The best response to someone asking you about a book you haven’t read is to own up – immediately. The main reason for not lying about what you’ve read, of course, is that the lie somehow seems to stop you from actually getting round to the book. It’s also rather chic to be honest about this. I asked the bestselling novelist David Nicholls what he thought of DH Lawrence a few years ago and he said: ‘I would be more eloquent about this if I’d ever got to the end of one of his novels – and I never have.’
Justine Tabak
If, like us, you’ve been enjoying the new BBC adaptation of Howards End, then you’ve probably also been seduced by the clothes of the bohemian Schlegel sisters. We’ve found that it doesn’t do to interpret the style of an Edwardian bluestocking too literally and don’t feel we could pull off the high-necked, puff-sleeved blouses as amply as Hayley Atwell does anyway. We do, however, yearn for a long oxblood red skirt or a dress in smart cotton tartan with a black velvet ribbon tie. This is where Justine Tabak, who has produced a small collection of just such clothes, comes in.
The Pilgrm
For years, we’ve struggled to find anywhere decent to eat in Paddington. Aside from the Frontline Club or the tiny Monocle Kioskcafe, we’ve never found anywhere and, returning from Somerset, we once ended up meeting a friend for overpriced wine in what was the unlovely Sloe Bar in Paddington station. Those days are firmly behind us, now that The Pilgrm Hotel has opened, serving food and drinks throughout the day. Thrillingly, The Pilgrm is visible from the station so it really is little more than a hop, skip and a jump from the train platforms.
Claire Messud: Craft and Fusion
I meet Claire Messud at the London Review Bookshop one sodden evening in September when she is London to promote her latest novel, The Burning Girl. Her normal speaking voice is gentle anyway, but tonight she is speaking particularly softly so as not to disturb book browsers in the shop’s basement. I’m conscious we don’t have much time, so ask her to explain the genesis of the book.
“Why this book now?” she asks.
“Yes, exactly.”
“Should I explain what the book is about?”
“Sure.”
Don't judge a book by (the awards on) its cover
Anyone looking to the Booker Prize this year to affirm that dreams can come true would have seized on the example of Fiona Mozley, the 29 year bookseller who wrote the first chapter of her longlisted novel on a train. Her story seemed impossibly romantic: an unknown debut novelist, who wrote her book virtually in secret, was recognised alongside Paul Auster and Zadie Smith by one of the most famous literary prizes in the world. But while Mozley rather touchingly has said ‘I already feel like I’ve won,’ what about those writers who are always the bridesmaid but never the bride when it comes to literary prizes?
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends is a fluent and impressive first novel. Still only twenty-six years old, Rooney says she wrote the book in a “huge rush”, and this has translated to the page, where urgency is crucial; the quartet of bourgeois artists that the book centres on are so introspective that, at times, it requires this sense of propulsion to stick with them. Frances, a twenty-one-year-old spoken-word poet, performs with her confident and beautiful ex-girlfriend Bobbi. Their work comes to the attention of Melissa, who hopes to write a profile on the pair. She also introduces them to her actor husband Nick.