Of Mice and Cells
John Steinbeck and the phalanx
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
A delicious collection of Murakami’s unique brand of realistic weirdness in 24 short stories. Some ended abruptly, some ended perfectly, some could only be understood in a certain frame of mind. It’s hard not to be drawn back again and again by any writing by Murakami – to dislike
Braiding Sweetgrass
Braiding Sweetgrass is a beautiful collection of stories that, broadly, follow the life of the author, Robin Wall Kimmerer (a botanist and professor of environmental biology who is of Native American descent), and her evolving understanding of the relationship between scientific and indigenous ways of knowing, along with the implications
The Dream of the Jaguar
I really enjoyed The Dream of the Jaguar. It follows the life of an orphan found in the street by a mute beggar woman in Maracaibo, Venezuela, who builds his life up from poverty until he becomes the most successful surgeon in the country. This family saga is divided into
Essays in Love
A stage-by-stage analysis of a romantic relationship from beginning to end, Essays in Love doesn’t completely lose its focus amid the passion of love, but it isn’t so objective that it reads like an academic paper. It’s full of discomfiting facts for romantics everywhere: chief among them
Immune
Immune by Philipp Dettmer I admit, I lied. I haven’t actually fully finished Immune despite coming back to it multiple times over the years. At first glance, it felt like a public-friendly introduction to the immune system which was good and all – but seemed all exposition. Fast-forward two years
Eurotrash
Eurotrash is a demeaning portmanteau, combining “European” and “white trash”, used to describe pretentious European elites. Provocative from the start, Christian Kracht’s autofictional International Booker Prize Winner foreshadows the unsettling aristocratic class themes explored within the novel. A Swiss-German middle-aged man trying to break free from his family’s
Why I don't care if Heathcliffe is white
There’s been a lot of controversy about the casting of Jacob Elordi, a white Australian, as Heathcliffe in Emerald Fennel’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights, particularly that a white man could portray a character, who although never explicitly stated to be what we in 2026 would call a racial
Books for when...
Valentine's themed recommendations
L’Écume des jours
My admission that Boris Vian’s L’Écume des jours (Froth on the Daydream) is my favourite book has often raised eyebrows. This 1947 novel is a classic mandatory back-to school read for French pupils, but is rarely considered a part of the adult canon. There is, indeed, something very
Orbital
Orbital is Samantha Harvey’s love letter to Planet Earth. I was fortunate to begin the novel in my own orbit of sorts, on an airplane accompanying the rising sun from Singapore to London. Looking out, I felt the same strange sense of privilege that mirrored in its pages. This
Ripples and Waves in Ground Provisions
Imbued with language reminiscent of vibrant flavours, golden hues, and a warm breeze, Ground Provisions tackles ancestry, culture, sensuality, and family. Shauna M. Morgan grew up in Clarendon, Jamaica, before relocating to the United States for university and becoming a celebrated academic in the realm of Africana literature. Throughout her