It’s highly likely you’ve already read Pineapple Street, Jenny Jackson’s brilliant debut, published to much fanfare a couple of years ago. A story about money, class, and love, it’s a sharply observed, character-driven novel that draws readers into the rarefied world of the ultra-wealthy Stockton family in Brooklyn Heights. She now has a new book—The Shampoo Effect—about an ambitious young woman who insinuates herself into a tight-knit social set, shaking up friendships and marriages in a small seaside town. Joanna Rakoff—my go-to for book recommendations—said of it, “A smart, sly gloss on Updike’s tales of marital unrest. So funny, so compelling, this novel hit home with me in its examination of the ways secrets can erode families and friendships,” while Catherine Newman wrote, “I binged The Shampoo Effect and am now bereft. Jenny Jackson has written a book that’s so breezily readable and laugh-out-loud funny while excavating the deepest truths about motherhood, family, and forgiveness. What an unforgettable cast of characters. What an accomplishment.”

High praise indeed. It’s at the top of my TBR pile, and I cannot wait to read it.

If you’d like to pre-order a copy (it’s out in June), please consider doing so from Bookshop.org, and online platform that helps support independent bookshops.

I try to write as much as I can without a paywall, but it does take time. If you’re enjoying this post, why not treat me to a nice glass of prosecco?

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And now, onto Jenny’s Desert Island Books. From the book that she’s besotted with, to a novel that has lived vividly in her mind for over twenty years, read on to find out which eight books she’d take with her to the sandy shores of a desert island…

Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny

Katherine Heiny’s writing is liquid sunshine, full of fun and heart and human decency, and a reminder that no matter how hard things can get, there is goodness all around us. It’s the story of a couple, Jane and Duncan, and the unconventional family they form—a family that involves Duncan’s ex-wife, her new husband, Duncan’s employee, and all the many (many) women Duncan dated in his past. See, one of the challenges of falling in love with the most charming guy in the world is that other people find him pretty charming too! But in Katherine Heiny’s hands, it becomes a book about the way love only grows when you let it.

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Here’s the thing about narrative trickery and structural innovation: So often the writer’s impressive work in playing with form can come at the cost of emotional connection. I often leave these technically marvellous books feeling impressed, but a little cold. Not so with Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies! This is a novel that brings you deep into a marriage, following the glamorous couple Lotto and Mathilde over two decades. It changes perspective, there are multiple threads, the story has twists and reveals, but this narrative trickery only enhances the reader’s understanding of the relationship, only pulls you closer. I can’t decide if I love this book for its heart or its mind, but either way, I love it.

Writers & Lovers by Lily King

Set in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the late 90s, Writers & Lovers is the story of Casey, thirty-one, still longing for a creative life while waiting tables in Harvard Square, living in a sad little apartment, and mourning the loss of her mother. But when Casey falls in love—with two different men—it suddenly feels like the path of her entire life depends on making the right choice. I love this book for its insistence that we don’t need to give up on our creative dreams, we don’t need to “grow up” just because our friends do. And when it comes to matters of the heart, the only right answer is the honest one.

The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud

I am a stingy re-reader. There are too many new books out there, too many authors I need to know, so I am very choosy with the books I go back and revisit. The Emperor’s Children is one of them, and that is because Claire Messud has captured all the things that dazzle me most: A circle of friends making their way in early adulthood, the glamour and flash of publishing, and New York City in the days before September 11^th changed everything. I first encountered this book twenty years ago, and it has lived vividly in my mind ever since.

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Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

Bring a book about the world ending to a desert island? Sure, that sounds like a great mental health decision. But I am doing it anyway, because this is the most transfixing, unexpected, deceptively simple novel, and I could study it for years, like a Rubix cube, trying to figure out how it works. It’s the story of a couple who rent a luxurious Long Island vacation home for the week but are awakened in the night by a knock at the door. An older couple, who say they own the home, are fleeing the city. Something terrible has happened, but with internet and phones down, it’s hard to know what—and whether or not this couple is telling the truth.

The Folded Clock by Heidi Julavits

Told as a playful diary chronically two years of Julavits’s life, The Folded Clock is about friendship and faith and the passing of time, but it is also the most hilariously candid depiction of life as a moderately anxious person. If you are anything like me, you worry way too much about what other people think, about inconveniencing others, about being seen as good. Julavits takes that to the next level in one of the most outrageously hilarious airplane scenes I have ever read. She is sitting in the window seat, boxed in by sleeping strangers, when she is overcome by the need to pee. What she does next—unwilling to wake them and unable to climb over them—is the most wonderful, batshit thing I have read on paper.

All Fours by Miranda July

Speaking of batshit, I am besotted with All Fours. This novel, about a famous artist who leaves her husband and child for a work trip, but then secretly checks into a motel thirty minutes from home, was the topic of every group text for a year after it came out. It is full of moments that shock and delight: The tampon! The dance! Audra! It’s giddy and exuberant and actually manages to maintain this total high for 300 pages. Reading this book was like going on a bender with your craziest friend and then waking up in the morning feeling relieved you hadn’t blown up your own life.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

This is a novel that has everything. It is a complete meal, a perfectly packed suitcase, an everything shower. It might just be the perfect book. It’s a story about two friends, Sam and Sadie, who meet as children and go on to work together, creating the most successful video games of all time, but it’s also a novel about love, ambition, race, class, sex, identity, family, loss, reality, and the afterlife. This is a book that breaks your heart and puts it back together again, and, in doing so, leaves a permanent imprint. I’m not alone in loving this book and reading it always makes me feel less alone too.

Gosh, I love a long weekend. Not that it technically makes much difference to me—as a freelance writer who’s spent the better part of a decade working for herself, I don’t really get days off, let alone paid ones. (I recently saw a job listing offering 34 days of annual leave plus bank holidays, and I’m still trying to heave my jaw up off the floor.) But even so, there’s a certain je ne sais quoi in the air when everyone else knows they’ve got a Monday lie-in ahead of them. The Sunday scaries loosen their grip and everything feels a little lighter, a little more sun-dazed—at least in Bondi this weekend, which is saying something for a place that already feels like a permanent holiday.

It’s autumn in Sydney, which might just be my favourite time of year. The light creeps in around 6am (perfect), and the air is cool enough to sit out on the balcony as the sun rises, wrapped in a thick dressing gown, green tea or iced coffee in one hand, a book in the other (also perfect). This weekend, that book has been The Gulf of Lions by Caitlin Shetterly. I spotted it on ’s Instagram (my forever go-to for recommendations), ordered it immediately, and finished it on the beach—always a good sign. I loved it.

It’s the kind of novel that begs to be read in the sun—ideally in Provence rather than Bondi, but—hey—we work with what we’ve got. It has that heady, nostalgic pull I remember from Sandwich and The Paper Palace—rich, immersive, slightly aching. It follows Alice and her two squabbling daughters as they travel through France in the aftermath of both her husband’s affair and her recovery from cancer. It has all the ingredients of a glorious summer novel: sharp, funny, tender, and full of complicated love.

I’ve included an extract below if you fancy a taste—do read it. I have a feeling you’ll love it as much as I did.

Now, I’m usually fairly strict about limiting authors to eight book recommendations, but what are rules if not there to be broken? Caitlin’s list edges closer to twenty, but it felt worth making an exception. She’s also written a beautiful note for readers of this Substack about how she came to write this utterly gorgeous book—and it’s just as compelling as the novel itself.

I try to write as much as I can without a paywall, but it does take time. If you’re enjoying this post, why not treat me to a nice glass of prosecco?

Buy me a cold one

In my new novel, The Gulf of Lions, my main character, Alice, a struggling playwright and mother of two girls, is marooned on her own personal island of breast cancer. She is shocked, sad—and so scared. She watches the light move across her room; she tries to do yoga, watch the Bake Off with her daughters, write. But it’s almost as if her brain won’t allow her to do anything but bear witness to what she is going through, one pedantic step at a time. She goes to her chemo treatments alone, as having her husband with her feels more like a responsibility than a help. She endures a mastectomy and radiation and more chemo. She starts Tamoxifen.

Eventually, she starts to pull out of it, and on a weekend trip with her husband, she starts writing a play which has been inspired by John Cheever’s famous short story, “The Swimmer.” Soon she accepts a writing assignment, from a magazine called Get Out, to take a road trip and camp across France with her two daughters and write about it. In France, Alice starts to find her sensuality and joy again. And though she makes some reckless mistakes with her newfound freedom, a new sense of who she is, and what she is meant to do with her one wild and precious life, starts to blossom.

When I started the book, I had been thinking a lot about, how, in so many books (and movies and TV shows!), when a mother is given cancer, she is often killed off. This was especially difficult for me when I was reading out loud to my sons when they were very young—over and over again there was the dead-as-a-doornail mother, which my sons liked to tease me about. But I really think this trope was sort of traumatic to all of us. So, I found myself dreaming about writing a middle-aged mother character who is doing the really hard work of surviving (aren’t we all?), and then who is given the gift of France.

I sent The Gulf of Lions off to my publisher in October of 2024. What I could never have anticipated, was what happened to me next: Six months later, in April of 2025, I was diagnosed with the exact same kind of cancer as I had researched and given my character, Alice, and in the exact same breast. Now, I was on cancer island with my character.

The books I am going to recommend here are all books that I have turned to—either last summer when I, myself, was going through cancer treatment, or during other periods of my life when I was dealing with illness, sadness, a breakup, anxiety or fear about the world. The best of us can feel marooned at times. But I have found, over and over again, that my best friends can be found in books and that good writing can, at the very least, improve our suffering.

Isola by Allegra Goodman

Shortly before I was diagnosed with cancer, when I was going back and forth for tests, I read Allegra Goodman’s 2025 novel, Isola. The word “isola” in Italian means “island,” and also “alone” or “isolated.” It’s based on the true story of a young woman named Marguerite who has been left on an island in The Gulf of Saint Lawrence by her guardian (yes, her parents are dead—another motherless protagonist!). Marguerite survives on this island for two years—foraging for food, living in a cave, experiencing the most painful losses anyone can endure, and even killing polar bears. Marguerite struggles with her faith (and hope)—what kind of a God would put her through this when she has been so good, she wonders? This is the kind of novel you fall into and can’t put down—it’s so visceral, so moving, so beautifully written, so all encompassing and inspiring. For anyone who has ever felt alone, this is your book. I will never forget getting cancer and feeling as alone and marooned as Marguerite—this book became a touchstone for me.

This is Happiness by Niall Williams

After I was diagnosed with cancer, my mother sent me Niall Williams’ novel This is Happiness. Now, for anyone who has read the book, I know you’re going to say, Why would your mother send you that book when there’s a woman with cancer in the book? I can’t answer that. But I can tell you that I didn’t know about the woman with cancer until almost the end, and by that time it didn’t matter to me. The book was such an incredible comfort to me all through my surgery and radiation—it almost felt religious. I can’t quite explain how devoutly I love this book: There is NO ONE writing like Niall Williams. This is not your regular modern writer—when I say he’s up there with Shakespeare and Dickens, I’m not kidding. He creates an entire world about a small town in Ireland, and the way he writes about the land, the people, the conversations, the feelings, the rain, the grass, the sun—it’s subtle and beautiful and moving and funny. I read a few pages at each sitting and underlined as I went. I keep his books near my desk, just hoping his energy will bounce my way. Williams is writing is some of the most beautiful prose I have ever read; I have gone on to read more of his books, and I am not disappointed.

The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

When I was pregnant with my first son, I had terrible morning sickness. This was actually all-day sickness! At the time, my husband, Dan, and I were living in LA—we had just driven across the country from Maine and moved there when we realized I was pregnant. I was so nauseous that I had a hard time leaving my apartment—and since I’d never been through anything like this before, it was hard to understand that, one day, it would end. I kind of grasped it intellectually, but my nausea felt endless, crippling. Nothing worked on it, either. During that time, I read the entire Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The epic of the Ingalls’ family and everything they endured, the Westward expansion, the confusing messages for girls at that time—I was not only taken in, but also comforted by Laura’s resilience. I know that there are people out there who will dwell on some of the complicated racism and old-fashioned ideas in Laura’s story. It’s undeniable that what our government did to the Native Americans was a tragedy. But I disagree completely with anyone who says we shouldn’t read these books—as we read the story of our country through Laura’s eyes, we see that she, too, had feelings about the information she was both witnessing and hearing, and reading her version gives us empathy and greater understanding of that time and the terrible trespasses inherent in Manifest Destiny.

Otherwise by Jane Kenyon

After 9/11, I was living in New York City. A kind of innocence had been shattered, for all Americans. I was also in a destructive relationship with a guy who was a not-so recovered drug addict and struggling actor. Because of a lack of self-esteem, and not knowing where I could go if I left New York City, it was hard for me to figure out how to get out of the relationship. I found myself turning to the poems of Jane Kenyon, especially her book Otherwise. Kenyon died at the age of 47 from leukemia and she struggled with depression. Kenyon writes with such precision about the human psyche, nature, faith, love, light, and the fragility of every living being. One of my favorite poems of hers is “Peonies at Dusk.” She calls them, “Outrageous flowers, as big as human heads!” She both revels in their beauty, but also there is an undercurrent of how temporary their beauty will be, and she shows us that there is darkness coming.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

I am going to include five books in one here, under the headline “Books for when you or someone you love is sick.” In those moments, you want something engrossing, fast paced, beautifully written, comforting in their ability to transport you and cinematic. When my older son was 4, he had a terrible fever. It went on for several days. I stayed in bed with him and read Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto as he slept; then I read The O’Brien’s by Peter Behrens. Both are sprawling, beautifully told, immersive epics that you will never forget. The O’Brien’s is about one family’s building of the Canadian railroad; Bel Canto is about a hostage situation in South America and an opera singer. I read Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr when I was sick, all during three different Christmas vacations—and I was almost glad I didn’t feel well! All of these books will submerge you in worlds that are unforgettable; every one of them will leave you with more empathy for the world that when you started reading. (In all three cases, and this is a unifying factor, skip the screen adaptations.)

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

If I were truly alone—on a real island or an island of my own making (or just lonely—as loneliness is an epidemic)—I would want books I could read and read again. In my opinion, these four books are some of the finest pieces of writing ever written, and they are also so rich and deep and so full of brilliance that you could read each one five hundred times and not get bored: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Bleak House by Charles Dickens, Silas Marner by George Eliot and Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. Shakespeare needs no explanation; Bleak House is a mystery, character study, period piece, love story—it’s everything; Silas Marner is Eliot’s jewel about an isolated weaver turned hermit; his world brightens when he meets an orphaned child named Eppie. Dangerous Liaisons is one of the first epistolary novels, published in 1782, and when I first read it, it blew my mind. If you loved the epistolary 2025 novel, The Correspondent, you will love this tale-told-in-letters of manipulation, revenge, scandal, sex and pleasure. It’s so irreverent and so amazingly constructed, you will never forget it.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

I would take two works on nonfiction to my desert island: Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and The Book of Eels by Patrick Svensson. Silent Spring is the landmark 1962 American book about pesticides and environmental damage which started the modern environmental movement. On the one hand, you will start reading and realize, my God, we never listened—we had a chance and we ignored it! On the other hand, Carson’s tone is so gentle, her writing so beautiful, you will marvel and also be comforted by this book—she’s wise, kind, and so patient. The Book of Eels by Patrick Svensson is about the mystery of the eel and the human crusade to figure them out—at the eel’s cost. It’s also part-memoir about eel fishing with the author’s father, and how he came to fall in love with, and want to protect, eels. Beautiful writing, written with passion and pace, you won’t put it down.

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín’

For one more unforgettable and beautifully constructed book, about which I can reach evangelic levels of praise (similar to my love for Niall Williams), I would say Colm Tóibín’s novel, Brooklyn. (Or anything by Colm Tóibín.) Brooklyn is the story of an Irish girl who emigrates to America. But more than that, this is a mother daughter story—the best you will ever find. Tóibín takes his time, slowly building the novel. Boy, does the ending pay off. If this book doesn’t gut you, you are made of flint. (Don’t watch the movie.)

Now, if you’d like to lose yourself in The Gulf of Lions yourself, I’ve shared a gorgeous extract below for paid subscribers—consider it a weekend treat!

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I’m a real sucker for a book set in Paris (you can read about some of my favourite ones over here), and Almost Life delivers that heady, romantic promise so synonymous with the French capital in spades. It opens on the steps of the Sacré-Cœur (swoon) in the late 1970s, where Erica—on the brink of adulthood, suspended in that golden in-between—meets Laure, older, more self-possessed, already entangled in a life that feels entirely out of reach. Hargrave captures that intoxicating early intensity that most of us know so well, beautifully, but she’s far more interested in what comes next—the way certain connections embed themselves so deeply they shape the architecture of a life.

What makes the novel so compelling is its refusal to settle into the shape of a conventional love story. Instead, it traces the long shadow of a relationship across decades—through marriages, children, missed chances, and the slow accumulation of choices that shape the courses of the characters’ lives. Erica and …

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I love a good coming-of-age novel, and Jean by Madeleine Dunnigan is one of the best I’ve read in recent years. Rich with atmosphere and truly gorgeous prose, it’s the kind of debut that draws you in before revealing something far more unsettling beneath the surface. The novel follows Jean, a teenage boy at Compton Manor, a strange, insular boarding school where a group of boys fall under the influence of their charismatic and deeply erratic teacher, Charles Burrows. What begins as a portrait of adolescent life—friendships, rivalries, the slow formation of identity—gradually slips into something darker and more uncontained, as the boundaries between authority and transgression begin to blur. Set within this cloistered, faintly unhinged world, it carries a hazy, sun-drenched intensity that reminded me of Call Me By Your Name, but with a far sharper, more disquieting edge.

What stayed with me most is the way the novel resists becoming a neat coming-of-age or love story. At its core is Je…

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I can’t remember when I first came across , but it feels as though I’ve been reading her forever—in the best possible way. Despite truly identifying as someone who doesn’t actually read poetry, I adore Annie’s (much of which you can find on Instagram), and her latest Substack, on solitude and self-nurture, spoke straight to my very soul. In it, she posed the question: is it okay to prefer being alone? And though I really do wince at the phrase, I felt very, very seen reading it.

It’s something I wrestle with often, and part of the reason I chose to spend my 40th on a solo sojourn to Mexico City. She writes about it far better than I ever could: “But it’s when I’m alone—often, walk-running up the stairs—that my entire being slips into ecstasy.” I recognise that feeling so acutely—the sense that ecstasy can exist most vividly in solitude. It’s something I’ve discussed over and over (and over, and over) in conversation with friends: the truth, as odd as it sounds, that I’m almost always h…

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It was many moons ago, when I was working for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, that I first read Fatima Bhutto. Her debut novel, The Shadow of the Crescent Moon, had been longlisted, and I remember being completely absorbed by it: a story unfolding over three tense hours in Mir Ali, where three brothers head to separate mosques for Friday prayers—not out of division, but out of fear. What stayed with me most, though, were the women. Bhutto has said they weren’t meant to take centre stage, but they do—grief-stricken, defiant, complex—and it’s their voices that give the novel its emotional depth. Even now, a decade on, I can still remember how much I loved it.

So I was thrilled to see she’d published a new book this year—this time a memoir, which is very much my literary sweet spot. The Hour of the Wolf is slim but profound, tracing Bhutto’s experience of leaving a long, controlling relationship with an unthinkably awful man—and the healing power of dogs. It’s one of those books that feels…

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Best known for her luminous, wild-hearted children’s fiction, Katya Balen has long written stories that thrum with the rhythms of the natural world. Her international bestseller October, October won the Carnegie Medal and captured readers with its fierce tenderness and elemental power. Now, with her first novel for adults, she turns that same searching gaze to a different kind of wilderness.

Her debut for grown-up readers, Our Numbered Bones, is an unsettling, propulsive story about buried loss and renewal. When Anna’s life is abruptly upended, she flees London—and her husband—for a remote cottage in the wetlands of rural England, hoping solitude might unlock the novel she can’t bring herself to write. But when something long hidden rises from the marshland’s silty earth, curiosity tips into obsession. What unfolds is a fiercely tender exploration of what we need to unearth—in the landscape, and in ourselves—to make peace with the past.

I read it yesterday afternoon, completely absorbed…

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Like many readers, I’ve made something of a literary pilgrimage to Books Are Magic in Brooklyn, New York. Best known for its now-iconic mural—the one that has appeared in more than a few carefully framed Instagram photos—it’s the kind of bookshop that feels both destination and neighbourhood sanctuary at once. I visited on a cold weekend in New York a couple of years ago, en route back to the UK from Guatemala, and remember stepping inside and thinking: this is what an independent bookshop should feel like.

At the helm is Emma Straub—bookshop owner extraordinaire, community-builder, and, not incidentally, a New York Times bestselling author. While she has helped turn Books Are Magic into one of the most beloved indies in the US, she’s also built a pretty incredible career as a novelist. Oh, and she also has a home to die for, which you can have a nose around over on Cup of Jo.

Her new novel, American Fantasy, publishing in April, is described as Below Deck meets romantic comedy—an irre…

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Like almost everyone else, I fell in love with The List of Suspicious Things by the moment I started it—and to say I’m excited for her next novel, The BBQ at Number 9, is quite the understatement.

The List Of Suspicious Things tells the story of 11-year-old Miv growing up in Yorkshire in 1979, against the chilling backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper murders. Margaret Thatcher has just become Prime Minister, fear hangs thick in the air, and women’s lives are constrained by violence and suspicion. What makes the novel so striking is the way it filters this darkness through a child’s logic and determination. When Miv overhears plans to move away down south, she decides—inspired by her beloved adventure stories—that the only solution is to catch the killer herself.

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first came across Helen Russell when I read The Year of Living Danishly while on holiday in Hawaii. The book charts her first year in Denmark and offers a funny, honest and hugely appealing picture of what life might look like if you were to take the leap and start again somewhere new—ideally in the land of Danish pastries. As a fellow expat, I loved reading Russell’s take on building a life abroad, with all its surprises, challenges and small victories.

I then went on to read Leap Year, a book about making big decisions and learning to live with them, which I also loved. Since then, I’ve adored her other books, How to Be Sad and The Atlas of Happiness, and I’m a devoted reader of her brilliant Substack, . Her most recent post—about returning to England after twelve years in Denmark—was warm, hopeful and deeply relatable, especially for anyone who has ever wondered what home really means.

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I’ve loved ’s writing for years. One of my all-time favourite photos of me—and given that I generally avoid being photographed, and even more rarely like the results, this is no small feat—is one my sister took of me reading Daisy’s book The Sisterhood. It’s book about sisters, as the title might suggest, which feels especially apt, given that I have three.

Anyway. I was reading it in a hotel pool overlooking Lake Atitlán—as one does—mist hanging in the distance, a volcano blurred on the horizon, when a bird obligingly flew into frame just as my sister snapped the picture. It was six years ago now (April 2019, if we’re being precise), but I recently scrolled back through my phone to find it again, because it’s such a lovely memory.

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is one of my favourite writers on Substack. I read her brilliant book The Discomfort Zone many moons ago and, six years on, it’s still one I recommend regularly to friends. Her Substack is just as good—a mix of confessional essays and genuinely excellent recommendations, from a stylish guide to spending Christmas in Paris (I stayed at Saint James earlier this year and can confirm it’s one of the best hotels I’ve ever stayed in), to what happens when you blow up your life in pursuit of an affair.

I loved having her take part in my Desert Island Books series—and her selection of books is every bit as good as you’d expect.

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I’ve spoken at length on this Substack about how much I love memoirs, and Clover Stroud is one of the writers I return to most often. Few authors write about love, loss, motherhood, and the wild interiors of a woman’s life with the intensity she does. Her books move between the everyday and the emotional with a clarity that never tips into melodrama, and her voice—funny, frank, and quietly observant—always stays with me long after I’ve finished each of her books.

From The Wild Other to My Wild and Sleepless Nights, and later The Red of My Blood and—her most recent memoir—The Giant on the Skyline of the World, I’ve loved everything she’s written. Her brilliant Substack, is also well worth a visit if you’re not yet subscribed (and you absolutely should be).

I always love discovering the books that have shaped a writer, and Clover was no exception. From a classic exploration of family, ambition, sex, and violence, to a deeply melancholic portrait of the end of adolescence, find out which …

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There are only a handful of Substacks I open the second they land in my inbox, and ’s is one of them. Her essays have that rare mix of observation, curiosity, and humour that makes even seemingly small topics feel worth thinking about. I loved her piece on choosing to become a morning person, and why she always keeps champagne in the fridge. And her Desks Tours series is one of my favourites on Substack—offering readers a behind-the-scenes peek at the desks and workspaces of creative people—perfect fodder for someone as nosy as I am.

I recently read her forthcoming novel, Little One—a striking, unsettling exploration of identity, reinvention, and the shadows that follow us even when we think we’ve outrun them. It’s the kind of dark, literary suspense that stays with you not just because of what happens, but because of what it asks. If you’d like to get your hands on a copy, you’ll have to wait a little longer (it’s released in February 2026), but you can pre-order from Bookshop.org, an…

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For the past two weeks, I’ve been following the same morning routine, and it has been absolute, pure, agonising heaven.My alarm goes off at 5am—which will sound like the literal opposite of heaven to some people, I know, but I maintain that mornings are the best part of the day, and it’s a hill I’m willing to die on. After making myself an iced oat latte, I slip out of the house while the world is still half-asleep. I wander down to a stretch of concrete on the south side of Tamarama beach, lay my towel down, Brick my phone (an app that blocks social media—a complete game changer for my reading), and watch the sunrise. I listen to the waves, try (and fail) not to perve too much on the surfers sprinting past in their wetsuits, and settle in for two hours of uninterrupted reading.

Not a day goes by when I don’t thank my lucky stars that I get to do this; that I get to call this place home. I’m forever grateful that making the colossal mistake of moving here for a man who dumped me shortly thereafter somehow led me to a life I once never knew existed.

And even though today is a Sunday, I still crept out of the house into the early-morning quiet. This morning I began Mongrel by Hanako Footman, today’s Desert Island Books guest—and I’m now halfway through, completely swept away. It’s sharp and tender, quietly explosive in the way it moves between identities, desires, the ache of belonging, and the ache of not quite fitting anywhere. Hanako’s writing has that beautiful quality where you find yourself reading faster and slower at the same time: racing to know what happens next but savouring every line.

It’s a truly gorgeous book; one that I know readers of this Substack will love as much as me (with, or without the dreamy backdrop). If you’d like to buy yourself a copy, please consider doing so from Bookshop.org, and online platform that helps support independent bookshops.

I try to write as much as I can without a paywall, but it does take time. If you’re enjoying this post, why not treat me to a nice glass of prosecco?

Buy me a cold one

From the book that reminds her of her father, to the one she devoured on a beach in Hydra, read on to find out which eight books Hanako would take with her to the sandy shores of a desert island…

For Esme with Love and Squalor and other short stories by JD Salinger

This book reminds me of my father. He loved this collection of short stories, the way Salinger wrote his characters—the humour, the human-ness, the detail. My sister had an old 70s copy, gifted to her by a man on a date in Paris. He’d written a note to her on the inside cover, and as a teenager I would re-read the note, as much as I did the stories, over and over again, imagining a future in which a man might give me a rose and a vintage copy on some Paris street. Alas, that day is yet to come. But in my twenties, I did buy myself a first edition from the 1950s, which is perhaps even more romantic.

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

Mongrel would not exist were it not for Three Women. When I first read the book, Lisa’s depiction of Maggie, Lisa and Sloane seemed to expose the very core of who I was, of what it is to be a woman—laying it all bare in such an honest, daring, give-a-fuck kind of way. Three Women then acted as my true north as I started writing my book over the course of three years. I had a real full circle moment when Lisa quoted for Mongrel. I literally keeled over on the street with delight. A career highlight, for sure.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

This book is pure, jaw-dropping magic. It’s dark, mythological, and queer. It’s sort of impossible to write about because it is a fever dream best experienced and felt. It will be my companion on those dark nights on the island when all hope is lost and I’m in need of some.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

I have been obsessed with the Stephen Daldry film since I was a young teenager, even basing my A-level Drama performance off the 50s housewife, Laura Brown (think pink apron, lots of sighing, melodrama etc.) So I don’t know why it took me so long to pick up a copy of this book, well into my twenties. When I read it I was rapt, bowled over by Cunningham’s sentences, his ability to hit on something with such clarity and poetry and ease. I revere this book, and dip into it regularly when I am in need of inspiration.

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The Steps Up The Chimney by William Corlett

This is one of the first books that sunk its teeth into me as a kid. That opening at the train station, the lone fox across the platform, paw raised, eyes searching. A house with a giant fireplace, with secret stone steps leading up to a hidden tower. A mad alchemist. A talking badger. I mean… What more could you want? When I finished this book for the first time, as a child, I felt bereft. I missed my friends, William, Mary, and Alice. William Corlett showed me the power of a good book for the very first time, how the imaginary can leave a mark more potent than reality.

Lord of the Rings: Two Towers by J R. R. Tolkien

Again, enamoured with the movies, late to the books. Only just finished all three and my goodness, they did not disappoint. I had no idea an orc chase could make my heart race like it did. The Shire, Rivendell, Fangorn Forest—these places not only feel intensely real, a land once known and now lost, but also act as a sanctuary, one I can go to in my mind when the desert island gets lonely.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

A bit of a sexual awakening for me. My sister, Miki, bought me this book when I was a teenager. Perhaps she knew before me. I had never read a lesbian love story in a novel, and what a story to land in. Sarah Waters’ writing is luscious, precise and so detailed in its historical accuracy, without any heavy-lifting. Her books are all transporting, but there’s something about Fingersmith that feels nostalgic and new every time I pick it up.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

A masterpiece. One I devoured on a beach in Hydra a few years back, and one I cannot wait to return to again when I’m on my desert island beach. I think it will suit the ocean view and I can spend long hours contemplating Clarke’s prose, trying to work out the sorcery behind them. This book is unadulterated imagination, so very human and fantastical. I think about it a lot. It makes me look at the world and all who occupy it with tenderness.

I first came across Mina Holland when I read an essay she wrote in Freewheeling, a book in which twelve writers explore the joys of cycling, celebrating life on two wheels. It’s a gorgeous book; but it was Mina’s essay—about a Peleton, no less—that I found the most stirring.

I swiftly ordered her memoir, Lifeblood, which I read shortly after Paula by Isabel Allende—both are books on motherhood; but not the farmhouse-and-Aga-esque writing we’ve been conditioned to expect when women turn their gaze to domestic life. Instead, they are sharp, unsettling, and—at times—incredibly hard to read.

Neither book offers neat conclusions; instead, they offer something far more valuable: an exploration of the complexities of being alive. And Mina’s voice—clear, wry, quietly devastating—has stayed with me; as I’m sure it will with you too.

If you’d like to order a copy of Lifeblood, please consider doing so from Bookshop.org, a platform that helps support independent bookshops.

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From the novel that left …

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A quick note before today’s Desert Island Books: My 40% off annual subscription offer ends at midnight tonight. If you’ve been thinking about joining the paid tier, now’s the perfect moment to hop aboard.

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is one of my absolute favourite writers on Substack. She pens the utterly brilliant , which is not only a weekly mood-lifter but also offers a hilarious glimpse into life at the award-winning independent bookshop Storytellers, Inc.—the shop she opened with her mum back in December 2010. (By the sea! With zero experience in books or retail! Iconic behaviour.)

This post all about what it’s really like to be a bookseller, is the perfect gateway into her world. And—like the rest of her devoted readers—I’m thrilled that her book, sharing the same name as her Substack, is hitting shelves next year. If you’d like to pre-order a copy (and you absolutely should), please consider doing so from Bookshop.org; a platform that helps support independent bookshops.

From a book with a cast of characte…

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If you’re looking for your next best book, might I suggest you get yourself a copy of A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar pronto? I came across it—as I often do—on Instagram. Chosen by Oprah as her latest book club pick, it’s Megha’s second novel. Her debut, A Burning, has been eyeing me for some time now, along with every other unread book on my ever-growing TBR pile. As well as winning the 2022 Whiting Award and the 2021 Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar, A Burning was also nominated for a slew of other awards, including the National Book Award for Fiction, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and the Andrew Carnegie Medal. No mean feat for a debut novelist.

A Guardian and a Thief is a slim but dazzling novel—my very favourite kind. I loved how Megha Majumdar takes a crumbling, flood-soaked Kolkata and turns it into a stage for ordinary people doing extraordinary things just to survive. Ma and Boomba are two sides of the same story—one holding on, one breaking rules—…

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Joanne Harris has been one of my favourite authors for as long as I can remember. I still recall buying Chocolat as a teenager (from HMV, of all places) and devouring it in a single sitting—mesmerised by the prose, the plot, and its cast of rich yet flawed characters. Since then, I’ve read the entire series—now five books, including the recently released Vianne, a prequel to Chocolat—and recommend them to literally anyone who will listen.

I’ve loved many of her other novels too: the gothic Sleep, Pale Sister, which I picked up from a market stall on Khao San Road while backpacking around Thailand at nineteen and has stayed on my bookcase ever since; Blackberry Wine and Five Quarters of the Orange, both of which I gifted to guests on my recent reading retreat in Provence. Her books are a brilliant blend of magical, atmospheric, and evocative writing—and if you’ve yet to read them, you truly are in for an absolute treat.

Harris was instrumental in shaping my love of reading as a teenager …

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One of my favourite books this year has been The Year of the Dog by today’s Desert Island Books guest, Sophia Money-Coutts. I’ve long been a fan of her journalism, and I’m a sucker for a good memoir, so it came as no surprise that her book has firmly landed in my top five favourite reads of the year.

Told in a hilarious diary format, it’s a moving and incredibly funny book about being dumped at forty—and how a small, scruffy terrier slowly stitched her back together. Sophia writes so honestly and beautifully about that in-between stage of life when everyone around you seems to be coupled up—a feeling anyone who’s found themselves single after thirty (myself included) will recognise all too well.

I adored so much of the memoir: Sophia’s courage as she dips a toe back into dating, her turn as a judge at the World Marmalade Awards (who knew that was even a thing?), and spending her fortieth birthday in a remote Welsh cottage with Dennis—which sounded utterly heavenly. Despite lacking any o…

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