Thursday, 27 November 2025

Rejection letters as literature: The best (and worst) no's in publishing history

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There’s something perversely comforting about reading other people’s rejection letters. Especially the ones addressed to now-immovable titan...
Wednesday, 19 November 2025

Why does every bestseller sound the same? A mini manifesto against beige prose

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Pick up any recent bestseller and you’ll notice it. The prose is clean. Efficient. Emotionally calibrated within an inch of its life. And, y...
Saturday, 15 November 2025

Books that saved my writing: Five under-the-radar titles every writer should read

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Not every book that changes your writing shouts about it. Some sneak in sideways, books that don’t always appear on must-read lists but lodg...
Tuesday, 11 November 2025

The Booker goes blokey: what David Szalay's Flesh tells us about masculinity in fiction

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David Szalay's Flesh is many things: stark, relentless, deeply bodily. But above all, it may be the most blokey Booker winner we've...
Sunday, 9 November 2025

The literary comeback of 2025: Why everyone's quoting Sontag again

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It started, as these things often do, on Instagram. A scan of Susan Sontag's notebook in Helvetica type, posted by an aesthetic account ...
Wednesday, 5 November 2025

Why we’re in love with literary angst

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From tear-in-the-rain heartbreak to existential quiet, bleaker classics are finding a new, eager audience. Remember when reading heavy meant...
Sunday, 2 November 2025

The rise of the hyper-niche book club

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From "sad girl autumn" to "cosy fantasy without war," readers are forming ultra-specific clubs that speak to identity, m...
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...