The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky20.01.2026

A deeply thoughtful book about competing philosophies and how we live (and should live) in the world. Cold reason, wild emotion and compassion and empathy are thrown into contrast alongside one another. Rejects any answers; only offers tentative hope through education of the young.* Side note: a favourite character discovered: the boy Kolya.

Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan24.11.2025

Fitzgerald-esque French riviera story of adolescent love and troubled family dynamics. Fast. Enjoyable.

Maus, Art Spiegelman (graphic novel)17.11.2025

Tragic and incredible story of suffering told in an accessible yet profound way.

Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami05.11.2025

A quiet and beautiful story about love, mental illness and finding meaning in this world. Loved it.

Life Cycle of a Moth, Rowe Irvin16.10.2025

Fantastic. Dark, haunting, tragic and beautiful. This book will live in my memory.

Pedro Páramo, by Juan Rulfo30.09.2025

Twilit strangeness and deathly uncanny in the Mexican countryside. Interesting exploration of the cacique or Mexican strongman and their role in subjugation corruption and explosion of power.

Hiroshima, John Hersey (article, 1946, New Yorker)18.09.2025

A brilliant and terrible article recounting in unadorned detail the experience of citizens of Hiroshima the day America dropped the atomic bomb.

Pachinko, Min Jin Lee17.09.2025

A very enjoyable family saga exploring the concepts of identity, love and family across C20 Japan and Korea.

Roma, Alberto Cuarón06.09.2025

A beautiful film of class, caste, violence and the disempowered state of women. Also of love.

The Red Tender of Bologna, John Berger16.08.2025

Brief dreamlike, meditative and peaceful reflection on place and love. Very good.

A Short Book About Drawing, Andrew Marr 14.08.2025

Light, interesting, conversational book that carries insight lightly with drawing and words.

The Rest of Our Lives, Ben Markowitz07.08.2025

A road trip into the self. Who are we and how do we want to live when given the freedom to choose? Direction, meaning and purpose.

Raising Hare, Chloe Dalton29.07.2025

A poetic and gently meditative story of the enriching relationship between humans and non human animals which we have ignored/forgotten.

LE Otto Montagne, Felix Van Groeningen,25.07.2025

Beautiful and tragic representation of love, friendship and men's isolation and loneliness.

On Elizabeth Bishop, Colm Toibin22.07.2025

Thoughtful and interesting insight into Bishop - and her poetry. Thesis: recording things as they are; avoiding "confessional" sentimentality; leaving a gap or hidden depth in the message unspoken.

Liars, Sarah Manguso17.07.2025

Powerful first-person insight into the experience of being married to an emotionally abusive and egocentric "man-baby".

Still Born, Guadalupe Nettel08.07.2025

Interesting first person insight into motherhood, friendship and identity; how can women continue to evolve as individuals when their role of "mother" becomes so all-consuming. Style and voice reminiscent of Elena Ferrante.

The First Bad Man, Miranda July28.06.2025

Off-beat tragicomedy. Moving portrait of motherhood juxtaposed with relational (especially romantic) disconnection. Not in same league as All Fours.

Perfection, Vicenzo Latronico30.05.2025

Berlin; Lisbon; Sicily. Digital nomads. Creatives. Monstera plants. How and where do nomadic, privileged people find meaning in a digital and protean world? Is the feeling of a lack of direction something specifically modern, or has it always been like this? The hollow experience of Millennials and the sense that something more is just around the corner. Lack of dialogue/extensive exposition flirted with feeling oppressive.

Cities of the Plain (The Border Trilogy #3), Cormac McCarthy20.05.2025

My god. His novels are a blade-cut topography of the border between human beauty and human brutality. Biblical moral lyricism and Western love story fuse with spirituality and myth. Love it.

The Sympathiser, Viet Thanh Nguyen27.04.2025

Didn't finish! Diverting and interesting to see this side of the Vietnam war; but not engaging enough to read 500 pages!

Pure Colour, Sheila Heti21.04.2025

I found it hard to get beyond the feeling of pretentiousness + ersatz philosophising. I find fiction that talks confidently about "the meaning of life" from a perspective of authoritative + godlike omniscience pretty alienating - and a little tedious.

Show Don't Tell (short stories), Curtis Sittenfeld14.04.2025

Good collection, with 2 or 3 excellent stories. Fantastic insight into the depths that underlie mundane relationships: how they work or don't and the impact of critical reflection.

I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman04.04.2025

Wow. So strange and so interesting. I really enjoyed this meditative exploration on human loneliness and connection. Leaves me with serious questions about the authorial intention!

My Name Is Lucy Barton, by Elizabeth Strout24.03.2025

A quiet, poignant story of a woman's life in its relationship to her distant mother. How her identity is rent irreparably by coldness and lack of love, and how a home is found in nyc.

the salt path, raynor winn18.03.2025

A sentimental story of love, losing oneself, and finding oneself again. Beautiful Cornish coast, particularly poignant for me! 

Endurance, Alfred Lansing03.03.2025

Am inconceivably Incredible story of the human ability to withstand and survive the most brutal physical and psychological conditions of the Antarctic. Brilliant. 

A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jenifer egan16.02.2025

A dispiriting story of entangled lives gone awry - a lot of pain, trauma and tragic relationships. Stopped halfway!

Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake10.02.2025

A brilliant and perspective-altering insight into fungi and the intricate, incredible and ingenious ways that they intertwine with life on earth.

The Truffle Hunters, (film), Dweck; Gregory Kershaw. 07.02.2025 

Beautifully shot doc about truffle hunting: The old men and the love for their dogs; the exploitative economics; and the $ of their arcane knowledge.

The Heart in Winter, Kevin Barry24.01.2025

A blade-sharp and dreamlike tale of love - and lovers - on the run in lawless C19 America. Loved it.

Monsters: What Do We Do With Great Art by Bad People? Claire Dederer13.01.2025

Disappointing! Personal and thoughtful, but lacking the rigor this important question requires.

Godland (film), Hlynur Pálmason 04.01.2025

Beautiful and terrible - as in, evokes terror - (this, a line from the film). Stark portrait of human pride and fear. Incredible cinematography of Iceland.

Orbital (booker winner), Samantha Harvey 02.01.2025

A gentle, humane and meditative daydream of a novel. Slim and quietly wondrous with space-pastoral beauty.

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen 23.12.2024

Fun story. Long paragraphs - interesting how style changes over time. Classic characters in Darcy and Elizabeth. Still interesting to read with class and gender in mind.

Romantic Comedy, Curtis Sittenfeld 01.12.2024

So funny + well-observed - first real LOL reading experience in a long time! Raises interesting questions about "fiction" Vs "literary fiction": I imagine this is the former; but should it be?

final cut (graphic novel), charles burns, 15.11.2024

Enjoyably strange mood and tone. Interesting exploration of the intersection of sci-fi, teenage angst and film. I loved the art. Is the nudity gratuitous?

intermezzo, sally rooney, 09.11.2024

Brilliant. Rooney is so fantastic at dialogue, relationships + what gets lost when communication breaks down. Stylistically innovative too - pronouns, stream of consciousness - Joycean at times!

I'm Sorry You Feel That Way, Rebecca Wait, 25.10.2024

Rotating narrative. Family relationships: living with a narcissist mother and an absent father. Engaging, if predictable. 

life-enriching education,marshall rosenberg,01.10.2024

An illuminating and thought-provoking book about how we could change education to make all our lives more wonderful. 

all of us strangers ,(film),28.09.2024

Beautiful and heartbreaking film about love, death, loneliness and trauma. 

the vegetarian, han kang,20.09.2024

Affecting+ meditative story of power, control and the desire to be free from restraint. 

the year of magical thinking, joan didion,07.09.2024

A moderately interesting take on grief. I hoped for more (based on it's rep!)

the wren, the wren, ann enright,15.08.2024

Didn't finish! Couldn't invest in characters. Felt like a Sally Rooney knock-off!

All fours, miranda july,27.07.2024

A provocative, funny and deeply thoughtful novel. Exploring ageing, sexuality, relationships and breaking out of normative structures in the search for an authentic self.

The Worst Person in the World (film), Joachim Trier (2021),09.07.2024

What an amazing film. Poignant, insightful, funny. Fantastically nuanced protagonist whose journey powerfully reveals the desire to live fully and the consequences of doing this.

The summer book, tove jansson,09.07.2024

A quiet and beautiful book of vignettes. Love, death, beauty, nature, fear are explored at one remove through a grandmother and her granddaughter.

The fault in our stars, john green03.07.2024

Sad, funny, tragic, insightful and, at times, beautiful. Memorably great characters.

what i loved, siri husvedt22.06.2024

Tragic. Fantastic portrayal of real people in love and friendship. Made me cry.

was it for this (poetry), hannah sullivan03.06.2024

Fantastic on memory & place; the keys which open our mind & the past.

the marriage portrait, maggie o'farrell 28.05.2024

Hmm. Fine. Strangely, it feels like not much happens. didn't feel particularly invested in the protagonist.

olive again, elizabeth strout 24.04.2024

Fantastic novel. Funny. Moving. Wise. Olive is one of the most memorable characters that I've read.

return to seoul (film), davy chou 11.04.2024

Moving exploration of identity through the lens of race and adoption; more great S Korean culture!

the maniac, benjamím labatut 31.03.2024

Interesting insight into the life of a mathematical genius - and into the dizzying technological advances of C20 - AI, computers, the A-Bomb.

regenesis, george monbiot23.03.2024

Shocking and persuasive. Why farming doesn't work; what we must do to eat healthily and save the planet.

this country (graphic novel), navied mahdavian20.02.2024

An interesting take on the cultural divide between liberal and rural America.

poor things (film), yorgos lanthimos20.02.2024

Darkly comic. Male fear of female autonomy - intellectual, sexual - and the desire to control.

prophet song, paul lynch16.02.2024

Brutal and confronting. Bringing the terror of war and tyranny to the everyday.

brother (film)03.02.2024

A powerfully moving story of family, masculinity, intergenerational trauma, and the loss of hope when victim to racist systems of power.

The rabbit hutch, tess gunty27.01.2024

Polyphonic political diatribe on exploitative power: sexual structural, environmental - and how we are all bound by these things.

featherhood, 

charlie gilmour31.12.2023

A beautiful story of love & the search for identity in the wake of an absent father...and a rescued magpie.

kes, 

barry hines04.12.2023

Powerful + poignant. A boy confronted by a mean world finds some peace with nature.

Swimming home, deborah levy23.11.2023

A little disappointing (after Hot Milk)😥. Reminds me of Iris Murdoch: British mid-class-surreal/sinister.

4000 weeks, Oliver burkeman10.11.2023

A thoughtful - & though-inducing - book about time, our finitude & the freedom of embracing our limitations.

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, gabrielle zevin27.10.2023

Friendship, Platonic love + games; what makes a good life? what makes a good game?

Unchained, Netflix20.10.2023

Fantastic, thrilling show. Incredible illustration of human teamwork. I learned a lot about tour cycling!

Born a crime, trevor noah09.10.2023

An eye-opening exploration of crime, the crazy construction that is race, and the mother-son relationship. 

small things like these, (novel)

claire keegan28.09.2023

A quietly powerful exploration of morality, community and power. Speed read!

hot milk,

deborah levy (novel)03.09.2023

Best novel I've read this year. Powerful, subversive, blending myth and modernity.

The bear (series), christopher storer25.08.2023

Intense, incredible acting and dialogue. Reshaping representation of family, obsession, Chicago - and editing.