Essays, reflections, short stories, articles….
Short forms of writing, so useful in the age of lack of time and the desire to enjoy something worthwhile for example in a doctor’s waiting room, while waiting for a train, during a journey or simply during a lunch break. I would never have imagined that the day would come when I would become obsessed with them (I prefer longer reading forms). I am enchanted by Toni Morison’s essays, I can’t stop delight in Nora Ephron’s wit and eloquence, I “eat” Marian Keyes’ observations before breakfast…. There is no end to my excitement about them. And here are a few of them to soothe you and to start with something more alluring the week, which I heartily recommend to you.
So here we go…
notes from a small woman
by Marian Keyes
“Weloome to the magnificent Making It Up As I Go Along-aka the World According to Marian Keyes – a bold and brilliant collection of Marian’s hilarious and often heartfelt observations on modern life, love and everything in between. From a guide to breaking up with your hairdresser to entering the fifties zone, the joys of her nail varnish museum to singing her way through insomnia, Marian will have you laughing with delight and gasping with recognition
throughout – because at the end of the day, each and
every one of us is clearly making it up as we go along.”
A NEW, REVISED EDITION OF THE ULTIMATE
NORA EPHRON COLLECTION, PACKED
WITH WIT, WISDOM, AND COMFORT
INCLUDING:
•Nora’s much-loved essays on everything
from friendship to feminism to journalism
•Extracts from her bestselling novel Heartburn
and her play Lucky Guy
• Scenes from her hilarious screenplay
for When Harry Met Sally
•Unparalleled advice about friends,
lovers, divorces, desserts, and
black turtleneck swea
and other thoughts on being a woman
by Nora Ephron
“Never marry a man you wouldn’t want to be divorced fromIf the shoe doesn’t fit in the shoe store, i’s never going to fit.When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.
Anything you think is wrong with your body
ot the oge of thirty-five you will be nostalgic
for by the age of forty-five.”
“The power of language, discussed beautifully in Toni
Morrison’s Nobel lecture is felt throughout the essays, speeches ond meditaions contained in this collection. With controlled anger, elegance, and literary excellence, Morrison’s words interrogate the world around us, considering race, gender, and globalisation. Heart-stoppingly introduced by a prayer for the dead of 9/11, a meditation on Martin Luther King Jr. and a eulogy for James Baldwin. This collection addresses audiences ronging from graduating students to visitors to both the
Louvre and America’s Black Holocaust Museum.
Mouth Full of Blood is a powerful, erudite, and essential gathering of ideas that speaks to us all.”
by Samantha Irby
“Staring down the barrel of her fortieth year, Samantha Irby is confronting the ways her life has changed since the days she could work a full eleven-hour shift on four hours of sleep, change her shoes, and put on mascara in the back of a moving cab, and go from drinks to dinner to the club without a second thought. Recently, things are more Girls Gone Mild: In Wo, No Thank You. Irby discusses the actual nightmare of living in a rural idyll and weighs in on body negativity (loving yourself is a full-time job with shitty benefits) and poses the essential question: sure, sex is fun – but have you ever Googled a popular meme?”
100 Years of the Best Journalism by Women
With an Introduction by Naomi Wolf Edited by Eleanor Mills with Kira Cochrane
“Female journalists came to the fore during two world wars, writing from the perspective of those left at home, but with ‘How it Feels to be Forcibly Fed’
(1915) by Djuna Barnes – one of the world’s very first experiential, or ‘gonzo’ journalists came a new age of investigative and involved reporting. Since then, women writers have continued to break new ground, redefining the world as we see it. Many of the pieces collected here feel almost unsettlingly relevant today (Emma Goldman’s 1916 piece The Social Aspects of Birth Control’; Judy Syfers ‘s 1971 satire ‘WhyI want a Wife’), or have pushed other limits (Naomi Nolf brought feminism to a new generation; Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones caused a media revolution; Ruth Picardie’s cancer diary Cracked Britain’s reserve). With this collection of superlative writing, female editor has drawn together the most influential, controversial, and entertaining work by the best Women in the business .”
by Alexandra Potter
“A novel for any woman who wonders how the hell she got here, and why life isn’t quite how she imagined it was going to be. And who is desperately trying to figure it all out when everyone around her is making gluten-free brownies. Meet Nell. Her life is a mess. In a world of perfect Instagram lives, she feels like a f##k up. Even worse, a forty-something f##k up. But when she starts a secret podcast and forms an unlikely friendship with Cricket, an eighty-something widow, things begin to change. Because Nell is determined. This time next year things will be very different. But first she has a confession…”
with an introduction by Gordon Snell
Edited by Róisín Ingle
“As someone who fell off a chair trying
to hear what they were saying at the
next table in a restaurant, I suppose
lam obsessively interested in what
some might consider the trivia of
other people’s lives ”
“Maeve Binchy was an accidental journalist whose work first appeared after her father sent in colourful
accounts he had received from her travels. From the beginning, her writings reflected the warmth,
laugh-out-loud humour and keen human interest that readers would come to love in her fiction. From
‘Life as a Waitress’ to ‘Staving Off the Senior Moments’, Maeves Times demonstrates her own inimitable take on life. With an introduction by her husband, the writer Gordon Snell. Maeve’s Times reminds us of why the writings of Maeve Binchy are universally cherished, and will be for generations to come.”
Yours L.
another pile of books 
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