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Monday 24th August:

• My week has begun up north at Mum’s. Today we went to Haworth which was lovely, had a great coffee at Haworth Wholefoods, and walked slowly down the hill as I cannot for the life of me walk down a hill at a normal speed because of my knees. Howarth is lovely but is quite literally just on one hill.

• From there we went to Hebden Bridge and into an antique store that I could tell would be a costly visit as soon as I walked in, it had that completely irresistible air some shops have (such as Marks and Spencers and stationery shops). I have a lamp I have literally no place to put, two cat bookends and a framed poster.

• Today I’ve been neglecting The Dispossessed in favour of The Möbius Book, which is absolutely brilliant. It’s one half memoir, one half short story. I’ve started with the memoir, which is chronicling Lacey’s heartbreak when her ex, referred to as The Reason, abruptly leaves her.

• I stumbled across The Song of Stork and Dromedary: A Novel by Anjet Daanje, translated by David McKay. It’s set in West Yorkshire, and I so wish I was reading it while I was here. It sounds complex and interesting, and I have ordered myself a copy.

Tuesday 25th August:

• Train back home to London this afternoon, tackled 50 more pages of The Dispossessed and finished the memoir part of The Möbius Book. I am having one of those reading experiences with The Dispossessed where you have to make such an effort to stop your mind from wandering. It’s a strange thing sometimes as it isn’t a reflection of the fact that I am not enjoying a book, or not finding it well written, but there is something in it that isn’t allowing me to fully connect. Sometimes I do find if I start a book in a distracted headspace and sort of muddle my way through the first few chapters, then I will set myself up for failure with the book. I am worried this is what is happening here, as every attempt I am making with it is disconnected. Some pages I am flying through and feeling gripped and involved with the characters, some I have having to re-read several times until I force enough concentration out of myself!

• I’m enjoying The Möbius Book so much so that I listened to this podcast with Catherine Lacey. From this I learned about her penchant for coding, and her website is a total joy (must be enjoyed on a laptop/desktop) there are lots of little hidden parts to it, I recommend spending some time exploring. She also speaks about how she writes while listening to 9 Beet Stretch, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony stretched out to 24 hours. She also has a Substack you should read here.

• Got back home to my new rug I mentioned last week!! I love it!

• My suitcase has been MIA for almost two weeks now, it has thankfully made it back to the UK but the whole process has been incredibly slow. This is PSA to always travel with an AirTag. I have one in there, and being able to see where it is had made the whole experience mostly annoying and inconvenient rather than really worrying that it might have been totally lost. After this, I would never travel without one.

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Wednesday 26th August:

• My suitcase arrived!!! Fully intact!! So much joy and SO MUCH WASHING TO DO.

• I had ordered the next two books in the Cazalet Chronicles, which arrived today. I am now committed to getting these editions, which are the US ones, so scouring the internet to find second hand ones while I am in London. Really so excited to start the next one which I might delve into next week (probably instead of reading The Dispossessed, the running theme of this week).

Saturday 29th August:

• Today I had a clear out at home (I need to do a big one and I am overwhelmed by the thought so I am trying to tackle a small section at a time), and listened to Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward in its entirety. I have mentioned before that I struggle to focus on audiobooks sometimes, I do find memoirs or non-fiction much easier, but I have never managed to listen to one in one go, in just one day. Men We Reaped is Ward’s coming-of-age memoir, she shares the story of her childhood growing up in Mississippi, and the story of the unconnected deaths of five Black men she knew and lost over just a four-year period. She uses these deaths as a framework for the memoir, jumping around in time, telling the story of the men individually and her relation to them, which in turn reveals to us different parts of her own life. Beyond her own relation to each of the men, they are linked by the experience of being a Black man in America, specifically southern America. Ward deftly shows the reader how systemic racism played a part in each man’s life and untimely death, and how her own experience as a Black woman differs from that of the men in her life. It was truly incredible, needless to say it’s a hard read, but her writing style is so wonderful it somehow allows you to hold onto the tender moments she presents just as much as moments of grief. I sobbed while listening to it, but also felt buoyed by how she wrote her familial relationships, how Mississippi and the feeling of home became a character in itself. An incredible book, if you have Spotify Premium, you can listen to it for free here.

Sunday 30th August:

• It's a bank holiday weekend, so today is basically another Saturday.

• I finished The Möbius Book this morning, another fantastic read. After finishing the memoir side, I was unsure if the short story would be able to compare, but it absolutely did. I am moving The Biography of X by Lacey further up my tbr.

• We will start the September book vote today, please feel free to also leave your vote here, I will make sure to include in the tally:
  The Idiot by Elif Batuman
  Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter
  Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
  Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
  Gaining Ground by Joan Barfoot

• I am still procrastinating around The Dispossessed, I had hoped by the time I hit publish on this, I would have finished it by now, but I have successfully found a thousand other things to do except sit down and read it. I will finish it, and talk about it in next week’s diary. To motivate myself I have just sat down with a tea and a little bowl of sweet treats I bought at M&S last night, and I will read at least 20 pages of this book. More on this soon!!

Thank you all for reading again, I hope you have enjoyed it. The book club tickets will be on sale next Sunday at 6pm London time, and I will announce the winning book next week.
Lizzy xx

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A short version of the above could just be… welcome (back) to my blog. Here we go!

Monday 17th August:

• I read the first 25 (out of just 40) pages of Recitatif by Toni Morrison on the bus this morning. I am yet to read a Morrison where I don’t just think… “how is she doing this?” the entire time. She is a master of her craft. This is her only short story and I do think she is a novelist more than a short story writer, but it is still packed with her beautiful prose.

• After a weekend of not being able to focus on anything I am meant to be reading, I abandoned all efforts and flung myself into the ever faithful arms of a Stephen King novel. This time The Long Walk, after a particularly good conversation at the pub on Saturday with two very well read friends (one is in fact an author; Avery Curran who wrote Spoiled Milk, which you can read about here). Both fans of King, they recommended The Long Walk and I went from not being able to focus on a book to reading 100 pages in one sitting.

• Other recommendations I left that conversation with were Happy All The Time by Laurie Colwin and Restoration by Rose Tremain. AND a game called Tiny Bookshop where you run a travelling bookshop, it’s amazing and calming and involves real books which it such a joy. I love it.

• I am currently trying to decide on the five books we will vote from in September. Satantango by László Krasznahorkai has been circling my tbr for a while, I took it on holiday with me but didn’t get round to starting it. I was listening to this episode of Canonical, one of my favourite book podcasts that sadly is no longer releasing episodes but does have a huge backlog, all about the book. It ultimately has made me think I would be out of my depth to hold a discussion about it, but has made me all the more interested in reading it in my own time.

• I am thinking of including a Pynchon in the list… how would we feel about that? I have never read any of his work but think Inherent Vice would be a great place to start and always so fun to delve into a famous writer for the first time (for me) as a group. Especially one known for slightly intimidating books!

• I ordered a runner for my kitchen after a viewer on YouTube recommended Ruggable to me. Whatever you do, in this life or the next, NEVER get a light grey tiled kitchen floor. Unless you have the time and inclination to hoover and wash your floor numerous times a day. I went with this rug after spending an unbelievable amount of time trying to decide and I cannot wait for it to arrive.

• I have bought numerous things from a Pinterest ad in my time, and especially the Etsy ones. Whoever is working that algorithm is a magician. I ordered this bag and can’t wait for it to arrive. I think it is going to look great with winter coats.

Wednesday 19th August:

• This morning felt like the first cool morning we have had in ages. I am trying not to wish Summer away, but it was also so nice to feel a bit cosy.

• Made a dint in The Dispossessed. The second chapter felt slow, but it has been picking up from there. I started watching Worlds of Ursula Le Guin, a documentary about her life that is available on Amazon Prime, so far, so good!

• The other side of my working life, the influencer side, has been very busy and has recently made me aware of the fact St Agni is now available on John Lewis!! Very exciting if you are interested in the brand and getting a sense of their sizing (pretty true to size in my experience).

• Wore boots for the first time in forever. These from Dico Copenhagen that I was sent in the height of Summer. I love the colour and shape but they were unfortunately really uncomfortable on the first wear, but I am so hopeful I can break them in and wear them throughout winter.

• Has anyone watched The Shards yet? It was one of my favourite summer reads last year and it’s been adapted into a TV show that has received mostly lacklustre reviews.

• As a serious tea drinker with a secret hope to one day become an official Tea Influencer (we must all have dreams), I am drinking unbelievable amounts of the Doctor Stolberg ‘Rest & Digest’ tea. It’s meant to be for bloating, and I have drunk enough to not bloat once between now and the New Year. I am not sure how much it works for that but it’s delicious and sort of… savoury? Sounds dreadful but it is not.

Saturday 22nd August:

• I am taking the train to Edinburgh today for the book festival!! Which means abundant reading time on the train, possibly one of my favourite reading scenarios. I am meeting Mum there and I am hosting an event with Vintage Books around their Brief Encounters series. I can’t wait!!

• Last year was my first book festival and the wonderful Ruth Leslie, an Edinburgh based jewellery designer, got in touch and asked I would like to wear some of her pieces for the event. I jumped at the chance, the brand is beautiful, and this year she sent me another two pieces. This gorgeous bracelet, and a matching necklace. Thank you Ruth, I love them!!

• Finished The Long Walk by Stephen King. It’s packed with what he does best: dialogue, capturing a teenage (especially male) mind, following a linear plot that you really can’t help but want to devour. By no means his best work, it could have been half the length it was, but a fun read nonetheless.

Sunday 23rd August:

• The event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival was wonderful!! Thank you so much to everyone who came. I had so much fun and it was so great to talk book (and other important topics such as Graham Norton’s height and The Sims) with you all. The Brief Encounters range from Vintage is truly brilliant, it’s been so well curated and a fantastic way to tackle authors you’ve been wanting to (but maybe not wanting to enough to try one of their potentially ginormous and very hard to read novels - I am speaking about the way I feel towards Herman Melville here).

• We managed to squeeze in a trip to Topping and Co this morning too. If you’re ever in Edinburgh you must go (they have also just opened one in York which is even bigger!!). Last year I was there and saw Irvine Welsh singing copies of Trainspotting. And not in the sense that it was part of an event, he was just there doing it for no apparent reason, which was incredibly exciting to see and I of course bought a copy. This time I bought two books: The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey and Happy All The Time by Laurie Colwin.

• Two minutes down the road from Toppings there is a brilliant coffee shop called Ante, which I highly recommend. On Saturday we also had a soup and a sandwich at Lovecrumbs West Port which was delicious!

And at the time of publishing this, I’ve just surpassed the halfway point of The Dispossessed, and will keep powering through! More on that soon, and please keep discussing on the Substack chat.

Lizzy x

HELLO! I just returned from an incredible 10 days in Sicily where I did very very little, recovering from our Summer Fair and gearing up for another busy season of Buffy’s events. I will be in Edinburgh for the book festival this month, hosting an event with Vintage Books, so sadly there will be no in-person book club for our pick, The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin, but I am excited to discuss it on Substack.

This is my second read of Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle, where The Left Hand of Darkness is also set. That book really blew me away, so I am excited to delve into this.

About Ursula K Le Guin

• B. Ursula Kroeber, 1929, Berkeley, California, died 2018 (aged 88), Portland, Oregon

• Father Alfred was an Anthropologist at the University of California, mother Theodora had a degree in psychology but began writing in her 60s and was a successful author

  • Wrote a book called Ishi in Two Worlds, about Ishi, an indigenous American studied by Alfred, who was the final member of a tribe which had been entirely killed by white colonizers

• Three older brothers - Theodore, Clifton, and Karl who became a literary scholar

• Intellectual home - big book collection, reading was strongly encouraged, and Alfred’s intellectual friends would often visit, including Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who invented the atomic bomb

  • Oppenheimer inspired the protagonist Shevek of The Dispossesed

  • Enjoyed reading science fiction as a child, as well as Norse mythology

    • “Once I learned to read, I read everything. I read all the famous fantasies – Alice in Wonderland, and Wind in the Willows, and Kipling. I adored Kipling’s Jungle Book. And then when I got older I found Lord Dunsany. He opened up a whole new world – the world of pure fantasy. And ... Worm Ouroboros. Again, pure fantasy. Very, very fattening. And then my brother and I blundered into science fiction when I was 11 or 12. Early Asimov, things like that. But that didn’t have too much effect on me. It wasn’t until I came back to science fiction and discovered Sturgeon – but particularly Cordwainer Smith. ... I read the story “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard”, and it just made me go, “Wow! This stuff is so beautiful, and so strange, and I want to do something like that.”” - Le Guin in a 2012 interview

• Began writing short stories from the age of 9, and submitted a short story to the magazine Astounding Science Fiction aged 11 and was rejected - disheartened, she did not submit any writing for another 10 years

• Went to high school at Berkeley High

• 1947-51 - Gained a BA degree in Renaissance French and Italian Literature from Radcliffe College, a women’s liberal arts school which was part of Harvard

• 1952 - earns a MA in French from Columbia University

• Begins working on a PHD and gains a Fulbright scholarship to study in France, where she moves in 1953

  

• Meets Charles Le Guin on the boat to France and they marry in Paris in December 1953

  • She describes this marriage as signalling “the end of the doctorate” for her, and stopped working towards her PHD

• They moved back to the US where Ursula taught French at universities in Georgia and Idaho, and worked as a secretary

• 1957 - first daughter Elisabeth is born, who would go on to be an accomplished musicologist and cellist

• 1959 - second daughter Caroline is born

• 1964 - son Theodore is born and the family settle in Portland, where Ursula remained until her death

• Writing career/significant works

  • Begins writing novels in the late 1950s, though her initial output was constrained by her time spent caring for her children - she wrote consistently for the next 60 years

  • Le Guin’s first published work was the poem “Folksong from the Montayna Province” in 1959, her first published short story was “An die Musik” (both were set in the fictional country of Orsinia), in 1961, and her first professional publication was the short story “April in Paris” in 1962 in the magazine Fantastic Science Fiction

    • Began to turn her attention to science fiction after facing rejection from publishers and assuming she might do better if she was classified by a genre

  • 1966 - publishes first novel Rocannon’s World

    • The first of the Hainish trilogy, the second and third were published in 1966 and 1967 (Planet of Exile and City of Illusions)

  • 1968 - publishes A Wizard of Earthsea, a book targeted at young adults which gains critical acclaim

    • First of the Earthsea series - six further books would be published in the series, the last in 2001

    • Le Guin later criticised how this series was less critically considered because it was seen as children’s literature - she called this approach to young people’s literature “adult chauvinist piggery”

    • Studio Ghibli adapted the series in 2006 to Tales from Earthsea, directed by Hayao Miyazaki’s son Gorō

      • Also adapted in 2004 by the Sci Fi Channel, which Le Guin criticised as a “far cry from the Earthsea I envisioned”, objecting to the use of white actors for her red-, brown-, and black-skinned characters1

  • 1969 - The Left Hand of Darkness published exploring themes of gender and sexuality on a fictional planet where humans have no fixed sex

    • Her first book which directly addressed feminist issues

    • Won both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards for best novel, making Le Guin the first woman to win both these awards

  • 1973 - publishes The Word for World is Forest, exploring themes of colonialism inspired by Le Guin’s anger over the Vietnam War

  • 1974 - The Dispossessed published, exploring themes of anarchism and utopia

    • Won the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel for a second time

  • Begins publishing more realistic fiction in the later 1970s, including The Eye of the Heron, a work of speculative fiction, in 1978, and the 1979 essay collection The Language of the Night

  • Writes books aimed at younger audiences throughout the 1980s, including 11 children’s pictures books

  • In the 2000s, Le Guin writes the Annals of the Western Shore trilogy - Gifts (2004), Voices (2006) and Powers (2007)

  • In her later life, she turned away from fiction and began working on essays, poems, and translation

    • Two later works, her most recent, were published after her death: Dreams Must Explain Themselves and Ursula K Le Guin: Conversations on Writing, and the poetry volume So Far So Good: Final Poems 2014–2018

  • During her career as a writer, she also taught undergraduate fiction classes and worked as an editor

• 2000 - the US Library of Congress named Le Guin a Living Legend for her significant contributions to America’s cultural heritage

• 2017 - named a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters

• Le Guin died in 2018, aged 88, at her home in Portland

• Political/religious views

  • Was not raised religious, but in later life expressed an interest in Buddhism and Taoism (in 1997 she published a translation of the clasic Taoist text Tao Te Ching)

• Writing style

  • Read widely as a child and young person, initially dismissing the genre of science fiction until she discovered writters Theodore Sturgeon and Cordwainer Smith

    • Has also cited Dickens, Victor Hugo, William Wordsworth, Phillip K Dick (who Le Guin went to the same high school as, but never met), Leo Tolstoy, and Virginia Woolf, as well as Norse mythology

  • Influenced by the cultural anthropology she was surrounded with as the daughter of a prominent anthropologist

    • Elements of Ishi, the indigenous man studied by her father and written about by her mother, are evident in Le Guin’s stories such as Planet of Exile, City of Illusions, and The Word for World Is Forest and The Dispossessed

    • Many of her protagonists are anthropologists - in particular characters in the Hainish universe

    • On the influence of anthropology she said: “We’re interested in small details, in getting them right. We’re interested in how people do things and what things they do and how they explain doing them. This is all kind of anthropological information. […] It’s what you build novels out of: human relationships, how people arrange their relationships.”2

  • Scholars have identified the influence of Carl Jung and his archetypes including the Shadow archetype in A Wizard of Earthsea

    • Le Guin claims to have never read Jung’s work prior to writing Earthsea and criticised “overly reductive” Jungian interpretations of her work

  • Taoist influence visible in characters embodying the Taoist principle of leaving things alone eg Ged in A Wizard of Earthsea is instructed not to use magic unless absolutely necessary

    • Le Guin also depicts equilibrium in the world of Earthsea, which is a Taoist ideal

  • Explicitly included non-white characters in her books - many in the Earthsea universe were dark-skinned, unlike much of science fiction which primarily featured white characters

    • In a 2001 interview she said of this decision: “most people in the world aren’t white. Why in the future would we assume they are?”3

• Themes

  • Prominent focus on gender and sexuality, with a strong feminist undercurrent in many of her books

    • In The Left Hand of Darkness, characters have no fixed gender identity

  • Alternative political systems are explored by Le Guin throughout her ouevre, particularly in The Dispossessed which features an anarchist society

    • Further examples including the feminist utopia of Kesh in Always Coming Home and The Word for World is Forest which explored how colonizers effected the natural environment

  • Many of her books comprise coming of age tales of moral development, particularly the Earthsea series, aimed at a younger audience

    • “Coming of age ... is a process that took me many years; I finished it, so far as I ever will, at about age thirty-one; and so I feel rather deeply about it. So do most adolescents. It’s their main occupation, in fact.” - Le Guin in a 1973 essay

• Legacy

  • 2024 - a crater on Mercury was named in Le Guin’s honour

  • The Harry Potter series is seen as influenced by Le Guin’s Earthsea series

  • The Left Hand of Darkness has been hailed as bringing fantasy and sci fi into the mainstream

    • “No single work did more to upend the genre’s conventions than The Left Hand of Darkness“ - Paris Review 20124

  • Many writers have cited Le Guin as an influence, including Salman Rushdie, David Mitchell and female scifi writer Vonda McIntyre

  • Ursula K Le Guin Prize for Fiction is created in 2021 - prize is $25,000 and awarded to “a single book-length work of imaginative fiction.”

  • 2019 - documentary on Le Guin broadcast called The Worlds of Ursula K Le Guin, made by Arwen Curry (available to rent on Amazon Prime)

I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries –the realists of a larger reality.

- Ursula K Le Guin in 2014, in a speech at the National Book Awards, in part discussing Amazon and its control over the publishing industry5

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About The Dispossessed

• Published in 1974, the book is one of seven in Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle series

  • Whilst technically the fifth in the series, its chronology and timeline make it the first in the chronology, meaning it can be approached as a standalone book or entry point to the Hainish universe

• Subtitled An Ambiguous Utopia

• It won the Hugo, Locus, and Nebula awards for best science fiction novel

• In the book, Le Guin develops a mathematical theory to underline the fictional device of an ansible, a device capable of faster-than-light communication, an important part of the Hainish universe

• Main character of Shevek was inspired by Le Guin’s parent’s friendship with Robert Oppenheimer, who Ursula frequently spent time with as a child.

• Origins of the book

  The Dispossessed started as a very bad short story, which I didn’t try to finish but couldn’t quite let go. There was a book in it, and I knew it, but the book had to wait for me to learn what I was writing about and how to write about it. I needed to understand my own passionate opposition to the war that we were, endlessly it seemed, waging in Vietnam, and endlessly protesting at home. If I had known then that my country would continue making aggressive wars for the rest of my life, I might have had less energy for protesting that one. But, knowing only that I didn’t want to study war no more, I studied peace. I started by reading a whole mess of utopias and learning something about pacifism and Gandhi and nonviolent resistance. This led me to the nonviolent anarchist writers such as Peter Kropotkin and Paul Goodman. With them I felt a great, immediate affinity. They made sense to me in the way Lao Tzu did. They enabled me to think about war, peace, politics, how we govern one another and ourselves, the value of failure, and the strength of what is weak. So, when I realized that nobody had yet written an anarchist utopia, I finally began to see what my book might be. And I found that its principal character, whom I’d first glimpsed in the original misbegotten story, was alive and well—my guide to Anarres.
  

  - From a 2017 reprint of The Dispossessed6

• The novel is set on the two inhabited worlds Anarres and Urras

  • Urras is divided into two rival superpowers, A-lo and Thu, the former a capitalist patriarchal society and the latter an authoritarian system

  • Anarres is run in an anarcho-syndicalism system

• The book alternates between Anarres and Urras and the past and present

• Protagonist Shevek is a physicist who is attempting to develop a General Temporal Theory

• Adaptations

  • In 1987, the CBC Radio anthology program Vanishing Point adapted The Dispossessed into a series of six 30 minute episodes

  • On October 5, 2021, it was announced that 1212 Entertainment and Anonymous Content would adapt the novel into a limited series (has not yet been released)

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Further reading

Other articles, videos, and podcasts I listened to whilst reading and researching the book and Ursula.

Videos

• Worlds of Ursula K Le Guin - feature length documentary from 2019, available on Amazon Prime (trailer here)

• Ursula K. Le Guin — National Book Foundation Medal: Ursula’s Acceptance Speech - video of Le Guin’s 2014 acceptance speech

Podcasts

• In Your Spare Time: From the Blog of Ursula K Le Guin - podcast started in 2026, where readers read excerpts from Le Guin’s blog each week

• BBC Sunday: Ursula Le Guin - includes archival conversations with Le Guin

• University of Oxford podcast

Articles

Paris Review - Ursula K. Le Guin, The Art of Fiction No. 221

First Contact: A Talk with Ursula K. Le Guin | The New Yorker, 2009

Writing Nameless Things: An Interview with Ursula K. Le Guin | Los Angeles Review of Books, 2017

Obituary by Ursula’s son Theo, Guardian, 2018

• “80 years in, Ursula’s imagination was so expansive and complex as to form a destination in its own right, one she could visit at any time without the degrading experience of airline travel.”

Ursula K Le Guin: ‘I wish we could all live in a big house with unlocked doors’, Guardian, 2016

Ursula K. Le Guin - Salon.com

Ursula K. Le Guin Breathed Fire to Save American Literature | Portland Monthly, 2015 profile

Ursula K. Le Guin, Acclaimed for Her Fantasy Fiction, Is Dead at 88 - The New York Times NYT obituary

Ursula Le Guin Has Earned a Rare Honor. Just Don’t Call Her a Sci-Fi Writer. - The New York Times 2017 NYT profile

The Fantastic Ursula K. Le Guin | The New Yorker, 2016

Twenty Questions with Ursula K. Le Guin | TLS

• In which Le Guin calls Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet “overrated”

• Says if she could change anything from her past books it would be in The Dispossessed

  • “I would mention the communal pickle barrels at street corners in the big towns, restocked by whoever in the community has made or kept more pickles than they need. I knew about the free pickles all along, but never could fit them into the book.”

2010 Vice profile

Library of America - writers remember Ursula K Le Guin after her death

• Includes quotes from Zadie Smith, Michael Chabon, and more

• “Ursula Le Guin was able to reimagine many concepts we take to be natural, shared, and unalterable—gender, utopia, creation, war, family, the city, the country—and reveal the all-too-human constructions at their center.” - Zadie Smith

Margaret Atwood: We lost Ursula Le Guin when we needed her most - The Washington Post

At Home With Ursula Le Guin — Bunk History

On The Dispossessed:

• NYT 1975 review of the book

• Back to the Hugos: The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin | Hugo awards | The Guardian

• The Dispossessed at 50: Ursula K. Le Guin’s ‘anarchist utopia’ was an anguished response to war. Its political power endures, 2024

  Le Guin was always asking the same urgent question: what sort of world do you want to live in? Her own choice would have been gender equal, racially equal, economically fair and self-governing, but that was not on offer. - Margaret Atwood

Upcoming Events/News

We are returning to the Edinburgh International Book Festival for the second year in a row. This time with an even bigger event, in collaboration with Penguin Vintage.

Join us on Saturday August 22nd, from 6-8pm, at this special Edinburgh event to sip, socialise, and compare TBR lists with other discerning book lovers in celebration of Vintage Classic’s Brief Encounters collection. Enjoy a drink on us as Vintage’s ‘Bibliotherapists’ pair you with the perfect short novel for your taste – whether that’s an Edith Wharton ghost story or a lesser-known gem by Virginia Woolf – which you’ll take home with you.

Tickets available to buy here.

Additional research by Agnes Perotto-Wills.

Judging from the blisters on my heels from wearing in new sandals, and the low level heat-induced exhaustion I am experiencing, summer is definitely here. I am going on holiday on Monday so I am thinking a lot about which books to take with me (first holiday with a Kindle which I am excited about!!), and that inspired me to create this list. And to accompany this post, an assortment of photos from my camera roll that capture my summer so far.

There are different approaches to what constitutes ‘Summer reading’. I know a lot of people like a trashy, ‘beach read’ that they can rip through without too much mental effort. For me, the perfect summer read is something I can be completely absorbed in, and ideally something I can read cover to cover in a single day, as I move from bed to terrace to beach to bar to restaurant and back to bed.

For various scheduling reasons, we will not be hosting an in-person book club for August, though we will be reading a book together, Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, and discussing on our Substack chat and Instagram.

Hopefully this list of summer reads provides some extra inspiration and acts as a slight apology for missing our meeting this month! Our next book club will be in London in September - I hope to see some of you there.

My Buffy’s right hand woman, Agnes (who many of you who come to the events have met) has compiled a list of books we have read, and also want to read this Summer:

• Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt

  • This was in the vote for a 2025 Buffy’s read, though didn’t win. It’s a short, incredibly moving story about a grandmother and granddaughter, set in London.

• Sex and Rage by Eve Babitz

  • Babitz’ hedonism is the perfect summer inspiration. Set in 1970s LA, Sex and Rage is not-so-loosely based on Babitz’ party-girl life in California, following the character of Jacaranda as she surfs, sleeps with married men, and attempts to begin a career as a writer, which takes her to New York and back.

• Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

  • A family saga, Patchett’s book explores the lives of six children over fifty years. It traverses time (in a non-linear way) and space and is a beautiful meditation on relationships and family, a perfect read to get stuck into over long summer days.

• The Cellist by Jennifer Atkins

  • Short enough to be read in a day or two, the book flits through time, told from the perspective of a successful cello player who is reminded of her past relationship when she visits her exes exhibition of sculptures.

• The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy

  • First published in the 1950s, this book follows a young American moving to Paris, falling in and out of love and living the perfect mid-century expat life. This is a book that made me laugh out loud several times!

• The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis

  • A book about a serial killer may seem an odd choice for a summer read, but it is so gripping. I read this last summer on holiday and I was so engrossed it in, it made me an incredibly anti social holiday companion.

• Turbulence by David Szalay

  • A lesser-known book by the 2025 Booker Prize winner, with every chapter ending in an airport, and the next one picking up where that one left off. If you haven’t managed to go on holiday this year, this is usefully transportive, moving from Madrid to Dakar to Toronto to São Paolo, in 12 interlinking stories.

• The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

  • One of our most loved Buffy’s reads in 2025, Murdoch’s book was universally adored by everyone who attended the book club. It’s pretty epic, nearly 600 pages, but the protagonist Charles Arrowby, a retired actor who buys a home by the sea, is bizarrely compelling despite being repeatedly awful to all the people (and particularly women) around him.

• Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados

  • A bit of a modern-day Babitz, Granados tells the story of two girls in their early 20s who move to New York for a summer, scrape by with very little money, and say yes to everything, ending up at bizarre parties and meeting bizarre people.

• The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard

  • I am bringing the second book in this series, The Cazalet Chronicles, on holiday with me as I was so enamoured with the first one. A huge cast of characters that Howard perfectly creates, with dialogue that made me laugh out loud, descriptions of England that made me want to move to the countryside, and a masterful control of a book not driven forward by a plot, but rendered entirely readable through the characters and the relationships between them.

• Cathedrals by Claudia Pineiro

  • A thriller, pretty pacy!

• Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud

  • Freud describes her and her sister Bella’s childhood, spent partially in Morocco with their mother in the 1970s. Told beautifully from the perspective of a young, innocent child, it’s a completely transportive book, which I happened to read in Morocco last summer.

• ⁠Paradises Lost by Ursula K Le Guin

  • A short one, with all the incredible machinations we expect from Le Guin… a lot of humanity within a speculative plot, no word wasted and precise world building. All packed into a novella.

• A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing by Alice Evelyn Yang

  • A deeply moving novel that deftly navigates an intergenerational saga, moving between folklore, war, family, and what it takes to forgive,

• A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

  • A Buffy’s read this year, Smiley’s characters are so well drawn and their story harrowing and compelling, making this such an addictive novel that sticks with you long after it’s finished.

• 4321 by Paul Auster

  • This is a big one, so not hand-luggage friendly. But if you want to spend your holiday with one character you can connect and grow with, then this is a great choice.

• The South by Colm Toíbín

  • Toíbín’s first novel, The South follows a Protestant Irish woman in her 30s who leaves her husband and child and travels alone to Barcelona in the 1950s. She meets painters and becomes immersed in a community of artists - a book about escaping one’s quotidian reality which is perfect for summer.

• ⁠It Lasts Forever And Then It’s Over by Ann de Marken

• ⁠The Remains Of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

  • Our June Buffy’s read, a haunting and strange tale of a butler in a grand home in the English countryside. See our post about the book here.

• ⁠⁠In The Distance by Hernan Diaz

  • I MUST re-read this, I read it about seven years ago now and know I loved but also know I can’t really remember it. This is in this list to remind me to read it again, as much as it is to remind you to read it too.

• ⁠Erasure by Percival Everett

• Lonesome Dove by Larry MacMurtry

• ⁠East of Eden by John Steinbeck

• Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

• Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo

  • Originally published in the 1950s, this book by Mexican writer Juan Rulfo follows a character tracking down his father in the Mexican countryside. A surreal, disorienting book interweaving the supernatural with Mexican history and culture, this is a dreamlike read that was inspiring and beautifully written.

• The Stand by Stephen King

• ⁠Butchers Crossing by John Williams

• ⁠The Round House by Louise Erdrich

• London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe 

  • The book literally everyone is reading…but for good reason! I have loved Radden Keefe’s writing since reading Empire of Pain, and it was amazing to see my city and its criminal underbelly. He is so good at focusing on a single, compelling story and drawing threads from it to make statements about the wider cultural and political context.

I would LOVE to know what makes the ideal summer read for you, and what’s on your TBR this summer…please let me know if you read any of my suggestions above, and I hope you have an August full of sun/sand/lots of cold beers (my plan…).

Lizzy xxx

Upcoming Events/News

We are returning to the Edinburgh International Book Festival for the second year in a row. This time with an even bigger event, in collaboration with Penguin Vintage.

Join us on Saturday August 22nd, from 6-8pm, at this special Edinburgh event to sip, socialise, and compare TBR lists with other discerning book lovers in celebration of Vintage Classic’s Brief Encounters collection. Enjoy a drink on us as Vintage’s ‘Bibliotherapists’ pair you with the perfect short novel for your taste – whether that’s an Edith Wharton ghost story or a lesser-known gem by Virginia Woolf – which you’ll take home with you.

Tickets available to buy here.

Thank you to everyone who came to the Buffy’s Summer Fair on Saturday, July 25th. It was a complete labour of love and such a success!

HELLO! I can’t believe it’s already nearing the end of July, the summer is flying by but I am back in London for a few weeks and so happy to be here.

This month’s book club choice, Blindness by José Saramago. I’ve never read anything by the Portuguese writer before, who has written over 40 books, and loved researching him and his very eventful personal life. I currently have about 60 pages of the book to go, and wow, it’s been a brutal read. I look forward to seeing some of you to discuss the book in person at Finks, Clissold Park on the 30th of July. I think there is going to be a lot to discuss here!

About José Saramago

• B. 1922, Portugal, d. 2010, Canary Islands, aged 87

• Born to a very poor peasant family in Azinhaga, Portugal, a small village 100km north of Lisbon.

• Father was José de Sousa and mother was Maria da Piedade. He had an older brother called Francisco.

  • The surname Saramago is Portuguese for ‘wild radish’, and was an insulting nickname given to José’s father and mistakenly incorporated into his birth certificate

    • “saramago is a wild herbaceous plant, whose leaves in those times served at need as nourishment for the poor.”1

• When Saramago was 2, his family moved to Lisbon where his father worked as a police officer, and his older brother died suddenly at the age of 4.

• Saramago was a good student but his parents could not afford to keep him in grammar school, so moved him to a technical school aged 12.

  • He graduated as a lathe operator, a machine which cuts/sands, and then worked as a car mechanic for 2 years - began to read in his free time in the local library

    • On reading in the library: “And it was there, without help or advice, only guided by curiosity and the desire to learn, that my taste for reading developed and refined”2

• Saramago begins working in the 1940s as a civil servant.

• 1960s - works for publishing company Estúdios Cor as an editor and translator.

  • Also works as a journalist during this period.

• 1998 - is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

  • The committee noted Blindness as one of the novels that led to his election to the committee.

  • Describing himself as “the apprentice” in his Nobel Prize speech he said “The apprentice thought, ‘we are blind’, and he sat down and wrote Blindness to remind those who might read it that we pervert reason when we humiliate life, that human dignity is insulted every day by the powerful of our world, that the universal lie has replaced the plural truths, that man stopped respecting himself when he lost the respect due to his fellow-creatures.”

• 2007 - Saramago founds the Jose Saramago Foundation in Lisbon - works to defend the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, promote Portuguese culture and focus on environmentalism.

  • Pilar and Saramago’s Lanzarote home is also open to visitors.

• 2010 - dies from Leukemia at the age of 87.

  • Portugal declared two days of public mourning following his death.

  • His funeral in Lisbon was attended by more than 20,000 people.

• Novels/published works - Saramago wrote over 40 books(!), so I’ve outlined a selection of more popular/significant works below

  • 1947 - Saramago publishes his first novel, Land of Sin

  • 1966 - publishes a poetry collection Possible Poems

  • 1970 - publishes poetry collection Probably Joy

  • Published collections of his newspaper writings in 1971, 1973, 1973, and 1976

  • 1974 - publishes first novel in nearly 30 years, Opinions That DL Had

  • 1977 - novel Manual of Paintings and Calligraphy published

  • 1978 - short story collection The Lives of Things published

  • 1982 - publishes fourth novel Memorial do Covento, at the age of 60, which leads to him receiving widespread recognition for the first time (it was translated in 1988)

  • 1995 - Blindness published

  • 2004 - Seeing, a sequel to Blindness, published

  • 2011 - Claraboia published posthumously following Saramago’s death - it had been written in the 1950s and stayed in the author’s archive since

  • 2014 - Halberds, halberds, Shotguns, shotguns published posthumously, which Saramago began writing in 2010

• Personal life/relationships

  • 1944 - marries typist and artist Ilda Reis.

    • They have one child, Violante, born 1947 - she is now 78 and a biologist.

    • The couple divorced in 1970.

    • Reis died in 1998, having become a successful engraving artist.

  • Begins an affair in the late 1960s with the writer Isabel da Nobrega, who he then had a 20 year relationship with.

    • Two of his books, O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis (1984), and Memorial do Convento (1985), were dedicated to her.

      • He later removed the dedications from subsequent editions after their relationship ended (I find this a hilariously petty decision!!)

  • 1986 - meets Spanish intellectual and journalist Pilar del Rio, who was 27 years younger than him, and immediately ends his 20 year relationship with da Nobrega.

    • Marry in 1988 and are together until his death in 2010.

    • Del Rio is the official translator of Saramago’s books into Spanish.

    • A 2011 documentary was made on their relationship - available to watch on Youtube.

• Politics/views

  • Joined the Portuguese Communist Party in 1969 and was a member until his death.

  • Atheist. Was publicly criticised by the Catholic Church for the content of some of his books, particularly The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, where he uses humour and satire to describe God.

    • Portuguese government spoke out against this book and struck the writer’s name from nominees for the European Literature Prize.

    • The Vatican City criticised Saramago’s choice as Nobel Prize winner for Literature.

• Writing style

  • Writes in long sentences, sometimes over a page, and uses full stops sparingly.

  • Experimental - his works often refer to his previous works.

  • Described his daily writing routine in 2009: “I write two pages. And then I read and read and read”.

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About Blindness

• Published in 1995.

• Translated to English in 1997 by Giovanni Pontiero.

• The book centres on an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in a nonspecific city, and follows multiple unnamed characters as they navigate the social breakdown that swiftly follows.

• The city is never identified but there are some hints that it is somewhere in Portugal - the main character is shown eating chouriço, a spicy sausage, and some dialogue in the untranslated original book employs the familiar “tu” second-person singular verb form, which is unique to Portuguese spoken in Portugal.

• Characters

  • The Doctor’s wife - the only character who does not lose her sight

  • The Doctor - an ophthalmologist

  • The Girl with dark glasses

  • The old man with the black eye patch

  • The dog of tears

  • The boy with the squint

  • The car thief

  • The first blind man

  • The first blind man’s wife

  • The man with the gun

  • The blind accountant

• Style

  • The book completely abandons the use of proper nouns, instead referring to characters simply by some unique characteristic.

  • Contains many long passages in which commas take the place of full stops, quotation marks, semicolons, and colons.

• Sequel

  • Saramago wrote a sequel, Seeing, published in 2004 - features many of the same characters but with a more realistic/positive solutions posed at the end.

  

• Film adaptation

  • Adapted into a film in 2008 with Mark Ruffalo as the doctor and Julianne Moore as the doctor’s wife.

  • Saramago did not initially want to sell the film rights, saying “I always resisted because it’s a violent book about social degradation, rape, and I didn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands.”

    • He refused to sell the rights to Whoopi Goldberg and Gael Garcia Bernal.

    • The screenwriter Don McKellar visited Saramago at his home in the Canary Islands and spent two days convincing him to sell him the rights.

      • Saramago’s conditions for sale were that the film should be set in a country that would not be recognizable to audiences, and that the Dog of Tears should be a big dog.

  • Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles directed, and decided to do an English adaptation to appeal to a wider international audience.

  • Cast and crew, which included 700 extras, were all taught to simulate blindness.

  • At a private screening of the film, Saramago said “Fernando, I am as happy to have seen this movie as I was the day I finished the book.”.

  • The film was critically well received but led to protests from the blind community who worried people would believe all blind people behaved in a ruthless, uncivilized way.

    • Saramago responded explaining that in the book blindness is an allegory, a “blindness of rationality” - he said “stupidity doesn’t choose between the blind and the non-blind”

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Further reading

Other articles, videos, and podcasts I listened to whilst reading and researching the book.

Jose Saramago, a life of resistance, BBC doc from 2002, 29 minutes

Jose Saramago’s House-Museum in Lanzarote, tour of Saramago’s house museum

Entrevista a José Saramago (1ª parte ) Portuguese interview with Saramago

José e Pilar - Documentário - 2011 doc on Jose and Pilar’s relationship, 2 hours (unfortunately in Portuguese!)

• Interview with the film’s director

José Saramago Foundation - website of the Saramago foundation

José Saramago – Biographical - NobelPrize.org - Jose’s biography in his own words

​New ways of seeing | José Saramago | The Guardian - on Blindness, 2008

Paris Review - José Saramago, The Art of Fiction No. 155, 1998

José Saramago, the Unexpected Fantasist, New York Times, 2007

Still a street-fighting man | José Saramago | The Guardian, 2006 - his first interview with an English newspaper

On Blindness:

1998 NYT review

Analysis of José Saramago’s Blindness – Literary Theory and Criticism

Have You Read This? Podcast, 2024

Upcoming Events/News

We announced our biggest Buffy’s event last month, the Buffy’s Summer Fair. Gathering ten independent publishers, the fair will take place at London’s Ladbroke Hall on Saturday, July 25th. I made videos highlighting each of the publishers which will be at the fair, and these will be posted over on the Buffy’s Instagram over the next few weeks.

We were able to add a few more tickets, so there is a limited number available here.

We are returning to the Edinburgh International Book Festival for the second year in a row. This time with an even bigger event, in collaboration with Penguin Vintage.

Join us on Saturday August 22nd, from 6-8pm, at this special Edinburgh event to sip, socialise, and compare TBR lists with other discerning book lovers in celebration of Vintage Classic’s Brief Encounters collection. Enjoy a drink on us as Vintage’s ‘Bibliotherapists’ pair you with the perfect short novel for your taste – whether that’s an Edith Wharton ghost story or a lesser-known gem by Virginia Woolf – which you’ll take home with you.

Tickets available to buy here.

Additional research by Agnes Perotto-Wills.

Hello hello hello. I am writing from a very humid New York once more, so excited to dig into this month’s Buffy’s book The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

This is my third Ishiguro, many many years ago I read Never Let Me Go, and I would love to revisit it. And more recently I read Klara and the Sun, which didn’t quite do it for me.

Some of you mentioned at the last book club that compiling this information was useful, so I’m doing so again in hopes of supplementing your reading. I look forward to seeing some of you to discuss the book in person at McNally Jackson on the 1st of July.

Kazuo Ishiguro

• B. 1954 (age 71), in Nagasaki, Japan.

• Father Shizuo was born in Shanghai and was an oceanographer and mother Shizuko, who had been in Nagasaki when the atomic bomb dropped in 1945.

• In 1960 he moved with his family to Britain, specifically to Surrey, as his father was invited to take a research job at the National Institute of Oceanography.

  • Ishiguro did not return to Japan for nearly 30 years, until 1989.

    • His first two novels are set in Japan but he says he imagined these landscapes: “I grew up with a very strong image in my head of this other country…In England I was all the time building up this picture in my head, an imaginary Japan.”1

• Ishiguro loved music as a teenager, listening to Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell.

  • He learnt guitar and initially wanted to be a singer-songwriter.

  • “For, me there’s always been big overlap between fiction and song. My style as a novelist comes substantially from what I learnt writing songs. The intimate, first-person quality of a singer performing to an audience, for instance, carried over for me into novels. As did the need to approach meaning subtly, sometimes by nudging it into the spaces between the lines.”2

  • In his adult life, Ishiguro has written lyrics for the jazz singer Stacey Kent, after he included her song on his Desert Island Discs in 2002 and she asked him to write for her, and in 2024 Faber published a collection of Ishiguro’s lyrics for Kent

• Finished school in 1973 and took a gap year around the US and Canada, writing songs and sending demos to record companies, and also worked facilitating grouse shooting at Balmoral Castle.

• 1974-1978 - Studied English and Philosophy at the University of Kent.

• 1980 - Gained his MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia - studied at the same time as Malcolm Bradbury and Angela Carter.

  • His MA thesis became his first novel.

• Novels

  • 1982 - first book A Pale View of Hills published, about a middle aged Japanese woman living alone in England. Adapted into a film in 2025.

  • 1986 - publishes second book An Artist of the Floating World, set in Japan during the Allied Occupation following WWII.

    • On his tendency to set books in pre/post war periods: “I’m interested in this business of values and ideals being tested, and people having to face up to the notion that their ideals weren’t quite what they thought they were before the test came.”3

  • 1989 - Remains of the Day released, winning the Booker Prize and being adapted into a 1993 film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.

  • 1995 - fourth novel The Unconsoled released, about a pianist in an unnamed European city.

  • 2000 - fifth novel When We Were Orphans released, a ‘detective novel’ set in 1930s Shanghai.

  • 2005 - Never Let Me Go published. Dystopian novel set in 1980/90s England. Time named it the best novel of 2005, and it was adopted into a 2010 film starring Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan.

  • 2015 - The Buried Giant published

  • 2021 - Klara and the Sun published, dystopian sci-fi.

• 2017 - Ishiguro wins the Nobel Prize for Literature.

• 2018 - He is knighted for services to literature.

• Influences

  • Ishiguro cites his biggest influences as Charlotte Bronte, Dostoevsky, and Proust.

  • Says he takes years on “background work” before beginning a draft of a novel, but then when he begins writing this can take under a year - he wrote Remains of the Day in four weeks.

• Personal life

  • Married Lorna MacDougall, a social worker, in 1986 - they live in Golders Green and have one daughter, Naomi Ishiguro, who is also an author.

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The Remains of the Day

• Written when Ishiguro was 32, and finished in four weeks.

  • After a few years of reduced productivity following his first novels, Ishiguro and his wife devised a plan called the “Crash”, where for four weeks he would write each day from 9am to 10.30pm, with a one hour lunch break and two hours for dinner, Monday - Saturday, not answering any emails or seeing anyone.

    • He hoped to “reach a mental state in which my fictional world was more real to me than the actual one.”4

• In preparation, Ishiguro read books by and about British servants, about politics and foreign policy between the wars, pamphlets and essays from the time, including one by Harold Laski on “The Dangers of Being a Gentleman”, and guides to the English countryside from the 1930s and 50s.

  • He has cited Francis Ford Coppola’s 1970s film The Conversation as inspiration, with Gene Hackman’s surveillance expert character providing inspiration for Stevens.

  • Also claims musician Tom Waits influenced the book/Stevens trajectory: “I thought I’d finished Remains, but then one evening heard Tom Waits singing his song “Ruby’s Arms”. It’s a ballad about a soldier leaving his lover sleeping in the early hours to go away on a train…But the song is sung in the voice of a rough American hobo type utterly unaccustomed to wearing his emotions on his sleeve. And there comes a moment, when the singer declares his heart is breaking, that’s almost unbearably moving because of the tension between the sentiment itself and the huge resistance that’s obviously been overcome to utter it. Waits sings the line with cathartic magnificence, and you feel a lifetime of tough-guy stoicism crumbling in the face of overwhelming sadness. I heard this and reversed a decision I’d made, that Stevens would remain emotionally buttoned up right to the bitter end. I decided that at just one point – which I’d have to choose very carefully – his rigid defence would crack, and a hitherto concealed tragic romanticism would be glimpsed.”5

• Historical context

  • Set in the post WWII period.

  • The final events in the book happen in July 1956, the same time as the Suez Crisis, where England, Israel, and France invaded Egypt after President Nasser nationalised the Suez canal - however, none of these outside events are mentioned in the book.

• On choosing a butler as the protagonist of his book: “The butler is a good metaphor for the relationship of very ordinary, small people to power. Most of us aren’t given governments to run or coup d’etats to lead. We have to offer up the little services we have perfected to various people: to causes, to employers, to organizations and hope for the best—that we approve of the way it gets used. This is a condition that I want to write about. It struck me that the figure of the butler, the man who serves, someone who is so close and yet so very far from the hub of power would be a useful person to write through…It’s precisely because the butler has become such a mythical figure in British culture. I’ve always found that bizarre and amusing. This has got something to do with the fact that I come from a Japanese background. There are certain things that are very exotic to me about Englishness.”6

• The book won the Booker Prize in 1989, and has been included on numerous “Best of…” lists since.

• 1993 - adapted into a film by Merchant Ivory productions starring Anthony Hopkins as Stevens and Emma Thomspon as Miss Kenton

“The great butlers are great by virtue of their ability to inhabit their professional role and inhabit it to the utmost; they will not be shaken out by external events, however surprising, alarming or vexing. They wear their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit: he will not let ruffians or circumstance tear it off him in the public gaze; he will discard it when, and only when, he wills to do so, and this will invariably be when he is entirely alone. It is, as I say, a matter of ‘dignity.’” - from The Remains of the Day

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Further reading

Other articles, videos, and podcasts I listened to when reading and researching the book.

Kazuo Ishiguro Sees What the Future Is Doing to Us - The New York Times, 2021

Kazuo Ishiguro On ‘Klara And The Sun’ And His Roots As A Songwriter : NPR - Ishiguro on the podcast ‘Fresh Air’

Kazuo Ishiguro: how I wrote The Remains of the Day in four weeks, Guardian

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro – a subtle masterpiece of quiet desperation | Books | The Guardian, 2016

Kazuo Ishiguro: I used to see myself as a musician. But really, I’m one of those people with corduroy jackets and elbow patches, Guardian, 2015

BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Kazuo Ishiguro, 2002

Paris Review - Kazuo Ishiguro, The Art of Fiction No. 196, 1989

WHAT THE BUTLER SAW - The New York Times, 1989

• On his desire for his characters: “What I’m interested in is not the actual fact that my characters have done things they later regret...I’m interested in how they come to terms with it. On the one hand there is a need for honesty, on the other hand a need to deceive themselves - to preserve a sense of dignity, some sort of self-respect. What I want to suggest is that some sort of dignity and self-respect does come from that sort of honesty.”

Kazuo Ishiguro interview (1995) - Video

KAZUO ISHIGURO on The Remains of the Day | Books on Film | TIFF 2017 - Video about the film adaptation of The Remains of the Day

Nobel Lecture: Kazuo Ishiguro, Nobel Prize in Literature 2017 - Video of Ishiguro’s Nobel Prize speech

1987: KAZUO ISHIGURO Interview | Bookmark | Writers and Wordsmiths | BBC Archive - Video of Ishiguro at home

Adam Buxton podcast, 2021

We announced our biggest Buffy’s event last week, the Buffy’s Summer Fair. Gathering ten independent publishers, the fair will take place at London’s Ladbroke Hall on Saturday, July 25th. I made videos highlighting each of the publishers which will be at the fair, and these will be posted over on the Buffy’s Instagram over the next few weeks.

Tickets are on sale here.

Additional research by Agnes Perotto-Wills.

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Two years today, we got together for the first ever Buffy’s book club. As with any anniversary, it’s impossible NOT to wonder how on earth time has passed so quickly. Two years of Buffy’s?! I really cannot believe it. It’s changed my life, in terms of work, turning a hobby into a job, the structure it has given me, the people I have met, and through the expansive experience that reading more and more will always be.

I feel repetitive at points with the ways in which I say ‘thank you’ to you all, as I really don’t have the words to say how grateful I am. I have calls with brands, venues, and publishers every week who say such kind things to me about what I have built, when really you all deserve the credit for this. You have built it with me, invested in Buffy’s, taken the time to recommend books, to come to events, to be open and welcoming to every one who walks through the door. Buffy’s is truly a community, and one I am so proud to be a member of.

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My favourite book club discussions since 2024

Needless to say every book club is completely different, and that is mostly driven by the book we discuss. Some of the least popular books have been the most lively discussions (The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides), and some of my favourites have been really divisive (The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch). My stand out reads have been Stoner by John Williams, A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, and Childhood, Youth and Dependancy by Tove Ditlevsen.

Here is a list of all the books we have read together so far, since June 2024, which I thought would be nice to include as a little reference if you are looking for some reading inspiration:

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Evenings and Weekends by Oisin McKenna
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Childhood, Youth and Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen
Perfume by Patrick Süskind
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
Stoner by John Williams
Symposium by Muriel Spark
Love In The Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabhattan Ali
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
The Group by Mary McCarthy
NW by Zadie Smith
Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Verdigris by Michele Mari
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
The Door by Madga Szabó
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

Looking at this list I can see how we collectively have moved in a more literary direction. I am proud of how much time we spend researching our choices, and I think we have read an incredible list of diverse literature over the last two years!

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Buffy’s Next Chapter

My main goal for us going forward is to meet more of you, to read better and better books together, to continue to grow this community through our events. We are planning some big events for later this year, I cannot wait too announce some of them, and I hope to be lucky enough to continue to work with brands so we can bring really special experiences to you at a really affordable price (or free!). I have so many even grander plans too (a Buffy’s pop up?! A place we can all meet and read together all the time!!!), an endless list of cultural spaces I would love to host in, and just the longest reading list known to man.

Obviously, NONE of the past two years, and whatever is to come, would be possible without the community we have built and grown together. Thank you so so SO much to everyone who participates in Buffy’s, whether you’ve been here since 2024 or are a new member.

I would love to know what you want to see from Buffy’s, and any personal highlights you have had, as well as your favourite book discussions or events.

To the next two years!

Lizzy xxx

HELLO! It has been horrifyingly long since I’ve done a proper Substack post which I apologise for - 2026 so far has been a year mostly dominated by my knee surgery, which I got in February. Amazingly, I am so close to back to normal now, and am tackling the five (five!!) flights of stairs to my NY apartment, where I am writing this from, fairly well.

I have been thinking about how to use the Buffy’s Substack to supplement the monthly book clubs and continue to generate discussion outside of the in-person spaces. Each month, before and during my reading of the monthly pick, I do extensive research on the author and the book itself. This is particularly fun if the book is older, because I can dig through archives to read contemporary reviews and a better analysis of the book’s cultural impact. May’s Buffy’s pick, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, is a perfect example of this - the book has a really rich cultural and historical context which is quite integral to understanding the narrative, and also had a huge impact in India (and beyond) after its publishing. I first read it a few years ago, and am loving this second read so much, I am jumping between reading and listening to it, and I really recommend the audiobook too.

Below, a summary of my research this month including a brief biography of Mistry, who has not published a book in decades, plus the most salient articles I found. Hopefully this will be useful to everyone reading the book, and particularly those of you who are joining us for an in-person discussion at St JOHN at the LRB (St JOHN do the best negronis of all time, I can NOT wait!!).

Lots of love from New York,

Lizzy xx

Rohinton Mistry

• Born in 1953 (age 73) in Mumbai, India.

  • Mistry is from a Parsi family, an Indian ethnic group descended from Persian refugees who practice the Zoroastrian religion

    • Mistry has said “I’m not a practising Parsee but the ceremonies are quite beautiful. As a child I observed [them] carefully in the same way as I did my homework, but it had no profound meaning for me. Zoroastrianism is about the opposition of good and evil. For the triumph of good, we have to make a choice. We can enlist on the side of good by prospering, making money and using our wealth to help others.”1

• His father Behram worked in advertising and mother Freny was a housewife

  • On his mother, Mistry has said: “She was happy in that role…doing the miracle that all mothers perform of making what was barely enough seem like abundance. We didn’t have new clothes and shoes as often as we might have liked but we were certainly better off than half the population.”2

• Mistry’s brother Cyrus is a playwright and author

  • Like Rohinton Mistry, Cyrus’ works are set in Mumbai and often focus on the Parsi community.

    • His 2012 novel Chronicle of a Corpse-Bearer is set in pre-Independence India, chronicling a Parsi community of corpse bearers who carry dead bodies to burial in Bombay.

• His high school education was at St Xavier’s College in Mumbai, a private Catholic school run by Jesuits, with his education being very British.

  • Here, Mistry read Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie, and Leslie Charteris

    • He was a voracious reader, saying “I remember the proudest day of my life was when I asked the principal…if I could take out two books a week.”3

• Studied Mathematics and Economics at the University of Bombay.

  • University is where Mistry met his future wife.

• 1975 - emigrated age 23 to Canada with fiancee Freny Elavia, and married her there shortly afterwards.

  • About his emigration, Mistry said “After finishing college in Bombay or elsewhere in India, one had to go abroad for higher studies. If possible, one had to find a job after finishing a Masters or a Ph.D. in the States or in England, find a job and settle in the country. That’s how success is defined by Indians. So that is why I say that coming to Canada was in some ways decided for me.”4

• Worked in a bank then studied for another undergraduate degree in English and Philosophy at the University of Toronto, graduating in the mid-1980s.

• Books

  • 1988 - Penguin publish Mistry’s collection of 11 stories Tales from Firozha Baag, all set within an apartment block in modern-day Bombay.

  • 1991 - first novel Such A Long Journey is published.

    • Set in Bombay in 1971, about a Parsi bank clerk trying to keep his family out of poverty

  • 1995 - A Fine Balance published.

  • 2002 - Family Matters, Mistry’s third novel, is published.

    • The book is about ageing, focusing on a Parsi widower who has Parkinson’s disease.

  • 2006 - short story The Scream is published.

• Awards

  • Such A Long Journey (1991)

    • Won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Governer General’s Award

  • A Fine Balance (1996)

    • Won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Giller Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize and was nominated for Oprah’s Book Club Best Novel in 2001

    • Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

  • Family Matters (2002)

    • Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2002, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

    • Won the Canadian Authors’ Association Award for Fiction and the Timothy Findley Award (Writers’ Trust of Canada)

  • Has not written a book since 2006 The Scream, a short story (48 pages)

• Mistry currently lives in Ontario with his wife, and has not written a novel since 2002.

“I’ve been asked why I keep writing about India, and specifically Bombay, even though I left 26 years ago. It remains my focus and makes it all worthwhile because of the people…their capacity for laughter, their capacity to endure.”5

A Fine Balance

• Published in 1995, Mistry’s second novel.

• Set in “an unidentified city” in India, in 1975 and later in 1984 during the turmoil of The Emergency, the book focuses on four characters from varied backgrounds – Dina Dalal, Ishvar Darji, his nephew Omprakash Darji, and the young student Maneck Kohlah – who come together due to shared economic difficulties and develop a bond.

  • Mistry is critical of an authoritative figure based on Indira Gandhi, but never refers to her by name.

• Historical context

  • The Emergency was a 21 month period 1975-77 when the prime minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India, allowing the PM to rule by decree and suspend civil liberties, newspapers censored etc.

  • Over 100,000 political opponents to Indira Gandhi were imprisoned during this time, with police torturing prisoners

  • Her son Sanjay Gandhi mounted a mass campaign for vasectomy amongst the male population to limit population growth

  • Mistry’s first book Such A Long Journey was also set during this period, as well as Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and the beginning of Life of Pi

• Stage adaptation

  • Tamasha Theatre Company adapted the book into a play which was shown at the Hampstead Theatre in London in 2006 and revived in 2007.

I also wanted to share some beautiful images of Mumbai (called Bombay at the time) in the 1970s and 1980s, when A Fine Balance is set. These were a useful visual companion for me whilst reading the book - all sourced from this article.

Further reading

Other articles, videos, and podcasts I listened to when reading and researching the book.

Loss and Endurance - The Atlantic, 2002

Summer readings: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, The Guardian, 2011

Rohinton Mistry - Interview

Review: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry – Retrospect Journal

Touched with fire, The Guardian, 2002 - an early profile of Mistry

BBC World Service - Meridian, Rohinton Mistry, chronicler of Bombay, Audio interview from 2002, 23 minutes. Short interview with Mistry on the BBC world service discussing writing about Bombay.

BBC Radio 4 - Incarnations: India in 50 Lives, Indira Gandhi: The Centre of Everything, Podcast about The Emergency and Indira Gandhi (historical context for the book)

New York Times review of A Fine Balance, 1996

Additional research by Agnes Perotto-Wills

68 books, the most I have ever read in one year, and some of my all time favourites. I am sorry to say I am running on just 25% brain capacity right now, and all of that has been used up by remembering how to type, so I cannot link every single book. As I am writing this in the ‘in between’ days between Christmas and New Year, when many of you will be reading this too, I imagine you are also at 25% brain capacity and thank you for using some of that to read this post.

I used StoryGraph this year to track my reading, and wait with baited breath for my 2025 roundup graphics, and will be sharing those as soon as they become available! It’s infinitely better than GoodReads so if you make one change in your life for 2026, can I recommend it be you do the switch. The little pie charts are so fun, and you can import your GoodReads data too so it’ll log what you have read so far.

Two things that have helped me read more than ever this year, which has also been one of the busiest years of my life: audiobooks and reading multiple books at once. Audiobooks have been the biggest game changer for me, the time I spend at home cleaning, tidying, doing a jigsaw, under a red light mask, is now spent listening to a book. And reading multiple books is something I only started doing this year. I never thought I would be able to remember them all well enough if I was jumping between a few, but so long as they are different enough, it’s easy not to get lost. It’s allowed me to read more because I find I can allocate the reading time more efficiently. I will take an easier read out and about with me, and read on public transport where there are more distractions, and then dedicate more ti me at home to really concentrate on reading harder books. It’s speeding me up because I am not getting as stuck in harder books, or feeling like I am not making progress, which is motivating.

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Stand outs:

The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

I feel like I have waxed lyrical about this book so much this year, it was such a special read for me. You can read the full review here, as I will keep this one shorter for fear or being very repetitive. On reflection, I think what made this book so special was how Murdoch wrote Charles Arrowby, the protagonist, a retired thespian who moves to the rugged English coast in pursuit of solitude. He was the perfect unreliable narrator for me, I hated him in a way I loved, he was absolutely deplorable but so entertaining. The book made me laugh, I enjoyed the plot a lot, I loved the landscape, and I thoroughly enjoyed how British it was.

The Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

This book has stuck with me more than any other. It’s made me want to read everything McCarthy has written, as I think he is one of those writers I really get along well with in ways that are (unhelpfully) hard to put my finger on. In The Blood Meridian there is simultaneously so much space and so much packed into this novel. I felt like McCarthy suspended me above the scenes, watching The Kid and the outfit of cowboys committing murder after murder of Native Americans, the brutality of the book requires you to stay at a distance from it in order to get through it. McCarthy gives you no time to pause, his writing propels you forward, with no space given to letting you in on how any character feels. The lack of inner monologues is what creates this Birds Eye view (I think?! It’s so hard to say how he does this!!), and yet the characters are still some of the most impactful I have ever read. Judge Holden has stayed with me, I have read a lot about how he considered one of the most evil characters written in literature, and I agree, he made my skin crawl throughout. But how McCarthy made this happen is a mystery to me; all the characters are cold blooded murderers, Holden’s only real point of difference from the rest is that he is intelligent, none of them explicitly share how Holden is making them feel, they (and us as the reader) just observe him, and from those observations emerges the most incredibly captured villain ever. It’s similar in his skill of writing Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men, but far more subtle, and far more insidious.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

I have read some mixed reviews on this one, but I fall on the side of loving this classic. In the realms of speculative fiction, my tastes align more with horror that sci-fi, and I think this book is a great ‘sci-fi for beginners’… it doesn’t take much suspension of belief to follow this story. I think those of you who love the world building aspect of sci-fi and the intricacies that involves to do it well, may not reach for this novel to scratch any sci-fi itch. It’s relatively straightforward, and that is what allowed me race through it, and in turn find it so enjoyable. Charlie is an adult with learning difficulties, who undergoes a cutting edge operation to increase his IQ. Told through a series of progress reports written by Charlie, we watch his intelligence expand as he documents his day to day. It’s pretty predictable, but I loved that about it, sometimes I don’t want to be thrown something unexpected by a novel! It did everything I wanted, it even made me cry as all the pieces fell exactly where I thought they would, it just made it a really satisfying read for me!

Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson

A masterclass in short stories, all linked by the protagonist, a drug addict living in America (mostly the midwest) only identified as Fuckhead. I am partial to a brutal book, and when this one had the line “the travelling salesman had fed me pills that made the linings of my veins feel scraped out” on the first page, I knew I would love it. It’s very dark, pretty grim, and totally beautiful on a sentence level. “Emergency” is now one of my favourite short stories ever and Johnson is on the top of my tbr for next year.

Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan

Best novella I read this year, I read this in one sitting at an airport and really couldn’t look up from it. I think my growing love for Westerns is also tying into a love for reading about horses (I am currently slowly making my way through Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley and enjoying it a lot), so this punchy novel about the horse racing was well aligned for me this year.

We Do Not Part by Han Kang

This one has stuck with me. Whenever I see someone else reading this online I do a little internal clap and a skip of excitement for that person. It’s special, it’s eerie, it’s moving, it’s atmospheric and it’s incredibly well written. My full review on this one is here, I think it will be due to come out in paperback in March 2026 (I am a Hardback Hater) so I implore you all to treat yourself to a copy when it’s released.

The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis

I read this on holiday and it was the perfect holiday read!! I couldn’t put it down. I think this is my third Easton Ellis, I wouldn’t consider myself a big fan of his but I am certainly interested in what he writes. In terms of auto-fiction as a genre, I thought this was incredibly well executed. We follow Bret Ellis, at school in LA at the prestigious Buckley. Bret spends his time in his parents palatial home, going to parties and flirting with various drug addictions, with his equally wealthy friends. Until in his final year a new kid, Robert Mallory joins his class, and Ellis has a bad feeling about him from the get go. Alongside this is storyline of The Trawler, a serial killer murdering teenagers throughout the summer of 1981 In LA. It’s sort of got it all… blood and gore, a whodunnit, drugs, sex, LA 1980s glamour and a bit of academia. If you don’t mind slasher as a genre, I would highly recommend this as a holiday read, it’s engrossing and not too challenging.

Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams

I felt for some reason that I could only choose one Williams to include in this, and as I also read Stoner this year, that was quite a hard choice to make. But Butchers Crossing came out on top for me, also perhaps due to my ongoing Western fixation. I think having read both novels in the same year has really cemented Williams’ talent for me, two very different genres, and he executes them both perfectly. Butcher’s Crossing, which is mostly about a buffalo hunt at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, is very detail orientated (a particular scene about thirst actually made me get a glass of water halfway through, he really puts you into the story with the characters). Those descriptions alongside the landscape really made this a beautiful and moving read for me. I accidentally read this right before The Blood Meridian and I recommend you do the same, two different takes on the same genre, both impeccably done.

I would also like to add honourable mentions Verdigris by Michele Mari, The Human Stain by Philip Roth, The Round House by Louise Erdrich and Telephone by Percival Everett.

Thank you for reading!! So many of you really kindly shared all your favourite book of the year, which you can read through here. Here is to an even more successful year of reading in 2026!!

Lizzy

xx

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January - New York

We started the year by discussing what has remained as one of my favourite reads of 2025; Stoner by John Williams. Drinking wine at Casetta in the Lower East Side, this was such a great book to start the year with - everyone loved it, and for very good reason too! It is such a gentle, slow story about one man’s life, the entire trajectory of which is revealed on the first page, that its beauty creeps up on completely. It manages to never once be boring whilst following the quotidian existence of William Stoner, an English professor at the University of Missouri, and perfectly depicts the way seemingly small decisions can alter the course of a life.

February - London

February was one of my favourite venues of the year, Bruno in Victoria Park in London, it was so cosy and they did this really incredible cheese plate, amongst other delicious bits!! We discussed Symposium by Muriel Spark. This was one of the lightest reads we had in 2025 and was so much fun to discuss, largely centered on one dinner party, and the events preceding it. I must read more Spark next year, she was a joy to read and research!

February was also our first brand event of the year, kicking off with J Crew. It was SUCH an incredible way to start our year of brand partnership events. I went to ten different independent book shops in New York and asked them for three novel recommendations, each with a handwritten note in them from the book shop explaining why they loved it. We then displayed them in J Crew’s SoHo store for guests to browse and choose a title to take home. It was a gorgeous evening, we had catering from the iconic Balthazar and drank martinis, and the J Crew team were so supportive. I am so grateful to every brand who has supported Buffy’s so far!

March - New York

March saw us back in New York, at Jac’s on Bond, discussing Love In The Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one of the hardest reads in 2025 for me. This was dense but so worth the effort, and we loved talking about it. It was a re-read for many attendees - it’s always so interesting to hear people discussing how different a re-read feels. If you came to this book club too then WELL DONE as it was the booziest one that we had all year! We got through so many martinis, it was brilliant (and still maintained a fairly intellectual conversation about Garcia Marquez!).

April - London

In April we discussed The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides at Wine Bar in Mayfair. What a venue this was! In a beautiful part of London, it is hidden underneath a Farm Shop so is really easy to miss, but they do the most incredible food and the space is gorgeous. The Marriage Plot was a novel a lot of people disliked… and we talked about it for HOURS. It focuses on the lives of three friends and their first year post-college. Like it or not, Eugenides knows how to write a novel that you feel engrossed in, even if it annoys you at the same time!

May - New York

In May we discussed Sabahattin Ali’s Madonna in a Fur Coat at Manuela in New York. This Turkish book written in 1943 was recently re-released and translated by Penguin Classics, and for whatever reason has ended up EVERYWHERE online - it does have a very beautiful cover, which might account for it! I found this one of the most disappointing books we discussed this year. It just did not do it for me. The very viral ‘TikTok’ reads can be a bit hit or miss, but I would never want to tarnish them with the same brush when there are some brilliant recommendations out there, (Stoner, for instance, has had lots of viral moments this year). Madonna In A Fur Coat just did not gel with me, it felt like an empty romance that was mostly unbelievable! The great thing about book clubs is even the books you don’t like make for a great discussion, so we still talked for hours.

June - London

For our June book selection, we tried something different, asking four independent bookshops in London to select a book each for the vote. I made this video where I interviewed each bookseller - I want to experiment with more interactive ways of selecting books for the vote next year (our January 2026 selection is based on lists of Buffy’s readers favourite books of 2025)!

The final selected book was Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea - certainly one of my favourites of the year and so fruitful for discussion. The book club was held in London, at the gorgeous Bistro Freddie. Wine and discussion flowed - the central character, retired actor Charles Arrowby, was so divisive.

See the full June recap here.

July

Our July book club was part of a partnership with The Rosewood hotel group, who so kindly allowed us to use two of their amazing hotels for our summer book clubs. July’s was held in The Carlyle hotel (!!!), a historic, iconic art-deco hotel in New York. I actually got to stay the night there, which was such an unforgettable experience. For the selection, I looked at four appropriately New York-y books, and Mary McCarthy’s The Group was the winner. A story about the diverging lives of eight Vassar graduates, and their 20s and 30s in 1950s New York. For me, it was slightly bogged down by the sheer number of characters, but the general consensus on the book was really positive.

See the full July recap here.

August

This month saw our first ever book club outside of New York and London, and the first time I’ve discussed the same book with two different groups, which was really fascinating. The Edinburgh Book Festival kindly invited Buffy’s to be part of their spectacular programme, and we hosted a discussion of NW by Zadie Smith at the beautiful Elliot’s.

For our London version, we were in our second Rosewood venue, the newly opened Chancery Rosewood (it opened the week after the book club!).

See the full August recap here.

September

We began September (which always feels a bit like the start of a new year to me, I guess I’m still on an academic calendar 10+ years after finishing university), appropriately, with our second annual Buffy’s pub quiz! We did one of these last year at the beautiful Spaniards Inn pub in Hampstead, and this year’s was held at the Camberwell Arms and, as in 2024, in partnership with Penguin Classics, who generously donated loads of their books as prizes. We also had fragrance brand Miller Harris as a sponsor this year, who scented the room with gorgeous candles and gave the winning team their newest fragrance.

It was a gorgeous evening, with the best pints in South London (so my South London friends tell me), lovely snacks, and great book chat! It’s so fun putting these quizzes together, and I can’t wait to do it all again next year.

For the book club in September, we discussed Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto at the beautiful Margot in Brooklyn. It was an incredibly warm early autumn evening, and we drank delicious chilled wine.

See the full September recap here.

October

We hosted one of our biggest events in early October in New York in collaboration with my favourite lighting brand Louis Poulsen. We hired an amazing Brooklyn brownstone, had the best catering from Pinch, books generously donated by New Directions, NYRB, and Penguin Classics, and such a lovely bunch of guests.

Our book club for October was held at the cosiest pub in Chelsea, London - The Surprise. I love doing Buffy’s in London pubs - delicious beer, fires, leather chairs, a Richard Curtis dream. We discussed Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, our attempt at a spooky October pick! It made such a great book for discussion, with such vividly drawn characters and Manderley, the house the protagonists inhabited, being a character in and of itself.

See the full October recap here.

November

I began November by getting to attend my second Booker Prize Ceremony. The winner was David Szalay’s Flesh, which I read in a single day a few days after the ceremony. This always feels like a big career moment, being amongst book lovers and book makers is so so special.

We followed up our huge October event with TWO big events in London. The first was a book swap event with Penguin Vintage, held in the most spectacular home in West London, an ex-chapel with the highest ceilings I have ever seen. Monica Vinader kindly provided custom jewellery for every guest, which was so special, and Kelly’s Catering made focaccia, amazing salad, dips, and the most addictive chocolate, peanut, and date bark. San Germain made cocktails that tasted deceptively not like alcohol, an incredibly delicious take on a Hugo Spritz.

We also had a fantastic event with Aēsop (a DREAM collaboration), in their Seven Dials store. This was probably the closest I, a famous Christmas hater, got to hosting a Christmas event! I was tasked with pairing each scent with a book whose contents matched the notes of the fragrance, thirteen books and thirteen fragrances. Guests ate comte and crackers, drank negronis, and had the chance to have a fragrance experience with an Aēsop scent expert, then had to guess which book (from their opening lines) matched which fragrance. Aēsop kindly gifted guests a fragrance and a book, which is so so generous.

I documented the event preparations on my Youtube here, and Aēsop’s amazing videographer Rob Thorogood captured beautiful content, below.

See the full November recap here.

December

I hosted what was technically November’s book club last week in New York (delayed due to Thanksgiving!) and felt VERY emotional at the end of it, knowing it was the last event of 2025 - it has been such an amazing year for Buffy’s.

We discussed Michele Mari’s Verdigris at VICTORIA!, our first ever dive bar venue. We drank beer, martinis, and ate pizza, and it was an incredibly cosy way to spend a cold December eve. We were so lucky to have the book’s translator, Brian Robert Moore, attend the event and tell us more about Mari and the book. Such a perfect end to a really ambitious and wonderful YEAR of events.

Design appreciation

This year, we started working with an amazing graphic designer, Ben Smalley, this year, and I am so obsessed with the visual language he has created for Buffy’s. Below, some of the posters, bookmarks, and a tote bag Ben has designed for us - it’s been so much fun experimenting with these little merch “extras”, so do keep your eyes peeled for more in 2026.

Follow Ben on Instagram here.

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Final thoughts

2025 has really surpassed all my expectations. It’s been incredible, and I am so excited about what is to come. I remember when I started my blog over 10 years ago and having the feeling that I could make it something, maybe even make it career, and I can recognise that feeling coming up around Buffy’s too. In an unpredictable online world ruled by viral trends and algorithms, building something rooted in real life feels more important than ever, and more rewarding. The real life moments we have shared together have been amongst the highlights of my year, we have laughed together, learned new things together, and I have watched friendships form. Every event we have done has sold out in minutes, and every time it makes me feel emotional that this is happening. You are all trusting and investing in Buffy’s, through paying for a ticket, to giving up your time to come to an event… I can’t find the words to express how grateful I am for this. In 2026 we are hoping to host more events with higher capacity, and continue to bring you the best venues and experiences. The brand partners we have are a huge part of making this possible, and we are already planning our biggest event yet for February!

Aside from the events, books themselves continue to change my life. Speaking with you all month to month has improved my reading skills ten fold, and I think I have had the best year of reading of my life. Your opinions, recommendations, and discussions when we meet are so valuable to me. I know our 2026 reading list will be amazing, and I am thrilled to get to read along with all of you.

Lizzy

xx

Somehow it is the LAST MONTH OF 2025! It’s been such an amazing year for Buffy’s, and I’m going to post a recap of all my highlights just before Christmas. As we did last year, there won’t be a formal book club this month, nor will we be reading one particular book - I find around Christmas time there’s already enough pressure and everyone is busy socialising, so instead I’d like to share some recommended reading, based on my favourite reads of the years and some cosy, slower books for the season.

What I read in November:

I had a great reading month, I think this might be the most I have ever read in once month? Someone asked me last night what I am proudest of about Buffy’s, and on reflection I think it might be how I have grown as a reader, thanks to all the conversations we are getting to have about books.

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

We just announced our first event of 2026 which will be discussing Virginia Woolf at the Royal Ballet and Opera, in celebration of their ballet ‘Woolf Works’ which is based on three of Woolf’s most beloved novels: Mrs Dalloway, The Waves and Orlando. So my homework begins!! I haven’t read Woolf since I was at university, and I won’t lie, I did find Mrs Dalloway hard. Its famous stream of consciousness style took me some time to get into, but once you’re in, you’re really in. I won’t say too much about it here as next month we will discuss it in much more depth!

The Night Watchmen by Louise Erdrich

My second Erdrich of the year, I was excited about this one after reading The Round House and loving it a lot. The Night Watchmen didn’t do it for me quite as much! Erdrich feels like one of those wonderful writers who is literary and readable in equal measures. The Night Watchmen is set in the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota, following the Ojibwe people and their fight against the Indian Termination Bill that aimed to assimilate the Native Americans by no longer recognising their sovereignty. It has multiple points of views from different characters, all with different personal links to one another, as the plot builds towards the outcome of the Indian Termination Bill for their reservation. It was enjoyable throughout, and I felt connected to the characters and invested in their stories, but in comparison to The Round House it didn’t click with me as much.

Flesh by David Szalay

We got to go to the Booker Prize ceremony which is always such a treat, this was my second time attending, and saw Szalay win the prize for 2025. I, shamefully, hadn’t read any of the shortlist before attending, and was very inspired to after the event, obviously beginning with the winner, Flesh. I devoured this book in a day, it’s incredibly readable… but felt also quite hollow for me. It’s the story of Estavan, growing up in Hungary his story starts with a sexually abusive relationship with his neighbour, and this trauma sets the tone for a lot of his life. Szalay proceeds to take the reader through Estavan’s incredibly eventful life, jumping decades at a time as he moves from country to country, in and out of wealth, up and down class systems, and between various relationships. Its style is sparse, which definitely feels deliberate, and I didn’t mind the big gaps in time. But I think I didn’t mind it because it all just felt unbelievable to me. I didn’t connect to Estavan, and found a lot of what happened in his life totally unbelievable. I think Szalay was making a commentary about a traumatised man who cannot connect with his feelings, or begin to express them, which I think is an incredibly important topic for men, but the novel left me feeling ‘and…’? As it’s so talked about, I recommend reading, it’s so quick to read, and enjoyable in an un-put-down-able way.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

I LOVED this book. Charlie is a mentally handicapped man who undergoes a cutting-edge operation to increase his IQ. Told through a series of progress reports that Charlie is instructed to keep by his doctors, he documents his life and experiences with people in his life as his intelligence increases. I do have to say I did not like the portrayal of women in this, and it at points nearly ruined the whole book for me. But, the enjoyment I got out of the story clawed it back. I loved Charlie’s therapy sessions, his introspections, the way Keyes used spelling and language was quite obvious but I really thought it worked. It made me cry, which I can’t often say about a book, and I really understood why this is such a hugely popular novel.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

I listened to this one, in my ongoing pursuit of listening to long books I have been meaning to read for a while. I had an image of this book as stuffy and hard to read, and it is neither of those things. The Trasks and the Hamiltons are two families living in the Selinas Valley in California, and we follow the intertwining lives of both families for around 60 years, hence the length of this book. I do think it would have lent itself more to a physical read rather than listening to it, as I always say with audiobooks (this is a ‘me’ problem and not a reflection of the books themselves) as my concentration lapses and I find myself missing bits. In this book I found myself at points lost in who’s point of view I was following, something in it prevented my being able to really connect with the way they switched. It felt like a plodding book, which I actually really enjoyed, and I am so drawn to American literature at the moment (especially novels set in the West), so this scratched that itch! It is full of biblical references, which neither gripped me or put me off the book. I really will read it again at some point and not listen to it, and I suspect I would have a very different experience of it.

My Work by Olga Ravn

This novel is a mix of essays, poetry, doctors reports, and many other forms, documenting the years after Anna gives birth. It demands your attention in the ways it jumps from one literary device to another, and there were numerous passages I felt totally gripped and moved by. I am not a mother myself, so cannot make this comment with any sort of personal experience to back it up, but this felt like an incredibly raw and real account of motherhood. I think Ravn has achieved something really special with this book, and certainly an account of motherhood for women who have difficult experiences with the immediate months and years after giving birth.

Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud

This Sci-fi novella calls to be read in one sitting, which I was able to do on a flight. It’s a really fun read, steeped in horror, which you all know I love. A woman is sent to a mental institution on the moon by her husband, where a renowned surgeon claims to be able to cure his patients through a surgery involving the web of the moon spiders. The whole situation is uncomfortable from the get go, even if a little heavy handed at times. The ending is gruesome, and I personally really enjoyed how it descended into total chaos. There are no subtleties to this book, but it being so short, I enjoyed how on the nose it was (the horror imagery at the end lands on so many common phobias, I think Ballingrud made sure this would be as universally uncomfortable as possible). I probably won’t read the next two in the trilogy, but would like to pick up The Strange by Ballingrud instead.

Verdigris by Michele Mari

The month’s book club book! More on this below.

No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

This is a re-read for me, many many years on from the first time I read it. I think The Blood Meridian is the best book I have read this year, so I wanted to revisit No Country For Old Men, and then had the joy of watching the movie right after. If you haven’t read any McCarthy, I would recommend starting with this. We follow Lewellyn Moss, who chances upon a bloody scene in the desert of a drug deal gone wrong, and leaves the scene with a suitcase containing millions of dollars. Thus ensues possibly one of the best cat and mouse stories there is. Anton Chigur, incredibly eerily captured by Javier Bardem in the movie, is a mass murdering psychopath who is determined to track down Moss. McCarthy knows how to build tension, while keeping the prose somewhat sparse, in a way I find really impressive. You are thrown through these violent scenes, with little time to recover after each one, keeping up this relentless pace and the feeling of a chase throughout. I loved it, and haven now ordered The Border Trilogy and look forward to tackling those three books soon.

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Buffy’s Book Swap with Penguin Vintage and Monica Vinader

We had the most incredible night in mid-November hosting a very ambitious book swap in collaboration with Penguin Vintage and Monica Vinader. It was held in a truly insane home in West London, an ex-convent with high ceilings and beautiful light, and we filled it with Penguin Vintage books, Monica Vinader jewelry (each guest received a custom zodiac necklace!), drinks from San Germain, and food from Kelly’s Catering. Penguin kindly brought two of their editors, who sat and advised Buffy’s readers on books to read based on their favourites, which was so special. The whole night was amazing and I loved meeting and discussing books with everyone - the big book swap table was the central element of the night, and provided an amazing space for people to chat and meet.

Aēsop x Buffy’s: Library of Aromas

On November 25th, we hosted an event with Aēsop in their gorgeous Seven Dials store, a festive celebration of their thirteen wonderful fragrances. I was tasked with pairing each scent with a book whose contents matched the notes of the fragrance. Guests had an exclusive scent experience with a fragrance expert, then selected their favourite fragrance. I had written the opening line of each of the thirteen books, which were wrapped, and guests had to guess from the opening line which fragrance matched the book. They then got to take home a fragrance, and a book - Aēsop were so generous to gift their beautiful scents. We drank negronis and ate amazing comte, crackers, and chestnuts - such a lovely night and an amazing opportunity to collaborate with one of my favourite brands.

November book club / Verdigris

This month, our book vote was between five books from independent publishers - I wanted to highlight some smaller publishers, especially in the run up to a Holiday where everyone (at least in the world of Buffy’s!) is buying books. I was so glad when Verdigris by Michele Mari won, I had secretly wanted it to! The book is published by And Other Stories, who have beautiful covers and a focus on contemporary literature and translation.

We held the book club at VICTORIA! in New York on December 3rd (not technically November, but we always have to shift things for Thanksgiving in the US!), our first ever dive bar venue. I wore… We drank …

Amazingly, the translator of the book Brian Robert Moore lives in New York and attended the book club! It was so wonderful having this extra insight into how translating fiction works, and to have an expert there to answer any of our questions. It made me think about future events involving more authors, editors, and publishers…

December suggested reading

For my own December reading list, I am going to be led by mood and see where it takes me! A few novels on my immediate TBR are The Keep by Jennifer Egan, The Assassins Apprentice by Robin Hobb, Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley and maybe continue my love for Westerns with True Grit by Charles Portis.

In late November we also posted a Gift Guide to the Substack, if you need some last minute book-related ideas, and keep an eye out for our 2025 Buffy’s recap on Substack.

Thank you all so much for being here throughout it all, I can’t wait for 2026!

Lizzy xx

It’s nearly December! In lieu of our usual book choice and in-person discussion, for December I am going to be recommending books for the month, and rounding up a year of wonderful Buffy’s content (coming your way very soon). I have also put together a Gift Guide (like every other Substack you follow!) of book related things that have aided my reading this year, and will hopefully do the same for you. Hopefully there’s something for every book lover in your life. If you buy any of these, please let me know, and have a wonderful, reading-filled Holiday season.

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Bookmarks

I have very kindly been gifted a few bookmarks from my loved ones, and they are one of my favourite things to receive. A personalised bookmark is very chic, and as someone who previously used whatever piece of paper was nearest to me to save my page, it feels very luxurious to use something special.

1. I have this one, in the tan, and it’s my favourite one.

2. I also got this one recently, it’s a bit more fiddly to use, but a lot of colour options.

3. A more expensive one from Smythson, I would choose the navy.

Buffy’s books / rare books

I’ve scoured eBay and found some of the best vintage editions of books we read this year for Buffy’s - I think an older edition of a book is such a special gift, and like a little piece of history. Also, two picks for great rare book/first edition book websites.

1. First Edition of The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch, 1978 - our June Buffy’s book pick. eBay, £41.99

2. A very early edition of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier from 1948 - our October Buffy’s book pick. eBay, £10.79

3. First Edition of The Group by Mary McCarthy, 1964 - our July Buffy’s book pick. eBay, £12.89

4. US First Edition of Symposium by Muriel Spark - our March Buffy’s book pick. eBay, £20

5. Deep Neutral Books curate some incredible first editions of books, lots of them signed, just look at this edition of Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son.

6. For those of you in the US, Sunlit Cave Rare Books also have an incredible selection.

Penguin Classics Archive Collection

In September, we worked with Penguin Classics to put on our second annual Buffy’s pub quiz, this year at the beautiful Camberwell Arms. The winning team got to take home a full set of 36 of these Penguin Classics archive books, which are so beautiful and visually striking. Explore the full selection here.

Jigsaws

Doing jigsaws has been a huge part of my year and also my reading, as I have grown to love (read: actually be able to concentrate on) audiobooks, and listening to one while doing a jigsaw has become my ultimate way to switch off and really relax!

1. NYRB Classic Paperback Covers Puzzle, £15

2. This is a custom one where you can send over your favourite books of the year to be made into a jigsaw!! £60 for 1000 pieces.

3. This isn’t book related in content, but is my favourite jigsaw of the year, $36

4. You could order this just in time for advent… an advent calendar jigsaw!!!

Tote bags / book accessories

They need no introduction. I am a slave to the tote bag and have more that I can count and yet still feel drawn to the below:

1. NYRB Zippered BookBag, £38

2. LRB Limited Edition Striped Tote Bag, £20

3. Faber Illustrated Literary Tote Bag, £12

4. LRB Book Brush, £28 - to remove dust/dirt from the top of your books on shelves…had no idea I needed this until now

For cosy reading

Blankets, candles, fragrances, and cosy clothes to make your reading experience as comfortable as humanly possible.

1. Arket Klippan Wool Blanket, £85

2. Aēsop Sarashina Incense, £35 for 33 sticks - we are doing an in-store event with Aēsop in late November and they always have the best smelling stores thanks to their amazing incense.

3. FFern candle - trust me when I say their winter candle smells incredible, and the silver jar is beautiful.

4. Fancy lighter! I have this one and get a lot of compliments on it. A good gift for the person who has everything, and something you will have forever and use all the time.

5. Toast Cashmere striped socks, £25

6. I am an avid tea drinker, tea is my passion, I love the tea aisle in a supermarket, I love trying new teas, I love the process of making a tea, I love being on my way home to my kettle… do you get it? I love tea!! Here are some of my favourite ones: Pukka Winter Warmer tea is my new favourite, the Betty’s Mandarin and Ginger tea is another firm favourite, and M&S gold tea is my all time favourite English Breakfast.

Misc

• La La Books is a gorgeous independent bookshop in Camberwell, South East London. I spoke to Danielle, the owner, as part of our June book selection, where we visited 5 independent bookshops and took a suggestion from each for our vote (Danielle chose Mammoth by Eva Baltasar). La La have a Pay-It-Forward scheme, started after the shop was broken into, to allow people to buy books who might not usually be able to - when you visit the shop, you can ask to donate to the fund. I think this would be a lovely thing to do on behalf of a friend or loved one, to help someone else fuel their love of reading. More info on the scheme here.

• Heywood Hill Book Subscription. London’s Heywood Hill bookshop have curated a 2026 book subscription with a huge range of categories, prices beginning at £175. You can have a subscription entirely tailored to your tastes, or focused just on classic or contemporary literature. As well as receiving books, you get exclusive book recommendations & author questionnaires from leading writers, reading lists by decade of the best books published since 1936, specially designed Cressida Bell 90th anniversary bookplates and bookmarks, and other treats, invitations and surprises, all sent via gift-wrapped book parcels. A really amazing, big Christmas treat for someone special.

That’s it from me! What are you gifting your loved ones this year? Let me know if you give anything I suggested above…

Lots of love,

Lizzy xx

I’m back in London after a lovely six weeks in New York, which at points in October was 28 degrees (in OCTOBER!). I had a whirlwind weekend in Paris, thanks to Sezane. Also this month, we had our most ambitious Buffy’s event yet in partnership with lighting brand Louis Poulsen, in the most incredible home in Brooklyn, and on the 28th we had our book club at London’s The Surprise pub in Chelsea (it’s cosy pub season!!), discussing Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. All this, plus upcoming events, below.

I had a amazing weekend in Paris with Sezane, and managed to fit in a few visits to some independent bookshops, photos below…I always forget how much I love Paris, and would love to host a Buffy’s event there one day.

Also this month, I hosted one of the biggest Buffy’s events to date, in collaboration with the lighting brand Louis Poulsen. We used the most stunning location house in Brooklyn (and serendipitously the owners already had, and loved, Louis Poulsen lighting!), adorned with books generously donated by Penguin Classics, New Directions and NYRB.

It was such a fun evening, the house was really spectacular and it was so nice watching everyone really take their time choosing their books to take home. We had catering from Pinch, who were brilliant and so incredibly kind and generous to work with. Drinks flowed all night long, and seeing so many people in this space all chatting away about books really warmed my heart. Thank you to everyone who came, and to Louis Poulsen who made this event possible!

Our October book club was held on the 28th in the beautiful pub The Surprise, in Chelsea, South-West London. This is a pub that feels like something straight out of a Richard Curtis film, with wallpapered rooms and cosy corners. We had the entire upstairs room, which was so wonderful, and a great, cosy space to discuss Daphne du Maurier’s slightly less cosy Rebecca.

Much like Iris Murdoch, the author of our July pick, and Mary McCarthy, our August pick, Daphne du Maurier was a very funny, interesting, and era-defining woman. Born in London in 1807, du Maurier, the daughter of an actress and prominent actor manager, was one of three sisters. In 1931 she published her first novel The Loving Spirit, and would go on to write 16 more, as well as three plays, nine short story collections, and more than ten works of non-fiction before her death in 1989. She cheated on her husband Frederick Browning multiple times, and was rumoured to have had affairs with women, as documented in Daphne, a 2007 BBC film on her life. In today’s vernacular, du Maurier may even have been considered non-binary, referring to the repressed side of her as the “boy in the box”. There are lots of brilliant photos of her wearing amazing suits and looking generally incredibly chic.

du Maurier rented and restored a huge historic house in Cornwall between 1943 and 1969 called Menabilly, built in 1624, and has been owned very since by the Rashleigh Family, who du Maurier rented it from. She first came across the house as a teenager in the 1920s on a family holiday to Cornwall, much like the new Mrs De Winter in the novel. This is the building on which Manderley, the house that acts as a protagonist in Rebecca, is based on.

In her preliminary notes for the book Rebecca, which was published in 1938, Du Maurier wrote:

“I want to build up the character of the first [wife] in the mind of the second...until wife 2 is haunted day and night...a tragedy is looming very close and CRASH! BANG! something happens.”

CRASH! BANG! feels like an appropriate way to describe the book - it is one of gothic twists and turns, and a consistent and total sense of eeriness.

Famously, the book was adapted by Alfred Hitchcock in 1940, starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier, which won the 1941 Oscar for Best Picture. In 2020, a Netflix adaptation was released and, perhaps less known, there was a 1964 Indian adaptation of Rebecca, titled Kohra. I watched both the Hitchcock version and the modern Netflix adaptation - the latter was awful, as many people at the book club agreed, and Hitchcock’s was incredibly atmospheric, but he was famously forced to change the ending due to Hollywood’s stringent moral code at the time, which alters the plot completely.

Personally, I loved Rebecca, and found it such a great book for discussion. I was gripped throughout, and whilst it’s on the longer side (400 ish pages), du Maurier keeps a low level suspense brewing throughout, never becoming overly dramatic or unbelievable. The majority of the group felt similarly, though there was a huge division over our thoughts on each of the characters. I had felt a lot of sympathy for the new Mrs De Winter (who, as we discussed yesterday, is never named, a really interesting literary technique which reflected the character’s lack of agency), and was rooting for her and Maxim’s relationship, until I took a step back and realised the reality of Maxim’s actions. du Maurier, in the way Maxim’s murder of Rebecca is so casually revealed, makes us, like the new Mrs De Winter, feel less shocked by it, and in his passioned argument that Rebecca, essentially, deserved to die. Some people found Mrs De Winter’s weak-willed and insecure nature frustrating, particularly in her inability to take charge of Manderley. We discussed how Rebecca was an incredibly strong, era-defining woman, and drew a lot of parallels between her and du Maurier.

This felt like a perfect October read, not dramatically spooky but rife with tension. I’m really excited to read more du Maurier - Buffy’s guests at the book club mentioned reading and enjoying Jamaica Inn, an equally famous novel of hers, but in my research I found she has written 17 novels, 9 short story collections, over 10 non-fiction works, and 3 plays, including a theatrical adaptation of Rebecca. A lot to choose from - if you’ve read other du Maurier works, please let me know in the Subscriber chat or the comments on this post, and do let me know all your thoughts on Rebecca (did you see the twist coming?!) below.

What else I read in October:

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

This book is so widely beloved, which I think can be a blessing and a curse for a book. A blessing in that you eventually give in to the idea of a reading it, a curse because your expectations are set high. Westerns have been my favourite genre this year, The Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy and Butchers Crossing by John Williams being two of my favourite reads, so it felt like the right time to tackle Lonesome Dove. Coming in at over 800 pages, it’s long, and it took a good 200 pages for me to get into it, so it’s a very different pace to the two aforementioned westerns. My love for westerns is ever increasing; the landscapes, the tension, the animals, the feeling of embarking on a journey with the characters are all aspects I find compelling. McMurtry certainly slows all that down, but makes sticking with the slower pace entirely worth it. We follow The Hat creek outfit, a group of cowboys who leave their ranch, Lonesome Dove, in Texas to embark on a cattle drive to Montana. It’s a book with deep characters, McMurtry gives you time to attach to each of them, and he brings all the characters together in a satisfying (perhaps a little predictable) way. The book didn’t surprise me at any point, but it took me in all the directions I wanted it too, all the storylines felt complete and considered, and as he gives you so much time to attach to the characters, I was glad he offered a full picture of what happened to each of them. It made me cry, which is rare for me with a book, and a testament to how well he wrote human relationships.

IT by Stephen King

I listened to this book, which is 44 hours long. FOURTY FOUR HOURS LONG. It took me the bast part of a month to listen to it all. If, like me, you find it hard to concentrate on audiobooks, King is a good place to start. He is a masterful storyteller. I wouldn’t consider him particularly literary, but he knows how to pace a novel, and his dialogue is always brilliant - two factors that I think translate well into audiobook. The narrator was brilliant too, he did so many different accents that really did make listening to something as long as this (did I mention it was FOURTY FOUR HOURS LONG) as engaging as possible. I feel the premise of IT is widely know; a murderous entity haunts Derry, Maine, and manifests in various forms… most famously Pennywise the clown. The regeneration of It happens in a 27 year cycle, so the book covers two time periods: the late 1950s when the ‘Losers Club’ were 12 years old, living in Derry and first encountering It, and again in 1985, where they all leave their various lives to return to Derry for the final showdown. The characters are all believable, and I think he did a great job of writing 12 year olds, that’s a hard age to capture! And I don’t think you can dispute King’s ability to write horror, he has a knack for a scene that will send a shiver down your spine and make you hold your breath, he knows how to balance the supernatural with the very human reaction to it (murderous leech-like creatures that belong to the supernatural, vs descriptions of how they feel, look, sound when tearing into someones flesh… truly unsettling). Despite this I would unfortunately cannot wholeheartedly recommending reading IT. The racism throughout the book almost made me give up on it about halfway through. It exists in the novel to demonstrate the sensibilities of the 1950s and the treatment of the one black character in the Losers Club, but it becomes such a big part of certain sections that it’s entirely gratuitous. The way Beverly, the only girl in the Losers Club is written was also uncomfortable, her sexuality and her body discussed more so than any of her male counterparts, which I really disliked when most of this was contained in the section when you are reading about a 12 year old girl. Finally, the much disputed ending. I won’t spoil anything, but it was one of the worst endings to a book I have ever read!! Especially disappointing when you have just dedicated FOURTY FOUR HOURS of your life to something.

Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan

A really, really gorgeous little book! I read it cover to cover in the airport and was transfixed by it. It’s about a woman’s experience working at the horse races, alongside the jockey’s, the drugs, the injuries, all while documenting a deep love and respect for horses. It was beautifully written, captivating and punchy, while also just being a really interesting topic. The physicality of the sport, of the animals, of what it means to care for them was powerfully portrayed - some of the simple scenes documenting the early starts to muck out the stables had a palpable strenuosity to them. One of my all time favourite novellas, and incredibly satisfying after the previous two very long books.

Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson

Another incredible short read, this is a series of short stories with a connecting protagonist. It’s bleak, following addiction and the ensuing squalor, and Johnson peppers it with humour that makes it enjoyable despite itself. It was one of those books where you read a scene and instantly know it will stick with you, even on the first page the line 'the travelling salesmen had fed me pills that made the linings of my veins feel scraped out’ made me recoil, and even to typing it out has made my hands sweat. It’s a visceral book, and Johnson knows how to achieve that in as few words as possible. There is no fluff, it just feels like one blow after the other, and yet his prose contains a beauty that makes it impossible to put down, and forces you to savour the blows.

Upcoming events:

Our biggest Buffy’s event yet will be on November 13th at a location home in West London. Hosted in partnership with Penguin Vintage and Monica Vinader, the night will be a book swap evening, with readers having the chance to their favourite books and swap these with other guests. There will also be an opportunity to meet with a Vintage Editor for a session of ‘Bibliotherapy’, where Editors will advise you on new reads based on your favourites. St Germain are providing us with delicious drinks, plus plenty of books from Vintage, and amazing opportunities to speak to publishing experts about the books you love. Guests will be provided with bespoke jewelry pieces by Monica Vinader. Tickets for this event went on sale October 19th - a reminder to be subscribed to our Substack, follow us on Instagram, and Eventbrite, to recieve the latest updates and know when tickets are releasing.

I’m really excited to continue these larger, community events to help grow the Buffy’s community, and offer more opportunities to connect.

Please subscribe to our Substack, which is free for all, and follow us on Instagram for the latest.

Please, as always, share your thoughts on this month’s book below/via the usual channels.

Until next time!

Lizzy x

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Photography by Lizzy Hadfield and
Additional research by Agnes Perotto-Wills

Hello everyone,

I’m writing to you from a perfectly autumnal New York - this is my favourite season in general, but particularly in New York (there are songs written about it!). I spent the majority of summer in London, with a brief trip to Sicily which was gorgeous and far too short, plus Buffy’s first ever non-London or NYC meeting in Edinburgh for the book festival. I’m looking forward to hibernating a little bit as the weather grows colder and cosier, and of course reading a lot. Seichō Matsumato’s Inspector Imanishi Investigates, Buffy’s book of the month, has naturally been the focus, and last night we hosted our in-person discussion of it.

The book club was hosted on Thursday night at Margot, in Fort Greene Brooklyn. Margot is such a beautiful restaurant, with wooden banquettes and huge windows, as well as a really striking, perfect cobalt blue exterior. We had the private space upstairs, I was thinking I would be writing about how cosy it felt but in fact need to write about how it was mercifully air conditioned as it was SO HUMID yesterday!! Thank you to everyone who came and battled through that.

I did not dress appropriately for the weather and wore suede trousers (it was raining too, I must stress how inappropriate this outfit choice was), a COS linen shirt and pony hair shoes. An absolutely ridiculous outfit considering the unseasonal warmth, but I felt great!

Margot has an amazing wine list, and also offered cocktails for the evening - as I am writing this I realise I didn’t try either of the cocktails which is a SIN, and I must do better next time. We ate olives, bread, and cheese, which sustained us for a hearty discussion of Matsumoto’s book.

I found it really interesting researching Matsumoto, who I’d never read before and has recently become very popular due to Penguin Modern Classics reissuing and translating his works. Credited with the popularisation of detective fiction in Japan and sometimes referred to as the “Japanese Agatha Christie”, Matsumoto, born in Japan in 1909, was self-educated, having not attended secondary school or university, and didn’t publish his first book until he was in his 40s, then going on to write 450 (!!) works over the next four decades. There are some great photos of him smoking cigs at his desk, which I love, and can assume he never actually left his desk if he managed to write that many books.

Eight of Matsumoto’s novels were adapted into films by the Japanese director Yoshitarō Nomura, including Inspector Imanishi Investigates which was adapted into the 1974 film Castle of Sand. A translation of the novel’s original Japanese title Suna no Utsuwa, this film won multiple awards in Japan including the 1975 Kinema Junpo Award, the Readers’ Choice Award, and the 1975 Mainichi Film Concours. I really recommend the film (it’s on Criterion Channel), it was beautifully shot and really helped me grasp the numerous characters and places Imanihsi visits.

The book is set in the 1960s, and follows Inspector Imanishi Eitaro who is solving the mystery of a man’s body found on train tracks in Tokyo. Inspector Imanishi traverses Japan to find answers, alongside the junior detective Yoshimura, and the book provides a fascinating image of Japanese society in the mid-20th century.

The more time I spent with this book, the more impressed I became with what Matsumoto achieves. There is a simplicity in its prose which made it easy to read despite its ever changing plot, littered with clues and red herrings. It is really rooted in the procedure of the investigation, and Matsumoto lets you in on every twist and turn. There are maybe one too many coincidental moments that keep moving the case along, and a huge amount of names of people and places, but I think Matsumoto is deliberately presenting the reader with a lot of different things to see which ones stand out to you the most. None of us at the book club successfully guessed who the killer was, so the red herrings definitely worked!

Written just 15 years after the end of WW2 and the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I was surprised how little the war featured in the novel. But we reflected last night how much this was really written to a Japanese audience reading in the 60s, a time of great political turmoil for Japan, and that therefore Japanese reader didn’t need an account of what they had just lived through. The conflicts of the time exist in a far more subtle way…the push and pull between traditional Japan and a more progressive Japan, personified by the Nouveau Group. The presence of Tadokoro, the cabinet member being used by the Nouveau Group (specifically Waga) felt like another demonstration of the tension between conservative right and the liberal left at the time (for an understanding of the 1960s social landscape I found this YouTube video interesting!).

Overall, we loved the book. There was a general consensus that it didn’t make us feel much towards any of the characters, but it felt like Matsumoto was focusing on the plot more than the character development, and he took the plot in so many different directions that the lack of connection to the character didn’t feel too detrimental. I for one would read more Matsumoto, but I wouldn’t prioritise it in the coming months, I think crime fiction is ultimately not my genre of choice so despite how much I enjoyed this one, I am still going to gravitate towards other novels!

Speaking of other books, I had a brilliant reading month in September. This graphic is taken from Storygraph, please leave your username in the comments so I can add more people on there! It is infinitely better than GoodReads, and I like the fact you can make a reading goal based on number of pages, not just the number of books.

Slow Horses by Mick Herron

I listened to his on audiobook, and loved the narrator. My cousin’s (both big audiobook listeners) recommended the series to me, and it’s really enjoyable. I know it’s a really popular TV show too so I am imagining a lot of you will be familiar with it, but it follows Jackson Lamb who is heading up Slough House, an arm of MI5 where they send agents who have had some catastrophic incident in their career, leaving them disgraced and sidelined. I think I am still honing in on my skill of really paying attention when I am listening to a book, and with a fast paced one like this, I really noticed it if my mind wandered for a little bit. I will 100% be continuing through these on audiobook, I just need a break from this narrator because…

The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis

… I ended up listening to another book straight afterwards, narrated by the same man! Which was a complete coincidence!! The same voice taking me from a group of disgraced detectives in London in a high paced thriller, to the family of the commandant of Auschwitz, was very disorientating. I am going to make an effort to read the physical copy of this, as it really felt like a book that needed to be looked at on the page rather than listened to. There are three main narrators of the book, Angelus Thomsen, Paul Doll and Szmul Zacharias. Thomsen falls in love with Doll’s wife, while Zacharias, a jew imprisoned at Auschwitz, is forced to work on the camp. Each chapter covers the perspective of the three characters, and while listening, I was really losing my way. It’s relatively slow paced for a novel recounting such a harrowing topic, and so I think the nuance of what Amis was trying to achieve really was in the characters, and that crucial part was lost on me.

The Human Stain by Philip Roth

My first time reading Roth! And it was quite an undertaking, but a very rewarding one. The narrator is telling the story of his ex co-worker, Coleman Silk, who resigns from his long tenure as dean and professor at a college in Massachusetts after accusations of racism towards two students. Through the narrator, Nathan Zuckerman, we then delve into Silk’s life story, leading up to current day where he is having a love affair with a much younger woman. The novel being written from Zuckerman’s point of view is downright confusing at points and adds a layer of unreliability in there that I don’t think it needed. Roth’s tendencies towards long sentences made it hard enough to keep up with, but he really does write incredibly. There were so many moments when I had to stop and take a breath after reading a single (sometimes paragraph long) sentence, just to really appreciate the masterful way he conveys so much to the reader. I will definitely be reading more from Roth, but I know I need to tackle it when I have a lot of time to really dedicate to reading it.

Helm by Sarah Hall

I wanted to love this so much more than I did! Helm is a micro climate, a wind, over Eden Fell in the North of England, and we read about Helm’s influence over thousands of years. From an environmentalist taking readings from the clouds to study the rise of microplastics in the air we breathe, to a neolithic tribe, and every era in between. Helm apparently took 20 years to write, and I can really see the labour of love that went into this, the characters are numerous (too many! I am sorry to say!) and the way Hall situates us in each time period feels well executed and well researched. Helm itself has a narrative too, and these chapters were the ones that really let the book down for me. I am not sure how I thought a wind would ‘speak’, but it just wasn’t this. Helm says things like ‘ick’, and is quite witty and naughty, and it was so at odds to the impact Helm was having on each character that it left me feeling disconnected to the novel.

We Do Not Part by Han Kang

I loved this book! I think Kang is such a brilliant writer, I really liked The Vegetarian but I thought this one was even better. Two friends, Kyungha and Inseson living solitary lives in Korea are reunited when Ineson finds herself in hospital after an accident. Inseson asks Kyungha to travel back to her home to feed her bird before it starves. Kyungha embarks on the journey, amidst a huge snowstorm, and in doing so embarks on a reflection of the history of the area and specifically the massacres that took place in the late 1940s. Kang captures so much in this relatively short novel, and I think she is brilliant at creating a constant sense of unease in how she describes the landscape… I have never felt so tense about a snowstorm! The Jeji Uprising is something I knew very little (nothing!) about, and learning about it through the conversation between two friends in the midst of a visceral storm, really made me feel like I was in the room with them. It’s one of those books that keeps coming back to me in the weeks after finishing it, I think it takes a while to digest but it’s so memorable it will keep working away at you long after you have finished it.

Little by Edward Carey

This one was underwhelming for me, and I had high hopes! Little, the novel’s title and name of the protagonist, starts her life in Switzerland before travelling to Paris with Curtius, a wax sculptor, who works and lives in Paris throughout the revolution. Little (so named because she is small) trains in wax sculpting alongside Curtius, and ends up living a very adventurous life in Paris.. from watching Marie Antoinette give birth, to living in a house that was once home to monkeys. The novel is filled with drawings, which I did enjoy, but overall it felt quite flat for me. There were some brilliant characters, and the scenes in The Monkey House were very vivid to me, but it ultimately went on to do too much which diluted the novel overall.

Other Buffy’s events:

In early September, we hosted our second annual Buffy’s x Penguin Classics pub quiz! This time we held it at South London’s Camberwell Arms in their gorgeous private dining room upstairs. There were delicious wines, the perfect Estrella pint, and great martinis, as well as a really wonderful menu of small plates. Every guest got three Penguin Classics books, plus samples of Miller Harris fragrances, who were our kind sponsors for the evening. Our winners went home with amazing prizes courtesy of Penguin Classics and Miller Harris - 36 of the white Penguin Archive books, and a full size of Miller Harris’s newest perfume Scherzo. We also debuted some exclusive Buffy’s bookmarks for this event, designed by Ben Smalley. I’m excited to experiment with bits and pieces of merch, and would love to know what you’d all be interested in seeing.

Drop me a DM on Substack if you want to receive the quiz questions and play along at home - I always love coming up with these questions and trying to strike the right balance of challenging and fun (as well as including not just books I love!). I can’t wait to do it all over again next year!

Upcoming events:

I am so excited to be hosting an event in collaboration with the lighting brand Louis Poulsen on October 16th. We have a beautiful location house in Brooklyn that we are going to transform into an amazing book swap space, with Louis Poulsen lighting illuminating the evening. The wonderful Pinch Food Design are catering, which will be so special, and Louis Poulsen have kindly made the event free for all (although it sold out in under a minute!).

I will be announcing the venue for our October book club in London next week, and we will vote for October’s book Sunday, and announce it on Tuesday the 30th of September. As always, please send photos of yourselves reading October’s book, wherever you are in the world! Tickets go on sale for the London book club Sunday 5th October, which will be on Tuesday the 28th of October.

I’m really excited to do more of these larger, community events - I know the book clubs sell out really quickly, so I’m keen to do what I can to unite the Buffy’s community outside of solely the monthly club…watch this space!

Please subscribe to our Substack, which is free for all, and follow us on Instagram for the latest.

Please, as always, share your thoughts on this month’s book below/via the usual channels.

Until next time!

Lizzy x

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Photography by Lizzy Hadfield
Additional research by Agnes Perotto-Wills

Hello everyone,

Summer is winding to a close here in London, the days getting a little shorter and a hint of Autumn in the air. I, for one, am quite excited for the change of seasons, particularly in terms of dressing - I miss my jumpers! I have a lot to catch you up on this month, including the two events we hosted and the other books I have been reading outside of our book club read.

This month saw our first ever Buffy’s book club outside of London or New York, though I very much hope it won’t be the last! It was such an honour to be invited to be part of the programming for the Edinburgh Literary Festival, and to be in the city at a time when it was filled with authors, critics, and book lovers. We held the book club at Elliott’s, run by Jess Elliott Dennison, having the whole restaurant to ourselves. We ate crostini and, most excitingly, freshly baked lemon madeleines. It is such a peaceful, cosy space, the perfect venue to discuss Zadie Smith’s NW, my first foray into Smith’s oeuvre, but certainly not my last.

I had to leave Edinburgh the day after our event, but would love to return next year to attend some of the other brilliant talks and events the literary festival provides.

I wore these brilliant trousers from Rohé, an old cami from The Row, my COS sandals that have been one of my best summer purchases, and some amazing earrings from Edinburgh based jewellery designer, Ruth Leslie.

On the 28th, we discussed NW once more at the brand new (it technically doesn’t even open until next week!) The Chancery Rosewood Hotel, on the site of the old US embassy in Mayfair. I had had the chance to visit the hotel a few months prior, when it was still in construction, which was such an unforgettable experience. Touring the hotel and hearing how involved every design choice was so inspiring, and it was amazing hosting a book club in a totally new, luxury space. We had an enormous room to ourselves, the Pavilion, on a corner of the building with windows looking out onto Grosvenor Square, and a bar in the centre, from which we drank champagne. The seating arrangement was perfect, lots of big, comfy sofas and chairs in a circle, and was really conducive to good conversation - I’ll have to find more venues with this sort of layout!

It was so interesting to discuss the same book twice, hearing how different groups opinions differed, and it was wonderful to discuss a book so rooted in London, with other Londoners. We had two North West Londoners in the group, both of whom talked about how much the descriptive sections of that part of the city resonated with them. Two people had actually had the same experience that Leah has in the book’s opening, one just a few weeks ago, of a person coming into their home who they ended up giving money to, which felt like a pretty crazy coincidence!

We had some really great conversations about friendship, particularly female friendships and childhood ones - the idea was raised multiple times of whether we should stay friends with our childhood friends just because of a shared history, or, in the case of Leah and Natalie/Keisha in the book, a shared childhood trauma. Smith does such a perfect job at exploring the complexities of these questions, and of painting a picture of a friendship bound by something unidentifiable, despite both the characters seeming to largely dislike each other, and not be open with one another about the realities of their lives.

Everyone felt the four major characters - Leah, Natalie/Keisha, Felix, and Nathan - were well formed, and we all had different feelings towards them. Personally, my favourite character was Annie, a Soho aristocrat that Felix spends an afternoon with. I felt in a way she might be a voyeur over all of these lives. There is one line in which she says:

“…Or are you one of these optimistic souls who feels they become a new person every seven yers, once the cells have regenerated - blank page, start again - never mind who you hurt, never mind what went on before.”

This felt like a summing up of many of the themes of the book, how the characters are grappling with their identity and either struggling to embrace or actively trying to shed it. The slippy differences of British class identity were explored so well, the many signifiers of movement through the classes, and struggles with racial identity. We felt that no character, except in some ways Felix, was truly happy, and his section of the book was the highlight for many of us.

There was a lot of discussion about form - NW is divided into three sections, each focused on the perspective of a different character. In Leah’s section, the text changes shape to represent certain words and ideas (such as the text forming the shape of a tongue and a set of teeth when a mouth is discussed). Felix’s section, takes a more traditional form, and is almost a novella. Natalie/Keisha’s chapter is broken into many small vignettes, 185 of them, each with a subheading, and then a further chapter that follows her on a walk across North London. One reader last night made the point that the sections describing London became denser as text, reflecting the congested nature of the city. I actually found this switching of form less jarring than I expected - a glowing Washington Post review put it well:

At times, reading “NW” is like running past a fence, catching only strips of light from the scene on the other side. Smith makes no accommodation for the distracted reader — or even the reader who demands a clear itinerary. But if you’re willing to let it work on you, to hear all these voices and allow the details to come into focus when Smith wants them to, you’ll be privy to an extraordinary vision of our age

We all agreed that we needed to read the book again, everyone had missed different moments and plot points within the dense form and fast pace. Almost everyone agreed we would read Zadie Smith again - people who have read her before said White Teeth is the most similar in her back catalogue, set in London, but that On Beauty and The Fraud are also really interesting reads.

To those that did not attend either book club this month, please let me know your thoughts on NW in the Substack comments! I am excited to get stuck into reading more Zadie Smith.

So much gratitude for both our amazing venues this month, and to the Rosewood for allowing us to use both New York’s Carlyle Hotel and The Chancery.

I wore an old shirt from Sir the label, Raey trousers, Herbert Levine shoes and a necklace from Ruth Leslie.

I have had a great reading month outside of the book club pick too. Starting with The Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, possibly the most relentlessly violent book I have ever read. It feel at odds to say I enjoyed a book like this, but I did in the sense that I enjoy McCarthy’s writing style and I am finding myself increasingly enjoying Westerns. The novel follows ‘the kid’ around the Mexico-Texan border, as he joins the Glanton gang, who travel around murdering American Indians. I watched this video on YouTube from Yale University after reading it which was really interesting - a lot of what McCarthy wrote was based on real people, including Judge Holden, the villain of the book (although every character is deplorable, McCarthy captures something incredibly sinister in the way he writes Holden’s character). McCarthy manages to immerse his reader into his characters while giving very little away of their inner worlds, it creates a feeling like you are watching the story play out from above, but his writing style makes you work hard to get to that point of view. It’s a hard read, in both style and content, but I am so glad I finally tackled it.

Another brilliant read was Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad. We follow Sonia, a British-Palestinian woman who is working as an actress in London, and visits her sister in Haifa, Isreal. Through meeting her sisters friends, Sonia ends up agreeing to act in a production of Hamlet that will take place in the West Bank. Hammad achieves a lot in this book; family ties on a personal and political level, she tracks important historical events in the Isreal-Palestine conflicts in a way that I found incredibly informative, she (somehow?!) manages to convey huge amounts of Hamlet and the nuances of theatre performances and production. The characters are rich and I felt very connected to Sonia, and I think for anyone who wants to educate themselves further on the history of Palestine, this novel is a great tool to do so.

On holiday last week I read The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis, and couldn’t put it down. It feels in need of an editor to chop out around 100 pages of it, as it’s really repetitive at points, but it thankfully didn’t take away from how enjoyable I found it. It’s auto-fiction, and follows Bret Ellis and his very affluent friends through their final year of high school in LA in the 80s. Two significant things play out throughout this year; there is a serial killer at large called The Trawler, and a new boy has started the school in their final year, who Bret becomes increasingly obsessed with. It ends up taking a slasher horror route that I did actually find quite scary, and it has the very graphic violence that we see in other Easton Ellis novels. I really do recommend it though, it’s such a page turner and is worth slogging through (or skimming over!) the repetitive sections.

I also listened to The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett that was approximately 12 years long and I hated it but only decided I hated it once I was about 38279 hours into it and couldn’t give up there so I listened to the remaining 9283820 hours.

We also voted on the September book last week - we’ll be reading Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seichō Matsumoto, and are announcing the venue, in NYC, on August 31st. As always, keep your eyes peeled on our Instagram for more event announcements, and do send us photos of you reading next month’s book.

Speak soon!

Lizzy x

Writing to you from New York, where summer is in full, heady, humid swing. I have been coping with the heat by sitting as close as humanly possible to the AC, for as many hours a day as permissible. Alongside this month’s book club choice, The Group by Mary McCarthy, I have read North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud, The Lowlife by Alexander Baron, After You’d Gone by Maggie O’Farrell, The Round House by Louise Erdrich, The Shadow Lines by Amitav Gosh and Butchers Crossing by John Williams. I think this deserves a separate Substack post to discuss those, which I will write up next week!

On Thursday night, our book club was held at our most iconic venue yet - New York’s Carlyle Hotel. I am so beyond grateful to the Rosewood hotel group for allowing us to host here. It was a night I, and the other attendees, will never forget! The Carlyle is a stalwart of New York art deco design, culture, and glamour; opened on the Upper East Side in 1930, the hotel’s name derives from the Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle, a hugely influential figure in Victorian literary culture. Originally constructed as an ‘apartment hotel’ for longer stays, the hotel retains 60 apartments for which guests can sign up to a three-year lease or buy outright (the dream?!). Every American president since Harry Truman has visited the Carlyle, as well as the majority of the British royal family, including Princess Diana throughout the 90s. The hotel has been nicknamed the “palace of secrets”, a reference to the discretion of its staff despite the famed clientele. You can really feel all this history and legacy whilst in the Carlyle, and given its names literary connection it felt the perfect place to host Buffy’s.

We were in a private room inside the Carlyle’s restaurant Dowling’s, and guests were greeted with martinis on silver platters. Throughout the night we snacked on canapés and drank champagne (that might be chicest thing I have ever written down), whilst discussing Mary McCarthy’s The Group, a book about upper-class society women in New York in the 1930s, many of whom would likely have frequented the Carlyle’s Bemelmans Bar or Dowling’s itself.

This month’s book, much like last month’s (The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch), is written by a woman who defied conventions and stereotypes of her time, and wrote prolifically about sex, sexuality, and politics in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. McCarthy was referred to by some male writers as a “modern American bitch”. She married four times, and had a famed public feud with playwright Lillian Hellman (which later became a Nora Ephron play called Imaginary Friends!).

The Group is an early example of autofiction. McCarthy, like the book’s protagonists, studied at Vassar College in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Whilst there, she began a rebel literary magazine Con Spirito (Italian for ‘with spirit’), and emerged into the New York literary scene post-graduation, with her first story (“The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt”, about a young woman having a one night stand with a man she meets on the subway), published in a magazine in 1941. The Group was written 30 years after McCarthy’s time at college, but set in the era Mary graduated from Vassar. McCarthy described the book as “a ‘true history’ of the times”. We follow eight female friends and the diverging paths their lives take after graduation, with the book exploring contraception, unmarried sex and sexuality, breastfeeding, men’s mental health, all controversial topics for the 1930s when the book is set, and the 1960s when it was published. The book was received poorly by male reviewers at the time, with Norman Mailer writing in the New York Review of Books "her book fails as a novel by being good but not nearly good enough...she is simply not a good enough woman to write a major novel.", but has become an important representation of life for affluent women in 1930s New York (Candace Bushnell even credits The Group as inspiration for her column which later became Sex and the City).

I had mixed feelings on the book. It felt bogged down by so many characters, some adding so little that they just served to confuse me in my efforts to remember who was who. McCarthy shows a real skill at moving from character to character, that I think could have just as well been showcased with just half the characters, and instead merging some of them together (for instance Pokey and Helena). I did appreciate that each character represented a facet of womanhood; Dottie tackles female contraception, Priss gives us an insight to women breastfeeding and motherhood, Libby demonstrates the working world for women in the 1930s… and so on! And McCarthy really did cover an incredible amount of ground (not to mention the several side characters we meet along the way). I can imagine how sensational this would have been to read in the 60s and the conversations between real groups of friends it would have sparked. My optimism leads allows me to hope it would have led to a celebration of womanhood between real women in their own ‘Group’, that at times the book doesn’t achieve.

The Buffy’s group were mostly very positive about the book! We were in agreement it was hard to get through at points, it does require an effort of concentration (it’s over 400 pages long too), and the characters do get confusing. But it is certainly one of those books that seems more impactful on reflection, once you can let go of trying to remember who is who between Priss and Polly and Pokey. It’s a fantastic book to talk about in a book club, we were all practically on the ceiling ranting about Harald in particular. McCarthy certainly makes you feel a certain way about the male characters. Overall, what we are meant to feel about the women felt a little more open to interpretation. Do any of them achieve their ambitions? MCarthy when interviewed in the Paris Review said:

“It’s a novel about the idea of progress, really. The idea of progress seen in the female sphere, the feminine sphere. You know, home-economics, architecture, domestic technology, contraception, childbearing; the study of technology in the home, in the playpen, in the bed. It’s supposed to be the history of loss of faith in progress, in the idea of progress, during that twenty year period.”

Based on that, I think she realised her ambitions for this novel. And perhaps the heart of any dislike I have about the book lies in how dismayingly relevant certain aspects still feel today for women, almost 100 years on. I would love to hear what you thought about it in the comments here too, or in the chat.

I will be announcing the next venue (another very exciting one) next week, where we will be reading NW by Zadie Smith. As always, please send photos of yourselves reading August’s book, wherever you are in the world!

Upcoming events:

In August, Buffy’s is heading North to Edinburgh Literary Festival, for our first event outside of London or New York on the 21st, at the beautiful Elliot’s restaurant, details on the poster below. For more info see the Edinburgh Literary Festival website here.

September sees the return of our annual pub quiz with Penguin Classics, this year held at the Camberwell Arms in South London, and kindly in collaboration with Miller Harris, who will be giving away their beautiful scents as prizes. See poster below for details - tickets go on sale this Sunday, August 3rd, at 6pm UK time via our Eventbrite.

We have a few more very exciting events in London and NYC in the works, please subscribe to our Substack and follow us on Instagram for the latest.

Please, as always, share your thoughts on this month’s book below/via the usual channels.

Until next time!

Lizzy x

Photos by Emily Krouse.

Poster design by Ben Smalley.

Additional research by Agnes Perotto-Wills

Hello everyone,

I hope you’re all enjoying the start of summer - London has been almost insufferably hot but has now cooled down a little, though still warm enough for pints in pub gardens, which works for me. This warm weather is perfect for The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch, this month’s book which we discussed last night in person at Bistro Freddie in London.

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When possible, I am going to begin sending out summaries of the previous night's bookclub. I am loving seeing the Buffy community grow so much, and seeing those who regularly attend the book clubs make friends with each other (one group is planning a holiday as we speak!). I’m aware the tickets sell out very quickly, and a lot of people feel they are missing out, so we are working hard at Buffy’s to create more community based events to bring people together, and in the meantime hopefully these summaries bring a bit of the energy of the events to the Substack. Plus can help open up the discussion even more!

I have had an incredible month with The Sea, The Sea. I listened to it initially, the Richard E Grant narration, and absolutely loved it. I was bereft when it ended and at a loss of how to go about my day without Richard E Grant talking to me! This is my first ever Murdoch, and I can confidently say I am a fan. Her writing, in the wonderful (and sometimes inexplicable) way some authors do, really spoke to me. The snappy dialogue that made me laugh out loud, the rich descriptions of the landscape, the farcical characters… she weaves a truly readable story balanced with a tension of quite opposing features.

Charles Arrowby, the thespian protagonist who has moved to an unnamed town on the coast of Northern England, embarks on a unrelenting mission to win back his childhood sweetheart. Certain inconveniences, like her husband and lack of apparent interest in rekindling anything with Charles, do not deter him. His rambling self-delusions were as entertaining and they were infuriating, and his egotism so over wrought at points that he became a caricature of himself. Written in the style of memoir, that then proclaims to move into the realm of a novel, we are at the mercy of our unreliable narrator. It makes everything he counts feel slippery, his point of view so deluded and so built on fantasy, I was constantly trying to grasp an idea of what really did happen. It made me engage with the characters more than I usually do in a novel, and as a result had made this a book unforgettable.

The bookclub was hosted at Bistro Freddie in Shoreditch. We had the whole space to ourselves, and it was a gorgeous location for a summer’s evening! We always opt for light bites at the book clubs (it’s been an ever evolving trial and error, and the one I did with a full meal felt like it interrupted the flow of the evening). I started my night with a martini and moved onto orange wine which was very popular with everyone.

The formats of the evening run like this: arrival and mingling for around 30-45 mins. Then we sit down and start the discussion, which I lead with my own thoughts on the book before opening it up to the guests! The conversation is very relaxed and free flowing, I always have questions and themes in mind to guide us back to, but sometimes I don’t even need to refer to them. The book chat usually lasts between 1 hour and 1 hour 30, and naturally reaches an end, at which point we continue to mingle! Almost everyone always comes alone, so if you are tempted to join one, please don’t be intimidated! I am so proud of the community we are building, it is warm and welcoming, and there is never any pressure to talk aloud about the book if you don’t feel comfortable.

As for your opinions on The Sea, The Sea… it was a mixed bag!! Some guests found the unreliability of Charles, and the character in general, pretty unbearable. Spending the entire 500+ pages of this novel in Charles’ perspective does get tiring, and I think Murdoch deliberately makes it repetitive in order to really demonstrate his obsessive nature. Others shared my love for it, and really found it humorous at points and hard not to feel sympathy for Charles despite his dreadful behaviour. It was pretty much a resounding yes to reading more Iris Murdoch, I think I am going to tackle The Severed Head next.

I will be announcing the next venue and book this weekend! As always, please send photos of yourselves reading July's book, I love to see the cover variations and where everyone is in the world (bonus points if you’re on a beautiful holiday somewhere ;) ). In August, Buffy’s is heading North to Edinburgh Literary Festival, for our first event outside of London or New York, at the beautiful Elliot’s restaurant, poster below. We will be also hosting a book club in London that month, at another extremely exciting, newly opened venue, and there are further Buffy’s events to be announced - Substack and Instagram is the best place to keep up with all of these, so please do subscribe.

I would love to know everyone’s thoughts on The Sea, The Sea below - did you love Charles Arrowby as much as I did?

Until next time!

Lizzy x

Photos by Emily Krouse.

Poster design by Ben Smalley.

I am very excited to introduce a little Buffy’s rebrand! I loved the logo I made originally, but it just something I threw together haphazardly, and the wine glass began to feel a little irrelevant and I wanted something that was a little more polished. Pleased to introduce it alongside (one of) my latest hobbies… scanning book covers and making a collage on photoshop. Reliving my GSCE art skills here and thoroughly enjoying it. He new logo is going to be part of me making all of the output from Buffy’s more visually pleasing, and also more varied. Book covers offer endless design inspiration, and so I am sitting on a wealth of references.

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The year has been off to a strong start with events, the January Book Club was held at Casetta in New York, and a big in store event with J Crew which I loved every second of. It was a celebration of independent book stores in New York, and I visited over 10 different stores to get their recommendations, which were available for people to take home on the night. Below is a list of all the titles available, it was such a great mix!

Aside from our book club picks, I have had a great start to my reading year! Here is where I am up to:

The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream by Patrick Radden Keefe

I really want to read more non-fiction and Patrick Radden Keefe is my go-to for this, as it reads like fiction. This book follows the Snakehead industry, mostly in Chinatown in downtown Manhattan. For those who don’t know (I did not), a Snakehead is a person at the top the chain of organising human smuggling, and this follows that chain predominantly from the Fujian Provence of China, to New York. It was fascinating, and reading it while I was in New York (I live on the edge of Chinatown) made it even more enthralling. I deeply recommend all of Radden Keefe’s books to anyone who finds non-fiction much harder to get into!

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

This book made me have a lovely moment of self reflection about how my reading has improved over recent years. I could recognise this as a book I would have loved about five years ago, which now read as one I thoroughly enjoyed but craved something more challenging. This saga follows twin brothers who are orphaned at birth, in a lifelong story that follows their upbringing at a hospital in Ethiopia to later life in New York. It did succeed in making me cry, and the characters were really enjoyable to read, there were moments when all of the central characters would be in the midst of some sort of domestic scene that genuinely made me feel warm inside. Verghese took me where I wanted to go, gave me space to love all characters, to dislike them when I was meant to and then feel sympathy for them after that. It’s an enjoyable, flowing, read - that despite it’s sadness would be the sort of book I would want to take on holiday. But, I am definitely honing in my tastes to knowing I want something with a little more… edge? Do you like how I claim I am honing in by backing that up with such a vague adjective… bare with me while I keep working this out!

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

I had high hopes for this because (and I don’t know where I got this idea from), I decided this was very much my sense of humour. Which it was… for a bit. Heller’s famous WW2 satirical novel makes a brilliant show of how futile war is, and does so with humour. There are a lot of characters, which I think was a good tool in the novel to show how many young men were putting their lives on the line, but did make it hard for me to keep up at points. There were some brilliant quirks in this, the character Major Major Major Major (named Major Major Major by his father as a joke, and then made a Major during the war) who only wants people to come and visit him in his office when he isn’t there, was a particular highlight. But overall it got a bit repetitive and could have been 50+ pages shorter. On a whole I do recommend it and I am so glad I finally got around to reading it, but it didn’t reach my (admittedly high) expectations.

Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo

I ended up reading two books in month that exist in a liminal space between life and death (the second being Lincoln in the Bardo, more on that below), both of which were vert surreal, and yet very different. The story follows Juan Preciado, who is instructed by his mother on her death bed to go to Comala, to find his father, Pedro Páramo. I struggled with this at around the 40 page page (it’s a short book, so that’s around 1/4 of the way through) - the opening was very powerful, and I felt instantly gripped, and then through my own lack of understanding as to what was happening, what period of time I was in, who’s point of view I was in… I lost my way. I re-read a few pages, and then did my best to surrender to where this was taking me. It at times felt like being passed from one confusion to the other, but the story did slowly start to come together, in as much as I (think) it’s meant to! I did some reading around the book, and it really is considered a masterpiece by many, that made me appreciate even more what Rulfo was doing. I would like to re-read in a year or so maybe, and hope it’s a novel that I can engage with more and more as my own reading journey develops.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Good GRIEF this was long. My first foray into Dickens and I am either not equipped to read his work, or really started in the wrong place - perhaps both? Maybe I need to increase my ability of reading the Classics before revisiting his work? Something about the looooonnngggg sentences made my attention wander throughout this. That being said, I did enjoy it. I listened to it and thought the audiobook was great, and as its roughly 12 years long, I found listening to it so soothing as it had become a relatively consistent part of my day. Anyway I think you should go find a review from someone who had a better attention span about this book, and that person is not me, and I deeply feel as though I am not doing this justice.

Betty by Tiffany McDaniel

This book came second place in our January book vote, and I am actually so glad it didn’t win. It’s a heavy read in terms of it’s content, following Betty and her seven siblings growing up in Ohio. There is a lot of trauma in Betty’s life; racism, sexual abuse, bullying, grief… the readers accompanies her witnessing and enduring some really harrowing scenes. Her safe space is her relationship with her father, a spiritual man becomes the town’s holistic doctor, who tries his best to give her confidence in her Cherokee heritage, and to give her hope that men can be good people. I found the scenes with her father very touching, and the landscape McDaniel paints around the house they grow up in and it’s gardens were so beautiful. But, I felt she almost entirely glossed over how Betty actually feels about anything that happens to her! It became increasingly frustrating as the bad things ramp up throughout the book with so little character development alongside it.

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Oh I LOVED this weird little book. It was so much FUN. The first 30 pages I was honestly completely lost and was about to admit defeat and then I had my own wave of genius and decided to actually Google it and not give up or start scrolling through my phone instead. Huge personal growth and I believe I am now one step away from enlightenment. That aside, I watched this great interview with Saunders that really helped me digest the book. From then on, I was away! It found this so fun to visualise, his descriptions were just right for me - the perfect amount of information without being too descriptive, this dark and surreal world really started to take shape in my mind. There are definitely pages I skimmed where so mane characters suddenly appeared (but even the suddenness of that was brilliant), which I think you can get away with doing - it all adds to a general busyness in the book that creates the chaos of the Bardo. There were some beautiful moments of grief in the midst of this too, and I think Saunders balanced so many things very, very well.

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Whenever someone asks me what I have read this year, unless the book is literally in my hand at that moment, I go absolutely blank. So reading tracking apps are essential for me - we have all discussed this a little on the chat, but I would love to know which you use and if you want to share your profile, please do in the comments!

I still automatically go to GoodReads but it really does feel as though it’s been designed on Paint, and am trying to use StoryGraph more but breaking the GoodReads habit is no easy task.

Here are my profiles: Goodreads, StoryGraph.

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Another hugely important discussion we must not overlook is JIGSAWS. Jigsaws and AUDIOBOOKS to be specific. It is combination that is truly helping me switch off. I think people who love books and cats (me) and very much a jigsaw companies target market because a huge amount of them seem to be of an image that incorporates either books or cats, and often both. So I essentially feel a sense of belonging in the world of jigsaws. I can gladly say much more about them but I will instead pivot to the content you actually want; audiobooks. I asked on Instagram which ones you loved, and made a list of the answers:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Deborah Levy’s ‘trilogy’: Things I Don’t Want To Know, Cost of Living, Real Estate
The Martian by Andy Weir
Down the Drain by Julia Fox’s memoir (I have heard many good things about this!!)
Edinburgh by Alexander Chee
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein
At Home by Bill Bryson
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (this was the most recommended!)
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall-Kimmerer (this is what I have started and it’s beautiful)
Animal by Lisa Taddeo
Dubliners by James Joyce
Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Mill on the Floss by A.S Byatt
Paula by Isabel Allende
Yellowface by R.F Kuang
Anthony Bourdain books
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis
Room to Dream by David Lynch
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
David Sedaris books
The Bequest by Joanna Margaret
Awareness by Anthony do Mello
All Fours by Miranda July
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
Summerwater by Sarah Moss
East of Eden by Steinbeck

Special mention to the Fitzcarraldo that cost me and arm and a leg but are worth it!

Thank you so much for reading and supporting me and Buffy’s! It would be nothing without you!!

Lizzy

xx

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I posted the first Instagram post on Buffy’s on 21st April, since then we have amassed over 5,000 subscribers on here, I have organised and hosted a total of 11 events; 8 book clubs, one reading event, one book swap and one pub quiz. We have shared our opinions, good and bad, on 9 different books, and left (on the day of me writing this) 2848 messages on our Substack threads. No number of ‘thank yous’ can convey how grateful I am for every single one of you. 

I have been sharing various things online for over 10 years now, it’s incredible how quickly something can go from an ideation in my mind, to being out there in the world. Buffy’s was the longest I have taken to announce something, and the most scared I have been to launch something new. Truth be told, I am not that confident in about talking about books. I listen to other’s discuss what they love in a novel and am confronted by how amateur my own description feels in comparison. But, what I do have, is an incredible amount of support from you. And realising that I did not have to be the only one formulating an opinion about a book, is the moment that Buffy’s became what it is. The space for you all to share what you think and feel, what you like and don’t like, what you want this community to become. I have learnt so much in the last 8 months, the way I read is transforming, the focus of my day to day work is shifting... my life is quite literally changing.

Together, we have built something quite remarkable, and I hope this is only just the beginning. For 2025, I am brimming with ideas. I hope to be able to take Buffy’s to different countries, offer reading retreats, more pub quizzes, more collaborations with brands that you are involved in, all the while keeping the monthly book clubs as the beating heart of Buffy’s. I want to be able to share more online, create more content, start more threads, create a space for book lovers to talk about all things related to reading. In short, to make this a space for readers to connect with one another, all around the world.

Thank you to every single one of you in this community. Truth be told, I am really only a very small part in making this space what it is, the vast majority of that is down to all of you and how much time you dedicate to your love for reading and for sharing that love with others. I think my favourite thing about Buffy’s is watching every one interact with one another, each of us simultaneously expanding and honing in on our reading tastes as we pass on recommendations. In an online world ruled by algorithms, there is something increasingly sacred about personal recommendations.

So once again, thank you, from the very bottom of my heart. I hope I can keep showing my thanks by making Buffy’s a corner of the internet that you can keep returning to to feel connected and amongst like minded people. Anything you want to see happen on this platform, please always send a message to let me know - it’s been ever evolving thanks to your feedback!

Lizzy

xx

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With changing leaves comes a yearning for a change in pace and lifestyle. Nights in, knitwear, hot drinks… it couldn’t get more clichéd but those staples feel so appealing. The two nights I spent in Massachusetts encapsulated that perfectly; I wore a lot of cashmere, walked on a lot of crunchy leaves, red by a fire and drank red wine.

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My reading choices actually haven’t been very in keeping with the season, and I have been having a very odd time with reading. I am particularly stressed at the moment and am very disconnected from what I am reading, not in the sense that I am skimming a page without taking in a word, I can remember everything I have read… but it’s just not really having any impact on me. While in this odd phase (which I have no doubt will pass, it’s also coincided with being back in New York and being here can really impact my reading flow) I have read; The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, All Fours by Miranda July, Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro, and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Alongside slowly reading Perfume by Patrick Süskind for our October book club. I am going to talk about all of these in an upcoming YouTube video so will spare repeating myself with a written review here. And speaking of YouTube, the video I made from my trip to Massachusetts is one of my favourites ever!

One thing that has been flowing a little more, are my outfits. I have a solid rotation on the go at the moment making getting dressed everyday feel easy and mindless;

My jeans of choice are the Acne 1977, or more recently, these from Skall Studio that come in a leg 34 for us tall girls!! I love them.

As usual, Uniqlo cashmere is kingpin in my wardrobe, but I also was sent this one from & Daughter (my favourite luxury knitwear brand) which is great, and this Everlane one is worth your attention too.

I splurged on the Saman Amal boat shoes last month, they are well worth the price tag. They are incredibly comfortable, and have such a specific style to them and make any outfit instantly very masculine.

Finally, I was sent this coat from Rohe Frames. Rohe is one of my favourite brands at the moment, I think they are becoming my go to brand for a more elevated look while still being very minimal and chic.

These four pieces together are my ideal Autumn outfit! Masculine but still chic, effortless but still put together.

My music choices have been unbelievably varied this month!! I am actually totally lost in what I want to listen to, so am reaching far and wide in terms of genre to try work out what I am enjoying most. I made a playlist for my drive upstate which I loved, you can listen to that here. Other great albums have been:

Endlessness by Nala Sinephro, really great light jazz album I have been listening to while I read.

ROCKMAN by Mk.gee, I am enjoying everything Mk.gee releases at the moment, Two Star & The Dream Police released earlier this year was incredible and the latest single is making me excited for whatever he releases next.

In a TOTAL 180, and way heavier than I normally listen to, Absolute Elsewhere by Blood Incantation definitely has sections which are bit too shouty for me, BUT listening to the entire record from beginning to end made me feel like I was listening to a symphony rather than an album with separate tracks.

Ending on another more ambient recommendation, Hardy Boys by Emile Mosseri and Sam Gendel has been on heavy rotation for me!

I hope you have enjoyed the photos that have accompanied this post. I said in a recent YouTube video that I was picking up my film camera again more often. I certainly feel a little rusty, but the joy of waiting for a roll of film to be developed is coming back to me!

Finally, thank you to everyone who is so active in our chat section. It’s truly my favourite section of my online world at the moment, please keep sharing your reading recommendations on there.

All my love,

Lizzy

xxx

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