I love the peculiar thrill of finding a paperback in a charity shop that seems to whisper, “take me.” It might be a spine cracked at the wrong place, a dog-eared cover, or simply an author’s name I only half-remember. What I really love is how one small, inexpensive book can become the seed...
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Interviews
When I first began comparing translations as part of my work at Storyscoutes...
Reading Guides
I once found a slim paperback wedged between gardening manuals and a stack of...
Reading Guides
I have always loved the small, delicious friction that happens when two...
Reading Guides
I first encountered a mid-century novel that had been quietly collecting dust...
I have always loved the small, delicious friction that happens when two books—separated by time, geography or reputation—begin to argue with each other on the page. Pairing an overlooked novel with a contemporary reply is one of my favourite...
I first encountered a mid-century novel that had been quietly collecting dust on a secondhand shelf—its jacket browned at the edges, its spine a practiced bow from previous hands. The book was not unknown, merely neglected, sidestepped by later...
Interviewing a translator is one of the quiet pleasures of literary work: you pull back the curtain on decisions most readers never see, and you learn how meaning migrates between languages. Over the years I’ve interviewed translators for...
It begins, often, with a fragment: a single sheet of paper, a smudged date in the corner, a sentence that looks ordinary until you realise it reframes everything you thought the novel meant. I remember the first time I felt that jolt. I was alone in...
I love setting myself a small, intense reading mission: seven days, one region, a handful of midlist British novels that never quite hit the mass-market headlines but glow when you sit with them. Over the years I’ve built weeklong discovery routes...
I often find that the first barrier to reading translated poetry is not the language itself but a hesitation: will I be reading the poet, the translator, or both? Over the years I’ve learned that the best way into translated poetry is to lean into...
I often find the most thrilling reading discoveries not on bestseller lists but tucked into slim volumes, unusual covers and back-catalogues from independent publishers who keep faith with experiments, marginal voices and editorial risk-taking. If...
I build reading lists the way I pack a small bag for a trip: with attention to mood, a hunger for surprise and a soft refusal to overplan. Rainy weekends and quiet afternoons call for lists that feel like companions—books that suit the rhythm of...
When I think about building a reading guide, I usually start with a single stubborn image or idea that keeps returning to me long after I close a book. A motif — an object, a colour, a weather pattern, a mode of speech — can be a far richer...
When I sit down to interview a writer, I’m not only listening for a soundbite or a publicity quote; I’m tracing a map. That map shows the routes between books, the hidden corners of a writer’s bookshelf, the older texts that taught them craft...