Illustrations, reviews (mostly bookish) and other scribblings. Subscribe to the fortnightly dispatch at one’s peril (or delight).
Dispatch #6: Keat’s Bees
The allure of the graphic novel, Coupling, Disney’s Mulan, favourite Conversations podcast episodes and Queen of Sheba cakes
Dispatch #5: Intimations
On Zadie Smith's Intimations, literary podcasts, glass blowing, beloved Disney lyricists and two-bean salad.
Dispatch #4: The Bucket
Reviews of Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld, Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell and Girl, Women, Other by Bernardine Evaristo. Also, Indian matchmakers, Mysterious TV astrologers and sweet pies.
Dispatch #3: The Treasury
On combustible children, on Werner Herzog reading children books, on the undead, on hermit nuns and the perfect Ottolenghi chicken dish
Dispatch #2: The Windmills of My Mind
On Hamilton the Musical, on memory, on quiz shows, on great documentaries and tuna tartare.
Dispatch #1: Let’s Start at the Very Beginning
On medieval pop song covers, Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, epistolary novels, sneaky cons and vegetarian bakes.
Book Review: The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
Part superhero origin story, part critical race discourse, The City We Became is popcorn entertainment with serious political heft.
Ella in Five
Five essential albums and ten songs to discover (or re-discover) the First Lady of Song.
To Ella, With Love
On the glorious, radical, beautiful, mysterious First Lady of Song, Ella Fitzgerald
The E.M. Forster Project: Where Angels Fear to Tread
The first E.M. Forster novel is a precocious debut.
The Non-Pareil
On the exquisite perfection of Lorraine’s Date Tart and I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.
Savage Fury: Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Room of One’s Own
Who shall measure the heat and violence of a poet’s heart when caught and tangled in a woman’s body?
