Litlove

LATEST ARTICLES ( 381 )

• Book Traffic

  

  It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman in a difficult situation is in need of some good new books. Well, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. Read more

  Posted on 07 February 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy

  

  , published in the mid-eighties remains a classic of postmodern writing, despite the fact that Auster dislikes and rejects the term. Read more

  Posted on 03 February 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Where We Are Now

  The situation with my mother is about as bad as it can be. She has drifted into a semi-comatose state from which no nurse or doctor can rouse her. But she does... Read more

  Posted on 30 January 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Unwild Child

  One of the essays in Emilie Pine’s collection, Notes to Self, details her rackety, out-of-control adolescence, full of drugs and drink and underage sex and... Read more

  Posted on 25 January 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Good News and Bad News

  

  My mother is back in hospital, having had another stroke. We’re still at the stage of not really knowing what has happened to her, but it seems fair to say... Read more

  Posted on 22 January 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Some Questions Without Answers

  

  If you’re writing a short biography of a great writer, what matters more – the life or the works? I found myself pondering this question quite a lot when readin... Read more

  Posted on 10 January 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Hope Never Knew Horizon

  

  I came To Douglas Bruton’s novel on the back of two rave reviews from Susan and Karen, readers whose opinions I trust implicitly. But rave reviews can be... Read more

  Posted on 05 January 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Looking Ahead – Reading in 2025

  

  Is there anything more beautiful than a pile of books you want to read? My main Christmas (and birthday) present from Mr Litlove was a course in Writing Lives... Read more

  Posted on 31 December 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Best Books of the Year

  

  So I returned to blogging four months ago and already I’m being reminded of all the reasons I loved it and all the reasons why I gave it up. Read more

  Posted on 19 December 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Loving Willa Cather

  

  As I pick my way over the rubble of half-finished books and broken intentions at the end of this year, my thoughts are turning to plans for 2025. Read more

  Posted on 11 December 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Scaffolding by Lauren Elkin

  

  Reading Scaffolding made me think of a Nouvel Observateur article in which French intellectuals, Julia Kristeva and Philippe Sollers, discussed their open... Read more

  Posted on 03 December 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Ballet Class

  I like to think of my old ballet mistress as the character that Dickens forgot to write. Rejoicing in the name of Esyilt Gwerica Briscoe, she was 78 when I bega... Read more

  Posted on 26 November 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• A Novella for November

  

  ‘A room. He stands at the window. And a voice says: Everything passes. The good and the bad. The joy and the sorrow. Everything passes.’ And so begins, with... Read more

  Posted on 21 November 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• O My America! by Sara Wheeler

  

  Finally! A book that goes directly onto my best of the year list. I bought this when it was published back in 2013 because I’d become interested in a Victorian... Read more

  Posted on 13 November 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Almost But Not Quite Satisfying

  

  I feel like I’ve had a long period recently of reading books that were firmly located on the okay-to-meh end of the scale. Not bad books, just books that... Read more

  Posted on 05 November 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Portrait of the Blogger as a Young Child

  

  This is essentially a ghost story. A few weeks ago my Dad – who has been on a decluttering mission since my mother’s stroke left him with sole jurisdiction... Read more

  Posted on 29 October 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• What We Talk About When We Talk About Crime by Jennifer Fleetwood

  

  It’s not often that I’ll spend more than 99p on a Kindle book, but when I read the description of criminologist Jennifer Fleetwood’s essay collection with... Read more

  Posted on 22 October 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The 1970 Club: Mary Stewart, The Crystal Cave

  

  In her essay on rereading, Elisa Gabbert – or at least her husband, John – has ‘a theory that everyone is either a squid or an eel. Baby squids are born as... Read more

  Posted on 15 October 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Notes and Mini-reviews from September

  

  Mary Gaitskill’s essay collection, Oppositions, is brilliant. Gaitskill is an intriguing woman – someone who went off the rails in late adolescence, ran away... Read more

  Posted on 03 October 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Tell by Jonathan Buckley

  

  Jonathan Buckley’s twelfth novel was the joint winner of the 2022 Novel Prize (along with Anne de Marcken’s It Lasts Forever and then It’s Over, in case you wer... Read more

  Posted on 28 September 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE