Was also reading Bad Taste by Nathalie Olah around the same time. Talking about taste in relation to homes, fashion, beauty, food and leisure some chapters were stronger than others. Particularly enjoyed the dives into the Sapranos, the Talented Mr Ripley, Wuthering Heights, etc.

Really, really enjoyed these three novellas in The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster and the overlapping of themes, motifs. A bit off-kilter, lots of intrigue. I was hooked!

Loved being back in the world of Dallyangle for Nat Reeve’s sequel to Nettleblack. Although I initially mourned the loss of Henry’s voice, I ended up really enjoying Pip and Cassandra’s points of view. Very good fun!

Naomi Booth’s Raw Content was an all-consuming deep-dive into one woman’s unexpected journey into motherhood. The possibility of violence intrudes on Grace’s thoughts, inbuilt from a childhood of warnings from her police officer father, from the fact of her being a girl. Loved it. Out in March.

First poetry collection this year, The Illustrated Woman by Helen Mort. Fascinated by the poems on tattooing/attitudes towards females with tattoos. The poem detailing the experience of her image being used in a deep fake video was so moving and powerful. #poetry

I really enjoyed Joanna Biggs’ personal essays on Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison and Elena Ferrante. I appreciated Biggs’ vulnerability in sharing parts of herself and why these authors mean so much to her ✨