I’ve decided to go easy on myself in 2025. I’m choosing two old favourites as my reading focus for the year: American novelist, short story writer, memoirist, (and one time snogger of Dylan Thomas), Shirley Jackson and English queen of the cardigan epic, Barbara Pym.
Read MoreI’m a day late but I’ve finally been able to sit down with my diary to have a good think through my reading year. It’s been an absolute cracker. Lots of travel time to read in transit, a brilliant reading project -working my way chronologically through the complete works of Toni Morrison and Kurt Vonnegut- and the ongoing brilliance of Mexico and Below Book group, (which meets monthly in No Alibis to read translated literature from countries below Mexico- you can follow us on Instagram), have all combined to make it the best reading year I can remember.
Read More2022 was a great reading year. It shall henceforth be known as the year I discovered Barbara Pym, Annie Proulx and Barbara Comyns about a million years after everyone else. The year I tried to get into Patricia Highsmith and Virginia Woolf and ultimately decided life was too short. And also the year I devoured Graham Greene and found all the Catholic Guilt felt oddly comforting.
Read MoreI’m spending this Christmas by myself in France. It is quite strange, but mostly ok. There’s only so much Netflix and napping I can stomach so I’ve spent this afternoon compelling a list of what was meant to be the hundred best books i’ve read in the decade since I first started keeping a diary of everything I read. Before sharing my list, let me outline how I’ve managed to narrow it down.
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