In Iceland there’s a Christmas tradition called Jolabokaflod, which apparently translates to Christmas Book Flood. I’m sorry, did you hear that? CHRISTMAS. BOOK. FLOOD.

AJ Pearce’s Dear Mrs Bird was one of my favourite reads of 2019. The tone is wonderfully WW2-era British jolly hockey sticks, it takes a fun look behind the scenes of an agony aunt page at a fictional women’s magazine before shifting delicately into a darker, sadder reality of war.

I didn’t actually think I would go abroad this year, and had all sorts of convoluted feelings about doing so but, as is evident, wanderlust won out. We decided on Malta after a painfully long decision process in which our excitement at planning a trip was challenged somewhat by the panic-inducing amount of choice suddenly on offer. We could go almost anywhere!

Hello, hello. Nothing to see here. Just me, popping by on October 19th to deliver my September Culture Wrap Up. You nearly got it a couple of days ago but as this delightful website opted to delete the post I wrote yesterday, we’ve now surpassed the halfway-through-October-mark. However, I do think it was worth the wait as September was a classy as heck month for culture for me and I have lots to tell you about.

For a couple of years now I’ve heard people gushing over Sally Rooney novels, obsessing over the BBC adaptation of Normal People, and getting into tit-for-tat arguments over whether her books deserve the celebrity status they’ve been afforded. Whatever people believe, they tend to have pretty strong feelings on Rooney’s writing.

I usually can’t wait to put together my reading wrap ups at the end of each month but for the last few months, around May onwards, I’ve had an absolutely terrible few months reading wise.

Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss is not a book that has arrived quietly. Although Mason herself says she wrote it pretty much in secret, it has been received with enthusiasm from reviewers and fellow authors to the extent that, despite a self-imposed book buying ban and a general dislike for heavier, more expensive hardbacks, I was desperate to read it.

When I picked The Surrogate on NetGalley I actually thought I was getting THIS novel that I’d seen doing the social media rounds, when in actuality I was getting THIS one.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post I’ve found the last couple of months challenging. Oddly enough it’s this period in the pandemic when I should be imbued with optimism that I feel most helpless and overwhelmed. I mention this only to explain why I’m doing a May/June culture wrap up rather than a monthly one which is that I’ve really just not been reading much.

OK here it is, here’s one of those coming-out-of-the-pandemic moments I was referring to in the previous blog.

I read a piece recently by Jenny Lawson - AKA The Bloggess - in which she said that when she was anxious she read more voraciously but that when she was in the midst of deep depression she didn’t read at all. Reading for me, like for Lawson, like for many other people, is an escape and a distraction when most needed.

With fiction you’re able to seamlessly blend reality and imagination to produce some kind of truth without the reader knowing quite how much of the actual you they’ve encountered. With memoir, so we assume, everything is as close to truth as it can be.

This month was a delightful one for reading. I found myself constantly engrossed in a one book or another and ended the month with my nose still in about three different novels!

Okay first off, if you're reading this it means I've committed to going with the title 'plandemic' for this blog post which seems like a poor choice on my part.

As soon as I read the blurb for My Dark Vanessa I knew it was my kind of book and I was 100% correct. Slipping between present day (well 2017) and various points in the past, the novel explores the relationship between Vanessa and English teacher Jacob Strane which begins when she's his 15-year-old student.

I read True Crime Story without knowing much about it and I think probably that's useful with this book. So, if you think you'll read it, while I'll attempt as always to be spoiler free, I'm not sure how possible/helpful that is in this specific case and you might perhaps want to stop reading this for now.

Uh, so yeah, it's actually happened. Pubs, bars, cafés, restaurants…they've all opened up, albeit outside only. The family WhatsApp with the in-laws is peppered with photos of long awaited nights out: dinners at 4pm (because you gotta be quick if you want a reservation at a normal hour), after work pints and trips to countryside cottages.

I loved Emily Henry’s debut adult fiction book Beach Read last year, so I was delighted when her publishers sent me an advanced Netgalley copy of her new one!

Another month, another wrap up! March has heralded the glacial opening up of our world! That, accompanied by an improvement in weather, has meant that my life of being near constantly glued to a screen or book is, well not over, but certainly adapted. Still, some delightful culture has been consumed and enjoyed. Here we go!

Isn’t it strange how much we talk about the future? About how things might look in the future. Whether it’s The Jetsons’ suggestion that we’ll all be travelling around in flying cars in 2026 or how often someone might say, “Well, obviously house ownership/petrol cars/the job market won’t be like this for our kids.”