Litlove

LATEST ARTICLES ( 350 )

• Notes From the Bunker

  23rd March 2020 The first thing I said to my CBT therapist on our skype call last weekend was: I’ve picked one hell of a time to deal with my health anxiety.... Read more

  Posted on 25 March 2020 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Mary Oliver; Loving the Work

  

  Many years ago now, when I was struggling to understand the limits of my responsibility towards people who were sad or suffering, my therapist gave me a poem... Read more

  Posted on 27 September 2019 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Book Recommendations, Please!

  

  I’m doing a spot of research into the period 1936-1960 in UK history and looking for things to read that will give me a real flavour of how people lived during... Read more

  Posted on 06 September 2019 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Year in Books So Far

  

  It’s been a funny old year, reading-wise. I was pondering why this might be so when it suddenly occurred to me that my algorithm for purchasing books has... Read more

  Posted on 20 August 2019 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Litlove and the UFO

  A couple of domestic incidents in fact, as quirk and whimsy seem essential qualities to balance out what’s going on in the world right now. Read more

  Posted on 24 July 2019 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Of Workshops and Kittens

  

  So ages ago, I promised you the saga of Mr Litlove’s new workshop and now that he is finally in and preparing for Open Studios once again, I think it’s safe to... Read more

  Posted on 28 June 2019 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Real Hope For Dark Days

  

  It’s a sore trial living in the UK at the moment. After three years of the shambolic Brexit debacle, in which zero progress has been made, we’re now forced to... Read more

  Posted on 18 June 2019 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Blood Out of a Stoner

  

  I don’t quite know why I’m writing this when I have completely lost faith in this kind of blog post, but Mr Litlove and I have discussed Stoner and its... Read more

  Posted on 07 June 2019 BOOKS, CULTURE

• So Where Were We?

  

  Goodness, how time passes! The last update I wrote on this blog, we were putting our house on the market and were all set to start a new venture somewhere that... Read more

  Posted on 13 May 2019 BOOKS, CULTURE

• I Will Embrace Self-Help, I Will

  

  When the kind publicity assistant sent me a copy of Physical Intelligence by Claire Dale and Patricia Peyton, she probably had no idea she was sending it to... Read more

  Posted on 06 May 2019 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Adventures of Big Beery

  Mr Litlove is a man who works in insidious ways, and so I can’t recall how he first brought up the topic of moving house. All I can remember is being in the... Read more

  Posted on 14 August 2018 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Last Wilderness

  

  Nature writing is such an intriguing genre. It’s so quiet and unassuming in its PR that you might not expect it to have such an honorable and long-standing... Read more

  Posted on 31 March 2018 BOOKS, CULTURE

• After Weinstein: How Do Good Things Come From Bad Things?

  As ever, it’s Radio 4 that tipped me over the edge. I’ve thought often of writing about the complex fallout from the Harvey Weinstein affair, because I feared... Read more

  Posted on 03 November 2017 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Mata Hari, We Hardly Knew You

  

  Mata Hari must be one of the very few women in history whose name has turned into common terminology, as the spy who seduces to gain knowledge. Read more

  Posted on 09 October 2017 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Teenage Kicks

  

  The Baltimore Boys by Joel Dicker is a novel in which The Sorrows of Young Werther meets Sidney Sheldon, a sentence I’ve been looking forward to writing ever... Read more

  Posted on 17 September 2017 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Hot Milk Or What Kind of Critic Am I?

  

  When I began this blog way back in the mists of 2006, I was a proper academic literary critic, which meant that I read books according to a number of... Read more

  Posted on 03 September 2017 BOOKS, CULTURE

• In Which We Consider Moominmamma Closely

  

  In a bid to remind myself that I still know how to read a book, I recently picked up Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson. It was short and easy, with pictures. Read more

  Posted on 20 August 2017 BOOKS, CULTURE

• My Last Essay And Other Stories

  Well, the middle of August is not the best time to pop up in the blogworld after a lengthy absence, but the lovely Numero Cinq online magazine is coming to a... Read more

  Posted on 14 August 2017 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?

  I do hope so. There’s been a lot going on here lately that I will tell you all about soon. But in the meantime, I’ve got an essay on Henry Miller up at Numero... Read more

  Posted on 16 July 2017 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Hilary Mantel and Elizabeth Strout

  

  There was a moment, a few weeks back, when I was listening to four audio books (not simultaneously, obvs): Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel, Autumn by Ali... Read more

  Posted on 18 June 2017 BOOKS, CULTURE