Punk poetess and musician, Kyoko, is determined to avenge the death of her mother, Emi, by killing the man she holds responsible. The man in question – and sexual obsessive of the title, for his history of sleeping almost exclusively with Asian women – is middle-aged violinist Daniel. But as Kyoko’s foiled murder attempt turns into an increasingly hapless kidnapping, the truths and lies behind what really happened between Daniel and Emi – and, crucially, Alma, the beautiful, talented rising-star violinist Daniel was in a relationship with at the time – reveal more to all of their stories than first exposed. Prize-winning Korean American author Min’s posthumous novel is provocative, prescient and funny – it’s also a heartfelt tale of love.

You Are Here, David Nicholls

With One Day bouncing back into the book charts on the back of the success of the current Netflix series, Nicholls’ latest novel reads rather pleasingly like a coda to its famous older sibling, albeit set over 10 days rather than two decades. It follows a pair of mismatched-on-paper (naturally) late-thirtysomethings – Marnie, a freelance copy editor, and recently separated geography teacher Michael, both of whom are desperately lonely – on an epic hike from one side of England to another with all the will-they-won’t-they tension Nicholls deploys so well. Does the course of love run smooth? Of course not – what would be the fun in that?

The Hypocrite, Jo Hamya

A notable novelist attends his playwright daughter Sophia’s first West End production with no knowledge that the story that’s about to unfold on stage is a deeply unflattering portrait of his behaviour on a holiday they shared in Italy a decade earlier. What follows is an astute, funny-sad analysis of power, perception and memory that questions the value of art and the responsibilities – and egos – of those who make it. Who, we’re left asking at its end, is the hypocrite now?

Scrap, Calla Henkel

When artist and true-crime podcast obsessive Esther meets the wealthy, glamorous Naomi at an art dinner in New York, she baulks at Naomi’s suggestion that she takes on a glorified scrapbooking assignment she has planned as part of the celebrations for her husband’s forthcoming 60th birthday. Just days later, however, Esther’s world has fallen apart – her fiancé Jessica has left her and the only chance she has of holding onto the physical trappings of the life they’d built together means that scrapbooking for entitled billionaires will have to be done. Things get really interesting when Naomi dies mysteriously midway through the project. Henkel sets up the nod to Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl early on and as Esther’s obsession about what could have happened deepens, she gleefully riffs on its themes and tropes, sending Esther down a series of increasingly outlandish rabbit holes. Bonkers. In a good way.

Real Americans, Rachel Khong

This ambitious, three generation-spanning saga opens on the cusp of Y2K with Lily Chen – the daughter of Chinese refugees – feeling adrift. Recently graduated, she works as unpaid intern for an online magazine. It is not, she ruefully notes, the life her scientist parents imagined for her when they fled Mao’s cultural revolution in search of a better future. Meeting the handsome Matthew – a rich financier with an even richer family – changes all that and a fairy tale marriage follows. So why, when we meet Lily again several years later is she living alone with their son Nick on an isolated island estranged from Matthew and his family as well as her own? When Nick goes in search of his father, the truth he eventually uncovers is far wilder than any he might have imagined.

More March/April books in brief:

The Children's Bach, Helen Garner: In her home country, Garner is recognised as one of Australia’s greatest living writers. This deceptively simple story of what happens when two old friends from university, Dexter and Elizabeth, are reunited by chance goes a long way to explaining why.
Until August, Gabriel García Márquez: While far from his finest (García Márquez himself declared the story ‘didn’t work’), this posthumously published tale of a woman’s annual pilgrimage to place flowers on her mother’s grave and the one-night stands that follow, is an intriguing post-script to the great Gabo’s career.
Day One, Abigail Dean: Dean’s follow-up to her best-selling debut, Girl A, explores the years-long fallout of a mass shooting in a Yorkshire primary school. As with Girl A, the chief focus is on the psychology and motivation of those involved rather than the horror of the event itself. A gripping read.
The Morningside, Téa Obreht: Magical realism meets climate catastrophe in this latest novel from The Tiger’s Wife author. In a future world, the once prosperous Island City is now dependent on ‘climate refugees’ to attempt to repopulate it. Enter Sil and her mother, who move into the now seriously rundown, building of the title where, Sil soon learns, darkness resides.
Meet Me When My Heart Stops, Becky Hunter: Emery is born with a rare illness that causes spontaneous heart failure. Each time it happens, she meets Nick, whose job is to guide people through their deaths. It’s an unusual premise for a love story, to which Hunter brings both plausibility and vulnerability. Heartbreakingly tender.
Her Side Of The Story, Alba de Céspedes. First published in 1949 and reissued after renewed interest in de Céspedes brought praise from fans of both her writing and proudly feminist stance, including none other than Elena Ferrante (who writes the afterword in this edition), Her Side… is an epic tale of love and a woman’s search for independence and agency, set in fascist Italy. Brilliant.

Best books from January / February

Our Jan-to-Feb reads kick things off as we plan to continue with a brace of debuts by award-winning writers in their various other lives as poets and masters of the short story. Add to that a sprinkling of very different takes on pandemic fiction – a genre that doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere fast – some dark dystopian fiction from both sides of the pond, a visit to the Russian circus and an eerily beautiful Sami-Swedish novel in verse, and you have some idea of the diversity of reading fun that lies ahead.

EDITOR'S PICK

The Vulnerables, Sigrid Nunez

Sigrid Nunez has form when it comes to populating her writing with animals – most famously in The Friend (in which a bereaved woman inherits a bereaved dog), which picked up the US National Book Award and brought Nunez to the wider audience she had long deserved. The animal in question this time is a macaw called Eureka, who our unnamed narrator is asked to house sit for in New York after his owners get locked down on the West Coast. She is later joined there by a young college dropout – the son of friends of the owners. If you hadn’t already guessed, it’s early 2020 – and we all know what that means. In many ways, then, this is a covid diary, and while Nunez captures the strangeness of that time, she is too good a writer for it to stop there, with musings on friendship, connection, writing, grief and the many vulnerabilities that are part and parcel of being alive.

Vladivostok Circus, Elisa Shua Dusapin

Ever fancied running away to the circus? Then step right up. This tale of three Russian bar performers and the costume designer tasked with kitting them out for the competition of their lives takes you backstage and centre ring. Nathalie is between art college and her first job at a theatre company back in Belgium. Anna, the group’s star, has turned to circus after a failed sports career and is a relatively recent addition to Anton and Nino’s team, both of whom, we learn, are still reeling in their own ways from the near-fatal accident suffered by their previous flyer. They are all, in other words, in a period of life-changing transition. As the act comes together, trust between all parties gradually forms, and with it the ways in which each character – and Nathalie in particular – is ensnared by their pasts is revealed. Rich, immersive, psychologically astute – it’s a star performance all round.

EDITOR'S PICK

Jonathan Abernathy You are Kind, Molly McGhee

Fans of surreal workplace dystopias in the vein of drama series Severance are well served in this scathing attack on the American dream-turned-nightmare. The Jonathan Abernathy in question – deeply in debt from student loans and being hounded for the debts of his deceased parents – is invited to become a ‘dream auditor’ for a firm hired by businesses to enter the subconscious minds of their white-collar workers and rid them of anything that might negatively impact on their productivity. For this, Jonathan will be released the brutal wheelhouse of endless repayments and – if he’s lucky – become a fully paid-up member of the capitalist machine. He attacks it with gusto but this does not, unsurprisingly, go well. As Jonathan’s dream life and real life begin to overlap ever more perplexingly, things get very dark indeed. Brutal, funny – and at its heart, deeply tender – this read is more than worthy of your hard-earned pay check.

Come and Get It, Kiley Reid

This pacey, character-driven spin on US campus life forgoes the lecture hall to focus on a college dorm rooms and the myriad power struggles – financial, sexual, social – within. Set in a Southern university, it features the antics of five young women who share a dorm (three of whom for which money is no object), Millie, the live-in resident assistant overseeing them, and dreams of a home of her own, and visiting professor Agatha, who’s new to town, licking her wounds from an ill-fated romance and looking for her next writing project. If not quite as sharp as her exquisitely sharp debut, Such A Fun Age, its rat-a-tat pace and Reid’s keen ear for dialogue ensures a swallow-in-one-sitting read.

EDITOR'S PICK

Wild Houses, Colin Barrett

The acclaimed Irish short-story writer’s novel debut is a tale of grief, greed, desire and small-town rivalries – not only the feud between drug gangs that sets the narrative ball rolling with the kidnap of Doll, who’s being held for the alleged crimes of his older brother, but family, friends and co-workers too. Doll is delivered late at night to the isolated country house of misunderstood loner Dev – who is less than impressed by this development to his relatively benign involvement in local dealers the Ferdia brothers’ activities up until now. With Doll locked up in the basement and his girlfriend Nicky plotting with his family to get him back, all manner of dark comedy and chaos ensues. Essentially a study of manners and human behaviour dressed up as a crime novel, this rollicking tale is expertly and brilliantly told.

Greta & Valdin, Rebecca K Reilly

The queer Gen Z siblings of the title share a flat in central Auckland and a history of thwarted romance. Both are warm, witty, wry eccentrics who wear their hearts very firmly on their sleeves. Hapless TV host Valdin is in love with his ex – who now lives in South America – while English tutor Greta has fallen hard for a colleague who exploits that crush to her advantage. So yes, we have all the trappings of a very modern romcom, but it’s the pair’s relationships with and places within their complex, sprawling, loving Russian-Māori-Catalonian family that is the beating heart of their story, and this novel is all the richer for that. A huge hit when it was published in New Zealand, fingers crossed its considerable charms chime with an international audience – such success very much deserves repeating.

EDITOR'S PICK

Pity, Andrew McMillan

Subtly powerful tale of masculinity, memory and generational trauma set in a former mining town in northern England, as told through the lives of three generations of men. That’s brothers Brian and Alex, and the latter’s twentysomething drag artist son Simon in the main narrative, interwoven with a series of short, lyrical flashbacks to the siblings’ father in the days when the mine was still open. McMillan builds his story as carefully as the students who have descended on the town to do fieldwork for an academic study, unpicking Alex and Brian’s childhood to reveal its impact on their lives today. As Simon prepares for the genre-defying drag performance that he hopes will move him onto greater things, Alex is finally forced to confront a long-hidden truth. Quietly brilliant.

EDITOR'S PICK

Day, Michael Cunningham

A single day broken into three parts (morning, afternoon and evening) across three years, from 2019 to 2021, Cunningham’s first novel in 10 years is a beautifully compassionate portrait of love and longing. The morning opens on Isabel, in Brooklyn, who is worried about work, her marriage to stalled rock musician Dan, her children and her beloved brother Robbie, who lives upstairs for now and with whom she projects her fantasies for an alternative, picture-perfect life in the form of a fake Instagram account headed up by the handsome, worldly ‘Wolfe’. However, the pandemic is coming and the walls are closing in, turning everything on its head. Stylishly told and beautifully – almost manneredly – written, Day is an exquisitely formed examination of the ever-shifting importance of bonds, how easily the threads between them can be pulled to breaking, and the beauty in what remains.

Rabbit Hole, Kate Brody

When Teddy’s father drives off a bridge on the anniversary of her sister’s disappearance 10 years previously, it reopens the decade-long wounds that first split her family apart. Determined to discover the truth behind both events, she turns sleuth, falling down the metaphorical rabbit hole of the title – both online, via various Reddit threads, and by bad decisions and becoming enmeshed in a host of dubious relationships in real life. While very much a thriller-style hunt for what happened, Brody’s debut is more accurately a sensitive, psychological investigation into the long-term, traumatic impact of lingering, unresolved grief.

How to Be Somebody Else, Miranda Pountney

Englishwoman in New York, Dylan, walks out of her successful advertising job, sublets her apartment and takes on a housesit for a stranger with vague plans to become a writer. From that beginning, she slowly but surely continues to dismantle her life, cheating on her long-distance boyfriend with married downstairs neighbour Gabe, blowing up friendships, and more. The story is set in 2015 – that now pivotal period, as Pountney notes, between Donald Trump’s decision not to renew his reality TV contract on The Apprentice and the announcement of his plan to run for office, and, back in Dylan’s UK homeland, when the proposal for what will become Brexit is on its second reading. Dylan is similarly ‘in between’. Question is, which way will she fall?

Winter Animals, Ashani Lewis

Lewis’s debut is being billed as one for fans of The Secret History and White Lotus. Please cast such comparisons from your head – if anything this thoughtful, intelligent and beautifully written exploration of fractured, dislocated souls shares more in common with Emma Cline’s 2023 release The Guest, insofar as it features an emotionally adrift, down-on-her-luck woman who takes up with a band of rich, young teenagers while trying to find her metaphorical way home. Said woman is thirtysomething Elen. Drinking heavily and now evicted from her home shortly after her husband left her, she’s adopted by four British teenagers who travel the globe on an endless skiing adventure dressed up as a hunt for utopia. Lewis is definitely a new talent to watch.

Wellness, Nathan Hill

Hill’s follow-up to his acclaimed debut, The Nix, is another sprawling novel of big ideas. We first meet Jack and Elizabeth as university students in bohemian 1990s Chicago as they secretly watch one another through the windows of their respective living quarters. When their paths finally cross, the pair fall head-over-heels hard. Fast-forward 20 years and they are now as bougie and conventional as their old neighbourhood: married with a child, fashionably disillusioned, and – in the case of Elizabeth – dreaming of separate bedrooms in the fancy new apartment they’ve stretched themselves to the limit to buy. What, Hill is asking, has brought them here? More importantly, is ‘here’ where they’re now destined to stay? An extended meditation on cause and effect, the stories we tell ourselves, and the possibilities or otherwise of creating a placebo effect on our psyches of the kind Elizabeth pedals in the novel’s title. At over 600 pages it’s almost off-puttingly long, but immensely rewarding once you dive in.

The Night Alphabet, Joelle Taylor

This hugely imaginative debut by TS Elliott-prizewinning poet Taylor pulls no punches. It opens in a Hackney tattoo parlour in 2233, where Jones has come to ‘stitch’ the stories told in the tattoos that cover her body together. These are revealed Arabian Nights-style in a series of vignettes after we learn that Jones has an unwitting, inherited ability to leave her earthly body and travel through time to inhabit the minds and bodies of a cast of (at times horribly) compelling characters – a child miner in a Northern coal town, vigilante sex workers and a brutally murderous incel among them. What follows is a fierce, tender – at times highly uncomfortable – study of power, agency and resilience.

Fourteen Days, Margaret Atwood, Douglas Preston et al

While the rest of us spent those early days of lockdown obsessing over sourdough starters, Joe Wicks and yoga with Adriene, Margaret Atwood and chums were busy putting together this intriguing collaborative project. In covers a period of – you guessed it – fourteen days in New York, as the residents of a Manhattan apartment building gather each evening on the rooftop and share stories, community and hope during that first wave of the pandemic. The trick is, each character has been written by an unnamed writer. And we’re talking serious talent: Dave Eggers, Emma Donoghue, Celeste Ng, Angie Cruz – even Mr Blockbuster himself, John Grisham, is in there. Edited by Atwood and Douglas Preston, it makes for a fun, compelling game of literary who’s who.

More Jan/Feb books in brief:

The Storm We Made, Vanessa Chan. Chan’s debut is a heartbreaking – and hopeful – generational saga set in British colonial Malaysia as falls into Japanese occupation during WW2. And yes, it is as epic as that sounds.
Glorious People, Sasha Salzmann. A fascinating account of the collapse of the Soviet Union and its fallout over several generations of one extended Ukrainian family and their friends.
The Beholders, Hester Musson. Musson’s gothic historical debut abounds with secrets, lies and mysteries after young maid Harriet takes up a new post in a big scary house and falls under the spell of its charismatic mistress, Clara. Need we say more?
Aednan, Linnea Axelsson. Axelsson If you’re going to read one so-called ‘experimental’ novel in 2024, let it be this. Awarded Sweden’s prestigious August prize, this novel-in-verse tells the story of two Sami families across three generations and is as stunning as it is ambitious.
Green Dot, Madeline Gray. Terminally dissatisfied Hera takes up a post as a comment moderator at a Sydney news outlet and surprises herself by falling into a passionate relationship with an older, very married, male colleague. (She has, up to this point identified as a lesbian.) As smart and sardonic as they come.

Best books of 2023: The Marie Claire reading list of the must-reads and page-turners

cjarvie@cjarvie.com (Catherine Jarvie) — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 11:49:38 +0000

Kindles at the ready, Readers, when it comes to books –our round-up of new releases and recommended favourites for 2023 is designed to give you a TBR—to be read—list to treasure this year.

The best books to read in December

Yes, it’s that time of year. We know – you must be exhausted. Time to step away from the tinsel and curl up with a good book and some brandy butter-soaked mince pies for some literary me-time – and we have a sprinkling of festive-themed gems (old and new) in with this month’s featured new releases to assist with precisely that.

With fewer new releases in December, we’ve taken the opportunity to use the latter part of this month’s round-up to include a handful of 2023 titles we missed first time round that have since gone on to pick up some starry accolades (Booker and Goldsmiths Prize-winners among them). Enjoy – and see you next year!

EDITOR'S PICK

1. The New Naturals, Gabriel Bump

Rio and Gibraltar are brilliant young academics who leave Boston in search of a better life for their unborn daughter. When a misdiagnosed illness leads to tragedy, they move again – this time to an underground mountain hideaway, set up and paid for by an eccentric billionaire benefactor who’s heard about their plan to found an equal, honest and harmonious community away from 21st-century pressures – and decides to take a punt on it. And so the New Naturals are born.

As news of this hidden utopia grows, we meet other characters drawn together by disenchantment and disenfranchisement. They, in turn, slowly yet inevitably move towards the promise of a new future, even as life underground begins to sour. Bump’s writing jumps off the page, full of wit and a clear love for his characters. Despite its weighty themes, The New Naturals is a joyous – and ultimately hopeful – read.

EDITOR'S PICK

2. Mistletoe Malice, Kathleen Farrell

We’re in post-war Britain and family matriarch Rachel has gathered her unsettled brood together at her seaside cottage for Christmas. Over four days, past slights and historic resentments build with increasing acrimony to a giddy climax. If you think your family struggles through the so-called ‘most wonderful day of the year’, then this reissue from long-lost literary gem Farrell will have you feeling positively content with your lot.

EDITOR'S PICK

3. Absolution, Alice McDermott

McDermott’s literary craftsmanship is on full display in this meticulously wrought tale of American wives in 1960s Saigon set against the backdrop of the Vietnam war. Naive young newlywed Patricia meets the complex, charismatic Charlene at one of the many cocktail parties and soirees around which expat life spins. Patricia agrees to help Charlene fundraise by selling ‘Saigon Barbies’ (everyone’s favourite doll dressed in a traditional Vietnamese ao dai), and as Patricia is pulled deeper into Charlene’s orbit so she is taken further out of her own comfort zone.

The awakening Patricia goes on to experience is only fully reckoned with decades later, after Charlene’s daughter Rainey – who Patricia first met as a child in those Saigon days – reconnects with her. As the pair correspond, everything Patricia experienced – from the social dynamics of the time to Charlene’s fierce ‘white saviour’ behaviour and her own desperate longing to be a mother – is refracted and reframed through the long lens of memory and history. Just superb.

4. Central Places, Delia Cai

Having stayed away from her Midwestern home town since leaving for college and heading on to New York eight years ago, Chinese-American Audrey bows to pressure and agrees to return for the holidays to introduce fiance Ben (a freelance photographer from a wealthy, picture-perfect WASP family) to her parents.

In the time-honoured way of such narratives, Audrey’s perceptions of her reinvented self are quickly challenged as she reconnects with lost friends – including the object of her unrequited teenage affection – and things very quickly begin to go wrong. Cai elevates her plot with an incisive and sympathetic look at the complications and cultural dissonances – both inside and outside the family home – of growing up in a Chinese household in small-town America. For all Audrey’s navel-gazing self-involvement, you’ll be rooting for her by the end.

EDITOR'S PICK

5. The Long Shadow, Celia Fremlin

Another dig into the back catalogue brings us this mid-century festive-themed thriller from the writer who has been coined the ‘British Patricia Highsmith’. Newly widowed Imogen is woken by a phone call in the middle of the night and accused of murdering her husband, Ivor.

Thrown into a tailspin, she pulls herself together but the cracks in what she claims to have been her perfect marriage begin to show. With Christmas just days away and assorted friends and relatives descending, Imogen’s paranoia grows as the phone calls – and a host of other intrusions – continue. Can she really trust those who are with her in the house? Is Ivor even really dead? A witty mystery of manners.

6. Playing Games, Huma Qureshi

Mira has set herself a task of writing a play to submit to a prestigious competition, but the one she’s currently working on is going nowhere. When an overheard fight between her married sister and her husband gives Mira the germ of an idea she can’t shake, she has to decide whether it’s ever okay to draw from real-life in pursuit of her craft and if so, how much and how far?

In between Mira’s creative dilemma is a carefully drawn portrait of two sisters at a personal and familial crossroads, both of them struggling with historic grief following the death of their mother 11 years ago as they grapple with the trappings, responsibilities and challenges of relationships and careers.

7. Prophet Song, Paul Lynch

Our money may have been on one of the other Pauls on this year’s Booker shortlist (as in Murray, author of The Bee Sting), but Lynch’s speculative novel is a timely, tightly-written political novel that easily earns its crown. Set in a dystopian Ireland that is descending into a totalitarian state, scientist and mother of four Eilish opens the door of her Dublin house one night to find two secret police officers asking questions about her trade-unionist husband, Larry, in what is merely the first hint of the trouble to follow. With Larry disappeared and his whereabouts – and future – unknown, it’s up to Eilish to do whatever she has to do to protect her family.

8. Cuddy, Benjamin Myers

Myers’ playful, form- and genre-bending tale about St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (the Cuddy of the title, who lived out the last of his life on the tiny island off the coast of Northumbria) tells the story of the medieval religious hermit in four parts and across centuries. The author is known for his grasp of language and elegiac take on history and the natural world – all of which are put to excellent use in a novel that spans poetry, prose, historical accounts and more. A worthy winner of this year’s Goldsmiths Prize, which rewards ‘fiction at its most novel’.

9. In Ascension, Martin MacInnes

Long-listed for the Booker Prize and now named Blackwell’s Book of the Year, MacInnes’ third novel takes us deep, deep, deep underwater as marine biologist Leigh joins the exploration team to a newly discovered opening on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean thought to be three times deeper than the Mariana Trench within which they hope to learn answers to the very origin of life itself. Meanwhile, a breakthrough in space exploration could see humans travel to the edge of the solar system for the first time. For all the speculation in its set-up, In Ascension is a deeply emotive, human story of belonging and home. Quietly stunning.

10. In Memoriam, Alice Winn

Winn scooped Waterstones’ Debut Fiction Prize and Novel of the Year awards for this affecting tale of two friends and lovers whose lives and fates are forever changed by the Great War. Elwood and Gaunt first meet as seniors at elite English boarding school Preshute College, where the notion of going off to fight for one’s country is presented as the most thrilling of adventures. The reality, as the pair enlist separately and meet again in the trenches of the WWI, proves to be very different. A moving portrait of the tolls of war.

The best books to read in November

If the drawing in of November nights has your world feeling a little smaller, this month’s selection of new releases does the opposite, leading your imagination to destinations as far flung and unknown as the International Space Station and into worlds past, present and future, with a sprinkling of funny-sad romance and high gothic in between.

EDITOR'S PICK

1. Do you Remember Being Born, Sean Michaels

In the year since ChapGTP sent the world into a tailspin, all sorts of claims and counterclaims have been made about what the future of AI might mean for the future of all of us. So this novel about Marian Ffarmer, a septuagenarian poet – inspired by real-life American poet Marianne Moore – who is invited to collaborate on ‘an historic partnership between human and machine’, could not be more timely. Even more so because it was partly assisted by AI, including a poetry generation model custom designed for this task. (It is worth noting, however, that all machine-generated text featured in the work – shaded in grey throughout – was edited by the author).

Such gimmickry, while intriguing, is in many ways the least interesting thing about the novel as a whole, which – as Marian is forced to confront and analyse what she has lost in the pursuit of her lifelong belief that to create her art she has had to close herself off to everything and everyone – questions the value of all artistic collaboration, human or otherwise. An absorbing and fascinating read.

EDITOR'S PICK

2. Orbital, Samantha Harvey

This month marks the 25-year anniversary of the launch of the International Space Station and Harvey’s new novel is a fitting addendum to debates around a vessel that has been both hailed as playing a crucial part of the humans-in-space programme and criticised as a waste of the £120b it has so far cost to build and maintain. We follow six fictional astronauts and cosmonauts across 24 hours – and 16 full orbits of Earth – as they go about their day, bearing witness to the account of the wonder, strangeness and downright tedium of life aboard the ISS: the endless tasks that keep them safe from the death that is just ‘four inches of titanium’ away. But in between all the busyness of life inside, the real story lies in what’s outside. Harvey does a wonderful job in capturing the fragile, wondrous beauty of our blue planet as seen through the eyes of this handful of men and women as so very few of us will ever – in this lifetime – likely do. Ironically for a work so founded in technology, it is one of the most compelling pieces of nature writing you’re likely to read this year. Part celebration, part rallying cry and part mourning rite, it should be compulsory reading for us all.

3. Good Material, Dolly Alderton

Alderton needs no introduction and as such it would have been easy for the Everything I Know About Love author to follow up her bestselling fiction debut, Ghosts, with another tale of a woman in search of romance. Instead, she switches narrative perspective entirely to focus on the male half of a couple (stand-up comedian Andy) in the wake of the breakdown of his four-year relationship with Jen. Alderton’s prose is relatable, funny and sad as Andy struggles through – and with – his feelings across wallowing days and drunken nights, ably assisted a warm cast of supporting characters, not the least of whom is Jen, who has a version of their story to tell of her own. Together they help lead Andy along his rocky road to emotional enlightenment. Lovely.

EDITOR'S PICK

4. Held, Anne Michaels

This looping, time-jumping narrative opens with an injured soldier lying on a WWI battlefield and pushes forward to that soldier’s return to England and his wife, Helena. As the pair try to bridge the gap of his post-war trauma, John reopens his photography business and is stunned to discover the faces of the dead swim up through the developing chemicals to appear beside his sitters. And so Michaels sets the tone for her carefully woven tale of love, loss and memory in a century-spanning tale that crosses landscapes and lives over four generations in which the ‘ghosts’ of the past are both ever-present and evanescent. For all the sparsity of its prose, Held it is filled with big ideas – Marie Curie’s Nobel Prize-winning discoveries; Darwin’s theory of evolution – lightly told and traced with a poet’s eye for language and detail. A mesmerisingly powerful tale of love, hope and the ties that bind.

5. The Future, Naomi Alderman

Alderman follows up The Power – her award-winning speculative novel about what happens when women are suddenly able to deliver electric shocks with a single touch – with another sweepingly ambitious speculative tale that is bound to deliver similar success. With the world perilously close to destruction, we follow a handful of tech billionaires (who are both amusingly and terrifyingly recognisable as archetypes of some of the leading tech bros of our day) as they plan to sit out the apocalypse in their various doomsday bunkers. Enter a handful of rogue players who envision another path, the leading players of which, in narrative terms, are former cult member-turned-tech powerhouse Martha Einkorn and her erstwhile lover, survivalist Lia Zhen. Pacey, thrilling and with a superb twist, Alderman chooses not – as so many novels of this type do – dwell in the dystopia, but offers a genuine vision of a new, Earth-positive future. Fun.

EDITOR'S PICK

6. A Shining, Jon Fosse – Fitzcarraldo

2023 has proved itself to be a bumper year for novellas and short-form fiction and this latest translation from the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for literature is a worthy jewel in that crown. Riffing on Dante’s Divine Comedy, Fosse’s tale of a man lost in dark and snowy forest who comes across a shining presence and two mysterious figures there to guide him ‘home’ –deftly translated by Damien Searle (who learnt Norwegian specifically to translate Fosse’s work) – is delivered in shimmering prose that touches on existentialism, destiny and the great beyond over 48 meticulous pages. ‘It’s beautiful,’ our unnamed narrator says of the canopy of stars and honeyed moon above him. ‘There’s no better word for it, no, not that I can think of anyway.’ We’ll second that.

7. One Woman Show, Christine Coulson

A 25-year career spent working for New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art inspired Coulson’s newest novel, which tells the story of one Kitty Walker across her century-spanning life almost entirely through the medium of the kind of descriptive labels that adorn art gallery walls. The author has fun with building a deliberate link between a woman of Kitty’s social position in the 20th-century milieu she inhabits and the value, possession and display of art (‘Post-war Kitty maintains her neoclassical form through a regimen of cigarettes, coffee, and grapefruit,’ reads the plaque for her as ‘Widow, Aged 39, 1946’). While that means the narrative can’t help being a little sketchily outlined by its nature, the writing is clever, witty and deftly – and at times poignantly – executed, and that more than earns One Woman Show its coveted red dot (aka sales sticker) from us.

8. This Plague of Souls, Mike McCormack

There is a lot going on in this slim, elliptical novel. It opens as newly released prisoner Nealon answers the phone to an unknown caller at the exact moment he returns to his home in the Irish countryside to find his wife and child missing, and culminates in a meeting with said caller in a distant city hotel as a nationwide terrorist incident unfolds on TV screens around them. In between we learn some of Nealon’s backstory (all unpicked and retold with new light shed at the meeting that later takes place) and his (unconfirmed) involvement in a worldwide insurance scam that delivered good deeds on a near-biblical scale. As fascinating as it remains mysterious – settle back and just enjoy the ride.

9. Mary – or, The Birth of Frankenstein, Anne Eekhout

Mary Shelley and her husband Percy (the romantic poet) are holed up in a villa near Lake Geneva with Lord Byron and various other companions over a weather-blighted summer. Across a series of laudanum-laced nights, the friends take it upon themselves to first tell – then compose their own – ghost stories. As the title suggests, Dutch author Eekhout’s novel creates an origin story not only for Mary Shelley’s famous literary creation but for the writer herself, drawing on Shelley’s history and more than a soupcon of poetic license to bring both stories to life. Suitably gothic and atmospheric in tale and tone.

The best books to read in October

In the month that celebrates both Black History and the annual fright-fest that is Halloween, our offering of new literary releases serves up plenty of both – sometimes (as in Jordan Peele’s anthology of new Black horror writing) in one book. Jump scares not your preferred form of entertainment? Never fear – there is plenty to entertain and enlighten you too, including a surreal hike into the Mojave Desert, a handful of brilliant new short story collections, and a delicately drawn tale in which a young woman with no memory of her past journeys deep into her own secret history.

EDITOR'S PICK

11. Family Meal, Bryan Washington

Fans of Washington’s debut novel, Memorial, will immediately recognise the author’s familiar touchpoints of love, grief, friendship, estrangement (both cultural and familial) and food – lots and lots of food. Cam has returned to Houston from LA following the death of his boyfriend Kai. Grief-stricken, Cam’s days are a blur of casual encounters and self-sabotaging behaviour that is exacerbated by his ghostly ‘visions’ of Kai. When old friend TJ turns up at the bar where Cam works, Cam is resistant to reconnecting. In time, he returns to the bakery – run by TJ’s grandmother – where he spent his teenage years. As they settle into the familiar, familial rhythms and routines of the business, the estranged friends take a long slow circle back through their shared history until, step by step, meal by meal, Cam is finally able to begin the painful process of confronting his loss. Food as a metaphor is rarely so expertly wielded. A treat.

EDITOR'S PICK

12. Beyond the Door of No Return, David Diop

We meet Michel Adanson at the end of his life in Paris, in 1806. The French botanist is a man with a secret, one that he leaves clues for his daughter, Aglaé, to find. When she does, it reveals a father she never knew, during the years in which he travelled to French-colonial Senegal, when the trans-Atlantic slave trade was at its height. Adanson immerses himself in this new world, learning the local language and winning the trust, he believes, of its people.

When he hears of a young woman, Maram, who is rumoured to have somehow escaped the route into slavery following her abduction, he is determined to find her and hear her story, only for it to shed a horrifying new light on the cruelties and vanities of men on both sides. Diop – who picked up the International Booker Prize for his previous novel, At Night All Blood is Black – does a masterful job of showing up the racist brutalities of the slave trade and its associated cruelties and hypocrisies, something Adanson, however well-intentioned he might consider himself to be, cannot entirely avoid, and wraps it all up in a gripping, galloping narrative that challenges perceptions to the very last page.

13. Out There Screaming, Jordan Peele (various authors)

The Oscar-winning horror director introduces this anthology with a foreword that reveals an early inspiration for the Sunken Place in his debut feature, Get Out. What he created, he writes, was the psychological equivalent of the medieval torture dungeons known as oubliettes – a place where you are ‘stripped of all agency and left alone with your struggle’. It’s a compelling driver for horror – and there is some pretty compelling horror within these pages. Featuring 19 new stories by a roster of highly-acclaimed Black writers working in and around the genre, NK Jemisin’s opening story, ‘Reckless Eyeballing’, kicks things off with a tale of a bent cop that sets the pace and tone (suitably creepy, should you need to ask) for the roster of all things horror – from witches and demons to the monsters that lie within – that follows.

14. The Premonition, Banana Yoshimoto

At just over 130 pages, this delicate, precisely drawn novella packs a lot into its slender spine. The story opens as 19-year-old Yayoi arrives to stay with her mysterious young aunt, whose chaotic lifestyle and surroundings are at odds with her natural self-containment. Yayoi has previously left home for periods of several days when she needs space to work unspecified things out, yet: ‘There’s no coming back to what I have, not this time’, she understands, even as she prepares to leave. Sure enough, the nagging doubt that has begun to form at the centre of the mystery of her forgotten childhood is revealed – and with it, everything Yayoi thought she knew becomes forever changed. Exquisite.

EDITOR'S PICK

15. Roman Stories, Jhumpa Lahiri

There are (to paraphrase the classic American TV series) four million stories in the Eternal City, and Lahiri’s latest collection takes a peek into the fictional lives of a cross-section of some of them: the girl who looks after the holiday cottage in her mother’s absence, allowing us to gradually see the differences and crossovers in each family’s lives; the refugee whose family’s delighted at being granted a permanent residence in a suburb ‘with sky to spare’ only to run up against their neighbours’ bigotry and racism, forcing them out. In Part II, a set of stairs serves as the backdrop to snapshots of five very different individuals, an anxious ‘ex-pat’s wife’, two grieving brothers and a screenwriter among them. Lahiri knows of what she writes – the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and translator splits her time between Rome and New York – and her insider’s outsider view on the city permeates every page. Masterful.

16. Julia, Sandra Newman

Do we really need a ‘retelling’ of Orwell’s classic novel? Its themes are so pervasive, most people who haven’t read the original are surely aware of them – the notion that ‘Big Brother is watching you’ famously inspired the ‘big daddy’ of TV reality games of the same name. In Newman’s hands, however, the answer is yes. She turns the spotlight away from Winston Smith to focus on his lover, Julia, and in doing so pulls out the story, Handmaid’s Tale-style, to bring attention to the impact of the regime on women’s bodily autonomy, among other things. While in these ‘fake news’ times, those clear parallels with how misinformation and hate speak can bend and contort any so-called truth ensures 1984’s core message remains chillingly timely.

17. Night Side of the River , Jeanette Winterson

As first witnessed in her fairy tale-inflected debut, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Winterson has long been fascinated with other realms and spaces; this new collection is an opportunity for her to explore all of them. The stories feature ghosts both classic (the kind that haunt people and old buildings) and modern (those inside machines), and range from the humorous – the AI ‘upgraded’ husband who proves to be as much of a cad in the metaverse as he was IRL – to the genuinely chilling. Most moving of all are the ‘ghosts’ of grief, beautifully encapsulated in companion tales ‘No Ghost Ghost Story’ and ‘The Undiscovered Country’, which explore bereavement from both sides. In between, Winterson intersperses her own experiences of things going bump in the night, including at her home in London’s Spitalfields. A warm, wise and surprisingly thought-provoking addition to the spooky-season canon.

18. Death Valley, Melissa Broder

The Milk Fed and The Pisces author is back with a surreal autofiction-style novel in which an unnamed protagonist searches for both escape and the meaning of (her) life while hiding out at a Best Western on the edge of the Mojave Desert. Ostensibly there to finish writing her new novel, our ‘cosmically needy’ writer is in part escaping the pain of her dying father and the realities of life with her chronically unwell husband back home. Unable to settle down to her task, she heads into the desert and encounters a magical cactus. Things go very wrong, however, when she goes back for an impromptu, underprepared hike and gets lost. Is what follows just a sun- and dehydration-induced hallucination or a true hands-and-heart meeting with the divine? A cerebral, darkly funny take on grief, self-expression and the mystical, healing power of nature.

19. Innards, Magogodi oaMphela Makhene

Set in and around Soweto and covering the period from the establishment of apartheid through its dissolution and into the present day, Makhene’s quietly furious debut – a collection of interlinked short stories – is both challenging and enlightening about the daily struggles and cruel realities imposed by that deeply divisive political movement on the lives, traditions and culture of the township’s inhabitants. Which is not to say it isn’t also at times exquisitely tender. Makhene’s sentences shimmer and turn, bringing insight and delicacy to even the most visceral subjects. A searing debut.

20. The Pole and Other Stories, JM Coetzee

The celebrated South African-Australian author is back, and the eponymous novella that leads this publication is its star. The tale of a 72-year-old Polish concert pianist, Witold, and the fortysomething woman (Beatriz) tasked with guiding him through an invitation to play in Barcelona, we are quickly in familiar territory with regard to male-female sexual dynamics. Yet Coetzee handles Witold’s sexual pestering with Beatriz’s response to it, subverting an otherwise clear-cut tale. Intriguing.

The best books to read in September

Just as you’re likely to be hitting the refresh button on your wardrobe, September is the perfect month to bring some new-season energy to your reading list. From sensual near-future dystopias and the Manhattan Project physicist who predicted the distinct existential threat posed by AI, to genre-defying historical releases and a darkly funny gothic feminist fairy tale – consider it the ultimate ‘capsule wardrobe’ for your autumn bookshelf.

EDITOR'S PICK

21. Land of Milk and Honey, C Pam Zhang

Zhang’s follow-up to her award-winning 2020 debut, How Much Of These Hills Is Gold, is a deeply sensuous ode to pleasure, appetite and desire. Set in an all too plausible near-future in which an unidentifiable smog has strangulated food production, biodiversity and is slowly but steadily rendering the world inhabitable, a young chef accepts a job on a remote Italian mountain top where a father and daughter run an ‘elite research community’ funded entirely by private investors – the 1% of the 1%. Tasked with creating lavish meals for its residents as a way to encourage them to invest more fully in the project, she willingly sacrifices her autonomy for the abundance of Miele’s larder. But as she grows closer to the brilliant, beautiful, wilful Aida, the stakes – and the costs – grow ever higher. A brilliant exploration of greed, loss and power.

22.The Fraud, Zadie Smith

Novelist, essayist, playwright: Smith’s versatility has never been in any doubt. What she claims she had never particularly wanted to do, however, was write a historical novel. And yet here we are, with exactly that – one that sits firmly in the sprawling, Victorian traditions of the likes of Dickens and Thackery, but which retains Smith’s modern literary fingerprint. The narrative is built around real events and focuses on the famous Tichborne Trials, in which a poor Australian immigrant claimed to be the missing heir to the wealthy Tichborne family’s estate. Into this, Smith weaves ideas around sexual freedom, literary stardom, populism and colonialism, courtesy of a sharp, insightful look into the slave trade from the trial’s star witness, an ex-slave who was raised on a sugar plantation in Jamacia.

EDITOR'S PICK

23. The Wren, The Wren, Anne Enright

Astutely told and beautifully written, the award-winning author of The Gathering and The Green Road is back with another sharp-eyed look at family dynamics and generational misunderstanding. Here, mother and daughter Carmel and Nell navigate the semi-dysfunctional intensity of their relationship against the emotional and literary legacy of Carmel’s father, a long-deceased Irish poet whose mistreatment of his wife and daughters was brushed aside in the name of his ‘art’. While Carmel has long since vowed to commit herself to no one but her daughter, Nell is repeating the patterns of the past with an abusive first relationship of her own. As Nell goes out into the world, both women have the time and space to consider the legacies of their pasts and how to redraw them for the betterment of their futures.

24. Rouge, Mona Awad

If you liked Awad’s campus novel-skewering Bunny, you’ll love this. Described by her publishers as a ‘horror-tinted gothic fairy tale’, it leans heavily and knowingly into its tropes, from who’s-the-fairest haunted mirrors and autonomous red shoes to a wry spin on the handsome ‘prince’. The story opens as skincare obsessive Belle flies in from Canada to attend her mother’s funeral in sunny California, where every mirror is cracked and a mysterious woman in red sets Belle on the path to an equally mysterious elite spa where, as a Perfect Candidate for their programme, she is fast-racked through its treatments. But at what cost? Darkly funny and incisive, Awad holds a mirror up to so-called feminine ideals and the infinitely complex mother-daughter relationship. Lots and lots of fun.

EDITOR'S PICK

25. So Late In The Day, Claire Keegan

Keegan is almost as well known for the slenderness of her longform fiction as she is for the quality of her prose (at just 116 pages, 2021’s Small Things Like These is the shortest novel to ever feature on the Booker shortlist). That novel’s success has led to the publication of this beautifully presented standalone short story, which compresses what many a novelist would be happy to be able to portray in a work four or more times its size into just 60 pages. Set over a single day it captures the year-long relationship between Cathal and Sabine from the former’s perspective, building a complex and fully-formed portrait of love found and lost, contemporary Irish masculinity (and misogyny), female independence and much more. Stunning.

EDITOR'S PICK

26. The Glutton – AK Blakemore

We’re in 18th-century France, and while King Louis XVI frolics in his golden palace at Versailles, the nation at large is close to starving. Our focus, however, is on a village outside Lyon where Tarare is born to an unwed mother and grows up poor, humble and kind until a violent incident triggers a vast, insatiable hunger that brings him infamy and worse. (‘Perhaps he is empty metaphor. Perhaps,’ notes Blakemore of Tarare’s dubious ‘skills’.) Fast-forward to the last days of his life and Tarare the Terrible, as he is now known, lies shackled to a bed having been suspected of an unspeakable act where he reveals his life story to the nun tasked with watching over him. Blakemore’s debut novel, The Manningtree Tree Witches, won the Desmond Eliot prize in 2021. This arrestingly visceral follow-up is surely set to bring her similar acclaim.

27. The Trap, Catherine Ryan Howard

In this twisty thriller, a young woman puts herself out as bait for the serial killer she believes holds the secret to her sister’s disappearance more than a year before. Told from multiple points of view – including that of the man who claims to be the killer and a trainee police officer brought in to help on the case – Ryan Howard ratchets up the tension in a clever game of who’s who that will keep you guessing to the very last pages.

28. Weirdo, Sara Pascoe

Sophie’s life is a mess. Her sister is marrying her ex, her relationship with her mother is troubled and her current boyfriend, Ian, is definitely not The One. When Chris – her long-time crush from their days together ‘on the buses’ – wanders into the Essex pub Sophie now works in, it’s her chance to set everything right. As funny-sad as it is funny-funny, comedian Sarah Pascoe does an excellent job of revealing Sophie’s past mistakes and vulnerabilities, imbuing her character with the same singular voice and impeccable comic timing of her stand-up.

29. The Vaster Wilds, Lauren Groff

Groff stays firmly in the past in this follow-up to her acclaimed 2021 historical novel, Matrix, which follows a young servant girl in 17th-century America as she tries to survive in the wild having fled the colony in which she has lived and worked her whole life. As her mind and body are pushed to the limit, Groff doesn’t let up, with lucid prose in a fable-like search for autonomy and freedom that doesn’t shy away from the visceral horrors of the girl’s present or her past.

30. The Maniac, Benjamin Labatut

In the wake of Christopher Nolan’s cold-war nuclear biopic, Oppenheimer, Labatut’s novel shines a light on another key player in the infamous Manhattan Project: Hungarian physicist and mathematician Johnny von Neumann. Opening with the murder-suicide by Austrian physicist Paul Ehrenfest (who killed his son before turning the gun on himself), Labatut takes us through the rise and fall of von Neumann’s life and career, and the impact of his developments and predictions in physics, computing – including his contribution to the ground-breaking early computer, MANIAC 1 – and artificial intelligence. The novel closes with the story of Lee Sedol, whose defeat by an AI programme in the notoriously challenging board game, Go, in 2016 came as such a blow to the Korean master that he retired from the game. Weaving fact and fiction, Labatut draws thrilling – and chilling – connections between the quest for knowledge that drives the geniuses behind scientific and technological progress. A gripping read.

The best books to read in August

August is the month of escape. And you don’t have to board a plane or a train or even climb into an automobile to head off into frontiers unknown. All you need to transport you to lands from Casablanca to Malaysia to Down Under and – in one of our picks, whole new universes – is to arm yourself with this month’s round-up of new releases and must-reads. Lucky you!

EDITOR'S PICK

31. Lazy City, Rachel Connolly

Erin has returned home to Belfast following the sudden death of her best friend in London. Paralysed by her grief, she is confronted by the ghosts of her past in a city struggling to come to terms with its own. Complicated relationships with her mother and old flame Mikey, are compounded by entangling herself in a new one with a visiting American lecturer and aspiring novelist who appears to be running from something in his own past. Connolly does a wonderful job of showing us the universality of Erin’s pain and that of those she encounters – not least Mikey’s troubled younger brother, Matt. ‘Anger takes so much energy,’ she notes at one point, ‘and when it’s gone there is only sadness.’ She isn’t afraid to sit in that sadness, but she doesn’t allow her characters to wallow. This soul-searching – and at times delightfully spiky – debut is a clear-eyed, non-judgemental guide through the sad stasis of grief and what’s both lost and gained in taking those vital steps closer to moving on.

32. But the Girl, Jessica Zhan Mei Yu

Unnamed narrator Girl travels from Australia to an artist’s retreat in the UK to work on the ‘post-colonial novel’ that is part of her PhD research into Sylvia Plath. There, she comes up against the privilege of her peers while being forced to confront her own. The scenes that reveal the history of the previous two generations of Girl’s Malaysian family – and her empathy for spiky grandmother, Ah Ma, in particular – serve as moving counterfoils to the fish-out-of-water set pieces, as do Yu’s flashes of humour (a table in which she lines up Plath Groupies versus Plath Scholars is a case in point). An intelligent, affecting coming of age story.

EDITOR'S PICK

33. Tom Lake, Ann Patchett

It’s 2020 and the height of the pandemic. Not that you’d know it from the setting: a beautiful orchard in Michigan where Lara and Joe’s daughters have joined them to try and save that year’s cherry harvest. At her daughters’ behest, Lara begins to recount the story of her summer-long affair with a then unknown actor who would go on to become a world-famous star. Rather like the play Our Town, which frames the narrative throughout, what on the surface appears to be a gentle tale of family, choices and lives well lived is revealed as something more nuanced. As the story flips between the farm and the titular Tom Lake, climate change, race, the US migrant crisis – even a subtle rebuke to the overturning of Roe v Wade taking away a woman’s right to choose – all find their way into this complex, richly drawn tale. ‘Good marriages are never as interesting as bad affairs’, Lara muses at one point. Patchett disproves that statement in spades.

34. My Husband, Maud Ventura

Short and pointed, this French bestseller ostensibly tells the tale of an obsessive wife’s despair at the pain that comes from loving her husband too much. No prizes for guessing there’s a sting lurking in this particular tale. Told in day-long chapters that recount the events of the week leading up to a Sunday morning that has been interrupted by her husband urgently telling her they have to ‘talk’, the plot thickens throughout.

35. As Rich As The King, Abigail Assor

As a French girl in Casablanca – even a poor one – Sarah receives privileges her neighbours can’t dream of, including access to the city’s elite international school. But Sarah’s plans don’t involve pulling herself up by getting herself a good education. She wants to be rich, yes, but she plans to marry into it. And when she’s told that awkward Driss’s father is as rich as the king himself, she’s sure she’s found the way to do it. In this richly evoked story set in a city of two very distinct halves, Assor draws a rich and rather damning portrait of life between haves and have-nots in contemporary Morocco, striking a balance between desire and delusion.

EDITOR'S PICK

26. Strangers at the Port, Lauren Aimee Curtis

Reading this wonderfully oblique historical tale is a little like looking at the way light refracts through a prism: its meanings and impressions disperse along its journey to reveal what the author herself has termed ‘the slippery overlap between history, fiction and memory’.

Set on an unnamed Mediterranean island that goes from gloriously habitable to abandoned in less than a generation, it is presented in three distinct sections by three different narrators, with 10-year-old Guilia and her older sister, Giovanna serving as respective bookends front and back, and gentleman adventurer, the Archduke, in the middle. But while the facts each report are broadly the same (the arrival of prisoners to their verdant island is believed to trigger a crop failure that renders its once-rich soil useless until they are forced to flee), each part shifts the emphasis of what has come before, redrawing the shape of the novel entirely as it goes. Fascinating.

37. The Wolf Hunt, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

Lilach and her family are Israeli immigrants to the US. Her husband works in highly sensitive and secretive world of security software development in Silicon Valley and the family has the rarefied, privileged lifestyle to match. However, their security is shattered when a local synagogue is fatally attacked. In response, they sign their shy, awkward son, Adam, up to self-defence, led by a charismatic fellow Israeli, Uri, who is rumoured to be an ex-Mossad agent. All this backfires when a Black student dies at a party one night and Adam becomes a suspect in what is later decreed to be a killing. Gundar-Goshen does an excellent job in setting up the privilege and paranoia in her character’s lives as their lives slowly unravel.

38. A Bird In Winter, Louise Doughty

Heather has always known she might have to run. She has planned it meticulously – including her route out from where she works as a member of ‘the service’ in Birmingham to her point of escape from the UK off the coast of remote northern Scotland. She once she’s on the run, she still hasn’t quite worked out why, and that – along with her backstory, revealing the many personal loses great and small of a life lived undercover – is what drives the motor of this gripping spy narrative from the best-selling author of Apple Tree Yard.

39. Learned By Heart, Emma Donoghue

The prize-winning Irish novelist’s latest release is a fictionalised account of Anne ‘Gentleman Jack’ Lister (yes, the same one as the BBC series) and her teenage love affair with fellow pupil, Eliza Raine, as revealed in Lister’s own secret journal. It’s arresting opening chapter – a letter written years later from a clearly distressed Raine reveals shades of Rebecca (‘Last night I went to the Manor again’) – sets up a mystery that keeps tension high and serves as a counterpoint to the rich, unveiling of the girls’ passion that follows.

40. The Situationship, Taylor-Dior Rumble

The first romcom release from Merky books is a sparky tale of friends-to-lovers-to-wtf, after newsroom researcher Tia’s romantic dreams of connecting with on-off love interest best friend, Aaron, are thwarted when he returns from extended work placement abroad with a previously unmentioned girlfriend. Tia hits the apps to try to cure her broken heart and seems to strike it lucky when she matches with photographer, Nate, but when they fail to have The Talk, things get complicated.

41. Lost On Me, Veronica Raimo

With a family described on the book jacket as ‘unconventional’, but revealed as dysfunctional at best, this bittersweet work of autofiction charts Verika’s journey through her neurotic childhood (after the Chernobyl disaster she and her siblings spent three years eating only tinned food dated prior to the nuclear event) to womanhood and her attempts – literal and metaphorical – to escape her family and their influence. Smart, funny – at times annoying – it is a sharply tender portrait of a young woman’s becoming.

42. Prophet, Helen MacDonald and Sin Blaché

Overlong but nonetheless mind-bendingly absorbing work of speculative sci-fi about a mysterious substance designed to weaponise nostalgia and the only two people in the world that might be able to stop it – US Marine officer, Adam, and his unwieldy British-Indian charge ‘human lie detector’ Rao. A brilliantly convoluted ride.

43. The Sentence, Christina Dalcher

Dalcher is known for her mastery of the ‘what if?’ narrative – her 2019 release Vox, which questioned a world in which women are forced into silence – was an international bestseller and the twist on the death sentence in this legal thriller is similarly provocative. Here, the rules around capital punishment have changed: if someone who has been sentenced to death is proved to be not guilty of the charge, the prosecutor who sent them down has to take their place. When new evidence surfaces in a trial the one and only time in which Justine Boucher did just that, in the race to find new evidence, the clock is ticking.

The best books to read in July

Whatever your summer holiday plans, this month’s selection of transportive fiction will carry you away.

Our July picks take us from 19th-century USA to contemporary New Zealand via Orkney and Ireland in a line-up that features genre-bending takes on supernatural and dystopian fiction, alongside a brace of hotly-anticipated releases from some of the most exciting young authors writing today.

EDITOR'S PICK

44. Salt and Skin, Eliza Henry-Jones

Recently widowed Luda and her two teenage children, Darcy and Min, get on the wrong side of the local community within days of arriving on a remote Scottish island from their farm in Australia after Luda – a photographer who has been hired to record the effects of the climate change around Orkney – sends images of a fatal accident to a local newspaper. As the family begin to settle into their new home, however, it quickly becomes clear that they are fleeing grief and secrets of their own. What follows is an astonishingly rich and intricate exploration of loss, love, ambition and redemption set against a backdrop of local myth and ancient island history – not least the long shadow cast by the island’s notorious witch trials three centuries previously. As the island’s supernatural past bleeds ever more into its present, it builds to a furious and fitting climax. A thrilling read.

EDITOR'S PICK

45. Second Self, Chloë Ashby

Cathy is one of the lucky ones. She has a job she loves, a happy marriage and strong relationships with her mother and close friends – that is, until a pregnancy scare causes her to question her long-standing decision not to have children. When husband Noah makes it very clear his stance has not changed, the couple’s eight-year marriage comes under threat. Cathy excavates her feelings around this dilemma with the same care and attention to detail she brings to the 17th-century Dutch painting she’s working on in her role as an art conservator – a project that provides a fascinating throughline across the novel’s wider themes, including historic grief, ageing parents and the shifting sands of friendship. A beautifully nuance portrait of a woman at a crossroads. Hard recommend.

46. The List, Yomi Adegoke

It’s weeks before golden couple Ola and Michael’s wedding and life is looking good. That is until Michael’s name appears on an anonymous list of men working in the media who have been accused of sexual harassment begins to circulate online. Can the couple survive the allegation? This much-hyped debut has ‘zeitgeist’ written all over it – no surprise that it’s already being adapted for TV.

47. Corey Fah Does Social Mobility, Isabel Waidner

Waidner’s follow-up to Goldsmiths Prize-winning Sterling Karot Gold is a bitingly sharp social satire about… a struggling writer who has won an esteemed literary prize. All Corey Fah has to do now is claim their trophy – a mysterious UFO with a ‘neon beige’ glow – and both the prize-money (and wealth of social capital that comes with it) will be sealed. Corey’s failure to carry out even that simple task, however, leads to an increasingly dramatic series of changes to the space-time continuum via wormholes, time loops and a cast of brilliantly surreal characters, including eight-legged, four-eyed Bambi Pavok.

EDITOR'S PICK

48. Ordinary Human Failings, Megan Nolan

Nolan’s follow up to her much-lauded debut, Acts of Desperation, is a decades-spanning dive into the many small decisions and ‘ordinary failings’ that have led to a young girl being accused of murder. It’s the early 1990s and tabloid journalism – and the various tricks it plays to land a story – is at its peak. So when 10-year-old Lucy (daughter of Carmel, who is herself only 26), is taken into custody for her possible involvement in the death of a child on their London housing estate, the paper employed by ambitious young journalist Tom swings into action. With the family holed up together at a hotel courtesy of his paper, Tom begins a series of interviews with each family member, tracing through their individual histories to recreate the story of what brought them their home in Waterford, Ireland, to London a decade before, searching for salacious details that – he hopes – can be spun into a powerful portrait of the making of a child killer to give him the front-page splash he yearns for. What follows instead is a piercingly compassionate tale of the kind of tragic missteps and wrong decisions that could easily befall any of us. Devastatingly good.

49. Penance, Eliza Clark

When a group of teenage girls is arrested for torturing and killing one of their schoolmates in the northern seaside town on the night of the Brexit election, the story gets lost in the news cycle. Years later, however, it begins to gain traction on true-crime boards and podcasts, attracting the attention of disgraced journalist Alec Z Carelli. The novel is presented in the form of a republished version of Carelli’s book about the crime after it was pulled from the shelves following complaints about some of the methods he used to gain information and interviews. A meticulous piece of meta-fiction from Clark, who plays a similarly sly trick in making the reader feel complicit in Carelli’s voyeuristic endeavour – and that of the increasingly salacious true-crime ‘industry’ generally – much as she did in her breakout debut, Boy Parts.

50. After the Funeral, Tessa Hadley

Hadley is a remarkable writer, not least for her ability to infuse what can at first seem to be straightforward scenarios with complex dynamics and unspoken resonances between her characters; something this collection – her first since the publication of her brilliant 1960s-set novel Free Love last year – amply demonstrates.

51. This is Where We Live, Kate Hardie

When a single mother wakes to the taste of blood in her mouth and a severed toe on her doorstep, she fears her worst side has been unleashed (again); something that seems to be horrifyingly confirmed when a boy her child’s school is reported missing. This short, taut, elliptical debut questions what makes – or indeed constitutes – a monster.

52. Lioness, Emily Perkins

Midlife crisis meets midlife magic in this slippery tale of shifting power, set in Perkins’ native New Zealand. We meet Therese at the point her gilded, pampered life comes under threat after her husband is accused of corruption, forcing her to revaluate her past and consider a new future. Enter eccentric downstairs neighbour Claire, who is busy throwing away society’s rulebook for how a wife and mother should behave. Therese is immediately charmed – but is she really ready to give everything she’s worked so hard for away?

53. Chain-Gang All Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Fans of brutal dystopian fiction, step right up! In a not-so-distant alt-future, prison inmates ‘star’ in a reality show that culminates in weekly gladiator-style duels to the death, to the delight of baying arena crowds. Adjei-Brenyah’s piercing satirical takedown on the current state of the US penal system is grimly funny, epically violent and – at times – surprisingly tender. Quite the ride.

54. My Men, Victoria Kielland

A sensation when it was published in Norway, My Men paints an extraordinary portrait of the inner turmoil and ecstasy of the woman widely regarded to be America’s first female serial killer, Belle Gunness. We first meet her in Norway where Brynhild, as she was then, is subjected to brutal violence at the hands of her first lover at the tender age of just 17 before setting off for a new life in the wide-open spaces and promised lands of the US.

55. Crook Manifesto, Colson Whitehead

We’re back on New York’s 125th Street as ‘only slight bent’ furniture dealer Ray Carney finds himself trying – and failing – to be an upstanding member of his community in this companion novel to Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle. It’s now 1971. The NYPD and Black Liberation Front are at war and Ray would do just about anything to get his daughter tickets to see The Jackson 5 perform. What could go wrong?

The best books to read in June

It doesn’t have to be Pride Month for us to want to champion a full spectrum of narrative experiences, but whether by accident or design this month’s releases are, happily, full of them.

From a tale of erotic obsession set in an uptight English boarding school to a satirical caper about a slacker werewolf trying to find some direction in life via a tenderly emotional tale of transition, we have plenty of picks to keep you reading all the way through to the summer solstice – and beyond.

EDITOR'S PICK

56. Mrs S, K Patrick

An unnamed private boarding school serves as the setting for this highly charged tale of desire and obsession set across one stifling hot English summer. Like ‘The Girls’ she is there to attend to, the unnamed narrator – a young Australian granted a one-year placement at the school, for which she is promised: ‘a visa, a true English experience, a dead author’ – is captivated by the cool elegance of the headmaster’s wife, Mrs S. As the pair become closer, they embark on a passionate affair that mirrors the fervour of The Girls’ own burgeoning sexual and emotional awakenings. Hugely atmospheric and tightly written, this is an impressively assured debut from one of Granta’s list of Best of Young British Novelists for 2023.

EDITOR'S PICK

57. The Late Americans, Brandon Taylor

Taylor’s follow-up to his Booker Prize-shortlisted debut, Real Life, loosely follows a group of mostly male poets, dancers and musicians living, working and studying in and around Iowa City. Taylor does a superb job of realising the delicate balance between the students’ lives with those of the town’s inhabitants – not all of whom are enamoured with the its elite creative cohort – as they grapple with the value and meaning of their creative practices as graduation, and with it, the ‘real world’, looms. However, it is his mastery of the intricacies of human relationships and their attendant frailties that builds what might in lesser hands have been a fragmentary patchwork of stories into a powerfully cohesive whole.

58. Bored Gay Werewolf, Tony Santorella

Well, this is fun! The bored gay werewolf in question being Brian, a college dropout-turned-waiter who is struggling with his monthly change when he meets alpha-werewolf Tyler, who promises him there is another way. Under Tyler’s guidance, Brian channels his inner Goop to keep his canine instincts under control as his mentor works to establish a new social network aimed exclusively at werewolves. Like a hairier, full moon-only Buffy The Vampire Slayer, this big-hearted novel is about finding your ‘pack’ in unexpected places. Lovely.

EDITOR'S PICK

59. Everything’s Fine, Cecelia Rabess

Jess and Josh’s not-so meet cute takes place in college on the night of Obama’s historic presidential victory, setting out their respective stalls early (Her: liberal / working-class / Black; Him: conservative / privileged / white). Rabess picks up those tensions and runs with them, skewering all in her wake, but never at the expense of her characters, who for all their flaws and foibles remain fully convincing throughout. A funny, painful, poignant dissection of modern love, society and politics that delivers right through to its final lines.

EDITOR'S PICK

60. I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home, Lorrie Moore

In what may well be one of the oddest narrative set-ups you’ll read all year, Finn is called from his dying brother’s hospital bed to transport his recently deceased ex-partner, Lily, to her preferred place of rest (‘Did you bring any weed?’ asked Lily. ‘It hurts a little, the deadness coming back to life’). Finn and Lily embark on a road trip like no other across an ‘alternative’ American Midwest in which the living and the dead are able to coexist, parsing the slings and arrows of their troubled yet loving relationship along the way. Everything’s sort of bullshit reads the slogan on the coffee mugs given away as ‘reception favours’ at Finn’s brother’s funeral. By the end of this wise, tender novel, we can only conclude that everything is pretty damn wonderful, too.

61. Bellies, Nicola Dinan

We first meet Tom and Ming on the night they meet at university drag night. The boys share a deep connection from the beginning that continues through to graduation and into the world beyond. But when Ming announces her plan to transition, can their relationship survive? A tender, emotional exploration of gender and sexual identity.

EDITOR'S PICK

62. The Bee Sting, Paul Murray

Nothing is quite as it appears to be in this darkly funny tale following the fortunes – and misfortunes – of a small-town Irish family who have run into trouble in the aftermath of the global financial crash. Narrated chapter by chapter from each of the four members of the Barnes family, it is littered with ghosts – literal and metaphorical. A deeply sensitive portrait of the gaps between our inner and outer lives, the agonies of paths not taken, and the moments that make (and break) a life.

63. The Unbroken Beauty of Rosalind Bone, Alex McCarthy

Rosalind Bone ran away when she was just a teenager, yet her absence still weighs heavy on the residents of the small Welsh village where she grew up. When a series of arson attacks lead to an accusation of attempted murder, the long-hidden secrets – past and present – of this insular community come to a head. Quietly provocative.

64. Watch Us Dance, Leïla Slimani

The second instalment of Slimani’s Moroccan-set historical saga brings the next generation into the spotlight. While the tone and style may very different to earlier novels – most famously social thriller, Lullaby – Slimani’s narratives have always been driven by class, society and politics and this slow-burn look at Morocco’s social and political turmoil through the changing lens of one extended family is its own quiet tour de force.

65. Uncle Paul, Celia Fremlin

Three sisters fear for their safety – and sanity – when the titular uncle is released from prison 15 years after being arrested for the murder of his first wife. The question, as things begin to go bump in the night, is whether he’s seeking revenge or they’re being paranoid. This knowingly repackaged re-release of a 1959 title by the so-called ‘grandmother of domestic noir’ aka ‘Britain’s Patricia Highsmith’ (strapline: ‘Welcome to the nightmare summer holiday) is a vintage delight.

The best books to read in May

This month’s reading picks come hot on the heels of the announcement of the Women’s Prize shortlist and the – shock, horror – news that with one exception all the authors on it are over fifty. (The ‘exception’ is the tender age of 49).

It’s been heralded as one more kick to the persistent myth that, in publishing, youth equals sales. But whatever it says about the shift to a more inclusive reading landscape – to which we can only say hear, hear – there is always more to be done.

The best way to do it as booklovers? Read widely and read well. Starting right here with our selection for the month of May – 12 new titles full that invite you do just that.

EDITOR'S PICK

66. Greek Lessons, Han Kang

In Ancient Greek a word or phrase can have multiple – often divergent – meanings. The same, Kang seems to be suggesting, is true of how our actions and decisions are interpreted as we move through life. A meditation on the intense loneliness that stalks her characters and the power of human connection, Greek Lessons focuses on a woman who has lost her ability to speak for the second time and the near-blind professor who teaches the evening class she hopes will reignite her powers of speech. While we are a long way from the surreal imagery of Kang’s 2016 International Booker-winner, The Vegetarian, this quiet, careful novel, shares the same poetic language and density of ideas.

67. The Guest, Emma Cline

Following the huge success of her debut, The Girls, Cline has become synonymous with tales about rootless, disaffected young women. The latest of these – 22-year-old working girl Alex – is running out of time and money when Simon invites her to spend the summer at his Long Island second home. Believing she’s finally onto a good thing, Alex relaxes – until her self-sabotage kicks in and she is unceremoniously dumped. Desperate to avoid returning to the city where the ex she stole drugs and money from is closing in, she grifts her way from one bad decision to the next, convinced that if she can stay on the island for long enough to attend Simon’s big end-of-summer party all will be forgiven. Like watching a stylish, slow-motion car crash.

EDITOR'S PICK

68. Service, Sarah Gilmartin

This coolly furious dissection of sexual assault and its aftermath is as carefully constructed as anything served up in the Michelin-starred restaurant run by the chef whose alleged behaviour sets the novel in motion. In a mirroring of the hierarchy noted in Hollywood’s MeToo scandals, Gilmartin utilises the superbly toxic environment of professional kitchen – star chef at the helm, his (largely male) soldiers behind him, high-earning front-of-house expected to put up and shut up with the treatment they receive from their superiorly talented counterparts and customers alike – to portray how such a dynamic can allow what plays out. Narrated by three voices – the chef, his wife and a former waitress with a dark secret of her own – Gilmartin’s skill lies in allowing the relevant parties to reveal their true selves to readers (if not always to themselves) in a manner as horribly compelling as it is all too plausible.

EDITOR'S PICK

69. The Happy Couple, Naoise Dolan

It is a truth pretty much universally acknowledged that Naoise Dolan is one of the sharpest, funniest novelists writing today. In this, the follow-up to her debut, Exciting Times, Dolan’s Austen-esque dissection of why two not-so-conventional people have decided to make such a conventional choice focuses on Celine and Luke – the happy couple in question – in the period between their engagement party and subsequent Big Day. There are varying degrees of meddlesome exes, and skeletons in cupboards galore, along with a superbly drawn cast of supporting characters. It all adds up to a very funny – and poignant – look at modern love, desire and expectation.

70. Small Worlds, Caleb Azumah Nelson

Open Water, Azumah Nelson’s Costa prize-winning debut, was a word-of-mouth hit, marking the south London writer and photographer as one to watch. While this follow-up treads similar physical and emotional ground, it spreads its net beyond the intimacy of the two-person love story that lay at the heart of his first novel to take in the ‘small worlds’ and connections between friends and family, travelling beyond its London setting to Ghana as son and father do their best to understand each other’s ways. Yet it remains as deeply intimate and poetic as its predecessor.

EDITOR'S PICK

71. Yellowface, RF Kuang

When literary star Athena Lui dies on the night she’s celebrating a major Netflix deal with professional frenemy June Hayward, Athena’s last unseen manuscript just happens to find its way into June’s bag. She reworks it and publishes it – to huge acclaim – as her own, using the culturally ambiguous pen name Juniper Song as advised by her publishers. As her star rises, the lengths to which June will go to retain her new-found success increase along with it – but what goes up, surely must come down. Kuang has huge fun skewering the sensibilities and sensitivities on all sides in this laugh-out-loud satire of the publishing industry and social media stardom. Deeply, darkly hilarious.

72. This Family, Kate Sawyer

Set across a single English summer day, middle-aged mother Mary brings her fractured – and fractious – family together for her wedding. While on the surface, a more conventional narrative than her striking debut, The Stranding, (in which an Adam and Eve-like couple survived an apocalyptic event by seeking refuge inside a dead blue whale), this follow-up is just as ambitious in its own way, as Sawyer unpicks the incidents and emotions that have led the family here. A tender, thoughtful meditation on the complexities of the ties that bind.

EDITOR'S PICK

73. A History of Burning, Janika Oza

Thirteen-year-old Pirbhai is tricked into leaving his Indian home and put to work building a railway in Kenya where, faced with a shattering and life-altering choice, he picks his survival over that of others. And so this ambitious, decades-spanning, multi-generational, Pachinko-style narrative begins to unfold. A move to Kampala brings success to Pirbhai, his wife Sonal and their family, until Idi Amin’s brutal regime sees the family split apart, losing everything as they’re forced to flee Uganda to start again – in 1970s Canada and the UK. An astute, emotionally complex examination of racism, cultural estrangement, generational challenges and what ‘home’ and family – in all their forms – mean.

74. Our Hideous Progeny, CE McGill

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein gets an update in this historical debut set in Victorian England around the time of the Great Exhibition. When bereaved mother Mary – great-niece to Victor Frankenstein and reluctant second to her hapless husband’s scientific work – stumbles across her uncle’s writings, she hatches a plan to build a creature that will showcase her scientific ability and gain her access to the men-only societies and forums she longs to be part of. What could possibly go wrong?

75. Wild Things, Laura Kay

Three novels in and Kay has established herself as one of the bright lights of queer romcom. Here, Eleanor’s unrequited crush on best friend Ray encourages her to step out of her comfort zone and have a ‘wild’ year. When the opportunity arises for their four-strong friendship group to buy a rundown house in the country, they decamp from London and take the village – and Instagram – by storm. One for the summer TBR pile.

76. Ghost Girl, Banana, Wiz Wharton

When Lily receives word of a mysterious inheritance, it raises long-buried secrets and unanswered questions surrounding her mother’s death thirty years ago. Against her sister’s advice she leaves her London home to investigate in this compelling dual-timeline narrative set across London and Hong Kong.

77. Honeybees and Distant Thunder, Riku Onda

Onda’s novel has sold over a million-and-a-half copies since its release in Japan. Centred around three contestants in a classical piano competition taking place outside Tokyo it conjures up all the passion and tensions such a set-up inspires.

The best books to read this April

April proves to be anything but the cruellest month with a bumper crop of new releases that takes us from 1980s Gothenburg to post-Brexit London with a stop-off in a hit New York TV show’s writer’s room along the way.

Whether you’re in the mood for an epic love story, some time-travelling neo-noir, prize-winning literary fiction or a crime-solving anti-hero in the form of an anarchic smoking nun, it’s all here. Enjoy!

EDITOR'S PICK

78. A House for Alice, Diana Evans

Fans of Evans’ Women’s Prize-shortlisted novel, Ordinary People are in for a treat. Eight years have passed since we last met these characters and while the cast is wider, then married couple Melissa – whose father, Cornelius, dies in a smaller fire the same night that Grenfell Tower is engulfed in flames – and Michael (now divorced) remain firmly at the centre of it.

When Melissa’s mother, Alice, makes the decision to return home to Benin, Nigeria, in the wake of her estranged husband’s death, the tenuous threads that tie the family together begin to fray. As ever, Evans touches on big topics – Grenfell, of course, but also Brexit, the ongoing fallout from the Windrush scandal and more – but as ever it is her characters and their search for meaningful connection and understanding that drives the heart of her story.

79. Romantic Comedy, Curtis Sittenfeld

Opening in the New York offices of a Saturday Night Live-style sketch show, comedy writer and thirtysomething divorcee Sally’s love life is a mess. Enter that week’s star guest, multi-award-winning pop star Noah who threatens to upend every theory Sally has about the rules of attraction. Is Noah really flirting with her? Will she self-sabotage either way? Like all the best romantic comedies, the tension lies in the will-they-won’t-they back and forth of the story arc and true to all the best examples of the genre, readers will be rooting for Sally to have her much-deserved happy-ever-after.

EDITOR'S PICK

80. Enter Ghost, Isabella Hammad

This quietly stunning second novel from the Betty Trask Prize-winning writer opens as Sonia – a late-thirties, Dutch-Palestinian actor from London who is fresh from an affair with a married director and at sea in both her personal and professional life – visits her family’s homeland for the first time since spending summers there as a child. There, Sonia begrudgingly accepts a role in a Palestinian production of Hamlet, and is gradually drawn into the emotional and political complexity of this most divided of nations (Sonia’s surprise at discovering the Israeli soldier she confronts at a checkpoint is also English is just one of many excellent scenes showcasing the intricacy of the dynamics at play).

As the title suggests, the ghosts that haunt the pages of this novel and its characters range much wider than that driving Shakespeare’s play. Yet for all that it addresses big themes –– grief, memory and motherhood among them – it remains, warmly, deeply intimate.

EDITOR'S PICK

81. Collected Works, Lydia Sandgren

Lydia Sandgren’s debut – all 700-plus pages of it – was both critically praised and a huge commercial success on its release in her native Sweden. Three years and one excellent translation later we get to see what the fuss is about. We meet middle-aged Martin – a once-aspiring author who now runs a respected but financially precarious independent publishing house – as he looks back on his life.

Framed by a series of ‘interviews’ with the writer Martin never became, we follow his journey and that of his friends from 1980s Gothenburg to the present day – namely his passionate teenage friendship with destined-to-become-great painter Gustav and love affair with wife Cecilia, who abandoned him and their young family years before – in a wide-ranging exploration of family and friends, art and ambition that more than lives up to the hype.

82. The Memory of Animals, Claire Fuller

When 27-year-old Neffy enters a paid vaccine trial in a bid to pay off unspecified debts and suggestions of a deeply troubled recent past (she is a trained marine biologist reduced to picking up whatever casual labour she can), she thinks she understands the scale of risk involved. The world outside is in the grip of a pandemic that this medication has the potential to neutralise, but when a deadly new variant is unleashed, they are left stranded. While Neffy and the others wait out their isolation period, she tests a new device that allows users to vividly relive memories. As she becomes drawn deeper in, Neffy’s retreat into the past threatens the tenuous ties on which her future safety lies. A riveting exploration of agency, allegiance and choice.

83. Scorched Grace, Margot Douaihy

It may never be the best idea to judge a book by its cover, but this one – it features a stained-glass portrait of a smoking nun – is a pretty strong marker for the rollicking ride set to let loose inside. We meet former wild child-turned nun Sister Holiday – tattooed, chain-smoking, queer – as her small order is plunged into chaos after an arson attack.

The first book to be published (in the US) by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn’s new imprint, Douaihy brings the sights, sounds and smells of New Orleans alive, with twists and turns aplenty. Subtle it is not, but that is rather the point.

84. Go As A River, Shelley Read

Read brings the untamed beauty of her native Colorado to life in this richly told coming-of-age tale of forbidden love and its fallouts and redemptions. Opening in the late 1940s, the novel follows teenage Victoria from her first fateful meeting with true love Wil, through their doomed love affair and its repercussions in the decades that follow.

For all its pain, it is a hopeful and redemptive read. A dream of a book.

85. Flux, Jinwoo Chong

This fast-paced, time-bending, neo-noir thriller follows three main characters – eight-year-old Bo, 28-year-old Brandon and 48-year-old Blue – across different timelines. As their lives begin to intersect, dangerous secrets begin to emerge from the mysterious organisation that connects their destinies.

Beyond the snappy dialogue and genre-bending, Flux presents a moving exploration of sexuality, ethnicity, grief and trauma.

The best books to read this March

9 knock-out new books written by women

It is a persistently noted observation that men don’t read books written by women. If that seems like one of those outdated ‘facts’ ready to be filed along with ‘women aren’t funny’ and other cliches, the stats, sadly, bear this out: men make up less than 20% of the overall readership of the top 10 books written by women (versus 45% of equivalent reads by women of books written by men).

More fool them. As author Mary Ann Sieghart wrote on LitHub last year, when men do read books by women, they tend to actually prefer them (slightly) over those written by their own sex. Which doesn’t surprise us one bit.

Just take a look at this month’s list of new releases – an international line-up of established and emerging names which spans genres, timelines and geography to take us from post-war Vietnam to the seedy glamour of 1960s New York to Down Under (twice) – all of which are written by women.

And yes, it’s March. And yes, that means this month’s round-up coincides with International Women’s Day. But if you’re thinking those two facts are related, think again. These are not our pick of the best books to be reading this month that are written by women. They’re our pick of the best books to be reading this month, period.

EDITOR'S PICK

86. Wandering Souls, Cecile Pin

This genre-bending debut opens in late 1978 as a family of eight share their final meal together before leaving their home – and their life together – in post-war southern Vietnam for what they hope will be a new start in the US. The family separate to travel but only one of the boats – carrying oldest child Ahn, and her two brothers, Thanh and Mihn – arrives at the refugee camp in Hong Kong that is their destination. The three siblings eventually make it to Thatcher’s Britain where they slowly build a new life – but at what cost?

Combining fiction with historical fact, Pin approaches her story with clear-eyed, provocative prose that resembles the shock and sense of displacement of her characters, weaving between past and present to build a picture of the impact of generational trauma alongside the systemic failures of governments to deal with displaced people down through the decades. At its heart, however, is a powerful story of courage, love and the unwavering hope of the human spirit.

EDITOR'S PICK

87. Birnam Wood, Eleanor Catton

In 2013, Eleanor Catton was – and remains – the youngest writer ever to be awarded the Booker for her debut novel, The Luminaries. Her follow-up, a full 10 years later – set once again in the author’s native New Zealand – is that rarest of things: a literary novel with the plotting and pace of what is generally considered to be more commercial fiction. This twisty eco-thriller follows the community behind Birnham Wood – a series of vacant plots outside Christchurch – whose world is threatened when an American billionaire offers to invest in their dream of a self-sufficient future. But is he really who he appears to be?

Catton has great fun setting up her opposing sides – virtuous, eco-minded millennials versus the nefarious exponents of ‘caring’ capitalism – and it is a credit to her skill as a writer that she does so without ever resorting to caricature. Rather, she paints a dark, multi-layered picture of the perils of late-capitalism and doomed idealism that refuses to settle into the kind of battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ you might expect of such well-worn tropes, but instead ratchets into a thrillingly unexpected finale.

88. The Sun Walks Down, Fiona McFarlane

Six-year-old Denny is a short walk away from his family’s farm when dust storm sweeps over their corner of the Australia outback in 1883, leaving him unable to find his way home. When his disappearance is noticed several hours later it sparks a search that draws the many disparate parts of this intergenerational, multiracial community together putting a burr under the saddle of the thinly veiled rules of propriety that normally just about allows it to get along. McFarlane does a fine job of managing her large cast of characters and their various dreams, desires and wants, leaning heavily into the otherworldly landscape of its setting and Dreamtime mythology to create an eerie – at times bordering on the surreal – look at late 19th-century Australian life.

EDITOR'S PICK

89. Nothing Special, Nicole Flattery

There are many reasons why this debut is one of the most hotly-tipped releases this month – not least the seedy-glam allure of Warhol’s Factory in the heart of 1960s downtown New York as seen through the eyes of awkward schoolgirl Mae, who spends a summer typing up the tapes of conversations that chart the increasingly dissolute trajectory of the ‘stars’ in the artist’s orbit (Edie Sedgewick among them) at that time.

Yet Flattery turns what could so easily have been an in-the-shadow-of tribute into a deft and painfully sharp coming-of-age tale into something far more interesting. In her hands, the tearing down of the old ways and desire for fame – to be marked as ‘special’ – is paralleled in the painfully narcissistic self-consciousness of those key teenage years that mark the transition into adulthood and its own desperate need to cast off the past and be ‘seen’. Flattery has an eye for the absurd and the coolly dispassionate writing style that marks her as one of the bright lights of Dublin’s current literary scene (no less than Sally Rooney is a fan), but while Nothing Special is often darkly – almost cruelly – funny, it is never less than deeply human.

90. Lady Macbethad, Isabelle Schuler

The fashion for reimagining the lives and stories of some of literature’s greatest stories and characters shows no letting up. Here, Schuler turns the spotlight on the most maligned of Shakespearean anti-heroines, Lady Macbeth, starting with Gruoch’s childhood in the Scottish borders and highlands. Born on her mother’s side as one in a long line of seers, in a nice nod to the play’s three witches she is told early that she will be queen. Convinced this can only mean glory, our single-minded protagonist sets out to make it so – with all the tragedy that eventually entails.

EDITOR'S PICK

91. Cursed Bread, Sophie Mackintosh

The seed for Mackintosh’s third novel is drawn from a relatively little-known mass poisoning of a village in France shortly after WWII, the cause of which – while linked to the flour in locally-baked bread – remains unclear. Macintosh uses this ambiguity to turn what might, in other hands, have been a relatively straightforward take on that incident into something far darker and far more peculiar.

A richly atmospheric tale of greed, desire and vainglorious ambition, the plot centres around Elodie, wife of the village baker, who projects the wants and desires from her own unfulfilling marriage onto the arrival of two glamorous newcomers to the village: Violet and her husband, known only as ‘the ambassador’. Shimmering with an almost hallucinatory quality throughout, closing its pages at The End feels like waking up from a fever dream. Fascinating.

92. Old Babes In The Wood, Margaret Atwood

The two-times Booker prize-winning author brings her narrative prowess to a new collection of short stories. While there is plenty here to dazzle and delight – an alien telling a fairy tale to quarantined humans, anyone? – it is Atwood’s steady, even-handed view through the long lens of love and friendship, most notably that of married couple Nell and Tig, whose stories bookend the collection, that gives it its heart and soul.

EDITOR'S PICK

93. Rootless, Krystle Zara Appiah

Nineteen years after first meeting as teenagers, Sam races home to find his wife, Efe, gone. Set between London and Ghana, this skilfully told debut traces the path through the years from there to here, One Day-style, shining a light on their relationship to build out a complex history of what has brought the once best friends-turned-lovers into warring spouses, and the impact of the wider dynamic of family relationships and expectations on their own.

‘They don’t know how easily an unplanned life can surface and settle, like waking up in a snow-covered world where everything recognisable is buried,’ Appiah writes. She, on the other hand, has no such difficulty, revealing the wants, fears and desires that lie beneath each of her characters with clear, emotionally intelligent detail and deeply humane warmth.

94. One Moment, Becky Hunter

Turning the ‘women’s romantic fiction’ genre on its head, Hunter’s heartfelt debut centres around best friends Scarlett and Evie. Their story opens as would-be fashion designer Scarlett makes a split-second decision that cuts her life fatally short. But she has not entirely left this world, watching on as best friend Evie struggles to come to terms with her loss – and deal with her conflicting feelings over Nate, the man who accidentally contributed to Scarlett’s death. Yes, there is a strong romantic element in the will-they-won’t-they push and pull of Nate and Evie’s burgeoning connection, but it is the enduring power of platonic love in the form of the two women’s friendship that serves as the true love story here. Wonderful.

The best books to read this February

February may be the ‘official’ month of romance, thanks to St Valentine™, but as this month’s crop of new releases reveals, there’s a lot more to human relationships than those served by cupid’s arrow.

Take our fiction picks: from flights of fancy in ancient India to cultural and socio-economic divides in Nigeria and the US with a sprinkling of generational magic for good measure – at the centre of all of them are questions around friendship, identity, family and loyalty.

And not a red rose or chocolate in sight.

95. Maame, Jessica George

Twenty-five-year-old Maddie – the Maame of the title, which means ‘woman’ in Twi – is living between two worlds. A life spent in service to other people’s needs means she has long been forced to play the ‘grown-up’, left to care for her incapacitated father while her mother spends year-long stretches in Ghana; an experience that has simultaneously left her struggling to speak up for herself, at home, work and even to her friends. A run of rapid life changes sees Maddie in a new job, new flat and (terrible) new relationship.

When all that culminates in the biggest life change of them all, it brings the carefully constructed façade she’s been presenting to the world for so long tumbling down. Warm and heartfelt, this tender coming-of-age novel will have you rooting for her through it all.

EDITOR'S PICK

96. If I Survive You, Jonathan Escoffery

Novels crafted from a series of interlinked stories are a tricky proposition. Get them wrong and it’s a glorified collection of tenuously threaded tales. Get it right, however, and they add up to vastly more than the sum of their parts. Escoffery gets it right, laying out his cultural stall early on as lead narrator Trelawney – the US-born son of Jamaican immigrant parents – squares up against constant queries of ‘What are you?’ from childhood.

It’s a question Trelawney is effectively asking himself, too – one that plays out not only across the cultural dynamics of American class and culture, but within his own family. Hurricane Andrew, which battered Florida in 1992, is the incident that fractures the family early on. Ultimately, however, family is at the eye of this narrative storm – in particular, the fractious relationship Trelawney shares with his father, Topper. If they can survive that, they can survive anything. Question is: can they?

97. A Spell of Good Things, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀

Adébáyọ̀’s widely-praised first novel Stay With Me heralded a writer to watch. In this, her follow-up, she bypasses difficult-second-novel syndrome with a complex, multi-layered look at modern Nigeria, based around the fortunes of a son and daughter from two very different families: Eniola, whose dreams of a good education slowly but surely fall apart after his family is forced into poverty, and Wuraola – a well-do-do junior doctor whose intellectual successes mean little without the social status a ‘good’ marriage will bring. When political corruption forces their paths to cross, their fates become inextricably and fatally enmeshed.

EDITOR'S PICK

98. Brutes, Dizz Tate

‘We watch, like we have always watched.’ So begins Dizz Tate’s debut novel, which explores a very different side to growing up in Florida. Narrated in large part Virgin Suicides-style as a polyphonic ‘we’, it follows a group of teenage girls – and one boy – in the wake of the disappearance of one of their classmates: preacher’s daughter, Sammy Lui-Lou.

As a coming-of-age tale, Brutes is less about solving the disappearance that propels the opening as exposing the ruthlessly compulsive growing pains of its young protagonists. It explores those short, sharp years of searching expectation when the desire to break from the group is countered only by the iron will remain a part of it with cool prose and a glitteringly dark heart.

99. Victory City, Salmon Rushdie

A new release from the heavily garlanded author is always a literary event – in the wake of the brutal attack he suffered on stage in New York last year, it feels mighty. Fans will be delighted by the author’s modern ‘retelling’ of a fictional manuscript that brings an ancient city to life in this sprawling magical realist epic.

100. Weyward, Emilia Hart

This triple-timeline debut follows three very different generations of women, starting with Kate, who flees her abusive relationship to hide out at her great aunt’s former Cumbrian home. There, her destiny – and the stories of Altha and Violet; the Weyward women who came before her – awaits.

The best books to read this January

In the first of what is our rolling list of monthly recommended titles throughout 2023, we’re leaving the royal free-for-all surrounding the publication of Harry’s memoir, Spare, firmly out of it.

Instead, we suggest you kick off this year’s reading list with some standout debuts – which take us from contemporary Toronto to queer Victorian London via medieval Norwich – alongside new works by up-and-coming and established names.

Interestingly, a full four of the titles listed below are not just ‘drawn from’ or ‘inspired by’ real-life historical or contemporary figures, but set out to deliberately redraw the lines of what ‘fiction’ is. Could we be looking at the literary trend for 2023?

EDITOR'S PICK

101. For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain, Victoria Mackenzie

This stunningly original debut tells the stories of two very different real-life medieval women – Julien of Norwich, who spent over two decades living in solitude in service to her faith, and mother-of-14, Margaret Kempe – both of whom saw divine visions they believed to come directly from God. Mackenzie’s source material is the surviving manuscripts from both, which are respectively the first surviving book to have ever been written by a woman in English and the first ever English-language autobiography (by man or woman) full-stop.

Her skill is in creating a story that goes much deeper than its slender spine and spare prose might suggest to not only shine a light on the lives and experiences of two ‘ordinary’ women, but to draw clear contemporary echoes and parallels – around mental health, grief, motherhood and more – that resonate long after reading.

102. Really Good, Actually, Monica Heisey

The Schitt’s Creek screenwriter’s fiction debut follows the fallout from the breakdown of 28-year-old Maggie’s marriage to her college sweetheart. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry – you’ll probably join Maggie’s friends in wanting to give her a good shake – but Heisey’s warm, witty voice (not to mention clear affection for her hometown, Toronto) will have you rooting for her to the very last page.

103. We All Want Impossible Things, Catherine Newman

Best friends Ash and Edi are forced to face the worst possible future when Edi is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Not the cheeriest of set-ups, you might think; in Newman’s hands, however, this tale of love and friendship is tender, funny, life-affirming joy.

104. The Things That We Lost, Jyoti Patel

In 2021, Patel scooped Stormzy-founded imprint Merky Books’ New Writer’s Prize with the opening pages of what has become, two years later, her debut novel. A multigenerational exploration of family secrets, cultural identity and grief in modern Britain and beyond.

EDITOR'S PICK

105. Kick the Latch, Kathryn Scanlan

Kick the Latch is a work of fiction (or ‘fact-tion’?) crafted from real-life interviews with a Midwestern horse trainer called Sonia, to whom the novel is dedicated. Scanlan is a master of minimalism, able to conjure up an entire personality, situation or community in just a line or two. Which is not to say that she skimps on the details: over a series of tight, spare vignettes that rarely run to little more than a page in length, Scanlan reveals the full arc of Sonia-not-Sonia’s life, from birth – when it was announced she would never be able to walk (‘My mom said, Oh no. There’s got to be something’) – through the near-death accident that ended her career as a jockey and far beyond.

There is heartache, hardship and some truly shocking violence (none of which is told with either salaciousness or self-pity), with heart and humour by the bucketload.

A very special read.

106. The Shards, Brett Easton Ellis

The American Psycho author is back and this time he’s in high school. This semi-autographical blend of fact and fiction draws heavily on Ellis’s own experiences of the same as a teenager in 1980s LA (grisly serial killings excepting, of course). Most definitely NSFW.

EDITOR'S PICK

107. The New Life, Tom Crewe

More blurring of life and art as first-time novelist Tom Crewe reimagines the lives and loves of two Victorian men – John Addington Symonds and Henry Havelock Ellis – in this finely drawn and deeply passionate debut. The pair worked together on a study called Sexual Inversion that served as an early call to arms for gay rights in 1890s London at a time when there was no such thing; indeed, Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment for gross indecency serves as a backdrop here.

Crewe spins his narrative from known historical facts of each man’s life (and that of those close to them, including their wives) to create a multifaceted exploration of the tensions between the public and private selves of each man and his desires.

Yomi Adegoke: "We need to lean into uncomfortable conversations so they aren't commandeered by the wrong people"

jenny.proudfoot@futurenet.com (Jenny Proudfoot) — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 06:01:52 +0000

You would have to be living under a rock not to know the name Yomi Adegoke - past Marie Claire Future Shaper and one half of the powerhouse duo behind the Black girl bible, Slay in Your Lane.

This year however, Yomi is at it alone, releasing her debut novel The List this week.

Tipped as one of the hottest books of the year, The List follows influencer couple Ola and Michael in the run up to their wedding, and how their relationship is affected when Michael's name is included on an online list of abusers.

The List is topical, thought-provoking and vital, diving into the grey areas of difficult conversations that both writers and readers tend to avoid. And in the process, opening much needed debates about cancel culture, anonymity and the terrifying power of the internet. Even those who are black and white in their beliefs will come away with new perspectives, but despite its uncomfortable subject matter, The List still manages to be a deeply enjoyable read - something that is no easy feat.

Features Editor Jenny Proudfoot caught up with Yomi Adegoke to find out more. Together they discussed her transition to fiction, the expectations on Black writers today and why we all need to start having uncomfortable conversations.

What initially drew you to the concept of The List?

It was around 2017 when multiple different lists were going viral at the height of #MeToo. I guess every single community had their own list of abusers, and it just all seemed to be happening concurrently. There was one list that set it all in motion in the States called the Shitty Media Men list which went really viral, and it prompted lots of copycats. So when it was all unfolding, I felt conflicted. On one hand, I thought it was great and incredibly important. It was giving women a voice - women who've been let down by so many systems, from HR to the court of law. It was giving them a chance to hold these men accountable who so often get away scot-free. But then I guess being a journalist, I felt conflicted. I worked at Channel 4 News for two and a half years and I was held to Ofcom regulation standards. Plus, I have a law degree, so I guess from that perspective, it was a conflict. I had this uneasiness I think with the anonymity. It is so crucial to protect the identity of victims. But simultaneously, I grew up watching Catfish, so I also know that anonymity is definitely something that can be weaponised online. And it's why I say a lot that yes this book is about cancel culture and #MeToo in many ways, but it is first and foremost a book about the internet. I just think that there are lots of movements that have started with the best of intentions, but it doesn't mean that they can't be co-opted and weaponised, and that was something that I wanted to look at. I wanted to write it as non-fiction to start with, but it was quite fraught being very much in the throes of #MeToo. Then lockdown came around and I had nothing to do. I can’t bake and I had literally run out of canvas to paint with. So I thought why not reimagine this idea as something else entirely, and the rest is history.

More than any book I've ever read, The List left me with so many questions to ponder about my own ethics and internal biases. Was your intention to open conversations, rather than to provide readers with your own conclusions?

That is music to my ears - that was 100% my intention. I always said I was never going to be able to provide answers because I had all the questions, but no conclusions or solutions. It's still something that I'm working through and trying to understand, and I’ve been very transparent about that. I think that because I've written this book, sometimes it can appear as though I have it all figured out - that I must be so good online, and I'm really not. It's part of why I've tried to take a step back from the internet. It’s still something that I'm working on because my human nature is often to do and then think later. So, that's why I've tried to approach my behaviour online differently - to not be guilty of what I'm essentially critiquing in the book. I didn't want to preach to the converted, but I really did want to make people think and to self-interrogate. Very few people actually know what they would do if they were placed in that position - and that's what I wanted to examine. I wanted it to resonate with people who are potentially more black and white in their thinking and have set views. I wanted to speak to them and pose questions that might make them think differently.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The List tackles so many grey areas that other writers are afraid to touch, and there were so many details that stopped it from being easy to draw a conclusion. How was that as a writing process?

Oh, my God, it was so hard. With Slay in Your Lane, it was non-fiction, I was writing it with my best friend Elizabeth and I was writing about being a black woman - it was second nature to me. But with this, it was so complicated, like walking a constant tightrope. Once it looked like it was going to go in one direction, I'd have to pull it back and look at it from another angle. I had to constantly play devil's advocate because I wanted to be able to pose questions without it being weaponised. I'm always saying my biggest nightmare would be an incel picking this up and going, “See, in this book the story's more complicated, therefore we can use this to say #notallmen”. That is certainly not what I’m saying.

So, what is it that you do want to say with The List?

What I'm saying is that these conversations in terms of ethics and "innocent before proven guilty" are in my opinion fundamentally progressive ideals. And I feel like because these are very difficult conversations, we often leave them to people who are more black and white in their thinking. We leave the conversation to people who don't necessarily have the best intentions. So conversations about false allegations and anonymity become really right wing, anti feminist - and about wanting to stop women from being able to speak their truth. But for me, that's what makes it more important for people who are feminist, who are progressive and who want to build a better society, to make sure we're not afraid of having these conversations. Because if we leave it to the wrong people, they get monopoly on these conversations. They get to say how to move forward and they get to control it. So I think, no - it is uncomfortable, but we need to go with that discomfort so that the conversation is not commandeered by the wrong people. So yes, it was an absolutely huge job.

Was it difficult for you to separate yourself from Ola for readers?

I can honestly say no. I definitely had these points that I was very much able to draw from my personal experience - we're from similar areas, we both worked at feminist publications etc. But I think where we differ - and it was very important that we differed - is that I'm quite a fence sitter and I would like to say that I am a critical thinker. My default setting is scepticism - I'm very much a "hold your horses" person - I like to wait and see, and get to the bottom of something. So I purposely made myself very different to Ola because had I made her like me, it would have been more boring of a story. I would have absolutely been as consistent and as confused. And I am a feminist - but feminism isn't my brand, and it's not my identity in the same way.

I think being honest, I'm also probably more comfortable with hypocrisy. I mean, yes, I'm a feminist, but I also have absolutely no desire to ever pay on a date in my life. And I'm not going to fold that into feminist praxis. I think that's what we do a lot with feminism - we're like, oh, if a woman does something entirely against the progression of women, because she's supposed to do that, it's feminist. And I don't actually agree with that at all. I think sometimes it's not feminist. But guess what, you're a human being growing up and living in a patriarchy, so you can make decisions that aren't feminist sometimes. And we've got to own it, as opposed to trying to build it into a feminist praxis. So, I think Ola is nowhere near as sceptical as me, and I think she's a lot more concerned with being perceived as hypocritical. Whereas, my social media presence is just a hotbed of inconsistency. I am very openly like, you shouldn't do this, but I'm simultaneously going to do this - I'm going to know it's wrong, but at the end the day I'm a person.

Are there any writers who have particularly inspired you over the years?

In terms of inspiration, definitely Kiley Reid. God I feel like she's going to see all these different interviews and be like, this woman is obsessed with me, but her novel, Such A Fun Age, was integral to The List. I interviewed her when she was longlisted for the Booker - and I was asking her questions from the audience but really they were from me. I had started writing The List at this point and was struggling - I felt like I had to write it in a particular way in order to be taken seriously - especially as a female author. I asked Kiley how she managed to write a fun book that still deals with serious themes, and she told me: "Not everyone's going to write the kind of book that has an isolated old man on the mountain with a pocket watch". She told me that it's just not everyone's bag, and that it certainly wasn't hers. And she was just very open and happy to be someone who has written something that was accessible and fun, but also respected as work. So when she said that it really was just such a lightbulb moment and I remember feeling that I had almost been given permission from an excellent writer to write how I want.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

I recently interviewed Kiley Reid, and she told me that particularly at the moment, there is this expectation for Black authors to write about race, and that she feared Black art was being turned into solely a pedagogical tool. Is that something that you have experienced?

I think I'm so lucky in this respect. When I first started as a journalist, there was much less of an appetite for writing around race. I would pitch stories but I wouldn't get commissions, so I learnt from very early in my career to write about everything. Then, as I got older and amid Black Lives Matter, there was more interest in that kind of theme. I was finally getting paid to write all these pieces that I had wanted to - and that was exciting, but I never allowed myself to be pigeonholed and would always write around subjects. Because at the end of the day I'm a Black woman, and I'm going to have a Black female lens on everything. But then I co-wrote Slay in Your Lane and that was such a seismic book for Black women in particular. So that was when people really wanted me to talk about race, which again I wasn't against. But I think, to me, it was just important that I've always maintained that I write about everything.

Did that also apply to The List?

What I'm really proud of with The List is that it's a story that can happen to any other ethnic group. It's not a story that only happens to Michael because he's a Black man, but it does affect Michael in a very specific way because he's Black. Historically, Black men are often seen as guilty before innocent, and you've got cases like Emmett Till, the Scottsboro boys and the Cardiff Five. But then you also see how that reality and history can be weaponised by men's rights activists. So this isn't a Black story so to speak, but it is a story with absolutely unapologetically Black characters, and almost an entirely Black cast. I think Kiley is 100% right that a lot of people are commissioned or pushed into feeling like they have to write books that have a sort of racial teachable moment. And I also think that when you're writing stories about race and racism, it can be very easy to know who the good guys and the bad guys are. You know, if we're looking at racism, then the villains are usually going to be white supremacists and the innocent characters are the Black characters. But what I wanted to do with The List is reflect my reality - I live in Croydon and I grew up in a very Black area. So the good guys in my life were Black people, and the bad guys in my life were Black people as well, because everyone was Black. I think in books and the media, we see white people in a really 360 way. And I think often with Black art, there is an expectation that it's our job to undo years of unfair characterisation and demonisation of Black people by having Black casts that are flawless. But I’m a big Jesse Armstrong fan. He obviously wrote Peep Show and Succession - and all the characters are heinous, and I love that. So, I wanted to write a cast with loads of amazing Black people in it, but also with bad Black people in it. Because like any other group in the world, there are villains and good guys. And I didn't want to present Black people that were perfect because we're not. Because we're people and I think sometimes doing that can be dehumanising in itself.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

How did you find the transition from non-fiction to fiction?

Heinous - it was horrible. I'm a very confident person - I back myself. I believed in Slay in Your Lane from the outset - Elizabeth came to me with the idea and asked me to write it, but I was like you’ve just given me a goldmine - we have to write it together. I knew that it was excellent and I was really excited for it. I always say I had a That's So Raven flash forward moment where I could see the future and knew that it was going to be huge. I feel very confident in my non-fiction writing and I've always believed in it, but fiction was really new to me. I mean, the last book I’d written before The List was when I was in primary school and it was basically a plagiarised version of The Rugrats. It was called Baby World and I wrote seven of them - the last when I was like eight. And then there was a 20 something year gap, and then I wrote The List. So yeah, it was a real risk, and I felt very insecure.

How did you navigate that?

I went to a writing retreat. I really wanted to come at it like a novice and not arrogantly assume because I could write non-fiction that it was a transferable skill. I don't like feeling insecure - It's not really my bag, but I think it was useful. It was humbling and it really made me approach it as a craft and not take it for granted. It was so hard though because I was just riddled with insecurity constantly. Honestly, it was endless. It’s just so out of character for me. And it was also really disorienting because I went from that to an 11-way auction. So yeah, it has been surreal - it was fun, but parts of it were horrific. So much so that when they offered a two book deal, I told my agent I didn't want it. I was very happy with just a one book deal - and even that was a stretch. In the end she convinced me to do the second one, and now that I'm writing it I'm very happy, but I did require convincing.

I hear from other authors that this wait before publication is the hardest part of the process...

It's horrendous. It's so horrific - especially because before I'd co-written so much stuff with Elizabeth. We did all this together, so it was exciting. And if either of us ever did have a wobble, the other one was like, "come on, we've got this". But this is literally just me and it feels really different. It’s exciting and I feel incredibly grateful, but it’s very intense. This wait is the worst, especially because there is a lot of hype around it. And I am the exact person that would see a hyped book and be like, I'm not reading this because it's hyped. So it's now knowing that I probably would avoid my own book because I don't like that kind of thing. I mean, people really wanting to buy a book doesn't mean it's good - that is just the reality of publishing. And I feel a bit like I'm in freefall just waiting to see how it's received. So yeah, it's been a very strange period.

And it's already being adapted for Hollywood. Can you tell me a bit about that and what role you're playing in its creation?

It's being adapted by A24, BBC and HBO Max. I had multiple meetings with very different production companies and channels. And I remember leaving all of them and being typically indecisive - I'm a Libra. I genuinely didn't know who I could pick out of A24, BBC and HBO Max. So I remember getting out my phone and writing all their names in my notes app and leaving them there. I don't know what I was trying to get at but it was me trying to manifest something. I remember emailing my agent the next day and being like, do you think they could possibly all come together on a pitch? And when I got a no, I said, "OK well that has to change". Then I waited and they came back with the news that they would do it together. I couldn't believe my luck - I still can't. It was ridiculous. My title is executive producer and creator. And they've been very much like, "this is your story and we want you to be at the core of it". I really didn't want to because I've only had one experience in TV and it was quite bad, but they have just been so supportive. I'm really glad that they convinced me to be more involved.

Do you have a favourite book of all time or one that you go back to time and time again?

I so struggle with my favourite of all time, but if I was at gunpoint I'd probably say The Handmaid's Tale. It's one of the only books I've read more than once and one that I actually go back to quite a lot. It's that perfect blend of interesting and propulsive, with a story that has a lot of heart. It makes you feel and it makes you think, which I don't think is always the case. I remember reading it for the first time when I was 16 - it was literally what radicalised me into feminism. And it's scary that 15 years later, it's still prescient and accurate. No matter when you read it, it still feels fresh - it's like they were doing Black Mirror before Black Mirror. I actually had the honour of interviewing Margaret Atwood some time ago, and she was just so fabulous. I feel like if you're Margaret Atwood you don't have to be - she could have been terrible and I would not have minded because it's Margaret Atwood. But she was so lovely and clever. She was honestly fascinating and just sharp as a fucking tac.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers coming up in your footsteps?

Please write the thing. I know it's the most boring advice ever, but as I keep saying, there is such a parallel universe in which The List does not exist. The worst thing I had to lose was time. And while time is precious, it's time that I was spending watching Netflix. I just wrote The List with no expectation - it cost me no money to do it, I didn’t have to pay to submit it, I could just write it and something might come of it. But I knew that even if it didn’t, I had written a whole book. I know people roll their eyes at the saying, “done is better than perfect” and I get it, but I just wish people would internalise that more. Because the first few drafts of The List were heinous, and it's fine now because you have an editor whose job it is to make it good. I've met so many excellent writers, so many journalists and so many people that have writing aspirations. But I think we mythologise novels. We really see them as this sacred and magical thing. We believe that you have to be a particular type of person to write one, and it's just not true - I wish more of us knew that. Because once you realise that, you realise that the absolute worst case scenario is that you write the book, and it doesn't get published. And of all the variables in this lifetime, it just isn't really that deep. I just wish people would do it. So, do it.

The List by Yomi Adegoke is out now in hardback, 4th Estate: £12.99.

The latest internet comments about Margot Robbie highlight how societally normalised incel culture is

Ally Head — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 14:12:09 +0000

By now, you'll have likely seen hundreds of photos of Margot Robbie doing the rounds on your social media feeds. The actor, producer, and women's rights activist is playing Barbie in the fiercely-anticipated remake, due to hit cinemas this Friday.

So why, then, amidst the excitement, have some men taken to Twitter to label Robbie "mid" online?

A bit of background for you, first, if you're not sure what "mid" even means. According to Urban Dictionary, the term is slang for something or someone that's below average or low quality.

Where did the trolling start? One Twitter user took it upon themselves to share a photo of Robbie without makeup with the caption: “This is her without makeup. Definitely mid." Another replied: “She is a hard 7. You used to find a Margot Robbie in every Blockbuster Video in 1995." The post has since gone viral.

Baffled by how Robbie, an actress cast to play the archetype of a "pretty" woman, could possibly be called average? Us too. And herein lies the problem. This debate isn't about Robbie's looks: rather, it's a classic example of everyday misogyny and men trying to reclaim status or power by putting women down.

The new Greta Gerwig Barbie flips what we once knew of the iconic doll on its head - this time around, we're provided with a feminist take on her story, free from the male gaze. In the adverts alone, you can see various versions of Barbie - President Barbie, lawyer Barbie, diplomat Barbie, and more, while Ken is - well, he's just Ken.

Here, Laura Bates explains more about the vast global network of men purporting extreme misogyny and opposition to feminism. Operating in websites, blogs, and online forums - in this case, on Twitter to drag Robbie down - their women-hating ideologies lead to shocking offline consequences. While we don't know that the men trolling Robbie were, in fact, incels, the behaviour is a worrying trend that could be risking everyday safety. Keep scrolling to explore how these communities can lead to terrifying behaviour offline, too.

How Margot Robbie being labelled "mid" highlights how societally normalised misogyny is

What is an incel?

First things first - an explainer for you. Incels (Involuntary Celibates) are men who aren’t having sex but would like to be, and they blame women for that. They believe that women owe them sex and actively incite violence against them. They suggest that women should be kept as sex slaves and stripped of their rights, and repeatedly revere and canonise men who have committed massacres of women.

They encourage each other to rise up in what they call the Day of Retribution, when men will go offline and slaughter as many women, as they can, to punish them. Men who have committed real life massacres explicitly in the name of this particular movement include Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian. But there are also examples close to home like Ben Moynihan, a teenager who went on an attempted murder spree in the UK, leaving notes for police about how he despised all women because they didn’t have sex with him.

Why isn't misogynistic extremism being taken seriously?

I think there are a number of reasons. The first is that it’s a relatively emerging threat in terms of mass killings, so people are failing to join the dots and make the connections between them.

But I think a big part of it is that misogyny is so normalised in our society that we really struggle to recognise this as something extreme. We are so used to women being murdered by men. One woman is killed on average every three days by a male current or former partner in the UK - that is literally the backdrop to our daily life. So I think we struggle to see these as atrocities and it is a huge blind spot. It’s also because of who often commits these offences - educated white men and so the criminal justice system finds excuses for them.

The way in which we collectively excuse, condone, normalise and ignore these white men when they commit mass shootings and terror atrocities really hampers us as a society in tackling the problem.

I was aware of these communities because as a woman writing on the internet about feminist issues, these men come to you. So I have been aware of them for some time, but there was an argument in feminist circles that we shouldn’t give them the oxygen of publicity and that was something that I largely agreed with. So, for a long time it just wasn’t something that I really spoke about publicly.

What changed my mind was the recognition that these groups actually have a lot of offline power. We’re talking about a very established network here with millions of views and followers, with hundreds of thousands of members. They were doing pretty well without the oxygen of our publicity and they were beginning to commit an increasing number of terrorist attacks.

The Toronto van attack, the massacre of a woman with a machete in a Toronto massage parlour, and another attack in Canada where a man attacked a woman and her young daughter in a pram in the parking lot of a store. The fact that these men were actually increasingly killing in the name of this extremism meant that it was no longer something that could be ignored. But also, there was for me a particular tipping point in the sudden realisation that they were radicalising and grooming school boys in a mass campaign without anybody noticing.

How important is having conversations to ensuring progress?

Very. We can’t tackle a problem if people don’t know the problem exists. That was why I started the Everyday Sexism Project. People said that sexism didn’t exist anymore and that women were equal and I realised that we can’t begin to encourage people to be part of solving a problem if they honestly don’t believe it’s there in the first place.

That’s how I feel about this as well. We can’t mobilise people to protect youngsters who might be radicalised and support women who might be victims if they have no idea that these communities even exist. It’s really important that we talk about it and it’s crucial for young men in particular that we have open conversations for the sake of their mental health.

How do these groups prey on vulnerability?

The really tragic thing is that many of the young men who are driven to these websites are suffering. They are suffering from the traditionally prescribed societal strictures of masculinity and what it means to perform that. The irony is that male mental health as a crisis needs to be tackled, something that the manosphere would claim to believe is very important, but actually, it suits them for men to continue suffering.

They continue to tell men, ‘You have be powerful, violent and in control of your woman - that’s the only way for a man to be successful’. They really double down on exactly the kind of messaging that is harming men in the first place. And if we could provide boys with offline spaces to explore some of the anxieties, fears and frustrations that often send them into the arms of these communities, then that would be a really good way to offset their power.

It can’t be a coincidence that these communities have risen so sharply in their influence and success at grooming young people at the same time that we’ve seen a massive decline in funding for youth services. Hundreds of youth centres have been forced to shut their doors and boys don’t have that same opportunity offline to create a sense of community, purpose, belonging and brotherhood. That’s what these communities are offering them.

Why isn't there more conversation around these issues?

It’s a very difficult thing for people in the real world to understand. It sounds completely bonkers to some people when you say that because of your job you hear from 200 men a day about how they would like to rape and disembowel you. Most people just don’t know how to respond to that and will usually say ‘Oh but it’s not real’ or ‘they don’t really mean it’. There’s an empathy gap.

If someone said, ‘I just watched a scary movie and when I woke up in the night I felt really scared’, we’d all go ‘Yeah, I get that’. But for some reason, if a woman says, ‘I read ten men fantasising about disembowelling me yesterday and then I couldn’t sleep and felt sick all night’, people will go ‘They’re just trying to get to you, why are you letting them?’.

One men’s rights activist in the States was bringing a lawsuit about a draft being sexist to men. He wasn’t happy with the judge who was presiding over the lawsuit (he perceived him to be a feminist), so he turned up at her house disguised as a delivery driver and opened fire, shooting her son dead and seriously injuring her husband. These actually are men who do go offline and kill women. It only takes one of them, so we have every right to be scared.

Men Who Hate Women, by Laura Bates, published by Simon & Schuster, is available in paperback at £9.99.

20 LGBTQ+ Books to Add to Your Reading List This Pride Month and Beyond

dionne.brighton@futurenet.com (Dionne Brighton) — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 13:44:40 +0000

It’s officially Pride Month – the time of year when the world celebrates the LGBTQ+ community and its incredible artists, writers, designers, and creators. While it’s essential to support and recognise these talented individuals year-round, the increased visibility of the LGBTQ+ community in June highlights not only its diversity but also the breadth of experiences that shape it.

Books play a vital role in amplifying these voices. They offer powerful tools for education, enlightenment, and empowerment, providing both a sense of belonging and affirmation for the LGBTQ+ community. Beyond that, queer literature has historically been a space for resistance, breaking boundaries that have long been restricted by censorship. In today’s world, especially with the rise of transphobic rhetoric, literature remains a vital tool for advocating for trans rights and inclusivity.

“Reading queer literature allows readers to learn about histories and experiences that have been marginalized, and that they might not encounter otherwise,” says Isabel Waidner. “Even more importantly, queer literature helps readers imagine effective modes of resistance and different ways of being toward better futures for all.”

Literature is a life-changing tool, helping us connect with ourselves and others in ways that can shape our understanding and empathy. This round-up of the best LQBTQ+ books promises something for everyone - a curated list of fiction and non-fiction books to read this Pride Month and beyond.

Happy Pride Month, and happy reading!

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

A LGBTQ+ book list has to start with Audre Lorde. The American author's words centre on her experience as a black, lesbian feminist. If you haven’t read any Lorde yet, this is where to begin. Sister Outsider includes some of the best of Lorde’s essays and speeches.

Mrs S by K Patrick

A compelling and sensual debut, Mrs. S is a tale of queer love set in an elite English boarding school. When a young Australian woman takes on the role of matron, she finds herself drawn into a world of privilege, power, and desire. As the summer heat intensifies, so does her connection with Mrs. S, the headmaster’s wife—leading to a relationship that will change both women forever.

Mrs. S is a beautifully written exploration of identity, desire, and the complexities of societal expectations. Whether you’re sapphic or an ally, this is a book that will stay with you long after you finish it. I couldn’t recommend it enough.

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

Born in Glasgow, in a hyper-masculine world; Protestant Mungo and Catholic James should be sworn enemies, but cannot help falling in love. A gripping story on the pull of family and the violence faced by the LGBTQ+ community.

I Know You Know Who I Am by Peter Kispert

A collection of stories following characters who are forced to lie and perform before revealing their queer identity to the wider world. While deception is the core theme, it reveals that the lies we tell ourselves are the most hurtful.

Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

Another personal favorite, Disobedience follows Ronit, a 32-year-old career woman living in New York who has left behind her orthodox Jewish upbringing. Now a cigarette-smoking, wise-cracking woman, Ronit’s world is turned upside down when she returns to London after her father’s death. Back in the tight-knit, conservative community of Hendon, Ronit’s provocative lifestyle clashes with the expectations of her past.

A powerful exploration of love, identity, and religious boundaries, Disobedience was adapted into a film, starring Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams, bringing this gripping story to the screen with a deep and emotional portrayal of forbidden love. Whether you’re reading for the first time or revisiting the novel, it’s a poignant read that stays with you long after the final page.

Burning My Rot by Sharan Dhaliwal

This part guide, part memoir has been called essential reading for a new generation of South Asian women. The topics cover sexual identity, mental health and beauty standards.

Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendes

Rainbow Milk is a heartfelt coming-of-age story about Jesse, a 19-year-old man raised in a strict religious cult. As he grapples with his sexuality and identity, he must also confront the generational and cultural divides of the Windrush Generation. Paul Mendes’ debut novel explores themes of faith, sexuality, and belonging with sensitivity and depth, offering a powerful narrative of self-discovery and resilience.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

A beautifully reimagined retelling of Homer’s Iliad, The Song of Achilles follows the deep and tragic love between Achilles and Patroclus. Set against the backdrop of the Trojan War, this lyrical and emotional novel explores love, friendship, and the costs of destiny. A timeless story of passion and loss that will resonate long after the final page.

We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart

A haunting debut about a young woman who embarks on a forbidden affair with her older, married mentor. We Do What We Do in the Dark explores the emotional complexity of desire, obsession, and secrecy, leaving readers reflecting on love, guilt, and self-discovery. A beautifully written, provocative read that will stay with you long after you finish it.

We Are Made Of Diamond Stuff by Isable Waidner

Isabel Waidner's second novel follows an unnamed narrator in a world where nothing is normal. It interrogates the queer migrant experience and the concept of national belonging.

In Their Shoes: Navigating Non-Binary Life by Jamie Windust

Jamie Windust eloquently explains that there is no one way to be non-binary. His writing features sweet anecdotes and wise conclusions, including everything from mental health to fashion.

Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman

Set in the Italian Riviera in the 1980's; seventeen year old Elio finds himself falling in love with an older man, as he goes through his sexual awakening.

A pioneering novel in LGBTQ+ literature, The Well of Loneliness follows Stephen Gordon, a woman who struggles with her identity and love for other women in early 20th-century England. Bold and controversial for its time, Hall’s novel explores themes of isolation, love, and the search for acceptance in a society that rejects queer identities.

The Price of Salt (Carol) by Patricia Highsmith

A groundbreaking romance, The Price of Salt (also known as Carol) tells the story of Therese, a young set designer, and Carol, a sophisticated married woman. Set in 1950s New York, their love affair unfolds against the backdrop of societal expectations and prejudice. With a hopeful ending, this novel was ahead of its time, offering a powerful portrayal of forbidden love and the courage to follow one’s heart.

Olivia by Dorothy Strachey

It may be over 90-years-old but Olivia is still considered a classic of lesbian literature. A story of first love, Olivia follows a teenage girl infatuated with her headmistress, set in a nineteenth century Parisian boarding school.

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room follows the life of a gay man in Paris, exploring the intersection between homosexuality and race.

Heartstopper Series Volume 1-4 Books Collection Set By Alice Oseman

If you loved the Netflix series, then you will adore the books as teenage boys navigate love and school.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

A powerful and emotional masterpiece, The Color Purple tells the story of Celie, an African-American woman in the early 20th century who overcomes immense hardship to find her voice and strength. Through letters to God, Celie navigates a life marked by trauma, love, and transformation. Walker’s vivid writing brings to life a deeply moving narrative about identity, resilience, and the power of self-discovery.

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

Detransition, Baby is a witty and insightful exploration of identity, relationships, and gender. The novel follows Reese, a trans woman, who finds her life complicated when her ex, who has detransitioned, comes back into her life with a surprising proposal. With humor and depth, Peters delves into the complexities of trans experiences, parenthood, and the search for belonging. A compelling and thought-provoking read about love, regret, and reinvention.

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

In Orlando, Virginia Woolf tells the story of a character who changes gender over several centuries, experiencing life as both a man and a woman. A witty, genre-defying novel, Woolf explores the fluidity of gender and the ways society shapes identity. Orlando is an insightful and groundbreaking work that challenges traditional views on gender and time, making it a timeless classic that continues to captivate readers.

If you're looking for more LGBTQ+ literature to explore, don’t miss the return of Aesop’s Queer Library in Soho, London, from July 3-6. This year, the library celebrates the liberating possibilities of LGBTQIA+ self-expression, with a special focus on trans and non-binary voices. Visit Aesop Soho to select a complimentary title and immerse yourself in the world of queer literature.

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite

For those who love reading on the go, a Kindle is the perfect companion to keep all your favourite books in one place. Whether you're diving into LGBTQ+ literature for Pride or exploring new genres throughout the year, having easy access to a vast library can make reading more convenient and enjoyable, wherever you are.

17 best self-help books for 2023 that are actually worth reading, according to MC Editors

jadietroypryde@gmail.com (Jadie Troy-Pryde) — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:26:11 +0000

If you're searching the Internet for the best self-help books UK, you might feel a little overwhelmed. There are 597,000,000 results on Google alone - so where do you start? And which ones won't be a waste of time?

Good question - which is why we've rounded up the books team Marie Claire UK have genuinely loved in this handy edit for you. Wondering how to be happy? There's a book for that. On the hunt for expert tips for how to switch off? There's a book for that, too.

Picking up a self help book is one of of our favourite self-care ideas - but how do you separate the wheat from the chaff and find the best self-help book for you? You've probably heard of Atomic Habit, The Secret, and The Power Of Positive Thinking - but below, we'll share the other must-reads to have on your list. Because yes, there are books that can genuinely empower you, break bad habits and even change your life.

Read on for our complete roundup of the books that are actually worth reading, from new releases to timeless classics. All you have to do is pick up a copy and get stuck in.

Make sure to check out our guide to the best self care gifts and the best self care apps, while you're here.

16 best self-help books UK to boost mood and mental health

Best self-help books UK: Editor's pick

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Over five million copies of Atomic Habits have sold globally since the book was first released. In a nutshell, it's a simplistic explainer about how our daily habits shape our lifestyles and ultimately make us who we are. Have a pattern you've been trying to kick? This book is a practical guide to help you break bad habits and build new ones.

Health Editor Ally Head says: "I'd read rave reviews about Atomic Habit and I now understand why. I couldn't put it down - it's easy to follow, enjoyable, and breaks down simple concepts to help you form positive habits. Things like giving yourself visual queues (having your vitamins on your chest of drawers instead of in your drawer) have really changed my health and wellbeing this year."

Best self help book for manifestation sceptics

The Source by Dr Tara Swart

"I'm someone who needs to see the science behind something to believe in it—I'm a Beauty Editor, after all," shares Shannon Lawlor, Acting Beauty Editor at MC UK. "So when I heard that Dr Tara Swart's book, The Source, sits somewhere between The Secret and scientific thesis, I was in. It explains the neuroscience behind manifestation and the ways in which it can work. If you're a realist, add this to your reading list."

Best self help book for confidence and anxiety

Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Dr Julie Smith

Another bestseller, this book is basically an inside look at a therapist's tool kit. Dr Julie Smith draws upon her years of experience as a clinical psychologist to provide you with the skills you need to get through life's ups and downs and optimise your mental health. She covers loads of important topics, from tips for managing anxiety, battling low mood, building self-confidence and learning to forgive yourself, too - it's no wonder she's become an online sensation.

Best self help book for the perfectionist

Brave, Not Perfect by Reshma Saujani

Think about every time you haven't done something because you didn't feel good enough to. Didn't apply for that job you wanted because you didn't think you were qualified? Gave up writing that novel because you convinced yourself your ideas weren't up to scratch? Or found yourself re-writing emails so that it's worded just right (and people don't think you're too pushy)? Yep - you're probably a perfectionist. But it's time to unlearn everything you thought you knew about how to be brave with the help of Girls Who Code founder, Reshma Saujani. The book focuses on ways in which women are primed to be perfect (and therefore feel inadequate when they don't achieve what they set out to) before offering up tips and tricks to ensure you're making courageous decisions in everyday life, whether that's standing up for yourself in a meeting or quitting your job entirely and moving to a remote island. Saujani is like your fearless friend throughout, encouraging you to take a leap of faith - even if it means potentially landing on anything but your feet.

Best positive thinking book

Think Like A Monk by Jay Shetty

Whether it's a hard day at work, an irritating boss, or a train delay, it's not always easy to keep thinking positively. That's where Jay Shetty comes in. He spent three years as a monk and now shares his wisdom in his New York Times best-seller, Think Like a Monk. Freelance writer Dionne Brighton says: "This book helped me recognise where I needed to remove negativity from my life and stop overthinking. The best part was the Venn diagram on how to find your true purpose. Not to be dramatic, but it completely changed how I think about work and what I am passionate about. It encouraged me to go after my dream role and not live for other people's acceptance. It's hard not to think positively after reading Shetty's words."

Best self help book for anxiety

Jog On: How Running Saved My Life by Bella Mackie

Bella Mackie’s book begins at rock bottom. The journalist and writer starts her story looking back over the days following her divorce, in which she realised she had never learnt any real coping mechanisms, including how to deal with her GAD (generalised anxiety disorder) and OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) symptoms she’d had since childhood. She takes the reader back with her over her life during her hardest moments, explaining in detail how her mental health has impacted everything from school to her first marriage. As the title suggests, the ongoing thread in the book is how Bella used running to self-medicate and get her life back on track. So often those of us suffering with our mental health are made to feel as though there are only two lines of treatment: therapy and/or medication. And while these are of course front and centre when it comes to treating mental health, Bella’s book makes a brilliant case for also taking up exercise. Not only will this book encourage you to take up running - or simply to find something you are passionate about to improve your mindset - it also reminds you that you are absolutely not alone. From beginning to end, Bella’s book is highly relatable (she can only manage two minutes on her first run), realistic and will have anyone who suffers from the terror of an anxiety disorder joyously celebrating that somebody finally knows exactly how they feel.

Best self help book for career progression

How to Live Your Best Life by Maria Hatzistefanis

Founder of global beauty brand Rodial, Maria Hatzistefanis has written a book about her own experiences, failures and fortunes. After realising that her life needed a new focus, Maria takes you on a journey and shares her own clear, concise and intuitive strategies to help you tackle your own challenges, master your mindset and be in control of your own destiny.

Best self confidence book

Untamed: Stop Pleasing, Start Living by Glennon Doyle

Everyone we know who's read Untamed loves it. Know someone who just oozes self-confidence and wonder how they do it? Author Glennon Doyle reckons they're probably living life untamed. Part memoir, Doyle encourages you to trust your voice deep within: "The braver we are, the luckier we get."

Best self help book for a spiritual awakening

Good Vibes, Good Life By Vex King

This book has taken social media by storm in the last couple of years, and it's easy to understand why. In this book, life coach Vex King teaches us how self-love is the key to unlocking your greatness, featuring a range of tips for overcoming toxic energy, creating positive lifestyle habits (including mindfulness and meditation), manifesting your goals, and finding a higher purpose in life.

Best self help book that actually helps

Thinking, Fast and Slow: Daniel Kahneman

After a self-help book that's very science-heavy? Then you'll enjoy Thinking, Fast and Slow, written by qualified psychologist Daniel Kahneman. In it, he breaks down the two different ways our mind works (yep, you guessed it - fast and slow) - plus explains concepts, from knowing when to trust your intuition to how to be more rational in day-to-day life. "This self help book is a little heavy and can be hard to get into at first. But once you start to read into the different ways in which our brains work, it's hard to put back down and think the same again," says Dionne Brighton, freelance writer.

Best self help book for if you're feeling stuck

Big Magic: How to Live a Creative Life, and Let Go of Your Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

If you're feeling stuck in a rut, this book will convince you to get creative with your life. It's not just for the poets, painters and performers, but for anyone who feels like they've lost themselves and want to rediscover their passions. The book focuses on finding and appreciating joy in everyday experiences, doing the things you love, and ignoring the judgement and opinions of others. The message is clear: you can live big without selling everything and moving to a remote village, or vowing to commit to a sport so that you can compete in the next Olympics. Whether it's rekindling your childhood love for ice skating or booking a piano lesson after twenty years off the keys, this book will encourage you to forget what others think, focus on what you want, and follow your own interesting and totally unique path.

Best self help book for people who don't like self help books

Calm the F**k Down by Sarah Knight

If you're familiar with Knight's other works, The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck, Get Your Sh*t Together and You Do You, you'll be familiar with her writing style: punchy, energetic and a bit tongue-in-cheek. Her fourth "anti-guru" book offers readers an easy framework for dealing with the daily ups and downs of anxiety – from someone who knows what it's like to deal with it – all interspersed with diagrams, a good sense of humour and relatable anecdotes. It's a breeze to read and you'll feel much less alone by the end of it.

Best self-help books for people pleasers

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, by Mark Manson

"I still remember how empowered I felt after reading this self-help book for the first time. Since then, I've pretty much forced all my friends and family to read it. He says failure is the way forward, and I now have to agree. Not worrying about the outcome or what other people think is liberating. 'F*ck positivity', Manson says. It's not just me who loves it. A few weeks ago, I saw it on Netflix as number one in the UK. So he must be doing something right," says Freelance Writer Dionne Brighton.

The Good Girl’s Guide To Being A D*ck by Alexandra Reinwarth

Struggle with being honest? Scared to be confrontational? Worried about the consequences of saying what's really on your mind? Then you need to pick up a copy of Alexandra Reinwarth's book because it might just change your life for the better. After going through a BFF breakup, Alexandra decided that she was no longer going to live her life to please other people. Instead, she was going to create her own set of rules and embrace the power of saying "no". She rejects the idea of women having to be 'nice' to get where they need to be in life - whether that's climbing the career ladder, pleasing their peers or having the confidence to do what they really want to do - and instead focuses on ways in which we can ask for (and get) the life that we truly want.

Best self help book for building courage

Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead by Cecile Richards

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards is "enjoying fighting the good fight". Her memoir details her fight for social justice and acts as motivation for anyone who wants to flex their activism muscle. From how her journey started to the valuable lessons she learned along the way, Cecile talks about how she fought and won some of the biggest battles of her career - and doesn't forget about her setbacks, too. She actively encourages being a (hard-working) troublemaker to get where you need to be - even if it all ends in failure. In fact, especially if it ends in failure. Because the most important step following a setback is the ability to pick yourself back up and keep going.

Best self help book for motivation

You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero

Need some motivation for 2023? Look no further than Jen Sincero's self-help book. A New York Times bestseller, this book provides 27 bite-sized chapters full of inspiring stories, advice, exercises and more to change behaviours that stop you from getting what you want and creating a life you love.

Best self help book for overcoming fear

Feel the fear and do it anyway by Susasn Jeffers

Freelance Writer, Dionne Brighton says "If you haven't heard of this 80's classic yet, you'll be glad to be introduced. Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway promises to help you recognise that fear is a powerful tool that can help motivate you to finally do the things you've always been too scared to do. It's filled with helpful anecdotes and tools to help us quite literally feel the fear and do it anyway. This book impacted me so much I decided to really put it to the test and try rejection therapy for a month. I'm still scared of big dogs but now I can walk into a meeting and quite literally, feel the fear and do it anyway."

Do self-help books work?

Good question - and this will largely hinge on your personality type, goals from reading the book, and more. It's normal to be sceptical, but it's about finding the right book for you and your current lifestyle.

They won't be for everyone. That said, one 2023 study published in the Journal of Happiness Studies found that “self-help has greatest success with people with high motivation, resourcefulness, and positive attitudes toward self-help treatments.”

In short, if you're already keen to make a change, self-help books can offer new methods of thinking and serve as a valuable resource. If you're not as motivated, they might not be for you.

Team Marie Claire UK are big fans of self-help books - they've helped with everything from goal setting, fostering a positive mindset, and boosting productivity. They can also be pivotal in giving you the motivation you need or reminding you to practice gratitude (aka stop people-pleasing).

20 Feminist Books About Women's Rights to Add to Your Reading List Right Now

Mischa Anouk Smith — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 16:40:04 +0000

Feminist books play a crucial role in shaping our understanding of gender, power, and social justice. By amplifying diverse voices and perspectives, these 20 books challenge societal norms, shed light on inequalities, and inspire action toward a more equitable world.

Whether through personal narratives, scholarly analysis, or thought-provoking fiction, feminist literature encourages critical thinking, pushes boundaries, and fosters empathy—something we're increasingly lacking in our individualistic society. In a world where gender biases not only persist but are growing evermore pronounced, feminist books are essential tools for raising awareness, promoting equality, and empowering readers to question the status quo and advocate for change. They offer not just a reflection of the challenges women face but also the strength, resilience, and collective power needed to overcome them.

Here are 20 to add to your reading list right now.

Saving Five: a Memoir of Hope

Amanda Nguyen's memoir of surviving assault (and making it to space) is a deeply moving and inspiring account of resilience, activism, and the power of hope in the face of unimaginable adversity. In her debut, Nguyen takes readers on a journey through trauma and loss, strength and survival, as well as her relentless efforts to create meaningful change in the world. Nguyen's writing is raw, vulnerable, and beautifully crafted, and her debut is not just a memoir—it's a call to action.

Virago

Six Conversations We're Scared to Have: How to Change Minds, Including Your Own - 'the Book We Need Right Now' (david Tennant)

Six Conversations We're Scared to Have by Deborah Frances-White is a thought-provoking and witty exploration of the difficult, often uncomfortable conversations that many of us avoid but desperately need to have. Fans of her wildly funny and important podcast The Guilty Feminist, will find that her writing is equally as accessible and engaging, making complex issues feel approachable without watering down their significance. This book encourages readers to confront their own fears and biases while fostering deeper, more meaningful connections.

No One Wants to See Your D*ck

No One Wants to See Your D*ck by Jess Davies is a bold, unapologetic exploration of modern relationships, self-image, and the complexities of navigating social media and intimacy in today's world. Through a series of candid essays, Davies tackles themes of body positivity, consent, and the pressures of societal expectations, all while challenging the norms of how we express vulnerability.

No One Wants to See Your Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against ThemselvesD*ck

Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves by The Atlantic's Sophie Gilbert is a sharp, insightful analysis of how media and pop culture have shaped how women view themselves and each other. Through a mix of cultural critique and thoughtful research, she dissects the subtle yet powerful ways the media has played a role in turning women against themselves, often pitting them in competition rather than solidarity.

Profile Books

Women & Power: a Manifesto

Women and Power is made up of two essays based on Mary’s hit lectures, ‘The Public Voice of Women’ and ‘Women in Power’. Analysing Homer and Ovid, this manifesto traces the roots of misogyny back to Athens and Rome, looking into how history has treated powerful women.

foyles

The Feminine Mystique is a landmark book, challenging the assumption that women could be fulfilled through housework and motherhood alone. It is often credited with sparking the second-wave feminism in the US.

waterstones

We Should All Be Feminists is an essay adapted from Nigerian author Chimanda Ngozi Adichie's 2012 TEDx talk, breaking down the definition of feminism for the 21st century.

foyles

Invisible Women is a groundbreaking book that exposes the gender data gap based on Caroline Cried Perez’s research. From iPhone size to publicised heart attack symptoms, this book breaks down all the ways that the world has been designed for men, and not women.

Quercus

My Body

My Body is a collection of essays by Emily Ratajkowski that explores feminism, sexuality, power, men's treatment of women and women's rationalizations for accepting that treatment. They cover moments from Ratajkowski's life while investigating many important issues, such as the perverse dynamics of the fashion and film industries.

Penguin

Rodham

Rodham is an alternative US history novel imagining a world where Hillary ‘Rodham’ Clinton had never married former President Bill Clinton and had pursued her own political career instead.

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang

This instant New York Times bestseller follows the story of a girl who learns to live - and then escape - an invisible life. Qian Julie Wang's memoir is an unforgettable account of what it means to live under the threat of deportation as she moves from China to New York with her family.

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women White Feminists Forgot by Mikki Kendall

Hood Feminism is an important piece of modern text, analysing the failings of the mainstream feminist movement and how we can save it.

Send Nudes by Saba Sams

This book is made up of ten short stories that document the young female experience in the modern world.

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo, was £8.99 now £7.37 | WH Smith

Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives of 12 women in the United Kingdom over the course of several decades. Divided into four parts, each section focuses on a trio of women whose lives are woven together, looking at how race, sexuality and gender among other themes intersect to shape their experiences.

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

The Second Sex (or Le Deuxième Sexe) is an iconic piece of feminist literature by French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, discussing the treatment of women throughout history.

Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News by Emily Maitlis

Newsnight's Emily Maitlis takes you behind the scenes of some of her biggest news stories, and what really happened when the camera stopped rolling.

Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates

From the author of Everyday Sexism and Girl Up, Laura Bates brings us a shocking account where she goes undercover to expose vast misogynist networks and communities.

Outspoken: 50 Speeches by Incredible Women from Boudicca to Michelle Obama by Deborah Coughlin

Outspoken features 50 speeches by iconic women who spoke out even when they weren’t being listened to. From Joan of Arc and Greta Thunberg to Michelle Obama and Jameela Jamil, all of these women are using their voices to make change.

The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off: Thoughts on Life, Love and Rebellion by Gloria Steinem

The Truth Will Set You Free But First It Will Piss You Off is an illustrated collection of Gloria Steinem’s most empowering essays and outrageous quotes throughout her life.

Tessa Hadley: “I’m looking at the rhythm of why people do what they do, and why they might suddenly take a leap into risk”

kate.mccusker@futurenet.com (Kate McCusker) — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 11:32:34 +0000

Tessa Hadley is the worst-kept secret in literary fiction. Hang around the new and recommended section of a bookshop for longer than a few minutes following a Hadley release and you’d be hard-pressed not to see someone add her to their pile. In the absence of murder or magic (though there is a spot of sex, drugs and communism in her latest book), her stories deal primarily in the every day of British middle class life: bereavement, adultery, gin-addled dinner parties. Begin to believe you’re on familiar terrain, though, and she’ll yank the Laura Ashley rug right out from under you. Because if her novels are consistently good, they’re just as consistently shattering.

Free Love by Tessa Hadley

Hadley’s latest novel, Free Love, follows in the same tradition. Set over the course of a year, beginning in the annus mirabilis that was 1967, Free Love centres on Phyllis Fischer, a housewife in her forties who leaves the cloistered comfort of her suburban family home to embark on an affair with the twenty-something son of a family friend. The novel seesaws between two markedly different postcodes: the manicured Thames Valley suburbia of the family Phyllis has left behind, and the countercultural chaos of Ladbroke Grove in the 60s. It’s typical Hadley that one is as absorbing as the other.

“We live in the after effects of that period”

The revolution that’s unspooling outside – the underground press, the Grosvenor Square protests, the passing of the Abortion Act – is told through Phyllis’ own revolution; the abrupt realisation that “in her old life she’d only been half alive”. But don’t for a second think Hadley isn’t hyper aware that ‘free love’ presented a very different reality for women than it did for men.

“The thing that’s interesting to me is that those women who rebelled in the 60s and 70s, who divorced their husbands and left home in pursuit of some wonderful otherness, well, there’s another day and then another and then there’s more children and life goes on,” she tells me.

“Of course, I think we’re more disenchanted now. They were our mothers and grandmothers and we lived watching how they grabbed at the dream of another way of living – how it played out and became ordinary and daily. We live in the after effects [of that period] and are the beneficiaries of its freedom.”

Hadley, who was born in 1956 and came of age in the 70s, recalls how in her own youth, “Revolutionary, radical men were so dismissive of feminism. Would say it’s a side issue; it’s a distraction from the real class war and all of that. Make the tea.”

And yet, Free Love isn’t the clear-cut tale of a feminist heroine fleeing convention that you might think it is. Like many of Hadley’s characters, Phyllis is partial to a contradiction. No longer is she an apolitical housewife who doesn’t give a second thought to her husband’s job at the Foreign Office, but nor is she particularly politically strident in her new life either. If she’s anything at all beyond commendably brave, she’s probably just there for the fun of it.

What makes Hadley a feminist writer, then, is her refusal to pass judgement on her female characters. In fact, she refuses to pass judgement on any of them, but it’s always the women who seem to have the dreaded accusation of [gasp] unlikeability lodged against them.

Free Love is Hadley's eighth novel. (Image credit: Penguin)

“I’m looking at the rhythm of why people do what they do”

“I’m not excusing her,” Hadley is quick to point out when speaking of Phyllis’ grief over her young son Hugh being sent away to boarding school against her wishes. “But I’m looking at the rhythm of why people do what they do and why they might suddenly take a leap into risk and jeopardise everything and nearly lose everything, but maybe get something back in return.”

She almost makes it look easy. Does the writing get any easier with time? “No, it absolutely doesn’t,” she counters with a smile in her voice. “Each [novel] creates a new question that you have to work out.” (Free Love is her eighth.) “But there does come the sense that you have readers with you, and that they think what you’ve done so far is okay. That builds some kind of confidence behind you and that makes confronting the problem of each novel less anguishing. Though there’s still some anguish along the way…”

Hadley, who didn’t publish her first book until the age of 46, is well-versed in the frustrations of failing to write the story that you want to. After studying English at the University of Cambridge, she met her future husband Eric Hadley at teacher training college and they married and had children young. She began to write in the latter half of her twenties, producing four or so novels that have since been confined to landfill.

Zadie Smith, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Anne Enright are among Hadley's admirers. (Image credit: Penguin)

“I can’t tell you what happens in your forties when you think, ‘I know who I am’"

“It really felt like I was doing the wrong thing with those books,” she says now. “I feel as if I was very much trying to write other people’s books. For a long time, I was impressionable rather than forceful. I just worshipped the writers I loved.” (Reading, she says, and “talking about books” is still her greatest pleasure.) “I can’t even tell you what happens in your forties when suddenly you think, ‘I know who I am. I know what I sound like.’ I’m just this, you know, mother and daughter and person living in this world. And that what I have to write about.”

She pauses before setting herself right: “No, that’s not quite how I want to put it. You know, the mysteries that you want to write about? I have to find my way to those mysteries through this material that’s close to hand. I guess that’s what I’ve found.”

If she ever had any doubt about whether she pulls it off, a quick glance at any one of her book jackets should assuage it. Hadley counts Zadie Smith, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Anne Enright, Elizabeth Day and Colm Tóibín among her admirers. The late Hilary Mantel called Free Love “beguiling”. Critics have largely lauded her latest book (and the seven before). She is, in all her mastery of the craft, a writer’s writer.

So what’s her secret? “You should never complicate things for the sake of it,” she says – good advice, on all counts, for life. Thank God her characters don’t adhere to it.

Free Love by Tessa Hadley is published by Jonathan Cape and is now available in paperback.

Six seductive new reads you don’t want to miss this month

cjarvie@cjarvie.com (Catherine Jarvie) — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 16:48:39 +0000

With the clocks turned back and the nights fully drawn in, finding one of the best autumn books has become a top priority. November is the perfect month to hunker down and lose yourself in a book.

Good as they are, we’re swerving this month’s big starry biographies from the likes of Michelle Obama and Michael Perry in favour of immersive, transportive fiction that – fittingly for a month most of us want to spend tucked up inside – have hearth and homes (literal and metaphorical) at their centre.

From a sumptuous retelling of a Mitford classic to a ballerina’s-eye view of 1980s New York, rounded off with a high-stakes erotic thriller (got your attention now, haven’t we?) – here are six books to curl up with this November.

1. They’re Going to Love You – Meg Howrey

Aspiring ballet dancer-turned-choreographer Carlisle Martin gets a call summoning her to New York where her father, Robert, lies dying. Having not spoken to him or his partner James for almost two decades, she prepares to return to the Greenwich Village apartment that loomed so large in her youth. The narrative flips expertly between Carlisle’s current life in LA and 1980s New York, unpicking the events that led to their estrangement with devastatingly poignant clarity. A former ballet dancer herself, Howrey is an expert guide through that world, much as trained singer Imogen Crimp brought opera alive in A Very Nice Girl earlier this year. A deeply intelligent tale of love, grief, family and forgiveness.

2. Seven Empty Houses – Samantha Schweblin

2022 has been a good year for the fans of the short story, with notable collections including George Saunders’ recent release, Liberation Day. This one, by Argentinian writer of (Man Booker International-longlisted and Netflix-adapted) Fever Dream, is a quiet, off-centre gem. The houses in question all – naturally – serve as foils for the delicate psychology of those who live in or pass through them, the objects inside them equally freighted with emotion. Disquieting and dark it may be, but it is lifted with sly humour and sharp observation, related in clear, plain-speaking prose that leaves lots for the reader to fill between the lines.

3. The People Before – Charlotte Northedge

The rush that saw people moving from cities to rural locations in search of the ‘good life’ in the wake of the pandemic makes Northedge’s taut new psychological mystery feel particularly timely. Jess, Mark and their young family swap city for country when a break-in at their London home pulls the trigger on a simmering dissatisfaction about their quality of life. The Maple House is an enormous ‘project’ buy that seemed like a good idea, but very quickly becomes a fever dream of isolation and things going bump in the night. But who’s really pulling the strings and why?

4. Landlines – Raynor Winn

Raynor Winn and her husband, Moth, were evicted from their home of two decades the same week Moth received a debilitating – and ultimately fatal – diagnosis. Rather than give into despair, the pair set off on a 630-mile walk that, as Winn outlines in this new book, ‘gave us a route forward, a purpose, a reason to go on into the next day when all other reasons had fallen away’. That journey, documented in bestseller The Salt Path, left the pair reinvigorated. It also – miraculously – turned the clock back on Moth’s illness. In this, their third marathon adventure, Moth is once again in the grip of an acceleration in his symptoms. Can another walk – this time 1,000 miles from north-west Scotland to southern Cornwall – work the magic it has before? A glorious read about nature and the ties that bind.

5. Darling – India Knight

This sumptuous retelling of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love is the literary equivalent of settling into a plush velvet sofa loaded with plump, feather cushions and cosy throws. It is rich and luscious with plenty of warmth and good humour. Head of the family, Matthew, has been updated to be a retired (and very wealthy) rock star happily and chaotically raising his family with wife Sadie (daughter of an Indian diplomat) in their sprawling Norfolk farmhouse. There are big-C characters galore, with sideswipes at everyone from fashion dahlings and Insta influencers to snobs and UKIPers – all told through the eye of narrator, cousin Fran – as sister Linda’s search for true love continues.

6. The Book of the Most Precious Substance – Sara Gran

Crime writer Gran serves up a titillatingly erotic thriller set in the rarefied world of antiquarian books. Lily, a down-on-her-luck writer stuck in a tragically sexless marriage, is barely able to pay her bills when she’s offered a sizeable commission if she can track down an extremely rare book. The tome in question? An occult guide to sex magic. Her quest becomes a high-stakes and increasingly dangerous game that leads Lily across international cities and into multiple millionaires’ sex rooms. It’s the emotional and psychological acuity with which Gran balances the tragedies of Lily’s personal life with the wilder aspects of the plot, however, that lifts this pacey thriller. A riot.

Rebecca Humphries talks gaslighting, Seann Walsh and learning to love healthily

jenny.proudfoot@futurenet.com (Jenny Proudfoot) — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 12:25:50 +0000

If you're looking to be reminded of your self-worth, there's no better role model than Rebecca Humphries.

You probably know her name in relation to her very public 2018 break up with comedian Seann Walsh, after photographs of Walsh kissing his Strictly Come Dancing partner Katya Jones hit the tabloids.

Despite all advice to stay silent to protect her acting career, Humphries tweeted a powerful statement, revealing the gaslighting that she had been subjected to and offering advice to women trapped in emotionally abusive relationships.

"My name is Rebecca Humphries and I am not a victim," her 2018 statement read.

"Those pictures were taken on October 3rd. It was my birthday. I was alone at home when Sean texted at 10pm saying the two of them were going for one innocent drink. We spoke and I told him, not for the first time, that his actions over the past three weeks had led me to believe something inappropriate was going on. He aggressively, and repeatedly, called me a psycho/ nuts/ mental. As he has done countless times throughout our relationship when I've questioned his inappropriate, hurtful behaviour.

"But - this whole business has served to remind me that I am a strong, capable person who is now free; and no victim. I have a voice and will use it by saying this to any woman out there who deep down feels worthless and trapped with a man they love: Believe in yourself and your instincts. It's more than lying. It's controlling. Tell some very close friends who, if they're anything like my wonderful network, will swoop in and take care of the logistics and of you.

"It's important also to recognise that in these situations those who hold power over you are insecure and fragile, and their need for control comes from a place of vulnerability. I think it certainly does in Sean's case. Despite everything, I hope he gets what he wants from this. I'm not sorry I took the cat though."

While she was warned that the tweet would sink her career, Humphries’ statement actually went viral and she became a household name.

Her words on gaslighting struck a chord, and women across the world were empowered to leave and change abusive relationships. She had not only reclaimed her voice, but had passed the microphone to women all over the world to use their own too.

While Humphries was offered multiple book deals at the time, she chose to focus on herself, undergoing therapy and learning more about what she had been through.

Over the pandemic however, she felt a duty to the women locked in with perpetrators of emotional abuse and wanted to use her story to spread awareness.

This comes in the form of Why Did You Stay?, her fantastic memoir on emotional abuse and self-worth.

Empowering, insightful, funny and so very important - this book should be read by women and men everywhere. It is quite frankly life-changing.

MC Features Editor Jenny Proudfoot sat down with Rebecca Humphries to talk gaslighting, the feminine divine and why loving healthily should be taught from a young age.

What was it that actually prompted you to sit down and write this book?

Well, in 2018 when I was stood in my friend's living room with this little bit of paper with a handwritten statement on it, I knew no one was going to read it. It was just for me and I needed to post it. All I did was say what happened in chronological order and what I've learnt - that's it. It was a very specific experience and it was about Strictly Come Dancing. Only a handful of people have experienced what I did, and no one while their partner was still on the show. But despite that, thousands of people came back to me and said they have been through the exact same thing. It was such a testament to specificity of story and feeling being the most universal thing of all. If I tried to appeal to everyone, I would have appealed to no one, and I got messages for months and years afterwards saying, "You empowered me in that moment and made me assess my life in a different way".

So then fast-forward to the pandemic, and I knew that all these women were trapped in these situations, locked in with people who were controlling them. People who may not be doing anything that pop culture would deem violent, but experiencing low level insidious violence as a result of things like gaslighting, emotional abuse and coercive control. I just thought that if I could even recreate a small amount of what I achieved in 2018 by writing a book about what’s happened since, and about how when I moved away from that, that’s when my life started, then I have to do it. It was that need to get this story of empowerment and of moving away from something better for it having happened. It was that need to help other people with that story that kept me writing it as long I wrote it, which by the way was a really long time.

Was it something you knew you were going to do back in 2018?

I was offered a couple of book deals at the time, and they sounded quite tasty. I even had a couple of meetings but I was confused as to what the story was because I was still in it. And actually, what I needed was to ensure that I had worked through my trauma - that I had dealt with my feelings about that particular situation but also about the relationship and myself. I had to go back countless years in order to sit down and write this, not as a revenge of tragedy, but as something that actually had integrity. A lot of people ask me if it was cathartic, but I did that bit before I wrote the book.

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Some authors describe writing a memoir as having to mine themselves emotionally. Was that something you experienced?

To be honest, some of those scenes in the book are etched on my retinas. I'm a storyteller by profession, not as a writer but as an actress. And so as such I’ve spent 10+ years putting myself into circumstances and believing in them, creating worlds around where I’m sitting. Maybe that was something that aided me in this process - helped me not get dragged into the mood or the tone. But really, in fact it's just because I had loads of therapy. I know how to protect myself and those feelings and I’ve spent a lot of years validating my experience. I was most afraid when writing this book that when I revisited it, I would think that I was making it up, because I have been made to think that for a really long time. But when it actually came to it, I just had the tools and I was equipped with ways to listen to that voice and tell myself, "No Rebecca, you are not making this up". To tell myself that I am not crazy, I am not psychotic - this really happened and my experience is valid. It was just about ensuring that that muscle was exercised when I sat down to write.

The detail you go into from years ago is incredible. Did you recount it from memory or did you document your experience?

I’m an avid diarist, but during that relationship I wasn't. I would just claw at moments and scraps of paper when I was in real pain and write almost incomprehensible scrawls about how I was feeling, where my brain was, and how little I valued or cared for myself. I only found them later during the pandemic, and that moment was actually part of the reason for writing this book. I pulled open this drawer and saw all these scraps of paper with all these ramblings. There I am standing as a woman who has come on so much in those two years and sees herself in a completely different way, and is surrounded by a completely different circle of people who enhance her life. And seeing this, I thought, there are going to be women who are the woman that I'm seeing on this page at the moment, and they need to know that two years down the line is all it might take.

You wrote that learning about gaslighting gave you back your voice...

The biggest threat that faces humanity is unconsciousness, because if you do not have a way of defining your experience, then it's not valid to you, and you think that you are alone. When I found out about what gaslighting meant, and I realised that it was a term that had been given a name because of just how common it was and how long it’s been going on, it took the power from the situation and it handed it back to me. I know what this is now, I can identity all these symptoms of it, I can tick off a list and I know that I am not the only person to have experienced this so I also have a network. I can reach out to other people and I can speak freely about my experience in a way that feels informed and not lost. It absolutely changed everything and it's that consciousness that is crucial.

Why is there such unconsciousness around gaslighting?

This particular form of emotional abuse is something that we are only just getting our heads around, and as such it stands to reason that we are not seeing it as much in pop culture. I completely appreciate that it's not the most exciting thing to see on the TV or in a movie. If you're going to write something about a perpetrator, you're going to make them this really tough domestic terrorist, and it's the same with the victim - there is a very clear archetype that we all associate with that. Mine is Little Mo from EastEnders. That's what that looks like for me, and those moments of high drama between Little Mo and her husband Trevor are to me the benchmark for what this looks like, and actually it's completely false. It's obviously incredibly important to highlight and keep that conversation going, but over the years what those extreme kinds of narrative have done is stopped people identifying as victims in that circumstance. And that means that so much has been allowed to insidiously carry on for such a long time. So we really just need to keep having these conversations. I’m not the first person to say these things - I just want to be part of this conservation. It needs to get wider and wider so that we can speak to our friends and get comfortable with sharing things about our relationships. To ensure that we have a new language that is going to make love loads healthier for all of us.

For young people especially...

I'm baffled that no one is teaching young people about this stuff. We need to find a way and a language to do this and to teach young people how to love well - that's something I'm definitely interested in stepping into. The only thing that none of us get taught is how to love and how to parent - arguably the two most important things in the world. And yet these are the only two things, and especially given the age of the internet, that we are left to our own devices and have to learn on the job.

As you say in the book, our generation really has been conditioned by rom-coms and Disney films in how we perceive ourselves and what we deserve...

I think millennials are the last generation. We have the benefit of education and so much information to know full well that the things we were taught when we were young are crap and unhelpful. We know that those narratives are false and deluded. The problem is that we were the last ones to ingest them, so somewhere in our body we still have this longing, and it's completely at odds with what it is that we know to be true. So there is just this absolute war that is raging within us the whole time. We know full well that a handsome prince and throwing bits of your life out of the window to step into a man's life are completely toxic, but there is still a bit of us that would do it given half the chance.

I loved how this book embraces and quenches that rage in such an empowering way...

That's music to my ears. You know what, we are opening our eyes to the fact that rage is going to happen, but the only way for it to be healthy is to own it. If you ignore it, that is when it comes for you because it turns into resentment and vindictiveness, and that is just poison that you swallow yourself. But owning and stepping into your rage absolutely enables other people to be able to do the same thing in a healthy way and support one another.

One part of the book that really struck me was the long history of removing power from "threatening" women...

The thing that is so fascinating to me is this idea of the divine feminine. It really was the first spiritual narrative. It was the energy that everyone either aspired to inhabit or take care of at all costs because of its overwhelming power. And then suddenly it became threatening, and all of these other narratives started creeping in. There’s Eve and Lilith - the characters that destroyed the world and destroyed peace. I'm absolutely not here to bash religion, and I completely see the joy in it, but all of these stories started creeping in and turned it around to make men the powerful force and women the destroyers. Obviously capitalism thrives on it, and it comes back to today where women are absolutely fed this narrative on a daily basis. We have to ensure that we spend an hour getting ready every morning, we straighten our hair, we buy products but no sulphates so that will be £20 extra, and then you need skincare that costs £60 for one moisturiser. We are just fed these narratives that eat away at our time and our money. And the only reason I can think of why that's happening is because if we had all of that back, we would be so powerful. We would be so unbelievably powerful, and we are confined by fear of the patriarchy all the time.

And it all starts from childhood...

The second a little girl opens her gob and says loudly that she doesn't like something, that she wants this or that she doesn't want that, that's the second someone is going to shame her for being too loud. And when you are identified as that from a really young age, it starts living like a separate being under your skin, and you hear it constantly. You hear “too much” or “not enough” or both, all the time - and it lives under you. And suddenly before you know what's happening, you’re in situations at work, with your friends, with your family or in romantic relationships. Someone starts saying things like, “you’re being too much”, “you’re being too loud”, “don't embarrass me”, “you’re mental”, or “you’re a psychopath”, and it makes total sense. You don't think to question it and suddenly before you know what’s happening, you’ve self-identified as that. That’s where it gets really dangerous and that’s why you don't walk away from those situations. So actually it comes back to empowering people to believe they deserve more. So that when you hear those voices that go “you’re a psychopath”, you go: “It’s not okay for you to say that to me”. It never occurred to me that it wasn't OK to hear that.

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Is there a piece of advice that you would give women out there looking to reclaim their power?

I feel quite prickly when I get asked this question as a I feel like I have twenty voices fighting for space. Something I would say that has always helped me (and it wasn't me who said it which is really annoying) is, the best day of your life hasn't happened yet, and you haven't met everyone who is going to love you. I just think if I had known or believed that then, my life might've been very different. Another great one is, jump and the net will appear. That was my absolute experience. If you make a step towards bravery, everything will fall into place. I'm telling you, the universe rewards bravery and you never know until you do it, but it does. Also, for God's sake, talk to your friends and listen.

How does it feel to have become a bit of a feminist guru?

I mean, “guru” is a word I haven't heard associated with me until today - I’ve got the saboteur on my shoulder saying, false prophet. This is just a book that I'm really hoping will get passed on from women to women and from women to men as well to just widen this conversation. I have a more active interest in being part of a collective than I am galloping forward with everyone else behind me. I want to be having interesting conversations like this and to be helping one another. That's what it's all about - it takes a village to raise each other up.

This memoir is hilarious. Was it important for you to showcase how funny you actually are?

To be honest, there's just no other way. It absolutely wasn't intentional - I just wrote in my voice and it got away with me. All I wanted was for it to sound like someone you know and like, and to ensure that it would be a great, lively, bouncy and engaging read. It also happened to be about something that we as a society need to speak about, and to me that was the only way to engage. I feel like there is a whole demographic of people that are missing out on this stuff because they prefer to read things that seems much more fun.

What role does reading play in your life?

I absolutely love it but I’m the world's slowest reader - I am terrible. I recently read Untamed by Glennon Doyle - I actually read it after I wrote my book and found that she says the same things as me but is more concise and funnier. But there's this amazing bit of information in it about Selah - a word in the Hebrew bible to indicate when the reader is supposed to pause and take in what's just been said. It happens at random points, but for me it's like there is one at the end of every sentence. The books that I enjoy reading seem to be so unbelievably profound that I need to digest each sentence and take it in.

Is there a book that you go back to time and time again?

The one I go back to time after time is All About Love by Bell Hooks because it is game-changingly beautiful and includes all of my favourite things - hope, positivity, compassion and understanding. It doesn't shy away from sadness but it does so with such compassion - it is incredibly inspiring. And then a book I read recently that I couldn't put down was Delicacy by Katie Wix, who I just think is totally hilarious. Her writing is so beautifully erratic. I love watching her on TV and when I read her book, it felt like I had gotten under a layer of her, and I just saw this beautiful soul.

What message do you hope people will take away from your memoir?

I really hope that this book will cause people to look around and see the abundance of love and romance that exists in their life that doesn't have anything to do with their partner. Because love and romance is absolutely everywhere, and they often have very little to do with having someone standing next to you.

Why Did You Stay? A Memoir About Self-Worth by Rebecca Humphries, £16.99, is available to buy now.

Dolly Alderton: "I just can’t write about anything other than love"

jenny.proudfoot@futurenet.com (Jenny Proudfoot) — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 12:15:33 +0000

We sat down with author Dolly Alderton to talk love, female friendship and why writing Ghosts was the greatest professional pleasure of her life...

Dolly Alderton's name is synonymous with love.

From her bestselling memoir Everything I Know About Love to her new release, Dear Dolly - a compilation of her Sunday Times Style columns, it is undoubtedly the backbone of everything she does.

Her debut novel Ghosts is no exception.

Covering love in all its forms, Ghosts tells a story of modern dating, friendship shifts, mother-daughter relationships, loss and more - all tied together with Dolly’s signature wit and unrivalled references.

In short, it’s a must-read for all millennial women.

"The message of Ghosts is one of hope and one of warning," Dolly explained in our sit-down last year. "Life will surprise you in all sorts of wonderful ways, life will disappoint you and break your heart. And the likelihood is that you’re not going to be able to anticipate any of it."

Real, raw and overwhelmingly reassuring, Ghosts serves as an important reminder that life is hard and in many ways beyond our control. If you’re struggling to keep your head above water in a sea of obligations and anxieties, this book is the reassurance and comfort that you need.

Features Editor Jenny Proudfoot sat down with the wonderful Dolly to talk Ghosts, writing female friendship and why love is the only subject for her...

Talk me through your experience writing Ghosts...

Writing this book was the greatest professional pleasure of my life. I miss the months that I was writing Ghosts so much - I think about that time like I was in a relationship I have now lost. Truly, I know that sounds mad. I look back on that period when I completely shut myself off from everything that wasn’t this book and I just spent every day with these characters. I’ve never done that before in my life - it was so wonderful. And I had a 9 to 5 for the first time ever - I could go out and hear my friends’ disastrous dating stories and then the next day I would feed it all into my writing. It just felt like the life of a writer I had always dreamed of. I was out living and participating in the world in a really committed present way that wasn’t knackered or frantic or constantly on my phone. I was in the world, observing the world, loving people, dating, having relationships and then sitting at my desk in silence every day just writing stories about it. I do think I romanticise it as well though - I handed in the book in April 2020 so really my last ever memory of the world before COVID was me writing this book. There’s something about that time that felt like the last gift for me of what the old world was.

Was it a more enjoyable writing experience not having to recount your personal life?

It was an absolute joy. I found writing Everything I Know About Love really difficult - I did not enjoy that experience at all. You don’t know the process of selling and publishing a book until you’ve done it, and I hadn’t anticipated that I would basically be talking about my most personal experiences for nearly two years. All of that was my own doing and decision-making and frankly I’m very lucky that I had any sort of opportunity where people wanted to hear about my book. I’m very aware of the privilege of that, but it was only when I got to writing Ghosts that I was like, ‘wow, that was pretty exhausting’ because it was just so much nicer to not have to channel myself and my own experiences in every conversation about my work.

Was it a daunting move from non-fiction to fiction?

Yes and no. In the framework of ‘I need to write a book that is sold and received exactly as my first book was’, then yes it was daunting. I was aware that I had more people reading me, watching me, expecting things from me and having ideas about my work and what it represents. You just can’t create like that. So, to lose that self-consciousness, I just had to make a decision and think, ‘do you know what, that was then, this is now’. I had to compassionately, lovingly and respectfully put that book and those readers out of my mind. I had to start again really and it not be a craft of comparison or replication because that would just stunt me so much as a writer. I have had a lot of experience with writing non-fiction but I have no experience with fictional prose, so I have to just learn it, hone it, experience it, absorb as much of it as possible and just see where it takes me.

Will love always be connected to your writing in some form?

I think it’s the thing I’m always going to be the most interested in - I can’t write about anything else to be totally honest. I’m really interested in how people’s relationships form who they are. How chatter with friends forms your sense of humour, how heartbreak hardens you, how your relationship with your parents teaches you how to love romantically, how long term friendships strengthen and sustain you, and how they change as you get older. This is just the thing that interests me the most. With any new person I meet, all I want to know is about the people who love them, the people who they love and the people that they have loved who have left their life. I just find it the most fascinating thing about humanity as a collective. I just can’t write about anything other than love. That will be the thing I’m always drawn to - I don’t think I’m very good at writing about anything else.

You write female friendship and that shift we're all experiencing like no one else. Was it important for you to reflect that so accurately?

It was really important for me to write about that shift in friendships because I had been so black and white about it in my first book - it ended so earnestly. It basically just said, ‘elevate your platonic relationships to the same place you elevate your romantic relationships’, and I think that’s quite a naïve thing to say. Even though I was 28 when I wrote it and now only 32, I think I now have a different understanding of how much more difficult it is as you get older. Your lives change, diverge and more people come in, and it’s difficult to sustain those kind of close-knit relationships with people.

And in Ghosts, we see it from both sides...

There has been some criticism of the book that Nina is so unforgiving and judgmental, and the problem is yes she is because you’re in her head. You’re not seeing a 360 perspective of all the other people in her life who she is feeling disappointed by. In that friendship break up with her old school friend, I really wanted by the end to offer up Katherine’s side of the story - of how her apparent abandonment of her long-term friendship with Nina is not about self-importance. It’s not about her thinking that having children is more important than anything else or that she’s subscribing to these very traditional heteronormative values. It’s to do with her being in crisis and facing the pressures of being a woman, mother, worker, friend and partner, with a pretty useless husband - which is I’m sorry to say most co-parenting situations that I’ve seen (even the good ones). So, Katherine is in her own unique hell and the way that it’s communicated to Nina is ‘I don’t care about you anymore’. It was really important for me to allow Katherine to have space near the end of the book to communicate that despair which is obviously personal and domestic but also societal.

Your writing brings women together and opens conversations - was that always intentional or did it happen organically?

I think it happened organically. I have mainly just hung out with women in the 20 years since I started school and I’ve probably spent 90% of my life just chattering with them. This is my one place of expertise - it has been an enormous pleasure in my life and the main love of my life. I have expertise in no other area, but I have a huge understanding of how women speak, communicate, make each other laugh, show their love for each other and disappoint each other. So, I’m just really interested in reflecting that truthfully in my writing, whether that’s fiction or non-fiction. I’m interested in the conversations that are happening in pubs and in living rooms that are for some reason hushed or yet to be mouth-pieced. That’s the thing I find really exciting - when I realise that I’ve been going from party to party, dinner to dinner or coffee to coffee with lots of different women and we’re all suddenly talking about the same thing, and I’m not seeing any of that in print or television. That’s what really excites me. It’s not about being provocative and it’s not about desperately trying to find something new. It’s about trying to find something true.

Does that add a pressure to be a voice for a lot of women?

Truthfully, I feel an awareness to make sure that I am not offending in a way that is distracting from my work and that I am being sensitive in my language and the worlds that I create. I feel an awareness to ensure that my work is not alienating and that it invites a lot of people in. And I am so aware of how the women who have bought my books have positively changed my life in every single way. But I don’t feel a responsibility to be any sort of role model and I don’t feel a responsibility to represent every single woman’s experience because that’s not my job as a writer.

Did you have to disengage your Dolly Alderton-ness to separate yourself from Nina’s character?

I had to not do that too much because I think when you’re creating characters from a place of defensiveness, they’re not going to be real. It’s disrespectful to create a character to prove a point. You need to service them and really understand them - their sense of humour, psychology, family history, sexuality - all that stuff. And to do that fully you need to not be fretting about whether people are going to draw conclusions over crossovers in your characteristics. I did make Nina quite different to me but obviously because it was first person narration we did share a sense of humour - that is always going to make us similar. I’m not crotchety about people conflating me with that protagonist because I have been the protagonist of my work for 10 years. So, I think it would be mad for me to expect everyone to suddenly acknowledge me as a novelist and completely divorce me and my voice from my work. I think I will be allowed to complain about that when I have written 10 novels but for now I totally understand it. I’m just going to patiently keep writing and then at one point I think that gap will get larger and larger.

What role does reading play in your life?

I love talking about books but I’ve got to be totally honest. Since I’ve started doing my TV show, I haven’t read a single one. The last book I read was in November - it’s the longest I think I’ve ever gone without one and I’m really missing it. But to be totally honest there is a part of me that is quite enjoying not always walking around with a book in my bag. My reading has been quite compulsive over the last five years and I definitely have a consumption panic - making sure that I’m reading enough of the classics and all the new stuff. So I have actually found it really enriching to not immediately put my nose in pages when there’s a free moment, and to give that time to my schedule and brain. That all said, books obviously are so important to me as a writer.

Does your writing inform what you read?

I’m a huge believer in that idea that you become the five people you spend the most time with - I believe that with culture. I think it’s really important what you’re putting into your brain. I believe they become your friends and bedfellows, and I think you become those pieces of work. So, if I want to write more like Bill Bryson, the only way that’s going to happen is by spending loads and loads of time in Bill Bryson’s language. I think something magic happens when a writer really commits to not emulating but understanding the things that they love, and I think it really does enrich a writer’s writing style. I have always been a bit of a mimic in terms of picking up the characteristics of people I love and I think that the same can be said for me of authors, films and TV, so it’s really important for me. Whenever I am writing a book, I will only read books in that wheelhouse. So, when I was writing Everything I Know About Love, all I did was read memoirs - Diana Athill, Nora Ephron etc. and then with Ghosts, I only read books about relationships.

Was it always your intention not to give Nina a perfectly tied-up ending?

I always knew that I never wanted her to end up with someone. I still think about Nina sometimes and I wonder whether she’s with anyone now in 2021, and honestly I really don’t know. I’m not sure if she’ll ever find someone, in the same way I’m not sure I’ll ever find someone. I just think sometimes there’s a freedom in sitting in the discomfort of that and understanding that thinking about it and analysing it is not really going to change the outcome. So yeah, that sense of the unknown, of ambiguity, of a total lack of a moral take-home - that was my intention with the ending.

It's so interesting to remind us how much is actually beyond our control…

Something that I’m interested in is that we’re the first generation of women who have had the internet as this tool for convenience and control. There’s a line in Ghosts at some point about Nina realising that every woman she knows is obsessed with the Cycle app - for tracking menstrual cycles. That was there as this small atmospheric detail. It reminds us that there are these type A ambitious women in their early thirties who have done everything they can to achieve everything they want, and there is one place where you cannot do that - and that is romance and family. If you want to fall in love with someone and it be mutual, and if you want to have babies, I’m afraid it is beyond your control. It doesn’t work in the same way that you can order an uber or sync your cycle up to your phone. Nina tries when she downloads that dating app but it’s not going to work in the same way. Accepting that lack of control is part of Nina’s journey and will be for the rest of her life.

Is there a message that you hope people will take from Ghosts?

The message of Ghosts is one of hope and one of warning. Life will surprise you in all sorts of wonderful ways and life will disappoint you and break your heart. Your life will be temporarily ruined in lots of unexpected ways, and the likelihood is that you’re not going to be able to anticipate any of it.

Both Ghosts and Dear Dolly by Dolly Alderton are published by Penguin and available to buy now.

The best autumn books for 2022: The women writers you want to be reading this season

cjarvie@cjarvie.com (Catherine Jarvie) — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 13:13:22 +0000

If you're looking for one of the best new books for 2022 to get stuck into, then you've come to the right place. Autumn is when publishing brings out the big guns – a season of big names and big releases across pretty much every genre. Much has already been made of this year’s crop, with new works from literary titans including Stephen King, Ian McEwan, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Cormac McCarthy – The Road author follows up a 15-year hiatus with two new releases this year – recently or ready to hit the shelves.

Equally anticipated are new titles from a slew of much-garlanded women writers, with Maggie O’Farrell’s highly-anticipated follow-up to Hamnet arguably leading the pack.

Here’s our pick of what’s to come from some of the most lauded and bestselling women writers over the coming weeks – and the buzzed-about debut from a brand-new voice.

The best new books for autumn 2022

1. The Marriage Portrait – Maggie O’Farrell (Tinder Press)

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O’Farrell’s Hamnet – which reimagined the short life and death of Shakespeare’s son through the grief-stricken eyes of his wife – was a lockdown hit, garlanded with praise, prizes and a vast print run. Can she follow it up with another historic tale based on a little-known figure from history? This intricately detailed, heavily fictionalised ‘what if’ that charts the short life of Lucrezia de’ Medici who died aged just seventeen and only a few years into her marriage, suggests yes. Rumours about her husband’s involvement surfaced almost immediately after her death and O’Farrell gives her imagination full rein to explore what might have been.

SHOP NOW: The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

2. Best of Friends – Kamila Shamsie (Bloomsbury)

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Shamsie’s follow-up to her Women’s Prize-winning Home Fire is a decades-spanning tale of the intense and complicated friendship between two very different women. We first meet them as teenagers in 1980s Karachi when an incident reset the course of their lives, before pivoting to contemporary London. Now both at the top of their very different professional games, their lives and futures have become even more deeply entwined. When the past comes back to haunt them, what could possibly go wrong? Shamsie draws immense pleasure and detail from the novel’s settings, expat culture and the intricate and, at times, conflicting nature of women’s friendship.

SHOP NOW: Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie

3. Our Missing Hearts – Celeste Ng (Little, Brown, 4 October)

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For her follow-up to the hugely successful Little Fires Everywhere (adapted into an Emmy Award-winning series by Reese Witherspoon), Ng takes what at first glance appears to be a big swerve – into science-fiction dystopia. Bird, a 12-year-old Chinese-American lives with his librarian father in an imagined near-future US, where fears over the preservation of ‘American culture’ has led to widespread distrust of anyone else. The arrival of a mysterious letter sets the boy on a quest to find his mother, a dissident poet who fled the family three years before. So yes, this is a cautionary tale about power and how easily it can shift and be lost, but it is also – and ultimately – an emotional deep-dive into the resilience of parent-child bond and what it means to be human.

SHOP NOW: Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

4. Carrie Soto Is Back – Taylor Jenkins Reid (Cornerstone)

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Taylor Jenkins Reid has long been a popular author but BookTok made her a superstar. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – published way back in 2017 – spent a year on bestseller lists after fans on the platform promoted it in 2021 (for a time sharing the same space with that year’s release, Malibu Rising). She returns with a new novel about the post-retirement comeback of a former champion tennis player that’s sure to go down just as well with her ever-growing fanbase. In Jenkins Reid’s trademark style, it’s a bighearted, glamorous read full of pop cultural references and interlinked characters from the rest of the author’s novel universe (Soto first made an appearance in Malibu Rising). Frank, funny and emotional. And no, you don’t have to be a tennis fan to be drawn in.

SHOP NOW: Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

5. Haven – Emma Donoghue (Pan Macmillan)

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The latest release from the acclaimed Man-Booker shortlisted writer (for Room) takes us all the way back to 7th-century Ireland and a priest named Artt, who sets to found a new monastery after waking from a prophesising dream. He and two other men of God settle onto a bare island in the Atlantic off the coast of Ireland populated entirely by birds (the very real island of Skellig Michael, on which the remains of an early Christian monastery stand). Atmospheric and vividly told, Donoghue draws a spell around this unlikely setting and the men who attempt to make peace with it. One to read as the nights draw in.

SHOP NOW: Haven by Emma Donoghue

6. The Book of Goose – Yiyun Li (Fourth Estate, 29 September)

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Another look at intense female friendship across this decades, Goose tells the story of Agnes and Fabienne from their childhood together in post-WWIII rural France to contemporary(ish) America. In Li’s novel, however, the best girlfriends have become estranged in adulthood – it isn’t until Agnes (now a successful writer) learns of Fabienne’s death that she begins to unpick her truth about their past and the secret at the heart of it. Fans of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan trilogy won’t be disappointed, but the comparison undermines the skill with which Li tells her story, peeling back the layers to reveal the dark truths at the heart of Agnes and Fabienne’s friendship.

SHOP NOW: The Book Of The Goose by Yiyun Li

7. Lucy by the Sea – Elizabeth Strout (Penguin)

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Just a year after Oh William! brought Lucy Barton back into readers’ lives, Strout gives her another outing – this time taking us to Maine, where Lucy’s ex-husband, William, has brought her to from New York to escape ‘the virus’. So, yes, this a pandemic novel (which is now a bone fide genre of its own) – but it is much more than that. A deep, heartfelt exploration of human connection and interconnectedness, family, loss and letting go. Deeply affecting.

SHOP NOW: Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

And one to watch…

8. All That’s Left Unsaid – Tracey Lien (HarperCollins, 15 September)

Lien’s hotly-anticipated debut (it was sold in a nine-way publishing auction) takes us to mid-1990s Cabramatta, in outer Sydney, Australia, to which young journalist Ky Tran returns following the brutal death of her brother on the night of his graduation formal. With police refusing to investigate what they assume to be another drug-related crime between rival gang members of the town’s Vietnamese Australian community, and her parents too cowed to question why, it’s up to Ky to try to get to the truth about Denny’s murder. Lien – who grew up in Cabramatta herself – wraps this who-and-whydunit in emotional and complex layers that address everything from generational trauma and survivor’s guilt to female friendship. A gripping read.

SHOP NOW: All That's Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien

Why do people cheat in relationships? The five most common reasons to look out for

Marie Claire — Fri, 26 Aug 2022 09:43:11 +0000

We've all questioned it, here's the answer...

It is a question we've all asked ourselves at some point in our lives. Now Danielle Pender, the author of a new book has the answer.

When researching for a story on infidelity for her new book, Watching Women & Girls, Danielle admits became fascinated with the reasons why people cheat. 'For the main, the person who cheats is cast as the bad person, and the person who has been cheated on is the victim. But, like everything in life, it’s never that straightforward.'

'Human beings aren’t as binary as simply good or bad, cheaters or non-cheaters. To look at it as a strictly moral issue is to ignore some of the lessons we can learn about infidelity and ourselves.'

So why do some people cheat? Here's what Danielle has to say.

An escape from themselves

Psychotherapist Esther Perel is the authority on desire and infidelity. In her TED talk, Rethinking Infidelity, she discusses the point that often when a person cheats, it isn’t so much about their current relationship or even the potential of a new love interest. The thing that motivates them, sometimes subconsciously, is their desire to get back to a version of themselves that they feel they’ve lost.

An affair, the new attention and the excitement it brings, is often seen as a gateway back to the person they used to be, a way to tap back into their youth. As we all know, this electric period of desire very rarely lasts beyond the initial throes of passion, but for some, the allure can be too great.

Neglect

In one of the narratives in Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women, Lina has an affair with a high school crush because she feels neglected by her husband. There are many heart-breaking passages where she describes how he won’t kiss her on the lips no matter how much she tries to initiate this simple display of affection. She yearns for some kind of meaningful physical connection, to be touched, and in the end, after trying rounds of therapy to address the issue, she seeks this affection elsewhere.

Drifted Apart

Katherine* and her husband had been married for twelve years and together for fifteen. They met at university on the same law degree and moved to London together to pursue their careers. For many years they were very happy and on a similar track, but after seven years of practising law, Katherine started to feel like there was more to life; “We started to become very different people to who we had been, it affected our relationship as we were living separate lives with different interests and friends.” Then, Katherine met someone at a friend’s party who she instantly connected with, “I knew as soon as I met him my marriage was over, I knew that we’d sleep together.” They embarked on a short affair, and after four months, Katherine left her husband. “It was sad,” she says on the breakdown of her marriage, “we were best friends for a long time, but the separation was good for us both in the end.”

Situational

In a recent US study, research scientists surveyed 495 people on the reasons why people cheat and how these reasons affect the length and intensity of the affair. One of the reasons they came across was purely situational; sometimes, you’re in the right place at the right time or, depending on how you view infidelity – the wrong place at the wrong time. Interestingly the study found that situational cheaters were less inclined to cheat out in the open, possibly because this indiscretion wasn’t planned, and they have no desire to leave their central relationships. Elsewhere in the study, it was noted that those who cited a situation as the primary cause of their infidelity were far less sexually satisfied, with much of the sexual activity being limited to kissing (86.7%) and cuddling (72.9%).

Need for variety or novelty

For some people, the thought of only having sex with one person for the rest of their lives is enough to send them running for the hills. Tara has always found it challenging to remain committed to one relationship sexually; as she explains, “I just feel that life is so short and I love to have sex, but after a while of being with only one person I feel an urge, it’s like a physical reaction that I find hard to control.” Tara explained this behaviour caused a lot of heartache in past relationships, so now she’s more open with partners from the beginning. “Now, I only engage in open relationships. Humans aren’t meant to be monogamous. It’s something we’ve convinced ourselves we should do, but it’s not real. It doesn’t make us happy.”

Interestingly the US study found that only one in five (20.4%) relationships ended because of one of the partner’s infidelity, and only one in ten (11.1%) affairs result in a longer-term relationship. This could be because of the stress and trauma that surrounds having an affair can negatively impact the new relationship or because often, the reasons for the affair are symptomatic of what is going on in the primary relationship. An affair is often a sign of dissatisfaction or unhappiness, but they’re not always driven by a genuine desire to split up. Infidelity can be destructive for couples and families and heartbreaking for the person who is on the receiving end, but maybe if we have more honest conversations about why people cheat, we can move beyond the good and bad binary and have healthier conversations about our relationships before they get to breaking point.

While you are here, make sure to check out our expert tips on how to cope with being cheated on.

Watching Women & Girls by Danielle Pender, £10.43 | Amazon
This moving collection explores how women and girls are looked at, look at one another, look at themselves, and how living as an object can shape their passions, fears, and joys. Danielle Pender considers sex, parenting, grief and class as lenses for the ways in which the world watches women — and how women are always watching back.
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Watching Women & Girls by Danielle Pender is out now and available at all major bookshops nationally.

Words by Danielle Pender, the founder of Riposte.

*Name has been changed to protect identity.

The Women's Prize for Fiction 2022 shortlist has officially been announced

jenny.proudfoot@futurenet.com (Jenny Proudfoot) — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 12:35:26 +0000

There’s nothing better than a good book, so the saying goes. And in times of uncertainty, we often find relaxation in escaping our own lives and delving into somebody else’s.

This has never been more true these past few years, when getting some time to ourselves for a good read has never been more important or restorative.

But what are the best books to read this year? Well, luckily, the Women's Prize for Fiction has announced its official shortlist, providing us with six must-reads for the year ahead.

The original longlist of 16 was released in March and narrowed down by an expert judging panel, comprising of Mary Ann Sieghart, Lorraine Candy, Dorothy Koomson, Anita Sethi and Pandora Sykes.

Here is the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022 shortlist

1. THE BREAD THE DEVIL KNEAD by Lisa Allen-Agostini

BUY NOW: The Bread the Devil Knead (paperback) - Waterstones, £8.99

Alethea Lopez is about to turn 40. Fashionable, feisty and fiercely independent, she manages a boutique in Port of Spain, but behind closed doors she’s covering up bruises from her abusive partner and seeking solace in an affair with her boss. When she witnesses a woman murdered by a jealous lover, the reality of her own future comes a little too close to home. Bringing us her truth in an unsparing Trinidadian voice, Alethea unravels memories repressed since childhood and begins to understand the person she has become. Her next step is to decide the woman she wants to be.

2. THE SENTENCE by Louise Erdrich

BUY NOW: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich (hardback) - Waterstones, £17.99

A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store’s most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls’ Day, but she simply won’t leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading ‘with murderous attention’, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation and furious reckoning.

3. SORROW AND BLISS by Meg Mason

BUY NOW: Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason (paperback) - Waterstones, £8.99

Everyone tells Martha Friel she is clever and beautiful, a brilliant writer who has been loved every day of her adult life by one man, her husband Patrick. So why is everything broken? Why is Martha – on the edge of 40 – friendless, practically jobless and so often sad? And why did Patrick decide to leave? Forced to return to her childhood home to live with her dysfunctional, bohemian parents (but without the help of her devoted, foul-mouthed sister Ingrid), Martha has one last chance to find out whether a life is ever too broken to fix – or whether, maybe, by starting over, she will get to write a better ending for herself.

4. THE BOOK OF FORM AND EMPTINESS by Ruth Ozeki

BUY NOW: The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki (paperback) - Waterstones, £8.49

After the death of his father, thirteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear the voices of objects around him: a broken ornament, a piece of lettuce, a pair of scissors. When his mother – struggling with grief, economic instability and life as a single parent – develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow ever louder. Benny retreats to his local library, where the books at least speak in whispers. There he meets a variety of others on the fringes of society who adopt him, including a teenage performance artist and a homeless, alcoholic philosopher – as well as encountering a rather special book: his book, the story of his life.

5. THE ISLAND OF MISSING TREES by Elif Shafak

BUY NOW: The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak (paperback) - Waterstones, £7.49

It is 1974 on the island of Cyprus. Two teenagers, from opposite sides of a divided land, meet at a tavern in the city they both call home. The tavern is the only place that Kostas, who is Greek and Christian, and Defne, who is Turkish and Muslim, can meet in secret. It is where one can find the best food in town – the best music, the best wine. But there is something else to the place: it makes one forget, even if for just a few hours, the world outside and its immoderate sorrows.

6. GREAT CIRCLE by Maggie Shipstead

BUY NOW: Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead (hardback) - Waterstones, £14.99

From the night she is rescued as a baby out of the flames of a sinking ship to the day she joins a pair of daredevil pilots, the life of Marian Graves has always been marked by a lust for freedom and danger. In 1950,she embarks on a Great Circle flight, circumnavigating the globe. It is Marian’s life dream and her final journey. She crash lands into the Antarctic ice and is never seen again. Half a century later, Hadley Baxter, a traumatised actor beset by scandal, is drawn to play Marian Graves in her biopic, a role that will lead her to probe the mysteries of the vanished pilot’s life.

The 26th winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction will be announced on Wednesday 15 June

Huge congratulations to all six shortlisted authors!

June Sarpong: 'The more women are empowered, the more men are released from the self-created bondage of patriarchy'

Andrea Thompson — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 09:34:07 +0000

June Sarpong’s name is synonymous with activism, with her iconic book The Power of Women hailed as a manifesto for modern women. Exploring gender equality and its essential role in our economic and social progress, June deep dives into sexism and how best to eradicate it.

‘Patriarchal rule means that men live in a subconscious perennial fear that one day women will rise up and make them surplus to requirements,’ June writes. ‘The reverse is true; the more women are empowered, the more men are released from the self-created bondage of patriarchy.’

Despite its original 2018 release, The Power of Women has never felt more relevant, with the pandemic exacerbating the impact of the patriarchy, disproportionately affecting women and deepening gender divides. In short, the world remains a very scary place to be a woman and June’s powerful words cut through the noise.

In the wake of the pandemic and the tragic murder of Sarah Everard, June reissued an updated version of her groundbreaking book, with new chapters on COVID-19 and safety, among others.

As the updated version of The Power of Women hits the shelves, June exclusively shared an extract from her new introduction with Marie Claire…

Extract from The Power of Women Words by June Sarpong

When the legendary fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg was eight years old, she met the mother of one of her school friends. This woman was a wife, mother and a successful businesswoman. In that moment Diane decided that this was the woman she wanted to be: ‘An independent woman, a woman who could pay for her bills, a woman who could run her own life - and I became that woman.’ As I rode with her in the elevator at the Women: Inspiration and Enterprise conference (WIE), I asked Diane for the one piece of advice that she would give any young woman starting out. She answered: ‘Clarity comes first. I’ve never met a woman who at her core isn’t strong. When we get together and bring out that side of ourselves, we really can change the world.’

The sort of effervescence that Diane von Furstenberg and others, like co-founder of Huffington Post Arianna Huffington, actress Helen Mirren, talk show host and producer Oprah Winfrey and model, actress and entrepreneur Iman, exude only comes with age, which is why I am perplexed by the way we treat women over the age of fifty in the West. As Western women age, society makes them feel more and more invisible: they disappear from television screens, magazine covers, billboards and mediums associated with allure and desirability. Surely we should revere these women, rather than cast them aside?

There is power in claiming every part of ourselves and the whole spectrum of our life’s journey. As a woman, self-acceptance will probably be the hardest thing you ever strive to attain, as with self-acceptance comes confidence. Everything in the patriarchy is designed for us to remain underconfident, softly-spoken, and unopinionated so that we never experience our full power during our lifetime.

The impact of the patriarchy has seemingly become exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. A survey carried out by the humanitarian agency CARE International found that women, who are generally far more likely to be employed by the service and informal sectors, have disproportionately been losing their jobs, and that they are 60 per cent more likely than men to report that this has had one of the biggest impacts on their lives. For many people who work in these sectors, unemployment benefits are not offered. In other areas where they are offered, such as the Côte D’Ivoire in West Africa, they are required to be paid to the head of the household – often a man – leaving some women without any compensation despite them often being required to buy and prepare all of the food for their family members. This, paired with a drastic increase in both domestic violence and in the amount of unpaid care work that women have been expected to carry out throughout the pandemic, has caused a global mental health crisis. In many ways, the pandemic hasn’t created these issues. It has only forced the fact that women across the world are still not being afforded the same job opportunities as men, and are still expected to take on the majority of unpaid care work, further into the spotlight.

It is vital, then, that we act on these statistics and push for change so that women’s rights do not regress in the face of this pandemic, and that instead we rise from it stronger. That is why it is now time for us to stand up and save ourselves spiritually, mentally, and physically. In so doing, I believe we can save humanity from a system that has been detrimental to everyone, including those who created it in the first place – cisgender heterosexual men.

Patriarchal rule means that men live in a subconscious perennial fear that one day women will rise up and make them surplus to requirements. The reverse is true; the more women are empowered, the more men are released from the self-created bondage of patriarchy. In doing so, men will no longer be forced to be in constant competition with one another, or to never be vulnerable, which contributes to so many mental health issues and suicides.

My encounter with Diane von Furstenberg happened in 2012 and has stayed with me ever since, forcing me to examine the woman I want to be and how I can overcome the impediments that prevent me from becoming her. The courage and confidence of women like Diane, created by her steadfast belief that everything she does is right for her, exemplifies why all women must decide who it is they want to be and then figure out how to become that.

We must encourage and empower each other’s dreams and ambitions. We must listen to each other’s fears and insecurities – but we must not allow ourselves to be paralysed by them. And we must challenge societal structures and institutions that hold female emancipation back.

I accept this is easier said than done, but for the sake of humanity we must try – the world is in crisis and needs women to help solve the serious issues such as climate change, poverty, injustice, gender discrimination, and barriers to education that threaten the very survival of our species. Despite women making up around half of the world’s population, there are so few of us working in the industries that are directly trying to tackle these problems. Just imagine what we could achieve if we had access to all that untapped brain power.

I am working on becoming the woman I want to be and still have a long way to go. Part of the reason for me writing The Power of Women is to help myself and others develop a clearer vision of who that woman is. Daily positive affirmations go a long way towards helping to challenge the kind of negative self-talk that many women are plagued with and that often hold us back. There are a number of inspirational affirmations and quotes that can be found at my brand, www.womanly.co.uk. I urge you to use these messages to help you to create a new self-image.

As women, we must all strive to ensure that, one day, we’ll look in the mirror to find the woman we want to be smiling back at us. When that moment happens, take a moment to revel in everything it took to become her.

BUY NOW: The Power of Women by June Sarpong

The Power of Women by June Sarpong is out now.

Katie Piper talks hope, life lessons and the transformative power of affirmations

jenny.proudfoot@futurenet.com (Jenny Proudfoot) — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 17:20:52 +0000

Katie Piper is positivity personified, known for inspiring and uplifting people across the world with her incredible story and hopeful outlook.

After surviving an acid attack in March 2008, resulting in major damage to her face and blindness in one eye, Katie has rebuilt her entire life, undergoing 400 surgeries to help correct her injuries and vision, and starting the Katie Piper Foundation.

Now aged 37, she is one of the UK's most inspiring leaders in positivity, receiving an OBE just yesterday for her services to charity.

Katie's story is an incredible example of the power of positivity over dark times, something she shares with her followers in the form of daily affirmations.

'The Affirmation Gang' has now become an online community of hope and positivity. And spreading the message even further, Katie has released A Little Bit of Faith, a beautiful book of 365 bite-sized affirmations to give people strength, confidence and practical life advice.

'Positive affirmations helped me in my darkest times to focus on my health and happiness, and to remember I was not alone,' Katie explained as she released her book. 'I know how well they worked for me in regaining my life, and now I want to share them with you.'

MC Features Editor Jenny Proudfoot had the pleasure of talking with the incredible Katie Piper after her book's release to find out more...

Congratulations on A Little Bit of Faith. What was it that inspired you to release it?

Thank you so much. It was actually during lockdown number one that I was inspired to write it, even though I’ve been a firm user of affirmations for many years. When the pandemic began, I struggled with a sense of purpose and direction because I was used to getting these feelings through my job. My followers and I began hunting and sharing affirmations by different authors, so I decided to put all our efforts to good use and turn them into a book. I think we can all relate to how difficult those months were (and still are for many), and it felt like an opportunity for me to help people in the midst of such uncertainty.

What role do affirmations play in your life?

Quite a big one actually – they form part of my daily routine, much like how brushing your teeth or a skin regime would. They help remind me to keep a positive mindset and provide the framework and tools to do that. Obviously, it’s not possible to be positive all the time and I don’t think we need to be. It’s human nature and necessary to experience the whole spectrum of emotions. But it is vital to remind ourselves of what’s important, what you’re surviving and pushing on for, and that’s what affirmations do for me.

How have affirmations helped you approach the world in a more positive way?

It’s about working to change your view of the world and remembering what you’re living for. It helps put things into perspective – what’s truly important? What makes you happy? It’s also about reminding yourself what’s positive about yourself and what you love about yourself. Keeping kind thoughts in your head and keeping negative ones out, reducing comparison between yourself and others and focusing inwards. Starting the day by saying something positive to yourself out loud just means you’re not starting the day with something negative, reducing time for critique. Ultimately, it’s a really useful tool to encourage positive approaches to life’s challenges.

Zak Walton

When did you first discover the transformative power of positive affirmations?

During my recovery I had a brilliant nurse who introduced me to the power of prayer, and since then I’ve discovered a huge array of tools to help keep a balanced life. I didn’t know how I would live the rest of my life - it was difficult to move past my feelings of anger and hurt. So, I researched positive thinking and how to not become bitter, and realised it’s about training the mind. I began writing affirmations and positive quotes and sticking them on the wall! It’s also something I’ve introduced to my children. We did a lot of affirmation crafts over lockdown and it’s helped to facilitate conversations with them about mindfulness, positivity and happiness. I think it’s important to introduce them to this kind of thinking because it’s such a helpful way to conceptualise life’s challenges. You may not be in control of what happens to you, but your power lies in how you react to the challenges in life.

Can you tell us a bit about that and 'The Affirmation Gang’?

The Affirmation Gang is the community of people I’ve connected with through social media, particularly Instagram, who believe in the positive power of affirmation. We share affirmations with each other from a huge range of sources.

Was it the reaction from that community that prompted you to write this book?

Yes absolutely. The community was so helpful and inspiring to me over lockdown and I wanted our efforts to be put to good use and spread beyond the Affirmation Gang. I knew other people would benefit from it. Sharing affirmations through a different medium would help reach more people because some aren’t active on social media or prefer to read from the pages of a book.

How did you compile the affirmations featured? Were they previously your favourites or did you source them specifically for the book?

So, this is an interesting question. The affirmations in the book are from a wide range of sources. Some of the affirmations I’ve made up myself, some are from brilliant historical figures such as Marie Curie or Florence Nightingale – some are from my amazing Instagram followers. As many know, I draw a lot of strength from my Christian faith, so it was only natural that I also drew from chapters in the Bible including the Gospels, Psalms, Romans, Job and Revelation.

Do you have a personal favourite affirmation?

I wouldn’t say there’s a favourite. I have some which I repeat or go back to more often than others, but on the whole, affirmations all strive to do the same thing. And that’s to help you find happiness and remind yourself of the strength that exists inside you.

What do you hope this book will bring your readers?

When I first began using positive quotes and affirmations I wasn’t wholly convinced myself. Some of them seemed cheesy and unrealistic. Slowly but surely though, the more I read them and took them in, the more power I gave them and the more positive I became. It definitely encouraged me to stay focused on the important things. I hope this is what it gives to my readers. The strength to remind yourself of what’s important and not to sweat the small stuff.

Zak Walton

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?

Oh that’s a difficult one! There’s lots of advice that’s been brilliant and life affirming for me. I’ll give you two. The first one is to remember that as long as you focus on your goal, it doesn’t matter how you get there. It will very likely not be a linear journey – you will face hurdles and go down roads which are dead ends and have to tread a (very) meandering route. But keep focussed and believe in yourself. You will get there. The second one would be ‘it’s not over unless you want it to be’. I suppose that connects quite nicely to the one above because it’s about remaining connected to your end goal. If you haven’t achieved it right now, that doesn’t mean you have to quit. You might just be at one of those dead ends we experience in life – it’s not over unless you decide it is – which is actually quite freeing as well if you think about it.

It’s so easy - particularly over the past few years - to slip into negativity. Why is it so important to affirm positive and hopeful thoughts?

In life we can get caught up in situations, dilemmas, jobs, friendships and desires that don’t serve us and make us feel negative about the world and ourselves. Positive thinking and hopeful thoughts provide a framework to move past these moments. They allow us to remind ourselves of what WE care about, what WE want for our lives and our loved ones. I think the most important thing is to try to always see what good can come from living. It’s what will help you carry on, pick yourself up when you fall and ultimately live a fulfilling life.

A Little Bit of Faith by Katie Piper is available to buy now, retailing at £14.99.

The best books of the year

sarahrose.harrison@futurenet.com (Sarah-Rose Harrison) — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 09:52:26 +0000

Christmas is just over a week away and the countdown to the end of the year has officially begun. Whilst it might feel a little early still to start thinking about new years resolutions, we thought we'd help you get ahead with some inspiration in the likelihood that 'read more' ends up being one of your new year's resolutions.

Whether you're aiming to read a book a month or just simply more than one, Amazon has helpfully rounded up their list of the best books of 2021. With a mixture of fiction and non-fiction, there's everything from Matt Haig's The Midnight Library (which has sold over 2,000,000 copies and counting) to Stacey Soloman's 'Tap to Tidy'.

Best fiction books of 2021

1. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

What's it about? Nora's life has been going from bad to worse. Then at the stroke of midnight on her last day on earth, she finds herself transported to a library. There she is given the chance to undo her regrets and try out each of the other lives she might have lived. Which raises the ultimate question: with infinite choices, what is the best way to live? Shop: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

2. Harry Potter Children’s Collection: The Complete Collection by J. K Rowling

What's it about? These irresistible editions, presented in a gorgeous slipcase featuring Hogwarts, are the essential Harry Potter. A must-have for every child at the start of the most magical reading adventure. These books are to be treasured and read time and time again, as readers lose themselves in the greatest children's story of all time.Shop: Harry Potter Children’s Collection: The Complete Collection by J. K Rowling

3. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

What's it about? For years, rumours of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life - until the unthinkable happens. Shop: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

4. Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

What's it about?

Inspired by the son of a famous playwright. It is a story of the bond between twins, and of marriage pushed to the brink by grief. It is also the story of a kestrel and its mistress; a flea that boards a ship in Alexandria; and a glovemaker's son who flouts convention in pursuit of the woman he loves. Above all, it is a tender and unforgettable reimagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.Shop: Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

5. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

What's it about? Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride. A counterpart to the privileged Thatcher-era London of Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty, it also recalls the work of Édouard Louis, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, a blistering debut by a brilliant writer with a powerful and important story to tell.Shop: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

Best non-fiction books of 2021

1. Pinch of Nom Quick &; Easy: 100 Delicious, Slimming Recipes by Kay Featherstone

What it's about? From all-in-one family favourites to batch-cook basics and speedy sweet treats, Pinch of Nom Quick & Easy is packed with dishes so delicious you won’t even notice they’re slimming. With tasty, satisfying meals such as Veggie Satay Noodles, Creamy Cajun Chicken Pasta and Apple and Apricot Oaty Crumble, you definitely won't feel like you're missing out. Featuring Pinch of Nom’s trademark big flavours, these recipes use easy-to-find ingredients to create meals that everyone will love – whether they’re watching their waistline or not. Shop: Pinch of Nom Quick &; Easy: 100 Delicious, Slimming Recipes by Kay Featherstone 2. Tap to Tidy: Organising, Crafting & Creating Happiness in a Messy World by Stacey Solomon

What it's about? From the beloved entertainer, Stacey Solomon comes a wonderfully accessible guide to crafting activities and organising your home that anybody can turn their hand to. Shop: Tap to Tidy: Organising, Crafting & Creating Happiness in a Messy World by Stacey Solomon

3. Jane’s Patisserie: Deliciously customisable cakes, bakes and treats by Jane Dunn

What it's about? Discover how to make life sweet with 100 delicious bakes, cakes and treats from baking blogger, Jane. Whether you're looking for a salted caramel fix or a spicy biscoff bake, this book has everything you need to create iconic bakes and become a star baker.Shop: Jane’s Patisserie: Deliciously customisable cakes, bakes and treats by Jane Dunn

Super Thursday: the books to preorder this Christmas

sarahrose.harrison@futurenet.com (Sarah-Rose Harrison) — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 17:56:31 +0000

When it comes to days of note, the 14th of October is a big one for avid readers. Why you might, rather rightly, ask? It's Super Thursday.

Super Thursday, as it's known within the publishing industry, is the day publishers launch their biggest titles in preparation for the Christmas market. Almost 300 hardbacks have been published today.

With a great mix of books from big names from the worlds of comedy, sports and food as well as a few up and coming authors and some much loved best-selling authors.

This Super Thursday is a little bit bigger as Amazon have also revealed their top ten pre-ordered books. Sharing a bit more of an insight into what to either expect in your stocking or, place on your Christmas wish list. Offering an insight into some of the wider trends from a full list of titles.

Lisa de Meyer, of Amazon Books UK, shared:

The top 10 include these five which are set to be epic page-turners:

The Christmasaurus and the Naughty List by Tom Fletcher
Silverview by John Le Carré
The Lord of the Rings: Illustrated Edition by JRR Tolkien
A Cook’s Book by Nigel Slater
Windswept & Interesting: My Autobiography by Billy Connolly

Qian Julie Wang on her undocumented childhood, the salvation of reading and her powerful new memoir

jenny.proudfoot@futurenet.com (Jenny Proudfoot) — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 14:53:52 +0000

Features Editor Jenny Proudfoot sits down with Qian Julie Wang for MC Book Club to talk memoirs, Middlemarch and the release of Beautiful Country…

You may not know the name Qian Julie Wang just yet, but you're certainly about to, with her debut memoir undeniably being the must-read book of 2021.

Beautiful Country follows Qian Julie’s 1994 move from China to America (the ‘Beautiful Country’) where she lived an undocumented childhood under the constant threat of deportation.

Now a managing partner of a law firm dedicated to advocating for civil rights, Qian Julie is lending her voice to those in need. And after years of living in secret, she finally wants to tell her story.

'I just felt like the secret was no longer mine to keep,' Qian Julie told MC Book Club. 'I owed it to everyone else out there that is still struggling with the very same issues that I feel deep in my body to share my experiences.'

As of this month, Beautiful Country has been released and it has unsurprisingly become an instant bestseller.

MC Features Editor Jenny Proudfoot named Beautiful Country her favourite book she had ever read, and so sat down with the wonderful Qian Julie Wang to talk memoirs, the shame in secrets and the salvation of reading...

Did you always know you wanted to tell your story?

I always wanted to share my story, even when I wasn’t talking about the past and didn’t tell anyone that I was undocumented. I always felt that I had this story burning inside me and it was frustrating to have it pent up in there. It was growing inside me and gnawing at my consciousness, so I think it needed to take this long for this book to come out and if I waited longer, it probably would have come out in a different form.

What was it that finally prompted you to write your memoir?

I didn’t decide to actually go forward with a book in real form until the 2016 election. I had become a citizen six months before then, and during the naturalisation ceremony, they put on the projector a video from President Obama and he opened with, ‘Greetings fellow Americans’. Those three words just completely unmoored me. I didn’t realise until that moment how much I needed to hear myself being called American. I had become American so very long ago but that term had always been denied to me, and to hear it coming out of the mouth of the President of the United States just shook something in me. Then in the six months thereafter, with all of the debates leading up to the election of undocumented immigrants being almost sub human, I found that I was receiving that messaging from a different place for the first time in my life. For the first time I felt that I had an immense privilege and responsibility to speak up because there were so many people still who didn’t have that choice. So I just felt like the secret was no longer mine to keep and that I owed it to everyone else out there that is still struggling with the very same issues that I feel deep in my body to share my experiences.

How do you start a project like that?

It took a lot of time because I hadn’t talked or thought about it for so long. I went into therapy and everyone that’s ever been into therapy knows that it’s completely earth shattering. You come out of the first session and you wonder if you’re buying this bagel for breakfast because of something that happened to you at nine years old. It just took me a lot of time to process and digest the immensity of everything that happened and also how much hold it still had on me. I mean, it almost dictated every single choice I made because I was still living in survival mode and this fear of being hungry, caught and in the spotlight. So, once all of that had happened, I had to force myself to start writing.

Talk me through your writing process…

It was very difficult, so I just gave myself a rule. As long as I was on my subway commute to work, I would have my phone out on my notes app and I would just type. I wouldn’t second guess myself and I wouldn’t stop to think about what would happen if my parents or the world read it. I had to force myself to cut that out and just get the story down on the page. I told myself that at the very least I would have it out even if I didn’t send it off for publication. I would have it for my grandchildren, and it would relieve some of this pent up need to tell this story.

It must have been challenging...

It wasn’t easy so I started with happier memories like eating pizza, discovering cheese for the first time, finding my favourite books and getting my cat. Then that kind of put a foot in the door to access the more difficult and painful memories. When I got to those, I became this kind of crazy woman sobbing into her phone on her public commute. I was working full time at a major law firm and I think the lack of time really helped me because I had this dedicated pocket of time in my day where I was just writing without editing. It forced me to get it out in a way that reading it back is incredibly raw and honest. If I had sat in front of a computer I don’t think it would have come out that way.

Was it cathartic to let go of the fear around telling your story?

Absolutely. I feel that the act of writing the book in itself without even submitting it for publication was transformative. It allowed me to heal because I was revisiting the past with my childhood self but also seeing it through an adult lens. And that’s essentially what you do in therapy - you re-parent yourself. What would you do if you were there with your childhood self? What would you tell that child? And in living through that process, I feel that I have healed a lot of those wounds that had stayed opened for decades. Those scars are always going to be there for sure and I will still have moments of irrational fear. I went to go get my COVID vaccine recently and the first thing they ask before they let you in the door is to see your legal ID. In the moment I felt an impulse to turn around and run away and I don’t know that any amount of healing, processing and writing can ever fully get rid of that urge, but I was able to fully recognise where it came from, and know that that is a different reality from the one I’m living in.

What did you learn through writing your memoir?

It really helped me to understand my parents and find empathy for them. For so much of my adulthood and my teenage years I blamed my father for a lot of what happened. I felt like he had made really bad decisions - we only came here because of him, my life was pretty good before coming here and I just saw him as a source of chaos. But revisiting those years and seeing what it must have been like for him - to be a man and feel responsible for two women who didn’t know English as well as he did and not be able to protect them. It must have been so incredibly painful and I see it now in him - the guilt and shame he still carries. So, I’ve actually got to know myself better over the course of writing this book and I’ve learned so much about my parents - even beyond what they’ve shared with me. I am just able now to step into their shoes and see those years from their viewpoint.

Did you recount everything from memory or did you document your experiences as you grew up?

I documented a lot. I was very inspired by the book Harriet the Spy and I had loads of notebooks and diaries where I would write down mundane details - things like that my classmate ate a strawberry shortcake popsicle every day after school. I just thought that if I wrote down all of these boring details, maybe one day I could solve some kind of major mystery that was in my world that never materialised. But then looking back I was like, “Oh thank you little child for writing all of this because now I remember”. It gave me so much insight into how much storytelling, books and narrative kept me alive and hopeful during those years. I always felt like I had a mission in life to solve some mystery and to write things down.

What role has reading played in your life?

It’s been my salvation. I internalised so early on how important literacy was. As I mentioned, my father was an English professor in China and we were always surrounded by books. My dad was always reading - either poetry, long-form novels or newspapers - so there were words all around me. And when I got here he said, “If you speak perfect English no one will ever suspect that you’re an immigrant, much less that you’re undocumented”, so the power of language was drilled into me. Of course it was in a different way than he intended, but as I set upon becoming a fully native speaker, I just fell in love with all of the stories. Books are so powerful because they give you insight into worlds that you don’t necessarily have access to. And for me, it was what it was like to be a normal American kid. I loved Babysitter’s Club and Sweet Valley High for that reason only - just that these people were living completely different lives than I was but not very far from me and in the same country. And to this day, I still have a soft spot in my heart for Connecticut and California because of those series. Then as I got older, I just fell in love with literature. I read Middlemarch by George Eliot probably at age 14 - way too early. I didn’t understand most of it, but I’ve reread it five or six times since and every time I reread any good book, I find new things that I take away from it. I find that these characters grow with me, and for a child who had to move around a lot and who didn’t have siblings or cousins, it feels like these people really are my family. They are my stead-fast companions and no matter where I go they’ll be right there waiting for me.

What book has had the biggest impact on you in life?

There’s a quote from Middlemarch that has stayed with me and grown with me since I first read it in early high school. “For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” So, the point being that it’s the daily lives of people that we don’t know and small everyday kindness that matters in changing the world. For a young teen who didn’t have much power or a platform, I felt that that gave me agency. Because every little thing I did could make the world better, whether it be just being nice to someone on the street or helping out an elderly person when I see them struggle in public. And as I have gotten older and had more tools at my disposal, that quote has never left me. I am fortunate enough to have a profession where I can affect the public good I hope, but it still stays with me that what I do in everyday life outside the courtroom and my office, matters just as much, if not more. It has given me a path to integrity - to be that same person no matter where you are and being driven by that same mission.

Is there a book that you’ve particularly enjoyed recently?

I read Detransition Baby and I absolutely loved it. It gave me insight into a world that I don’t readily have access to. It made me so aware of all of the privileges that I have and have taken for granted and never even thought about - just the feeling of being comfortable in your own body. Not to mention, the plot and the characters are so fully developed and vivid. I was just along for both the educational and eye opening value as much as for the entertainment, so I just think that Torey Peters is immensely talented and I’m really excited to see what she does next.

Will you write more books in the future or was it just this story that you needed to tell?

Oh I love writing. I shied away from it because I didn’t believe I could ever finish a book, so now that I have proved myself wrong, I’m just getting started. Maybe we’ve created a monster! I have started a second book - it’s a novel that’s set within a law firm so it kind of picks up on my adult experiences - as a lawyer, as a woman of colour, as an immigrant - but also I’m hoping will be more fun because there will be more humour and drama in it. I would eventually love to return to writing a memoir that picks up from this first book. I would want it to be more of an emotional memoir about the relationship between me and my mother as I grew up into adulthood and how our dynamics have shifted and very much stayed the same over the years.

Do you hope that your memoir will help other people to speak out?

Absolutely, even if they don’t do so in the public sphere. The act of keeping something private and secret, as I talk about towards the end of the book, imbues in you subconsciously a sense of shame. And that shame can cripple what you believe you are capable of - it can cripple the direction that your life takes.

Beautiful Country shines a light on the undocumented community - what message do you hope people will take?

It’s funny because I never conceived of my book as a message. I conceived it as a train ride through a different landscape - a landscape that is harder to get the keys to. So I think what I would love for people to take away when they disembark that train is that we are not that different. I myself have even been shocked by how many readers have reached out to me who have never immigrated. They have come from completely different places in life but reached out to say they related so much to the moments of childhood, discovery and fear that are documented in this book. That has been really liberating and empowering to me - to know that the shame and the experiences that I thought were singularly mine because of this ugly legal mark on our life are actually very common.

Is there an action that you hope readers will take from the book?

I would hope that readers think about childhood and how much of a hold it still has on us as adults. To not only take from that a need to revisit and repair their childhood selves but also think about how they are speaking to children. To think about how our education system is treating children and what marks that might leave in the long term on those people as they grow up, and on our society. I think that if we can treat children better, if we can learn to value them and their fierce resilience and vulnerability, our society will evolve into a much better thing than it is right now.

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang is available to buy now.

The best summer reads we can't put down

sarahrose.harrison@futurenet.com (Sarah-Rose Harrison) — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 17:09:52 +0000

Romance, mystery, and murder. Count us in. These are the Amazon best-sellers you're going to want to read ASAP.

Whilst summer days are usually the days in which you finally get around to ordering the books you've been eyeing up or recommended. Long days spent lounging around a pool or reclining in a deckchair on the beach provide the perfect opportunity to deep dive into the latest and most coveted summer novels.

These are our Editor approved books to add to your 2021 reading list

But, if like me, you've struggled during the pandemic to fully immerse yourself in a novel or, even get past the first chapter. Then this Edit of the most popular books of the summer will hopefully provide the inspiration you need.

From murder mystery to saucy romance novels there is an endless assortment of books ready for you to enjoy. We’ve turned to the best-sellers of Amazon’s self-help list. These are the most popular books people have been reading, re-reading and sharing over the past year. You're going to want to bookmark this page...

Shop the 10 most ready eBooks this summer, according to Amazon.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

What's it about? Between life and death is a library. When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change. The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger. Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?

Shop: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

What's it about? In a large house in London's fashionable Chelsea, a baby is awake in her cot. Well-fed and cared for, she is happily waiting for someone to pick her up. In the kitchen lie three decomposing corpses. Close to them is a hastily scrawled note. They've been dead for several days. Who has been looking after the baby? And where did they go?

Shop: The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

Choose Me by Tess Gerritsen and Gary Braver

What's it about? When Detective Frankie Loomis arrives on the scene to investigate the girl’s fatal plunge from her apartment balcony, she knows in her gut there’s more to the story. Her instincts are confirmed when surprise information is revealed that could have been reason enough for Taryn’s suicide―or a motive for her murder.

Shop: Choose Me by Tess Gerritsen and Gary Braver

Last Night by Mhairi McFarlane

What's it about? Eve, Justin, Susie and Ed have been friends since they were eighteen. Now in their 30s, the four are still as close as ever, Thursday pub quiz night is still sacred, and Eve is still secretly in love with Ed. Maybe Eve should have moved on by now, but she can’t stop thinking about what could have been. And she knows Ed sometimes thinks about it too. Then one night, in an instant, all their lives change forever. And, as Eve learns she didn’t know her friends as well as she thought, she also discovers she isn’t the only person keeping secrets…

Shop: Last Night by Mhairi McFarlane

Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

What's it about? 1957, the suburbs of South East London. Jean Swinney is a journalist on a local paper, trapped in a life of duty and disappointment from which there is no likelihood of escape. When a young woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. As the investigation turns her quiet life inside out, Jean is suddenly given an unexpected chance at friendship, love and - possibly - happiness.

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A Song for the Dark Times by Ian Rankin

What's it about? Centred on the disappearance of his daughter's husband and a set of family secrets that the maverick detective isn't sure that he wantsto uncover, A Song for the Dark Times is an intensely personal case for John Rebus

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Her Last Breath by Hilary Davidson

What it's about? When her beloved sister Caroline dies suddenly, Deirdre is heartbroken. However, her sorrow turns to bone-chilling confusion when she receives a message Caroline sent days earlier warning that her death would be no accident. Long used to being a pariah to her family, Deirdre covers her tattoos and heads to Manhattan for her sister’s funeral. The message claimed Caroline’s husband, Theo, killed his first wife and got away with it. Reeling from the news, Deirdre confronts Theo on the way to the cemetery, and he reveals both his temper and his suspicion that Deirdre’s “perfect” sister was having an affair. Paranoid and armed with just enough information to make her dangerous, Deirdre digs into the disturbing secrets buried with Caroline. But as she gets closer to the truth, she realizes that her own life may be at risk…and that there may be more than one killer in the family.

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Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

What it's about? For years, rumors of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life - until the unthinkable happens.

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That Night by Gillian McAllister

What's it about? What would you do for your family? Anything? During a family holiday in Italy, you get an urgent call from your sister. There's been an accident: she hit a man with her car and he's dead. She's overcome with terror - fearing years in a foreign jail away from her child. She asks for your help. It wasn't her fault, not really. She'd cover for you, so will you do the same for her? But when the police come calling, the lies start. And you each begin to doubt your trust in one another.

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The Serial Killer’s Wife by Alice Hunter

What's it about? Beth and Tom Hardcastle are the envy of their neighbourhood – they have the perfect marriage, the perfect house, the perfect family. When the police knock on their door one evening, Beth panics. Tom should be back from work by now – what if he’s crashed his car? She fears the worst. But the worst is beyond imagining. As the interrogation begins, Beth will find herself questioning everything she believed about her husband.

Shop: The Serial Killer’s Wife by Alice Hunter

Bella Mackie talks How to Kill Your Family and the rage she wants women to take from it

jenny.proudfoot@futurenet.com (Jenny Proudfoot) — Fri, 10 Sep 2021 16:20:29 +0000

With How to Kill Your Family hitting shelves this summer, Bella sat down with MC to talk crime fiction, writing female psychopaths and the role reading plays in her life...

You would have to be living under a rock not to have heard of Bella Mackie, with her acclaimed book, Jog On, getting many of us through lockdown (this writer included).

It is her fantastic new crime novel that has catapulted Bella back into the spotlight however, with How to Kill Your Family hitting shelves earlier this summer.

Think Killing Eve meets Apple Tree Yard - packed with dark wit and centred around a fashionable Villanelle-type anti-hero that all women will root for.

In short this book is a must-read, and in my opinion an important one, illustrating how the system is rigged against women and featuring references to the manosphere.

As Bella explained herself: 'This book is all about men having power over women and the system being rigged to make men win. So, while I do want it to be funny, I also want women to read it and feel that rage.'

Features Editor Jenny Proudfoot sat down with the wonderful Bella Mackie to talk How to Kill Your Family, writing female psychopaths and the solace of reading.

Was it a daunting move from non-fiction to fiction?

Definitely. Jog On was an unexpected success. They hadn’t ordered that many copies of it, I couldn’t find it in bookshops and then it suddenly did unexpectedly well. I think after that publishers were like ‘Oh what more could you write?’ and I had offers to do non-fiction projects that were quite similar. I just thought another non-fiction book might end up being a bit of a pale imitation and that I might not do it justice. But I thought if they like me and I have proved that I can write a book and hand it in on deadline, then maybe this is my shot to convince someone to buy some fiction off me. It was really daunting because I didn’t know how to write fiction - I’ve never done it before and I had no idea how to structure a novel. But I just thought that if there’s a time and an opportunity, it’s now so I’ve got to try.

What gave you the idea for How to Kill Your Family?

My dad used to read me a lot of true crime when I was growing up, and I’m talking when I was 8 or 9 years old. It’s actually so inappropriate for an adult to think that was a good idea and I’m sure that’s partly why I’m so anxious as a grown up. As I got older I think I found myself quite turned off by the grizzly way that female victims are reported on. So I stopped reading true crime and I started reading lots of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and all of these brilliantly intricately plotted things instead. I was always obsessed with motives - why people kill people - and for me, I think the best reason for murder is vengeance. So, I always thought at the back of my mind, if I could write a crime novel, I would want it to be a quaint and kind of funny story about murder and vengeance with a female protagonist.

Was it a more relaxing writing experience not having to recount your own life?

I didn’t mind the recounting my own life so much as I just had this desperate need to get the facts right for Jog On. With mental health you obviously feel a huge responsibility to get it right and I didn’t want to misrepresent anything or offer bad advice. I also wanted it to be inclusive and not just about me. To do that justice took a lot of research which I found quite daunting, whereas with this I could basically just write from my head. At first it felt really unnerving - I was like, ‘Is this ok? Do I have to research this?’ But after a while, it actually felt like a bit of a weight off and much more freeing than non-fiction where you’ve got to get it right.

Did How To Kill Your Family involve any research?

My book is not a hyper realistic depiction of anything so I had a lot of artistic licence and was free to write something that I thought would be fun more than anything else. But at the same time, as a reader myself I know that it can be an immediate turn off if a book feels completely unrealistic. I wanted to keep it within the realms of reality so I researched all the ways that everyone gets murdered to see what the feasibility of it all was. I was looking into smart houses and sex clubs - things like that, so the research was a bit more fun than with Jog On. And it was all much more about ensuring that a reader could go along with it, rather than having to get the facts right to avoid doing an injustice to people with mental health.

What do you hope readers will take from the book?

When I was writing the book I didn’t realise how angry some of it would be. I didn’t realise how much of my own rage towards men would be so explicit. That’s something that some readers have picked up on that I was sort of surprised by. So on the one hand, I don’t want it to be a preachy book at all. It’s not a book that you have to learn anything from, it’s a book that you’re supposed to laugh at - that’s what I really want. But on the other hand, it is also a book about how the cards are stacked and how terribly men behave in so many different ways - there’s sexual harassment, there’s bullying, there’s a lot going on there. This book is all about men having power over women and the system being rigged to make men win. I even rewrote parts because of it. So, I do want it to be funny, but I also want women to read it and feel that rage.

And from Inceldom to harassment, the book references a lot of important issues...

I just don’t feel like I’m an articulate enough writer in the real world to talk about this stuff with authority, especially when so many other women write about it so brilliantly. My contribution was to write it in a more funny way so that when women read it in this book they can nod and laugh. They can relate without thinking, ‘This is a terrible thing that is going to make me want to smack someone’. It’s kind of cathartic to be able to mock it in a book that probably not very many men will actually end up reading.

I found myself rooting for Grace...

I think it’s very interesting that every woman who has read it and liked it so far has said the same to me, that they really rooted for Grace. Because undeniably she is a psychopath and yet we sort of want her to win. I think it’s worth exploring that. It's the same way that women root for Villanelle in Killing Eve, and I think it's an interesting thing for women to explore why we’re not allowed to feel that way in our own lives but we can enjoy it in fiction.

Was it a challenge separating yourself from Grace in readers' minds?

I sent the first chapter I ever wrote to my mum and she said, 'This is your voice'. And I thought shit I’ve fucked this because it’s not supposed to be me, so I did have to be quite careful. But Grace and I did have a key difference that I liked exploring. We all have uncharitable thoughts in our day to day lives - you know the times you catch yourself and think, 'Where did that come from? That’s such an unkind thought'. But the difference between me and Grace is that I would always catch it and go, 'Oh that’s horrible/ that’s not fair/ why am I thinking that?' I really enjoyed exploring a female character who feels none of that. She doesn’t want to be likeable, she doesn’t want to be sympathetic and she doesn’t care for any of it. So for me, it was almost like writing a mirror image of a person that I could recognise bits of but who hasn’t had any of those things in life that mean you grow up with empathy or guilt etc. And obviously she grows up and murders a bunch of people, but isn’t it interesting thinking about women who aren’t constrained by those things? I found that really fun.

You must have had strange dreams while writing the book...

I had really weird dreams about the characters who I was trying to kill. I didn’t like any of the characters but I started feeling really guilty about killing them, which was quite a strange thing. I texted my mum one morning like, ‘I can’t kill the grandparents’ and she replied: ‘Just get them murdered’. She texted me every day asking if they were dead yet. So, yes I had weird dreams. I’m also now incredibly paranoid about anything that gets sent to my house because of one of the storylines. I’m absolutely petrified about where deliveries have come from, who sent it and what it is. So I’ve actually screwed myself with that because I never considered it before and now because of something I wrote myself, I’m terrified.

Let's talk naming characters...

They all started off as slightly different names but I kept finding myself giving them names of people I know, realising and having to change them. Actually weirdly just before it went to press, I looked through it again and thought, 'Christ that’s a name of someone I know - what have I done?!' And I had to call my editor and say, ‘I’ve just done a terrible thing - you’ve got to take it out!’ There are elements of all of these characters that I have based on people I have met. If any of those people read it, I would have a very hard time being like, 'No that’s a total coincide - I don’t know what you’re talking about'. So yes, there was thought behind it but it also got a bit close to the knuckle on occasions.

And what is your writing process?

Normally I was writing from about 9pm 'til 2am every day. Most of the day is taken up by other things, my husband goes to bed really early and I can't sleep until about 2am. So, when he goes to bed, I have a glass of wine, start writing and I don’t go to bed until really late. It's ridiculous and it’s not a normal way of living your life, but that’s how I wrote Jog On as well. It’s the only way I can do it and it’s the time of day when my head is quiet enough. And for this book, it worked quite nicely weirdly - writing a book about murder sitting there in the dark on your own.

What role does reading play in your life?

Reading was my entire childhood. I’m sure loads of people say this but growing up I was just the person that always had my head in a book. That’s until I was like 13 and found boys and then I don’t think I read anything for about five years before getting back into it! For me, it is just the purest escape and the books that you love - the ones that just stay in your head - will enrich your life forever. It’s the most wonderful thing.

Did you find books to be a particular solace over lockdown?

I thought that I was going to read through it, absorb books and just live through fiction, because who wouldn’t have wanted to spend the first three months of that terrifying time just away from your own head? But I think one of the weirdest things about the beginning of the pandemic (apart from everything) was the fact that I couldn’t read. I just could not get into a book, I had no attention span, I couldn’t do it. It was so sad. So, the joy in being able to read again was immense and I think it’s really nice that my book has come out this summer because it is an escapist read. People probably won't be able to go abroad this summer so it's something that I hope will take people away from their current situation for a couple of hours.

Hamnet just knocked my fucking socks off. I thought it was the most beautiful, empathetic book about love and motherhood. I read it when we were in lockdown and I hadn’t seen my mum for three months and so I think that’s why it punctured through to me. I just thought about my mum and how much love there is there, and that really comforted me at the time. I read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke for a Women’s Prize for Fiction podcast that I was doing and again, sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason but that was a book that just stayed in my head for weeks afterwards. I just thought it was an incredible feat of fiction. How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House really stuck with me too. It's really traumatic and it’s not one of those books that you’re going to read 'til 5am - I think you do have to take breaks in it, but it's amazing. There’s not a traumatic subject that she doesn’t touch on and in an interview Cherie Jones actually thanked the people who read it because she was aware that it’s not an easy book to read. It's heavy but I think the prose in it are just astonishing.

Let's talk non-fiction recommendations...

Non-fiction-wise there was a brilliant book that came out last year called Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb. It’s a very strange premise but it's the most astonishingly moving book. It’s a book written to her by her dead grandmother. It’s the most astonishingly moving book - I was just blown away by it. I cried the whole way through it, and again I think because I was reading about families in lockdown, it was one of those that really hit home at the time. My Name Is Why by Lemn Sissay which is again about family is an incredible book as well. It’s his memoir about being in the care system and for such a horrifying story, he is again so full of empathy and kindness - it’s astonishing. So, I have been really lucky to have read loads of books in the past year despite my initial fears.

How do you get through so many books?

I’m a really fast reader. I can read a book in like two hours - it’s my one huge skill in life. I mean I’m left-handed so I can’t write anything but I can read things really fast which is great. My husband always asks me to read things for him to save time because I can quite often pick up a book at midnight and then I’ve finished it by like 1.30am. It's brilliant. I probably absorb 20% less than an actual proper reader but it’s great for time.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Oh god, I don’t feel like I’m established enough to give advice. I think I would say to hold your nerve. You have to remember that there are phases to your writing. Quite often you will start something thinking you’ve got a great idea, you will write three chapters, you will hate it, you will write seven chapters and you will have forgotten what your plot was. The whole process is just so full of self-doubt, loathing and panic that you’re fucking it up, and so I think you always have to remember not to give up, delete it or throw it away. You’ve got to keep it until the end to get perspective on what you’re doing. I think when you’re in the tunnel, you just don’t know what it is yet and quite often your mind is just screwed by self doubt. So you’ve got to wait until it’s a finished thing to call a judgement on it and by then it’s normally much better than you think.

How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie is out now.

Georgia Toffolo talks romantic fiction, heroines being in control of their own narrative and her important new book

jenny.proudfoot@futurenet.com (Jenny Proudfoot) — Thu, 02 Sep 2021 15:15:26 +0000

As Meet Me in Tahiti hits shelves today, we sat down with Georgia Toffolo to talk writing female heroines, Instagram book clubs and the joys of a good read…

Georgia Toffolo’s name is synonymous with positivity. And from her celebrated TV presence to her social media activity, Toff’s infectiously sunny outlook is always at the core.

Her new novel, Meet Me in Tahiti, is no exception.

The third book in her Mill & Boon series hits shelves this week, centred around wheelchair user Zoe, and if a romantic fiction novel could give you an injection of Toff-like empowerment, this is it.

These books are far more than your average romantic fiction, with Georgia committed to tackling important issues, ensuring representation and writing strong heroines that are in control of their own narrative and sexuality.

In short, they are a must read.

With Meet Me in Tahiti released today, MC’s Features Editor Jenny Proudfoot sat down with the wonderful Georgia Toffolo to talk Instagram book clubs, writing female heroines and her recommended summer reads...

Getty Images (Image credit: SHEIN via Getty Images)

How do you feel about Meet Me in Tahiti’s release?

I am nervously excited as with anything I have ever written, but this is by far the most important story I have told. With Zoe being a wheelchair user, my main priority was telling her story in a brilliant and fabulous way but also being sensitive. And I hope you agree that I don’t shy away from Zoe’s disability. We wanted to shine a light on Zoe’s story and the stories of lots of other wheelchair users, so we teamed up with Whizz-Kidz and they have been totally fab, I can’t even tell you. They seem to think that we have told Zoe’s story well so I am very excited.

And with this being book number three, you’ve found a winning formula…

Completely. I just feel so strongly that the winning formula of writing when you’re an author like me is shedding a light on some really important issues facing loads of women today, but obviously with a light dusting of fun, female friendship and a bit of bonking. It’s trying to find that happy mix and I do feel as though with this book, I’ve done it.

Did you always know that you wanted to write a book?

Always. But I never thought in a million years that I would get the opportunity. When I was in school I was an enormous book worm - it was always my number one, but I never had the confidence until I was about 21 to even let anyone read my writing. I always wonder what I would have ended up doing if I hadn’t slipped on a banana and ended up on the telly. I always wanted to study law, but when I actually look back and think about what I was really good at, I think it would have been this.

What drew you to romance as a genre?

At the beginning I think it was simply because that’s what I love to read myself - romantic fiction novels are right up my strasse. I grew up devouring Jilly Cooper, David Nicholls, Sarah Morgan - that type of vibe. So I think it was a total given that I would end up in romantic fiction. It would have been silly for me to venture out into anything else. However, I am quite ambitious with my writing and at some point in the future I would love a new challenge where I can write a different type of genre. I don’t know why but I keep on fancying writing crime. We will see where it goes and at the moment I am very happy.

What do you want people to take from your heroines?

I put a lot of emphasis on my heroines. There is so much planning that goes into these girls and they are so well thought out. I want people to come away and think that these really strong women are in control of their own narrative and they’re in control of their sexuality. I want people to see that that is wholly represented in a romantic novel. The age-old traditional love story trope is still immensely successful - it’s a corker. But I hope people can see that you can have that fairytale love story but also tackle really important subjects at the same time.

Has your intention with writing always been pure escapism?

Completely. Arm-chair travel is my thing and god doesn’t everyone need it?! And retrospectively with my books being a bit romantic at a time when we weren’t allowed to see anyone and featuring foreign lands at a time when overseas travel was banned, they were the perfect storm for a pandemic. Of course when I was pitching these ideas to Harper Collins and Mills & Boon, I had no idea that we would be living through this, so it has been serendipitous. The pandemic has of course been awful, but I hope that my books have given people a bit of a lift and taken them to wonderful foreign lands. They are, as you said, proper escapism.

What role does reading play in your life?

Oh it’s huge. It’s everything. Whether I’m feeling sad, anxious, over-excited, nervously excited, I always seem to turn to books for the comfort. It has always been my escape. When everyone else is binge-watching famous films and TV programmes, I seem to be reading. Whether it’s an overwhelming period of my life that I need to get through or some sad inevitable moments that we all have, books are my comfort blanket. I don’t know what I would do without them.

Can we talk about your Instagram book club?

I try to be as authentic as I can on Instagram and I just love reading. Books probably aren’t the coolest content to talk about but it’s me and I think people actually love the authenticity. Also, I have really felt that there has been an enormous shift around reading, even in the past couple of years. There seems to be a change of thought - it seems to be quite cool now and I am thrilled. You have Emma Watson, Reese Witherspoon, all these really cool people running book clubs and I just hope that we keep riding the wave of reading being bloody cool again.

Did you find books to be a particular solace over lockdown?

Oh god completely. In the first lockdown because like everyone else I found that particularly hard, I turned to Midnight Chicken by Ella Risbridger. I can’t put into words how special this book is. I always turn to it. It makes you cry with happiness, it makes you cry with sadness, and I’m one of those strange people who can’t even make toast but I love reading cook books. The way that Ella writes for me is so captivating and raw, and it sort of documented my whole experience of being in quarantine. She writes so wonderfully about depression and feelings of sadness, but also elation. When she starts off the depression is so raw for her. She looks in the kitchen at this chicken and she sort of says to herself, ‘you are incapable of doing anything right now other than roasting that chicken so get up and do it’. And she writes it all down. It’s just amazing and for me, it was my lockdown novel. There were just stark periods of loneliness for so many people and christ I can’t imagine what some people went through, but for me Midnight Chicken was my old faithful. It just always seems to get me through. Whether it’s passing the hours by or comforting you emotionally, books can be very powerful.

Do you have any recent book recommendations?

I found One Hundred Summers by Vanessa Branson at the beginning of this year and I really enjoyed it. I didn’t know it when I started reading the book but she’s Richard Branson’s sister. And I just think the reason why I enjoyed it so much was the diversity of topics. Not only are you hearing about a woman’s life right from the beginning, but because she’s a Branson you’re also hearing about the build of one of the biggest businesses in the world. You hear about her parents, different parenting types and how they parented the Bransons, her grandparents, their lives, wars etc. And I think for me I just loved the entrepreneurialism when she talked about her family and the reasons why the Bransons are so high achieving. It’s just such a brilliant book - I was really shocked at how much I enjoyed it. Another great book that I only read last month is The Marlow Murder Club. It’s by Robert Thorogood, the chap who writes the scripts for Death in Paradise, and it’s a real page-turner. I love British murder mysteries and this one’s set in Marlow so there’s lots of talk about the Thames. The main character is this most eclectic and insane older lady who goes skinny dipping in the river and walks around in this big old floor-length Barbour with nothing underneath - it’s just so totally bizarre and funny, but it’s a brilliant murder mystery.

What message do you hope people will take from Meet Me In Tahiti?

What I really want people to take from this book is the importance of the language that we all use about disability. It’s a way that we can all influence society as a whole and therefore get more respect for disabled people. I also want people to take away the message that it’s ok to get it wrong - that at least we’re trying to give more representation and visibility to people who do live with disabilities every day. As Whizz-Kidz would always say to me, 'don’t worry if you say the wrong thing. You do not have a disability - you are learning. And it’s amazing that you are finding the right words to learn and raise the profile.’

Meet Me in Tahiti by Georgia Toffolo is available now in paperback, eBook and audiobook, by Mills & Boon, priced £7.99.

These are the books you need to read before their film adaptations hit the screen

jenny.proudfoot@futurenet.com (Jenny Proudfoot) — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 14:31:43 +0000

There's nothing more divisive than a well-known book-to-film adaptation. And from the screenplay to the casting, there's room to have an opinion on everything.

Was Anne Hathaway the Emma Morley you envisaged? Did Paul Mescal fill Connell Waldron's shoes the way you wanted? And did HBO's Big Little Lies stay true enough to Liane Moriarty's story?

Film and TV adaptations prompt question after question, but in order to have an opinion on them, you have to have read the book first.

With Netflix, Hulu and HBO pumping out non-stop book-to-film adaptations, there's plenty of stories to read up on.

Don't sweat it - we've done the hard work for you, rounding up the books you need to read before they hit the screen.

Here are some brilliant books to read before they hit the screen...

1. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Where the Crawdads Sing is one of the most anticipated book adaptations of the decade, spending 124 weeks on the bestseller list. Set in Barkley Cove, North Carolina, the story follows the life of Kya, known to locals as the ‘Marsh Girl’. Set in two different time periods, the chapters alternate between Kya’s childhood fending for herself alone in the marshes, and her adulthood, where she is made a suspect in the murder investigation of Chase Andrews.

With Reese Witherspoon at its helm, the film is set for a 2022 release, starring Daisy Edgar Jones. The female-led venture also sees Lucy Alibar writing the script and Olivia Newman directing.

2. The Last Letter From Your Lover by Jojo Moyes

The Last Letter from Your Lover is in cinemas right now, based on the best-selling book by Jojo Moyes. The romance is set in two different time periods, following a journalist who discovers a collection of love letters from the 1960s and sets out to find out more about the people behind them.

Directed by Augustine Frizzelle, this film has an impressive cast, starring Shailene Woodley, Callum Turner, Joe Alywn and Felicity Jones.

3. Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends is going down the same route as Normal People, adapted by the same team into a 12-part television series. The Hulu project, set for release in 2022, will star Alison Oliver, Joe Alwyn, Sasha Lane and Jemima Kirke.

The story is set in Dublin, following ex girlfriends and best friends, Frances and Bobbi, and the unexpected relationship that they embark on with the beautiful and successful married couple, Melissa and Nick.

4. Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan

Naoise Dolan’s debut novel Exciting Times is set to be adapted into a US TV series by Black Bear Pictures, with Naoise announced to be involved as an executive producer. The release date and cast have not yet been officially announced.

The story follows Ava, a millennial Irish expat living in Hong Kong, teaching English to rich children. She inevitably finds herself in a love triangle with a male banker and a female lawyer – both work obsessed and extremely intelligent – and is forced to choose between them.

5. House of Gucci by Sara G Forden

House of Gucci is perhaps the most highly-anticipated film of the year, with the Ridley Scott adaptation starring Lady Gaga, Adam Driver and Jared Leto. And let's not forget its wider cast of Jeremy Irons, Salma Hayek and Al Pacino.

Set for release in November 2021, the adaptation of Sara G Forden's book is inspired by the family empire behind Gucci and the real-life murder of Guccio Gucci’s grandson Maurizio.

6. Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Queenie was an instant hit after its 2019 release, following a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman navigating life post major break up. Hailed a must-read, it was unsurprisingly picked up for a TV adaptation.

The cast and release date are yet to be announced but we do know that Queenie was bought by Further South Productions and is being penned for Channel 4 by Candice Carty-Williams herself.

7. Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

Liane Moriarty’s best-selling book, Nine Perfect Strangers, has been turned into a Hulu drama mini-series, set for release on 18 August. Cast-wise, it's star-studded, with Nicole Kidman at the helm. Also joining her are Melissa McCarthy, Samara Weaving, Luke Evans and Bobby Cannavale.

The premise is simple - nine people gather at the Tranquillum House Resort for a 10-day wellness retreat held by Masha, a Russian businesswoman turned wellness guru. While they have come to heal and practice self-acceptance, they quickly find that the retreat is not what they signed up for.

8. She Said by Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor

She Said tells the very real story of the New York Times Harvey Weinstein exposé, written by the reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor about their experience unearthing and breaking the story. Now, it is coming to the big screen, starring Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan as the two journalists.

There is no release date yet, but the female-led film is set to be adapted by Rachel Lenkiewicz and directed by Maria Schrader.

9. The Pisces by Melissa Broder

Melissa Broder’s bestselling 2018 book The Pisces is being adapted for the big screen, with the author herself set to direct and co-write the script. And while there is no release date yet, the lead actress has been confirmed as Claire Foy.

The unusual story follows Lucy, a depressed PhD student who travels to Los Angeles to dog sit for her sister and ends up falling in love with a Venice Beach merman.

Happy reading.

These are the editor-approved summer reads I'm investing in this season

jenny.proudfoot@futurenet.com (Jenny Proudfoot) — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 11:22:29 +0000

The sun is shining, the pandemic is no longer confining us to our homes and as the world re-opens, we are starting to get excited about the fast-approaching summer holidays.

Whether you’re taking a gamble and booking abroad or playing safe and sticking to UK staycations, one essential remains a constant - the ultimate summer read.

There’s nothing better than a good beach read, and whether you’re reclining on the sand in Bali or on the pebbles in Brighton, a gripping page-turner is a must.

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What are the best books to read? That's where I come in.

The selection of a good summer book is actually quite tricky. You have to strike the perfect balance between easy reading and a gripping plot, with a non-embarrassing cover so as not to hinder your ability to sunbathe in full view. I learnt the hard way with Chris Kraus’ cult feminist novel I Love Dick on Ipanema Beach - I’m still living it down.

This summer, I’ve done the heavy lifting for you, collating my top recommendations for summer reads this year.

Here are my 17 top summer reads this year...

1. Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner

What's it about? Crying in H Mart is a powerful debut memoir by indie musician Michelle Zauner. Growing up Korean American in Eugene, Zauner recalls her increasingly distant relationship with her ‘koreanness’ and how it was her mother’s terminal cancer diagnosis that prompted her to reclaim her identity.

BUY CRYING IN H MART BY MICHELLE ZAUNER

2. No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

What's it about? No One Is Talking About This is an important comment on social media, following a famous influencer whose existence revolves entirely around her online identity. When she is hit with a personal tragedy, the two worlds are put in sharp contrast and she is reminded of the love and kindness in the real world, as well as the importance of genuine human connection.

BUY NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS BY PATRICIA LOCKWOOD

3. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

What's it about? The Vanishing Half follows identical twin sisters, Stella and Desiree, who both ran away from their small, Southern black community aged 16. Ten years later and now estranged, the Vignes twins are living completely different lives - one in the same southern town with her black daughter and the other secretly passing as white. That is, until their own daughters’ lives start to intersect.

BUY THE VANISHING HALF BY BRIT BENNETT

4. Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters

What's it about? Detransition Baby is an important read, following three characters whose lives are brought together through an unexpected pregnancy. Reese, a transgender woman who has always wanted children, is at its centre, linking together Ames, her ex who detransitioned after living as a transgender woman called Amy, and Katrina, Ames’ cisgender boss who has become pregnant through their affair.

BUY DETRANSITION BABY BY TORREY PETERS

5. How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones

What's it about? This gripping book is about women’s survival. Set in Barbados beyond what the tourists see, the story follows three complicated marriages against the backdrop of poverty and violence. At its core is the cautionary childhood tale of the one-armed sister - a warning of what happens when young girls disobey their mothers.

BUY HOW THE ONE-ARMED SISTER SWEEPS HER HOUSE BY CHERIE JONES

6. Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

What's it about? Transcendent Kingdom follows Gifty, a Ghanaian PhD student of neuroscience living in Alabama with her suicidal mother. Gifty is determined to get to the bottom of her family’s suffering, studying the neural circuits of depression and addiction in her science but also rediscovering her childhood faith.

BUY TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM BY YAA GYASI

7. Love In Colour by Bolu Babalola

What's it about? Love in Colour is a retelling of mythical tales from around the world. From Greek mythology to West African folktales, this collection of female centred love stories, rewritten by Bolu, brings forgotten and unknown ancient stories back to the 21st century.

BUY LOVE IN COLOUR BY BOLU BABALOLA

8. Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

What's it about? Sorrow and Bliss is a beautiful (and important) read about mental health. The novel follows Martha, a middle-aged woman struggling with depression who is forced to return to her childhood home to live with her dysfunctional family in order to give life another go.

BUY SORROW AND BLISS BY MEG MASON

9. Ghosts by Dolly Alderton

What's it about? Ghosts follows Nina, a writer in her early thirties who (like many of us) is just trying to navigate life. But with her friends settling down and moving on, her father fading into dementia and her mother trying to reinvent herself, Nina's life starts to fall apart, especially when she falls into a relationship and starts leaning on the wrong people.

BUY GHOSTS BY DOLLY ALDERTON

10. Care Less by Kirsty Capes

What's it about? Care Less is a powerful coming-of-age debut following Bess, a young neglected teenage woman living on the edge of society who becomes pregnant. With no one to turn to or looking out for her, she's just trying not to fall between the cracks.

BUY CARE LESS BY KIRSTY CAPES

11. How Do We Know We're Doing It Right? by Pandora Sykes

What's it about? How Do We Know We're Doing It Right is a collection of essays on modern life, hailed as a manifesto for 21st century women. Deep diving into cancel culture, modern work/life balances and the wellness industry among other topics, Pandora analyses the overwhelming choices and monumental pressures facing us today.

BUY HOW DO WE KNOW WE'RE DOING IT RIGHT? BY PANDORA SYKES

12. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

What's it about? Shuggie Bain is a heartbreaking debut novel by Douglas Stuart set in a Glaswegian mining town in the eighties. Living in poverty with an absent father and an alcoholic mother, the three Bain children are forced to fend for themselves while trying to save each other and create a better life.

BUY SHUGGIE BAIN BY DOUGLAS STUART

13. Sunset by Jessie Cave

What's it about? Jessie Cave’s debut novel follows two sisters, Ruth and Hannah, who are polar opposites but bonded to the core in love and friendship. After a devastating summer holiday, everything changes and Hannah is left alone and heartbroken, forced to put herself back together.

BUY SUNSET BY JESSIE CAVE

14. They Both Die At The End by Adam Silvera

What's it about? They Both Die At The End is a novel following two young strangers, Mateo and Rufus, who find out that they have less than 24 hours to live. Making their last day count, they meet on an app called ‘Last Friend’ and join forces to go on one final adventure.

BUY THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END BY ADAM SILVERA

15. We Are All Birds Of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan

What's it about? We Are All Birds of Uganda is spread over 60 years. It follows two men - Hasan, a widower struggling to look after his family in 1960s Uganda as a new regime seizes power, and Sameer, a successful young lawyer in present-day London, returning to his family home due to a tragedy and discovering his heritage.

BUY WE ARE ALL BIRDS OF UGANDA BY HAFSA ZAYYAN

16. If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha

What's it about? If I Had Your Face follows four young women navigating contemporary Seoul, Korea, exploring the social hierarchies and impossibly high standards of beauty. From the normalisation of extreme plastic surgery and K-Pop obsession to room salons and the people who work there, this book gives an insight into being a woman in modern day South Korea.

BUY IF I HAD YOUR FACE BY FRANCES CHA

17. Nothing But Blue Sky by Kathleen MacMahon

What's it about? Nothing But Blue Sky follows bereaved husband David following the tragic death of Mary Rose, his wife of 20 years. Coming to terms with his grief and reflecting on their marriage, David learns more about his late wife and whether he knew her or himself at all.

BUY NOTHING BUT BLUE SKY BY KATHLEEN MACMAHON

We want to hear your recommendations.

Contact us @MarieClaireUK or @jenny_proudfoot to tell us your top summer reads!

Candice Brathwaite: Why are we still so obsessed with what men think of women?

Maria Coole — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 15:54:20 +0000

As her much-anticipated second book Sista Sister hits the shelves, bestselling author and activist Candice Brathwaite tells us what she wishes she'd known about relationships, interracial dating, and dulling your shine to get someone to like you.

Words by Candice Brathwaite

Growing up, I realised early on that women seemed to be obsessed with what men thought of them. The popular reading material at the time was books such as Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus and He’s Just Not That Into You. Oh, and it wasn’t just the books. The most popping movies all seemed to be centred on a woman getting her heart broken or getting over a heartbreak. Even the more age-appropriate shows – mostly American sitcoms like Moesha, Sister, Sister and my favourite movie/sitcom of all time, Clueless – seemed to be comfortable in regurgitating storylines that always showed girls wanting to get a guy to notice them.

'It’s galling to think we are in a time where women still feel judged by their relationship status'

I am deeply concerned by how becoming someone’s wife is still being upheld as the ultimate prize. Recently I came across a person’s social media profile. In the space for the biography it simply said ‘Wife’. OK, I’m lying, there was also a ring emoji. But that was it. Just ‘Wife’. I slowly tilted my phone back and forth as if it were a hologram about to reveal something else, but of course nothing else appeared. Long after I had found another way to fill my time, I could not help but wonder who this woman was. What was her name? What did she enjoy doing? Was she a receptionist? A dancer? A neurosurgeon? And why on earth did it bother me so much that the only thing she wanted to share was the fact she was married.

Sista Sister by Candice Brathwaite (hardback) – £16.99 | Waterstones
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I know that as a feminist, I should be able to let it go, as that was her choice. But I couldn’t help it. Even though I have a significant other with two children and a dog, this is not the information that I like to lead with. It’s galling to think we are in a time where women can do many things, including be vice president in the highest office in the land, and yet some of us still feel silently judged by society based on our relationship status. Although I understand the pressures, I personally feel like announcing the fact that someone wanted to make you their wife is . . . boring. Not only that, it implies that anything else you have achieved is simply a stepping-stone to that point. Now, more than ever, I would love to see all talk of marriage, babies and relationships to be add-ons, the appendix, something that is separate to one’s core identity rather than a definition of one’s worthiness as a woman.

Since the beginning of my time, I have had front row seats to watching black women sacrifice every molecule of themselves to bag a man. I have also watched too many black women allow their spirits to curl up and die because being in an unhappy relationship seemed better than being in no relationship at all.

'A marital status is no substitute for a personality trait'

I think it’s important to encourage women to go where the love is. So, if that means widening your dating net to experience being with people who aren’t the same race as you, I would ask you to do that without hesitation. As a black woman I have found that dipping my toe into the interracial sea has not been without its choppy waters. After my experiences with men of a variety of races, I think it would be insincere of me to preach that this should be the first or only kind of love black women specifically should be looking for. The reality is that black women have got to align themselves with the idea that we are entitled to go where the love is, whatever the colour. Even if that makes others uncomfortable.

Few things make me feel sadder than to watch these women contort themselves into becoming everything they have been tricked into thinking the opposite sex will find attractive, only to end up in relationships which over time loose their shine. Not only will they have settled for less than they deserve, but they have also perhaps offered up a version of themselves which is not a reflection of their most authentic selves at all. When we step away from the archaic societal expectations of heterosexual long-term relationships, it’s amazing to see how many versions are on offer, if we’re able to put the judgements of others on mute.

What I wish I’d known:

Black women specifically should not feel indebted to the idea of a relationship that is so often withheld from them. Confidently go where the love is.
A marital status is no substitute for a personality trait.
The love you receive from another cannot match the love you have for yourself.
Like all relationships, interracial ones take work. And it is never too late to check if you are being fetishised or used as a preference to dissolve self-hatred.

The View Was Exhausting co-authors Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta on the romance of friendship

kate.mccusker@futurenet.com (Kate McCusker) — Sat, 10 Jul 2021 07:00:37 +0000

'When we’re writing, we try to imbue our friendships with just as much emotion and care and tension as a romantic relationship.' Partners in life and writing Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta talk love and friendship in their dazzling debut novel, The View Was Exhausting.

Words by Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta

Last year, after three months of strict lockdown in our Berlin apartment, we saw our best friends again. Of course, we’d seen them during the first horrible wave of the pandemic: glitching over our crappy connections in the world’s brief and obsessive flirtation with Houseparty; pretending a Zoom pub quiz was just as good as the real thing; sending bored selfies from our couch to theirs. But when the lockdown eased enough for us to meet in a park on our separate picnic blankets, their faces seemed newly alive to us, their idle gestures freshly fascinating. We were so excited to see them, and so out of habit with being around other people, that we were basically spitting with every thrilled exclamation, and the only thing that mitigated our embarrassment was that they were just as excited to see us.

There was something weirdly moving about being reunited with our friends. It was the same little shock of tender affection as when another friend brought us a sweet card and candle after our cat died, or when a friend and her boyfriend baked the childhood birthday cake of Mikaella’s dreams from a cult 1980s Australian recipe book.

'There is a little kernel of romance in each friendship'

Because good friends love one another, there is a little kernel of romance in each friendship, that same excitement and mystery that makes our hearts beat faster on a date or anniversary. When a friend reaches out, we often have the same fluttery delight as a crush – without the sickening anxiety about whether they like you back.

In romcoms, the heroine’s best friend is a staple of the genre, so much so that Judy Greer wrote a whole memoir about playing the role. The popular romcom choice is to have them be the opposite of your main character – if your heroine is straight-laced and uptight (the Katherine Heigl type), give her a laidback bestie with a cocktail straw between her teeth and her eyes on a boy; if your heroine is wacky and wild, give her a best friend chasing desperately after her and shouting ‘at least put some underwear on!’.

The View Was Exhausting by Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta (Hardback) – £18.99 | WaterstonesView Deal

Either way, a really good fictional friendship – whether in a classic work of literary genius or a horror B-movie – should feel as lived in and fleshed out as you and your own favourite pal. And a romcom is particularly poised to do this, because love and care are at the heart of the genre, ready to be expressed not just between our main couple but between our heroine and her best friend too. A good romcom will show us just why our heroine and her best friend are so drawn towards one another, the invisible strings and intricate history that bind them. We might not see all of this history, but the sense of it should be there, thrumming below the surface.

'We wanted them to love each other and drive each other crazy'

As a writer, you want to almost imply that it’s just luck of the draw that your heroine’s best friend isn’t, in fact, your heroine. They should be just as real a person, just as developed a character; we should give our fictional friends the same respect and interest we give our real-life friends. A stand-in best friend who is there to cheer the hero on and explain plot to the audience will do the trick, but they will rarely move anyone. When we wrote The View Was Exhausting, we wanted our heroine, Win, to have a friend who had her own desires and ambitions, which were sometimes contradictory to Win’s. We created Shift, our addition to that great romcom best friend tradition, not just to support Win, but to challenge her. We wanted them to love each other and drive each other crazy.

When we’re writing, we try to imbue our friendships with just as much emotion and care and tension as a romantic relationship. The focus of the novel might not be the friendship, of course, but that kernel of romance in the heart of the friendship will make the pages where it is the focus come alive. In the same way, most romances do well with a kernel of friendship at their heart: an assurance that our main couple will want to talk to one another, spend time with one another, be interested in one another even if they’re not in the grips of passion or infatuation.

Last year, we got married to each other (for the second time – it’s a long story). It was a long, lovely, stressful day, as weddings tend to be, a blur of family and friends and gripping each other’s hands white-knuckled. But one of the clearest moments that springs from it is when someone spilled curry on Mikaella’s white silk shirt, leaving both of us staring stricken at one another until Onjuli blurted out, ‘I’ll go get Sophie!’. Our best mate (and maid of honour) descended upon us like a dream, deftly scrubbing out the stain with nothing but hand soap and a paper towel, all of us grinning and knowing that this was another moment in the mythology of our friendship, right here in the making.

Jack Guinness breaks down how and why you should immerse yourself in Queer Culture this Pride

Maria Coole — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 09:59:28 +0000

'The person I am today has been shaped and influenced by so many queer heroes. We stand on the shoulders of giants.'

Words by Jack Guinness

Queer culture is all around, whether you realise it or not - and no, I'm not just talking about Drag Race slowly taking over the world.

It has shaped our culture and history - from the music we dance to, the sports we watch, the books we read, to OBVIOUSLY, the clothes we wear! Yet for too long, LGBQT+ narratives have been hidden, for people's own safety, or forcibly erased. Just look how national hero Alan Turing was treated, his legacy until recently, straight-washed.

It gives me so much joy to see projects like the television show Gentleman Jack reveal the hidden lesbian history of Anne Lister, or Pose teaching younger generations the story of the Black, Latinx, gay and Trans communities’ struggles and triumphs during the AIDS crisis.

The Queer Bible, edited by Jack Guinness

The Queer Bible is about bringing those stories out in the light to be celebrated.

The book contains essays written by my queer heroes about the trailblazers who changed their lives - from the famous, like George Michael, to unsung heroes like intersex campaigner Pidgeon Pagonis (did you know that globally there are a similar amount of intersex people as red heads? I didn't!).

I come to The Queer Bible as someone that wants to learn more about my own community’s history - to learn about people different from me, and explore what we have in common. I want queer people to not just survive, but to thrive, knowing that they walk in the footsteps of the bravest, fiercest, most inspiring people to walk the face of the planet.

Jack Guinness courtesy of Elite Model Management London

The person I am today has been shaped and influenced by so many queer heroes. The soundtrack to my life has been queer culture: laughter with my first gay best friend Kele, solace in the writings of James Baldwin, Walt Whitman’s magic words made me fly, Bronski Beat released my tears, Audre Lorde gave me strength, I sung karaoke to George Michael’s 'Freedom', I worshipped the stars of 'Paris Is Burning', I drank with Drag Queens till sunlight when I ran off to New York aged eighteen.

In these politically unstable times, with LGBTQIA rights under threat the world over, this book and celebrating queer culture couldn't be more necessary - connecting us through our shared history, and allowing people to tell their own stories in their own voices.

Jack Guinness c. Sam Russell Walker

From the outset, I saw The Queer Bible as a platform to elevate, celebrate and amplify the voices of our community. It is also, most importantly, a celebration! These stories will make you laugh, cry and want to blare your favourite queer tunes out and dance! Pride started as a protest, but it is also about celebrating despite those that would silence us.

I’m so happy that this collection shines a light on members of our community who so often aren’t given the attention or accolades they deserve. I hope that the range of voices, the varied stories, and the memories shared speak to the richness and diversity of our global queer community. We stand on the shoulders of giants.

RuPaul c. Adam Johannesson 2021

IMMERSE YOURSELF IN QUEER CULTURE THIS PRIDE:

BOOKS:

First up, here are a few of my favourite LGBTQ+ books:

Orlando by Virginia Woolf - way ahead of its time, an exploration of gender, sexuality and personal continuity over time. If you want to just watch the film, Sally Potter's version starring Tilda Swinton and Titanic's Billy Zane is genius.

The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs - this book saved my life. Downs explores how growing up queer in straight world damages you and offers a path towards healing and self acceptance. Reading this book just makes you a better person.

The Book Of Queer Prophets - Ruth Hunt’s collection of essays reconciling and wrestling with religion and sexuality.

Me by Elton John - my dream-come-true Queer Bible contributor charts his epic life in this brilliantly written memoir. This man has LIVED. The story about hiding from Andy Warhol made me wet myself a little bit. Add in his work with the Elton John AIDS Foundation and you've got yourself a living legend.

Divine c. Cheyne 2021

LIVE:

Go and visit your favourite queer venue - support your local drag queens!

My favourite venues are The Glory, The Royal Vauxhall Tavern and The Queen Of Adelaide. I can't wait till we can dance again on a sweaty dance floor.

WATCH:

Watch Queer Bible contributor Mae Martin's Feel Good on Netflix - hilarious, important, and brilliantly written. Plus, it has Lisa Kudrow in it.. doesn't get better!

THE QUEER BIBLE, edited by Jack Guinness, is published on 17th June in hardback, eBook and Audio Download (HQ, £20)

Pandora Sykes: ‘If we could just strive for things to be good enough, it would be so freeing’

jenny.proudfoot@futurenet.com (Jenny Proudfoot) — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 15:12:39 +0000

Features Editor Jenny Proudfoot sits down with bestselling author Pandora Sykes for MC Book Club to talk lockdown, Life Lessons festival and the paperback release of How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right?...

You would have to be living under a rock not to have heard of How Do We Know We're Doing It Right?, with Pandora Sykes' collection of essays hailed as a manifesto for modern women.

Deep diving into cancel culture, modern work/life balances and the wellness industry among other topics, Pandora analyses the overwhelming choices and monumental pressures facing us today. But packed with her trademark wit, wisdom and philosophical references (if you know her, you know), this book is the opposite of doom and gloom.

Instead, her judgement-free observations are reassuring, comforting and wholeheartedly uplifting, encouraging readers to stop trying to shortcut to immediate answers but to live the process and delight in life's questions.

With the paperback hitting shelves this summer, the world has changed considerably since its original release, but strangely post-lockdown the essays appear to be even more relevant.

It's hardly surprising therefore that Pandora has been asked to headline Life Lessons Festival next month, speaking in conversation with MP Jess Phillips about big ideas for living a better life.

‘I will be doing a conversation with Jess Phillips which is really exciting,' Pandora explained of the July session. ‘I love Jess - she's fab, so I feel very honoured'.

To find out more, Features Editor Jenny Proudfoot sat down with the wonderful Pandora for MC Book Club. Together they talked lockdown, life lessons and why we should be aiming for good enough over perfect.

Congratulations on the new paperback. Why was writing an updated 2021 prologue important for you?

I think it's always nice with a paperback to offer a little something else and also I think it's an opportunity to reflect on how that material might have changed since it came out. Obviously when you're writing essays about life, they could have changed in loads of ways. Interestingly I thought they might date more quickly than I feel they have. I hope there's lots in there that still feels really relevant for now but I suppose I wanted to couch it with a ‘wow, what a year it's been since I finished this’. And with the prologue, there was a specific tone that I wanted to get with it. It's obviously been a devastating year for so many people and a year of great change and confusion for us all, but I didn't want it to be doomy or falsely optimistic. I think there’s a difference between optimism and hope, and what I wanted it to feel was hopeful. To feel that maybe we should use this as an opportunity to do things differently and to feel hopeful about what that could look like.

It must have been a challenging task because this year has been so different for everyone...

It's been a suspension of life as we know it and it has been so different for everyone. For some it’s been 'The Great Pause', but then I think that can sound really insulting to others who are like ‘It hasn’t been a pause, it’s been so hectic’. Some people have felt comatose, paralysed, bored out their skulls, but then other people who are homeschooling with full-time jobs have not had a moment to think which is equally damaging. I think there’s damage from all spectrums. Neither is optimum. You need some time to yourself, but you also need social interaction and interruption.

You write about the general loss of control that we have all felt this past year. Have you found it to be a liberating experience?

I think for people who are controlling or would self-define as control freaks then the year was a challenge, but probably quite a good one. I was very controlling about my standards of performance - the way I needed to get things done and the amount of things I needed to get done within a period of time. Over lockdown I kind of went through a process of de-routining myself. It was countercultural because obviously this was a time where people were being told to have a routine to keep themselves sane, but I actually felt like I had got too routined and was slightly imprisoned by it. I had also just had my second child and I think there's always a period of renegotiation when you have another child, so I sort of just decided to throw things up in the air a bit more. I do feel less controlling now, however I think the two unfortunately are in tandem with me as I'm also much less efficient. Despite having barely left the house this year, I don't know where my credit card, passport or keys are, I’m late for every deadline and I'm late for every meeting. That’s clearly what happens when I relinquish some control but I’m kind of OK with it because I do feel free-er in my mind and that’s a really nice feeling when you're trying to create stuff. That sounds really wanky but I don't really know how else to put it.

Was the aim of these essays always to comfort and reassure?

Definitely. It felt like quite a difficult tightrope to balance in that I've never been interested in being provocative but I wanted to provoke. I wanted to ask questions but I didn't want the reader to come away feeling more depressed and confused. The whole point was to offer a clarity just by laying things out and saying how I saw it. To say, 'just so you know this is perhaps the place that you sometimes operate from with your thinking'. And really to make people (myself included) realise that our decisions and choices are rarely made in a vacuum - that those choices and the context is very often loaded. But I think in order to do that I was probably asking the reader to slightly part ways with their ego.

I imagine it’s hard to critique phenomenons without sounding critical…

Yes, particularly in the essay on wellness. It was probably quite a punchy first essay to begin with and I know that it did actually get some people stoked up. It was not meant to be an assault on people's decision making when it comes to how they look after themselves or what they deem as acts of self-care. I absolutely think that you should look after yourself and alleviate stress and do all those things in any way that suits you. What I had a problem with was the business of wellness - the selling of a lifestyle and of gizmos and gadgets at a very high price as if they could make any social or systemic difference. That was what I wanted to tease apart but I think it can make people feel like maybe I'm being critical of their choices and I absolutely don't want to do that. It is a fine line and I'm sure it didn't succeed for everyone, but I didn't want there to by any judgment. I really don't judge how people choose to live their lives - I just wanted there to be an awareness of how it's perhaps feeding into a bigger myth.

Your essays pose open-ended questions rather than shortcutting to conclusions - is that something we should all be doing more?

Yeah, totally. When we were doing The High Low, something I experienced a lot is that people always wanted us to have conclusions on everything and they didn't like it when we sat on the fence. They didn't like it when we were ambivalent - they saw it as us hedging our bets or me trying not to offend anyone. And it's true I don't like offending people, but I also think that I so rarely have a definitive answer on something. I also really believe in listening to people's points. We say all this stuff like ‘live the process’ but people are definitely not living the process.

I really rail against this idea that in order to be likeable or meaningful you must share all the vulnerable parts of your life. I don't think it's always a catharsis to share everything so I do really resent the way that it’s expected from women, particularly young women. I think my personality is part of my work and probably because of The High Low, my identities are quite blurry in that sense, but I do think of me and my work as separate things, and I would rather keep some stuff back and sell less books than sell myself. I'm really happy to share but I'm not willing to mine myself in order for people to think that my thoughts are valuable.

Getty Images

I was fascinated by your words on the good enough vs perfectionism. Can you elaborate on that?

‘The good enough’ is most commonly applied to parenting and it came from a man named Donald Winnicott. It’s about not trying to be the best parent, but just trying to be good enough. It's really revolutionary in terms of parenting but I think that you can expand it beyond that. I have a terrible tendency for instance to see every project as my dying piece of work which adds so much pressure. Instead, it’s about thinking, ‘Have I delivered what I said I'd deliver, and did I do it to the best of my ability at that time? OK, well then that's good enough.’ Every holiday, dinner and date you go on do not need to be the best ever - if we could just strive for things to be good enough, it would be so freeing. There's a behavioural scientist called Paul Dolan who puts it another way when he talks about satisficers and maximisers. Satisficers are generally happier than maximisers because they just choose the satisfying option. They don’t sift through them all to find the one that will have the maximum benefit or impact. They are able to make a decision and then move on from it because they never thought it was going to be the best decision they ever made - they just thought it was going to be good enough.

This book is so well-researched. It must have taken you ages...

God it really did and I had no idea how long it would take me. I was lucky that my editors and publisher didn’t need to know the conclusion I would arrive at so I didn't really know the course of the essays going in and nothing had a set conclusion. I reckon I read about 100 books for it (mostly non-fiction) over the course of maybe 10 months - so yes, I found that extraordinarily overwhelming, but I’m a reader before I’m a writer. I didn't really know when to finish my research to be honest - I think I could have kept going forever. Funnily enough, if I was writing it again I think I would metabolise it slightly differently. I would have absorbed more of the research and quoted people less. The book is very quote-heavy - I love reading books like that because then I go away and read other people's work but I think it's probably a less relaxing reading experience.

What role do books play in your life?

They are the most important thing in my life by far aside from living breathing humans. People often ask me how I read so much and I'm always really keen to stress that I'm not a cook (I make very rudimentary meals and I'm very lucky that my husband is a better cook than I am). Also, this is not something to emulate or be proud of but I don't have a workout routine so all my free hours when I'm not parenting, working or admin-ing are spent reading. But also, for me it's a selfish act. I don't know who I am without books, I feel very anxious without them - they fill me up. They’re what I know how to do and reading gives me so much.

Did you find reading to be a particular solace during lockdown?

Yes. I mean I’m really lucky to have a go-to hobby which worked very well being trapped indoors, so for me it was definitely handy. Also, where I feel really lucky is that I love nonfiction as much as fiction and they are very different reading experiences. In fact, they are so different to me that they almost feel like different activities, so I feel like I have true variety in my diet.

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What type of books do you generally gravitate towards?

The bulk of my time with fiction tends to be reading debuts and interviewing debut authors. I love supporting them, but that can mean that I neglect older books - the classics. I realised the other day that I've never read Love in the Time of Cholera or Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and there's way more. I don't really make New Year's resolutions anymore because they never work but if I was going to make one for 2022 or just from here on out, it would be to read more classics.

Is there a particular book that you've loved this year?

Oh God, that’s hard. Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason is wonderful. It’s a novel about a woman living with lifelong depression. The conversation around mental health is really opening up at the moment but this is the first book I’ve read about the undramatic and often petty ways in which it can manifest day to day. It's not necessarily breakdowns every day, it's just living life in a different way and seeing the world through a different lens. I found it unbelievably thoughtful and detailed about what it’s like to live that life and what it's like for everyone around you - and she doesn't pull punches. The people around Martha are fed up with the black dog always being in the room with them and that's something that can be a bit taboo - the fact that other people's mental health can be annoying and tedious. It's so beautiful and I think it's a really important book about depression.

On the topic of life lessons, what is an important one to take with us as we re-enter the world?

Oh God, baby steps. I think if anything this year has really taught me to take every day as it comes. The future is a foreign land and I try not to stray there too much now because it can be used as a distraction from the present. Looking forward to stuff is really important and I think the absence of that is one of the reasons why people struggled so much in lockdown. But what I did find really helpful in terms of getting overwhelmed or another dreadful buzzword 'burnout' is just focusing on the here and now. What my capabilities are in the here and now, and also what kind of person I am right now, because we just expect people to know exactly who they are all the time and that makes absolutely no sense. You're changing all the time. I write in the book about how we’re each a compilation of selves, not one self, and so I think focusing on the present is something I would really like to take forward. I think it would help other people too.

How Do We Know We're Doing It Right? is available in paperback now, at £8.99.

Life Lessons Festival will run from 16th-18th July at Chiswick House and Gardens, featuring talks from politicians, authors and scientific heroes - and in case you needed encouragement, every ticket comes with a book.

Book your tickets now at lifeslessonsfestival.com to see Pandora Sykes in conversation with Jess Philips.

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