This falls into my fave category of queer books: very beautiful and very sad.

A brilliant exploration of the intersection between identity, sexuality and politics, set against the turbulent backdrop of soviet rule in the Polish People’s Republic. Gorgeous prose, made me cry.

HER BODY & OTHER PARTIES by @carmenmmachado is surprising from the first story to the last.

Machado is a vvv smart writer & I love the way she plays with genre tropes within a largely realistic framework. A sexy, horrifying, funny, strange, heartwarming, undeniably QUEER book.

What can you say about the genius that is Ali Smith? Obviously this was brilliant. Strange, sad times in our world interpreted with fury and compassion, humour and humanity. Is there anyone better? She is so bloody clever.

Just finished WEATHER by Jenny Offill.

Loved her previous books, but either this one is more nihilistic than LAST THINGS and DEPT. OF SPECULATION, or I’m feeling a greater level of personal dread right now (likely). Was at times too bleak a picture for me. But the writing!!

Next: LITTLE WEIRDS by @jennyslate, who I love, and whose Netflix special I revisited in tandem w/ this book. So joyful!

Ostensibly memoir, it’s playful and silly and funny and really thoughtful. Parts made my heart properly ache. She meanders around ideas before striking quick.

Laughed a lot reading this collection of essays.

Hadn’t come across Irby before and she’s great on life’s daily indignities. Some v relatable content, especially on her obsession with beauty bloggers, which I share, and the way that our gross human bodies cannot be relied on.

Loved FEN, so had high hopes for @djdaisyjohnson’s debut novel. Wasn’t disappointed!

This is an excavation of a mother-daughter relationship threaded with myth and prophecy. Oedipus and Cassandra feed into a book in which language is imbued with special power to reshape the past

Heartbroken this is over. The sort of book you want to read all over again as soon as you finish.

Everyone I know loves Maggie O’Farrell for good reason. She captures emotion without sentimentality and this book ponders mortality but isn’t at all morbid.

I enjoyed some chapters more than others. Calling a visit to the clinic a ‘brush with death’ is a bit of a stretch ngl.

Really needed a good laugh and for that I can rely on David Sedaris. My mum kept calling up, asking why I was cackling so loudly.

Sedaris has a sharp eye and acerbic tendencies, but he’s fundamentally kind. Eccentric, offbeat, able to make himself the butt of the joke.

Oh my god. Completely hollowed out by this book.

EDINBURGH is about a man navigating the trauma he experienced as a boy. It’s a short novel but Chee says so much about power structures, the legacy of abuse, complicity and outsider status. It’s incredibly powerful.

Really enjoyed returning to Amgash and immersing myself in the human-scale trials of a rural community.

Elizabeth Strout has a rich eye for small, seemingly insignificant details that reveal her characters’ truest forms. It’s a book shot through with hope and kindness.

Not sunflowers but...

Reread this brilliant book. One of my favourites ever. Pacing, voice, prose all sublime.