Yoga mats, brushed-steel kettles, Scandinavian armchairs, avocado slices, marble-top pastry tables — this peculiar subclass of objects, and the life that is organised around them, is the subject of Vincenzo Latronico’s novel Perfection (Fitzcarraldo). That life involves: working from home …
Zadie Smith’s multicultural fantasy
In 2023, the formerly edgy became the new canonical. At least that’s what the LRB thought of Zadie Smith’s last book. But was the darling of the Anglo-American literary establishment even edgy to begin with? Surely her debut White Teeth …
The vapid world of America’s top book influencer
“Hi, I’m Zibby Owens, host of Totally Booked With Zibby, formerly Moms Don’t Have Time to Read. I interview today’s latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time. As …
The rebel cult of Murakami
For middle-aged Japanophiles, the recent Japan boom among the young can at times feel exhausting. Japanese pop, rapid and relentless, sounds like something put together by toddlers on a sugar binge. Meanwhile, the popularity in the West of manga and …
The moral weakness of Britain’s ruling class
Elite misbehaviour is the Ariadne’s thread, the unifying theme, running through Alan Hollinghurst’s oeuvre. From his debut novel, The Swimming-Pool Library, to his latest work, Our Evenings, his characters tend to be entitled toffs — or bourgeois parvenus with a …
Michel Houellebecq is literature’s Lucifer
According to folklore, somewhere in the Southern Carpathians there’s a university called Scholomance that’s run by the devil. Students are taught how to conjure spells, command the weather and ride dragons. What, though, might be on the devil’s curriculum? What …
Sally Rooney’s therapy trap
If you’ve ever had the curious pleasure of reading a Sally Rooney novel, you may guess what you’re in for with Intermezzo. There will be endless intimate descriptions of the psychology and behaviour of her characters; sex scenes full of …
Why feminists love to hate Sally Rooney
“Lying naked with her chin in her hand, reading poetry.” Jesus, here we go. I feel my hackles rise as I’m thrown into an arena where it’s me versus an imaginary other reader, who I needn’t bother describing, who likes …
How to read like a man
A strange and telling bit of literary trivia is that two of the greatest English-language novelists of the last half-century — Cormac McCarthy and Don Delillo — were not big readers when they were boys. Both took up reading as …
How vanilla is your sexual fantasy?
If you are a child of the Seventies or Eighties, chances are that your formative sexual education was considerably influenced by rifling furtively through a Nancy Friday book. Even today, thanks to well-thumbed titles like My Secret Garden and Forbidden …
The worst novelist in the world
Budding novelists are always instructed to start their books in an arresting fashion. L.P. Hartley knew exactly what he was doing in The Go-Between (1953): “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” As did Anthony Burgess …
Is Trump a perverted Emersonian?
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light
which flashes across his mind from within, more than the
lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses
without notice his thought, because it is …
Joan Didion’s insufferable disciples
Joan Didion’s enduring popularity among today’s young readers is a somewhat mysterious phenomenon. So many visibly progressive, literary types seem to uncritically worship her. Really? I always think to myself, concerned that I’ve misheard them. Joan Didion, the National Review …
Why I quit as a school librarian
I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I decided to quit my post as an assistant librarian at a private school, but it was most probably when Andersen Press defended its decision to publish a book intended for under-sevens that contained …
Don’t be terrified of Pale Fire
Pale Fire is one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. It is so great it is terrifying to write about. This is not something I would normally confess, but in this case it seems better to just come out …