Monday, 27 October 2025

When pop stars read serious books: what book clubs mean now

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Once upon a time, the book club was a quiet affair. A circle of friends, a bottle of wine, and a novel discussed with enthusiasm or polite d...
Wednesday, 22 October 2025

Why are we still waiting for J.D. Salinger?

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I was a teenager when I first read The Catcher in the Rye, and I remember thinking, quite seriously, that I wanted to be a writer, not in so...
Thursday, 16 October 2025

Do writers need social media? Richard Osman thinks not. Here’s why that’s a problem

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Richard Osman recently sat down with Guardian journalist Marina Hyde and offered a tidbit that has rippled across social media (or all place...
Tuesday, 14 October 2025

The literary echo chamber: Are we reading in circles?

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I love a good book recommendation. Who doesn’t? But lately, I’ve started to wonder: are we all reading the same five novels, over and over a...
Friday, 10 October 2025

Shakespeare and Company: Why Paris’s most famous bookshop still feels like a pilgrimage

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A century after it first opened, Shakespeare and Company remains more than a bookshop; it’s a living testament to the power of words, memory...
Thursday, 9 October 2025

The rise of the fanon canon: when fan fiction influences original fiction

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It was once a guilty secret: some writers honed their skills on fan fiction, sharing stories in the corners of the internet before stepping ...
Sunday, 5 October 2025

Minor works, major joy: Why we should read authors’ lesser-known texts

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Not every literary treasure announces itself with a full-page review or a Booker Prize shortlist. Some arrive quietly, tucked into the back ...
Sunday, 28 September 2025

Dark Academia, Deconstructed: beyond the aesthetic

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Tweed blazers. Ancient libraries. A murder among the privileged. Dark academia has become a cultural moodboard, spilling across TikTok, Inst...
Wednesday, 24 September 2025

Where have all the epics gone? A revisit to Lonesome Dove

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I’ve just finished reading  Lonesome Dove . Again. Though technically a reread, it felt startlingly fresh – like coming back to a place you ...
Saturday, 20 September 2025

When writers go serial: The fiction newsletter Renaissance

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Somewhere between a Dickens cliffhanger and a Substack subscriber list, a curious thing is happening. Fiction is going serial again. Once th...
Thursday, 18 September 2025

Unfinished business: the allure of the incomplete novel

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There’s something magnetic about the unfinished novel. These are books that gesture towards a whole, yet never quite arrive. They end mid-th...
Saturday, 13 September 2025

Books that broke the internet: when novels go viral

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In the past, a book’s success was measured in reviews, literary awards, and maybe, if the stars aligned, a TV adaptation.  Now, a novel migh...
Wednesday, 10 September 2025

What writers can learn from pop stars

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It might sound a little unexpected to set Dua Lipa and Helen Garner on the same page, yet both demonstrate something fundamental: how to bui...
Saturday, 6 September 2025

The annotated life: Why marginalia is back in style

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Marginalia, you either love it or hate it. Once considered the mark of a disrespectful reader, someone scribbling on the pristine pages of n...
Friday, 5 September 2025

This ain’t no cowboy song: writing through grief with music

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This is a bit left-field for this blog. Usually, I’m writing about books and fiction. But creativity doesn’t always stay neatly in its lane....
Wednesday, 3 September 2025

Genre-blending that defies labels: From Romantasy to experimental fiction

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What do you call a novel that blends gothic romance, dark academia, political allegory, and a magic system based on linguistic theory?  In 2...
Sunday, 31 August 2025

Why men read less than women — And how to change it

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It remains a sad truth universally acknowledged that women read more books than men. Twenty years ago, Ian McEwan remarked that ‘when women ...
Friday, 29 August 2025

When cosy meets cathartic: the revival of WWII family sagas

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There is something quietly astonishing about returning to a decades-old series and finding it not only still relevant, but newly resonant. T...
Wednesday, 27 August 2025

Beyond genre: experimental and alt-lit’s bold new directions

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Genres are meant to be helpful. They signpost where to look on the shelves in bookshops and libraries, offering a comforting sense of what t...
Monday, 25 August 2025

Eco-fiction and cli-fi: why climate-centred narratives are more crucial than ever

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Not long ago, a story about climate disaster might have been shelved neatly in the realm of science fiction. Now, it reads like realism with...