It’s the general election on Thursday! Let’s talk about absolutely anything else! What do you fancy? We’ve got: 1. The fact that summer reading list season has finally arrived. This is my Glastonbury .
I love seeing how many of the 100 best novels of all time I’ve read (never more than 20, but I live in hope). I love seeing the same recommendations pop up in slightly different places each year – who gets the Cazalet Chronicles this time? Who’s doing Rose Tremain? Who thinks they’re being edgy by announcing they’re fans of Jack Reacher? And who’s nabbed I Capture the Castle as their top comfort read? Who has the confidence to recommend a genuine beach read and who cannot bear to lower themselves and pretend the lightest they go is Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead ? I like seeing books I’ve read and loved make the list – but not quite as much as I love seeing books I’ve read and hated make the list. You need some grit in your enjoyment oyster.
And of course I love taking note of new potential treasures too, and adding to my teetering TBR pile with gay abandon. And I love compiling my own suggestions too. In case this is your favourite time too, here they are: Julius Taranto’s How I Won a Nobel Prize , The King’s Mother by Annie Garthwaite, Rufi Thorpe’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles , You’d Look Better as a Ghost by Joanna Wallace and many, many more, if you send me a SAE or, you know, an email.
2. The unwarranted labo.
