“Is that Bill Murray?” asks my friend Sarah.

I tell her I’ve just been standing next to Paulie ‘Walnuts’ from The Sopranos at the bar and, checking for myself, I whisper confirmation: Yes, that is Bill fucking Murray.

I’m glad for Sarah. She loves Bill Murray, so it makes up for me convincing her to accompany me on a personal pilgrimage to see Woody Allen play jazz at The Carlyle while we’re on a work trip in New York.

Outside, entering the building, the paparazzi had raised their cameras to snap me before seeing I was a nobody.

Inside, in the low lighting of the famous Bemelmans Bar, sitting next to Bill Murray and Paulie ‘Walnuts’, adding to a tab that is now so high I laugh Ray Liotta-hysterical whenever Sarah asks if we shouldn’t maybe get a water next or skip dessert altogether, I am in my element. The music. The people. The decor.

Writes McNally:

“Knowing I can do something, without necessarily doing it, is vital for me. There’s a scene in the film Pennies From Heaven in which an unhappily married man who’s fallen in love with a school teacher asks if she’d ever consider having sex with him on an elevator floor. He doesn’t want to have sex on the elevator floor, he just wants to know it’s a possibility. I feel that way about most things.”

I feel that way about most things too. And in New York, the possibilities are endless.

It’s why I love the city and perhaps why I love this book.

Yet I was drawn to it by pure chance.

Before reading I Regret Almost Everything, I had no clue about Keith McNally, wasn’t entirely conscious of his restaurants (I have now put two and two together), and certainly didn’t know we share so many opinions — and anxieties.

I think I just liked the cover (which is cool). Or maybe the title (which is great). Maybe I just needed to use up the book token Mum had bought me for my birthday.

Months later, after finally rescuing it from my heaving TBR pile and reading it on a whim, I now lay awake at night plotting to open my first restaurant. It will be called PABLO (after my dog). It will serve Basque-inspired Pintxos (I have a chef friend in mind). And it will offer good beer and wine at affordable prices. It will be the kind of place you can hang out with friends, take someone on a date without feeling awkward, and somewhere you can just sit and read alone without people thinking you’re weird. Lighting will be key (another opinion McNally and I share), and I intend to source most of the furniture from Grimsby on the cheap. Investors of Sheffield, hit me up — I’ve seen a building.

Of course, this is not likely to happen.

Or is it? Because, aside from enjoying this excellent, entertaining, and deeply thoughtful memoir, my first impression, 50 or so pages in, was how improbable Keith McNally’s own story is.

From Wales to the West End, to Alan Bennett’s bed, to New York and kitchen work and building restaurants that have become institutions (The Carlyle isn’t one of his, but might as well be). Through divorces, debilitating strokes, and dreaded Times reviews. Taking in Warhol, Wintour, and even Weinstein. It’s madness.

As fodder for a good yarn, it’s frankly greedy. I’ll forgive Keith his greed because he turns what could easily be a self-congratulatory ‘who’s who’ into something that is moving and insightful. It never feels like a brag, despite the fact that, given his achievement (not necessarily the restaurants; I’m more thinking of the way he broke into an inherently elitist culture from working-class roots), you could hardly hold pride against him.

I think he achieves this, in the writing at least, by using the oldest and simplest trick in literature: you tell the truth. It’s the most difficult trick to pull off and most fail, but I sense his own long-held respect for the craft demanded he give it everything. I think that’s why I find it better written and more readable than most literary fiction published today.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that he was bezzie-mates with some of the all-time heavyweight writers, including Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, and Tom Stoppard. (He’s also pals with Jay McInerney, who I read used one of McNally’s restaurants on the first-edition cover of Bright Lights, Big City… and so Two was introduced to Two, and my subconscious recognition of McNally began to reveal itself. Confirmed again when I learned one of his restaurants features in Melinda & Melinda. After a while, it started to feel as if McNally had been creeping around in my subconscious for decades.)

But enough rambling — it is a great book, and I recommend reading it.

I recommend reading it even if you’re not in love with New York and the cultural icons that helped make it the filmic, nostalgia-inducing city of infinite possibilities it is today.

And if you do love New York, and if, like me, you wish we still lived in a time when writers and artists were the people we celebrated most, and the concept of Reality TV was still the sole remit of Ken Loach, you should absolutely read this.

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My recommendation: Book a table for one at the fanciest restaurant near where you live. Dress up, or dress down; wear whatever makes you feel comfortable. Ignore any weird looks you might get, especially from other diners, safe in the knowledge that the guy who built half the best-known restaurants in New York admires solo diners. Order as many courses as you can afford, tell them to leave the bottle, and start reading. Life’s endless possibilities will soon overtake you.

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Before this, the only book I’d read by Julian Barnes was The Noise of Time, which, if I’m honest, I don’t remember anything about.

No. A vague recollection. It was quite interesting, but referential, alluding to high culture a lot, things you’d have to Google if you weren’t privileged with an Oxbridge education.

A brief scan through the reviews for Departure(s) and I can see that Barnes (himself an Oxbridge graduate) has now officially passed through the invisible forcefield that protects authors of a certain age and prestige from any real criticism — he wrote some great books back in the day; let the man speak.

And that’s fine, I guess.

But make no mistake, Departure(s) is a writer riffing, wandering in some thoughts they’ve had, being a bit playful with structure and authorship to give the blurb writers enough meat to write some hooky cover copy in the hope of pulling in readers not familiar with the writer’s older work (further supported by the extra spend on snazzy jacket design), and that’s about it.

Again, all fine. I get it.

Fundamentally, I think more books like this should be published. I’d rather read this than half the feeble guff that’s published as contemporary literary fiction by “hot new things” who’ve been edited into shape by bludgeon.

Indeed, I mildly enjoyed Departure(s). Well-written, pacey, thought-provoking here and there. Sometimes it might have made me crack a wry smile, or think, yes, you know what Julian, you’re right.

My only pause is that the two lasting memories I have weeks after reading this book are 1) the dog in the story, and how it made me consider my relationship with my own dog, and 2) this overwhelming feeling that it’s funny how some writers reach this privileged position of being able to wander in their own memories and the literary world sniffs it up like a line of coke they don’t want/need but they’ll be shunned if they don’t partake.

On point 1, this could also be down to the fact that I just read My Dog Tulip by JR Ackerley, and I’ve noticed a lot of recent films using a dog’s loyalty as shorthand for pathos, from The Odyssey to Supergirl. My sensitivity to dogs in art seems to be skewing my opinions.

On point 2, I acknowledge I’m a bitter, ageing, and hopelessly un-agented writer from a working-class background without a proper university education (even I realise the flimsiness of my Creative Writing first from The Grimsby Institute, which still had to be signed off by, I think, Lancaster Uni). I totally get that Barnes’ earlier work, the likes of Flaubert’s Parrot, are probably great (although see previous comment: “referential, alluding to high culture.”)

I’m being ratty and unfair. It’s not Julian’s fault. He just wrote a book and shared his thoughts. It’s what I like doing. I’d probably get on with the bloke.

Is it the gushing literary reviews that upset me?

Is it because it’s hot and I’m sweating and uncomfortable at my desk?

Is it just basic human jealousy?

Probably all three.

Or it might just be that Departure(s) is okay, and sometimes that’s worse.

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My recommendation: Don’t read this on a weekend break in Paris, sat in Le Marais watching the world go by. I did, and it seems to have somehow contributed to my tetchy reading. More likely, you should find a little cafe in an old city like Lincoln, perhaps, or York. Order a scone, or (given the many references to Proust) a madeleine, and read it with a pot of tea served from crockery that reminds you of your nanna.

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Yes.

Great. I thought so.

It might sound negative, but it’s actually a sign of huge respect. Possibly the most intimate secret dialogue a reader can have with a writer.

It’s a dialogue that arises on numerous occasions when reading Jo Lloyd’s work, and it’s a dialogue my guest and I both experienced positively in reading this inventive and immersive collection of short stories.

Indeed, welcome to The Library of Lazy Thinking Podcast, with me, your host, Glenn Fisher.

As you may know by now, in each episode, I'm joined by a guest from the world of books and culture to talk about a specific book they'd like to put in the library.

There's no plan and no agenda, just two people lazily thinking about literature.

If you enjoy the show and would like to help us (and get your hands on a coveted Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, tote bag, and pin badge), you can become a supporter of the library by upgrading to a paid subscription.

But either way, please do like and share the show—it all helps.

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In this episode, my very special guest is the writer and artist Adrian Duncan, whose latest novel, A Thought Without Collision, is published by Tuskar Press. We discuss his pick for the library, the 2021 short story collection The Earth, Thy Great Exchequer, Ready Lies by Jo Lloyd.

About Adrian Duncan

Adrian Duncan’s debut novel Love Notes from a German Building Site won the 2019 John McGahern Book Prize. His second novel A Sabbatical in Leipzig was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award 2020 and was republished in the UK in late 2022 with Colm Tóibín and Peter Straus’ Tuskar Rock Press. His collection of short stories Midfield Dynamo was published in March 2021 and was longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize. His third novel, The Geometer Lobachevsky, published in April 2022, was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize and the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year. His fourth novel, The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth, was published to critical acclaim in January of 2025 by Tuskar Rock Press, and his fifth, A Thought without Collision, was published in August 2026.

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About Jo Lloyd

Jo Lloyd won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2019 and an O. Henry Prize in 2018. Her stories have appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, Ploughshares, Southern Review, and elsewhere. The Earth, Thy Great Exchequer, Ready Lies is her first collection. She grew up in South Wales, where she now lives.

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Links to obscure (and not so obscure) things mentioned in this episode

• Order The Earth, Thy Great Exchequer, Ready Lies by Jo Lloyd and A Thought Without Collision by Adrian Duncan from my local independent bookshop in Sheffield here.

• Find Adrian Duncan on Instagram here.

• Find Glenn Fisher on Instagram here.

• Find The Library of Lazy Thinking on Instagram here.

About the Library

The Library of Lazy Thinking is a place to hang out and learn more about books. If you’d like to support the library and get access to everything here, you can become a paid member (and get an exclusive The Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, sticker, and pin badge). All support goes back into the library, helping to organize live events, exclusive merchandise, and more podcasts.

Subscribe now

About Glenn Fisher

Glenn Fisher is a writer—wait, Glenn Fisher is me. I’m the one writing this. Let’s drop the third-person act. My writing has been published in Lunate, The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit, 3am Magazine, Dogmatika, and Litro Magazine. I write about books and interview other writers and artists here in The Library of Lazy Thinking. I live in Sheffield and work as a freelance copywriter. I have had a best-selling non-fiction book published on the subject called The Art of the Click. It was published by Harriman House and shortlisted for Business Book of the Year. It has been translated into Simplified Chinese and Korean. I also have a dog called Pablo. He is harder to translate. Indeed, most of my life revolves around trying to understand his often unreasonable demands. Meanwhile, I am currently working on my debut novel, The Invention of Memory, and on the eternal, soul-destroying task of finding an agent.

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Even when we say we empathize, how much do we actually listen to the nuance of someone else’s experience, especially if it jars with our own? Are we even capable of truly listening to others when we so often seem entirely incapable of listening to ourselves?

These challenging questions are at the heart of the fascinating yet relatively unknown novel, Empathy, which is the focus for this episode of the show.

Thankfully, given my own skills in the active listening department have in the past been found severely lacking, I’m joined by the brilliant Ellie O’Neill to guide me somewhere towards a greater understanding of such things.

Indeed, welcome to The Library of Lazy Thinking Podcast, with me, your host, Glenn Fisher.

As you may know by now, in each episode, I'm joined by a guest from the world of books and culture to talk about a specific book they'd like to put in the library.

There's no plan and no agenda, just two people lazily thinking about literature.

If you enjoy the show and would like to help us (and get your hands on a coveted Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, tote bag, and pin badge), you can become a supporter of the library by upgrading to a paid subscription.

But either way, please do like and share the show—it all helps.

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In this episode, as I say, my very special guest is the musician, Ellie O’Niell, whose debut album, Time of Fallow, is released on St.Itch Records. We discuss her pick for the library, the 1992 novel Empathy by Sarah Schulman.

About Ellie O’Neill

Ellie O’Neill is an artist from Co. Meath, Ireland, whose music weaves a rich, diverse and tender landscape traversing raw, intuitive explorations of intimacy and loss, friendship and queer identity. Her debut record, Time of Fallow, is released on St.Itch Records.

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About Sarah Schulman

Sarah Schulman is an acclaimed American novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer, and AIDS historian. Based in New York City, she is a Distinguished Professor of Humanities at the College of Staten Island. Known for her decades of LGBTQ+ activism, she co-directed the ACT UP Oral History Project and has authored over 20 books, including The Gentrification of the Mind and Let the Record Show.

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Links to obscure (and not so obscure) things mentioned in this episode

• Order Empathy by Sarah Schulman from my local independent bookshop in Sheffield here.

• Listen to Ellie’s great new record on Spotify here and pick up a physical copy of the record here.

• Find Ellie O’Neill on Instagram here.

• Find Glenn Fisher on Instagram here.

• Find The Library of Lazy Thinking on Instagram here.

About the Library

The Library of Lazy Thinking is a place to hang out and learn more about books. If you’d like to support the library and get access to everything here, you can become a paid member (and get an exclusive The Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, sticker, and pin badge). All support goes back into the library, helping to organize live events, exclusive merchandise, and more podcasts.

Subscribe now

About Glenn Fisher

Glenn Fisher is a writer—wait, Glenn Fisher is me. I’m the one writing this. Let’s drop the third-person act. My writing has been published in Lunate, The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit, 3am Magazine, Dogmatika, and Litro Magazine. I write about books and interview other writers and artists here in The Library of Lazy Thinking. I live in Sheffield and work as a freelance copywriter. I have had a best-selling non-fiction book published on the subject called The Art of the Click. It was published by Harriman House and shortlisted for Business Book of the Year. It has been translated into Simplified Chinese and Korean. I also have a dog called Pablo. He is harder to translate. Indeed, most of my life revolves around trying to understand his often unreasonable demands. Meanwhile, I am currently working on my debut novel, The Invention of Memory, and on the eternal, soul-destroying task of finding an agent.

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Though we might perceive dogs as man’s best friend, the second half of this book suggests they see us as little more than dog’s pimp.

After JR Ackerley decides to mate his Alsatian bitch Tulip, the book gets so niche as to become almost scientific.

Until that point, it’s already pretty niche, and I wonder how much I’d enjoy reading this if it weren’t for the fact that, outside of friends and family, my longest intimate relationship is now with a hairy four-legged friend who spends a lot of time licking his genitals.

Spending so much time with a being that can only communicate via looks, paw taps, and nose nudges is a fascinating and unique experience in itself. What makes My Dog Tulip a decent read is that JR Ackerley describes his own experience not only with authenticity, but with an extra touch of either accidental ignorance or clever innocence that means you most often sympathise with Tulip, while tutting at Ackerley’s naivety.

Originally published in post-war Britain in 1956, I assume there were different rules for dog ownership, or that we were perhaps not as worried about our canine companions as we are these days.

I say this because for large parts of the book, Tulip — a giant and seemingly independent-minded Alsatian — is off-lead, following Ackerley around Putney and the Fulham Road.

For much of my time in London, I lived in Putney and off the Fulham Road. I can’t imagine I would have been comfortable letting Pablo (my own Tulip) or any dog, no matter how well-trained, roam behind me as impatient cyclists and hurried cabs raced to make a red before speeding over Putney Bridge.

What if a squirrel, pigeon, or rat dashed into the underground station? Pablo would be on his way to Cockfosters before I’d had a chance to tell him he’d need to change at Earl’s Court.

But this is what I mean. Unless wondering whether it’s safe to let your dog off lead is a concern to you, or if being able to spot when a warning growl is turning into a potentially aggressive interaction isn’t something you’ve become adept at noticing, are you really going to give two hoots about Ackerley’s observations on obedience?

Maybe. But probably not.

Especially when the later part of the book essentially descends into an extended farce featuring a tweedy man of the BBC cautiously watching his dog be mounted by a series of other variously inept dogs, themselves mostly owned by Sergeant Major types.

Some friends of mine balk at the idea of picking up a dog’s shit. I can’t imagine they’d enjoy reading about bitches bleeding in heat.

But aside from the Carry on Canine Sex section taking up a little too much of the book’s weight, the fact that more people won’t read this— dog-lovers and haters alike — is probably a shame.

A shame because, of course, spending just shy of 200 pages considering the relationship between man and beast (and the relationship between a man’s beast and other beasts) often throws up deeper insights into the human psyche more generally.

How we humans interact with each other…

How we see the world…

What we need versus what we desire…

It’s all there, and you don’t need to scratch too deep to find it.

My dog Pablo pauses to scratch when he’s confused. At least, that’s what I used to think. Maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe he’s not confused at all. Maybe he’s not pausing to scratch. Maybe he’s scratching to pause — to pause so his dumb and much-confused owner can catch up.

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My recommendation: The period and setting, not to mention Ackerley’s prose, is very post-war London, very Hey Ho, Charlie, Can I Fix You A Whiskey? Therefore, to prepare the book for being read, use it several times as a knocking board to change the tobacco in your pipe, using the back of your flat cap or the sleeve of your tweed to dust off the ash before giving it a buff. If you’re not already a member of a lawn bowls club, or at least a cricket club, become one and use the clubhouse as the ideal spot to read this.

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But still.

Despite the opening line telling you things aren’t going to end well, something about the way The Easter Parade tangles you up in the lives of the two Grimes sisters means that by the end you’re both surprised and entirely accepting of their bleak fate.

And despite the bleakness, it’s pretty damn brilliant.

It’s an opinion shared by my excellent guest for this episode of the show, literary man of the moment, Jem Calder. As he points out, there’s a lot of Yates in his own much-acclaimed debut novel, which is likely one of the reasons Sally Rooney is a big fan.

We explore why The Easter Parade works so well, how it influenced Jem’s own writing, and we dig into the strangely joy-inspiring concept of depressive realism.

Indeed, welcome to The Library of Lazy Thinking Podcast, with me, your host, Glenn Fisher.

As you may know by now, in each episode, I'm joined by a guest from the world of books and culture to talk about a specific book they'd like to put in the library.

There's no plan and no agenda, just two people lazily thinking about literature.

If you enjoy the show and would like to help us (and get your hands on a coveted Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, tote bag, and pin badge), you can become a supporter of the library by upgrading to a paid subscription.

But either way, please do like and share the show—it all helps.

Subscribe now

In this episode, as I say, my very special guest is the writer, Jem Calder, whose debut novel, I Want You To Be Happy, was published in the UK by Faber. We discuss his pick for the library, the 1976 novel The Easter Parade by Richard Yates.

About Jem Calder

Jem Calder was born in Cambridge but lives and works in London. His fiction has been published in The Stinging Fly and Granta, and his debut short story collection, Reward System, was published by Faber in 2022. His debut novel, I Want You To Be Happy, was published by Faber in 2026.

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About Richard Yates

Richard Yates was born in 1926 in New York and lived in California. His prize-winning stories began to appear in 1953, and his first novel, Revolutionary Road, was nominated for the National Book Award in 1961. He is the author of eight other works, including the novels A Good School, The Easter Parade, and Disturbing the Peace, as well as two collections of short stories, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness and Liars in Love. He died in 1992.

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Links to obscure (and not so obscure) things mentioned in this episode

• Order The Easter Parade by Richard Yates, and I Want You To Be Happy by Jem Calder from my local independent bookshop in Sheffield here.

• Read an interview with Jem about his new novel in Dazed here.

• Find Glenn Fisher on Instagram here.

• Find The Library of Lazy Thinking on Instagram here.

About the Library

The Library of Lazy Thinking is a place to hang out and learn more about books. If you’d like to support the library and get access to everything here, you can become a paid member (and get an exclusive The Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, sticker, and pin badge). All support goes back into the library, helping to organize live events, exclusive merchandise, and more podcasts.

Subscribe now

About Glenn Fisher

Glenn Fisher is a writer—wait, Glenn Fisher is me. I’m the one writing this. Let’s drop the third-person act. My writing has been published in Lunate, The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit, 3am Magazine, Dogmatika, and Litro Magazine. I write about books and interview other writers and artists here in The Library of Lazy Thinking. I live in Sheffield and work as a freelance copywriter. I have had a best-selling non-fiction book published on the subject called The Art of the Click. It was published by Harriman House and shortlisted for Business Book of the Year. It has been translated into Simplified Chinese and Korean. I also have a dog called Pablo. He is harder to translate. Indeed, most of my life revolves around trying to understand his often unreasonable demands. Meanwhile, I am currently working on my debut novel, The Invention of Memory, and on the eternal, soul-destroying task of finding an agent.

Leave a comment

I get off the Metro at Montparnasse and walk back north toward 27 rue de Fleurus.

Outside the apartment, I ring the bell, and a few minutes later, Alice appears.

Is she in?

Bien sûr, laughs Alice, and gestures for me to follow.

She sits astride a low stool, her thick billowing skirt pulled up as she uses the coarse fabric to buff the brass frame of a Braque I recognise.

Glenn? she inquires without turning to acknowledge me.

I just read Deborah Levy’s book about you. From the future, you know? She writes about her experience of your work, your modernism, your place in literature.

My place in literature?

Yeah. I mean your influence generally. On her. And on us. Writers, I mean. And literature generally. I get a sense that Deborah is longing for a time when there was more thought about this stuff. Meaningful thought. Tangible thought. Something more meaty. Not just waffy shit, you know? I don’t know. When it meant something. When books were… literature, commas, you know, when it was all more important. That’s the problem.

The problem, or your problem?

My problem, I suppose. I don’t know what to write about it. I said a thing about writing “reviews” to some literary friends at a pub the other day. I said I hate modern book reviews — most reviews — that just describe what happens in a book, then say whether or not what they’ve said happens in the book is good or not, which is often on the fence anyway, as they’re just trying to get their own book reviewed. I don’t know. I thought it was clever, but I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe that’s what I’m doing too. Why do this stuff at all?

All reviews are portraits.

Did you say that?

Do you need your ears syringing?

No, I mean, in real life. Is that a Gertrude Stein quote?

All life is real. What’s your problem? What does it matter if I said it or not?

For accuracy. Truth. Otherwise, it’s all just made up.

Everything is made up, dear.

I say that. I tried writing a novel around the idea. I showed you some pages, remember?

You say what?

Everything is made up. Even our names.

You could have made up something more exciting than Glenn Fisher.

True.

So what is the problem? Hemingway’s due in a minute. Didn’t you two talk about this the other night?

I just don’t know what to say about the book except that I enjoyed spending time with her thoughts about you, and in a way I thought she was trying to do something I try to do in exploring her thoughts in the moment — almost lazily — without too much recourse to their meaning, without really reaching a conclusion, and instead giving the reader an opportunity to explore them too. And that made me think, or rather, it reminded me how much I’d read your stuff in my own formative years, and that you’re a bigger influence than people realise. I mean, people know you’re an influence — a famous name and what have you — but your actual work, the writing, the portraits, especially. It did what you wanted it to, more than you maybe even pretended to believe it would. It being the writing.

I’ve told you before, and I’ve told Ernest too: Just write it. Write it true.

But what if it’s not right? What if it’s not…

If it’s true, it’s right. If it’s right, it’s true.

Sorry.

And don’t apologise.

Hemingway enters, drunk.

I’m done. It’s all shit.

Hey Champ, I was just—

Fisher! You’re here. Good — hit me, will you? I’m shit. The words aren’t right.

Gertrude stops buffing the Braque’s frame and turns to hold us both in her gaze.

You boys and your insecurities.

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My recommendation: A friend in Paris took me to a nice little wine bar, which I think was called Quincave. It was busy that night, bustling, exciting, very cool, very Paris. I have no idea what time it opens in the day, but I imagine that for a few hours before the evening gets going, it’s likely the ideal location to spend some time with Deborah and Gertrude and all the thoughts this book will provoke in those of a certain inclination, i.e., overthinking writer types like me.

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The first time, as a young writer or reader, when you discover short stories published in The New Yorker, and you know you’ve finally stumbled across the good shit.

When you realise all the greats have contributed at some point. Salinger and Saunders. Rushdie and Roth. Ernaux and Ishiguro. Not to mention Truman Capote, John Updike, and Zadie Smith.

Maybe you always knew. Maybe you saw someone cool with a folded copy artfully poking out from their sports coat pocket. Maybe you heard it referenced in a film. Or maybe it’s just innate, maybe you’re just born with knowledge of The New Yorker—the literary equivalent of Maybelline.

Either way, chances are you do indeed know The New Yorker, and you know that the short stories it features are pretty good.

What you might not know is that my brilliant guest for this episode of the show has herself had a (very good) short story published in the prestigious pages of the magazine.

So, she makes for the ideal guest to discuss New Yorker Short Stories in general.

Indeed, welcome to The Library of Lazy Thinking Podcast, with me, your host, Glenn Fisher.

As you may know by now, in each episode, I'm joined by a guest from the world of books and culture to talk about a specific book they'd like to put in the library.

There's no plan and no agenda, just two people lazily thinking about literature.

If you enjoy the show and would like to help us (and get your hands on a coveted Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, sticker, and pin badge), you can become a supporter of the library by upgrading to a paid subscription.

But either way, please do like and share the show—it all helps.

Subscribe now

In this episode, my very special guest is the writer, Molly Aitken, whose most recent novel Bright I Burn is published in the UK by Canongate. We discuss her pick for the library, the short stories of The New Yorker, with a specific focus on The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, Leopard by Wells Tower, and In the Middle of the Fields by Mary Lavin.

About Molly

Molly Aitken is the author of Bright I Burn, a Royal Society of Literature Encore Prize shortlisted novel, and The Island Child. Her prize-winning short fiction has been published in The New Yorker and Ploughshares.

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About The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife, Jane Grant, a reporter for The New York Times. It is arguably the most prestigious publisher of short fiction in the world. Famous contributors range from legends like J.D. Salinger and Vladimir Nabokov to contemporary heavyweights like George Saunders and Jhumpa Lahiri.

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Links to obscure (and not so obscure) things mentioned in this episode

• Order A Century of Fiction by The New Yorker and Bright I Burn by Molly Aitken from my local independent bookshop in Sheffield here.

• Find Molly Aitken on Instagram here.

• Read Molly’s story in The New Yorker here.

• Find Glenn Fisher on Instagram here.

• Find The Library of Lazy Thinking on Instagram here.

About the Library

The Library of Lazy Thinking is a place to hang out and learn more about books. If you’d like to support the library and get access to everything here, you can become a paid member (and get an exclusive The Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, sticker, and pin badge). All support goes back into the library, helping to organize live events, exclusive merchandise, and more podcasts.

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About Glenn

Glenn Fisher is a writer—wait, Glenn Fisher is me. I’m the one writing this. Let’s drop the third-person act. My writing has been published in Lunate, The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit, 3am Magazine, Dogmatika, and Litro Magazine. I write about books and interview other writers and artists here in The Library of Lazy Thinking. I live in Sheffield and work as a freelance copywriter. I have had a best-selling non-fiction book published on the subject called The Art of the Click. It was published by Harriman House and shortlisted for Business Book of the Year. It has been translated into Simplified Chinese and Korean. I also have a dog called Pablo. He is harder to translate. Indeed, most of my life revolves around trying to understand his often unreasonable demands. Meanwhile, I am currently working on my first novel, The Invention of Memory, and on the eternal, soul-destroying task of finding an agent.

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This is not true.

But to prevent any members of the London elite from having their worlds shattered, in this episode, my guest and I subvert the very concept of autofiction and use various meta tactics to make you THINK we are bitter and grumpy and generally drink too much tea.

Thank us later.

In reality, we both ride white horses, drink only Château Margaux, and when sending our witty hand-written correspondence to French pen pals, at the local Post Office, we’ll often be heard reciting Proust. But still, to double down on the necessary illusion, in this same episode, we pretend to be bitter and grumpy men by discussing a book about a fictional man who is also bitter and grumpy, which was, in turn, written by a bitter and grumpy man who does exist.

There are many layers. But I trust you, dear listener.

Indeed, welcome to The Library of Lazy Thinking Podcast, with me, your host, Glenn Fisher.

As you may know by now, in each episode, I'm joined by a guest from the world of books and culture to talk about a specific book they'd like to put in the library.

There's no plan and no agenda, just two people lazily thinking about literature.

If you enjoy the show and would like to help us (and get your hands on a coveted Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, sticker, and pin badge), you can become a supporter of the library by upgrading to a paid subscription.

But either way, please do like and share the show—it all helps.

Subscribe now

In this episode, my very special guest is the writer, Shaun Wilson, whose book Malc’s Boy is published in the UK by Conduit Press. We discuss his pick for the library, the 2025 novel Service by John Tottenham.

About Shaun

Shaun Wilson was born in 1980 and raised in Wigton, Cumbria. He is studied autofiction as a Northern Bridge Consortium PhD candidate at Northumbria University and has been featured at various book festivals, on BBC radio, and completed a placement at Semiotext(e). His first novel, Malc’s Boy, is the first book to be published by Conduit Press.

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About John

John Tottenham is a British-born artist and writer living in Los Angeles. He is the author of four volumes of poetry and writes a column in Artillery, and his paintings and drawings have been exhibited in solo shows in LA and New York. Service is his first novel.

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Links to obscure (and not so obscure) things mentioned in this episode

• Order Service by John Tottenham and Malc’s Boy by Shaun Wilson from my local independent bookshop in Sheffield here.

• Find Shaun Wilson on Instagram here.

• Find John Tottenham on Instagram here.

• Find Glenn Fisher on Instagram here.

• Find The Library of Lazy Thinking on Instagram here.

About the Library

The Library of Lazy Thinking is a place to hang out and learn more about books. If you’d like to support the library and get access to everything here, you can become a paid member (and get an exclusive The Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, sticker, and pin badge). All support goes back into the library, helping to organize live events, exclusive merchandise, and more podcasts.

Subscribe now

About Glenn

Glenn Fisher is a writer—wait, Glenn Fisher is me. I’m the one writing this. Let’s drop the third-person act. My writing has been published in Lunate, The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit, 3am Magazine, Dogmatika, and Litro Magazine. I write about books and interview other writers and artists here in The Library of Lazy Thinking. I live in Sheffield and work as a freelance copywriter. I have had a best-selling non-fiction book published on the subject called The Art of the Click. It was published by Harriman House and shortlisted for Business Book of the Year. It has been translated into Simplified Chinese and Korean. I also have a dog called Pablo. He is harder to translate. Indeed, most of my life revolves around trying to understand his often unreasonable demands. Meanwhile, I am currently working on my first novel, The Invention of Memory, and on the eternal, soul-destroying task of finding an agent.

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Starkly referencing a man’s cock in the opening of any piece of writing is bold.

Just the use of the word “cock.”

There. I did it again, and you winced a little, didn’t you? Maybe not physically, but mentally. A little.

The choice to unleash such a word (innuendo intended) is usually, I suspect, done cynically (for shock/attention) or done authentically—because you just don’t give a shit and it’s the right word to use.

I sense Annie Ernaux‘s motivations fall in the latter category.

This is the first of hers I’ve read, but I know many hold her work in extremely high regard.

A friend said she loved her, so I thought to investigate.

I chose this one because it was the slimmest, and, given my podcast interview TBR pile, and the attempt to work on my own ambitious ramblings, the chance to read outside of either category is becoming harder.

But back to the cock.

Sorry. That was a cynical use. But the fact is, Ernaux could easily have been writing about a vagina.

Is “vagina” the visceral equivalent to “cock” on the page? Probably not—but I’m not going there.

Still, the sex is irrelevant. The point in The Possession is not the shock of the language itself but the psychic shock of losing someone you love (or at least desire) to another.

The book (at 42 sparse pages, it’s more of a meditation) is concerned with how we can obsess about that Other.

The unknowableness. The contradiction of needing and not wanting to know. The fact that in many ways this Other does not even exist, at least not in the form you imagine. This is what The Possession is all about.

And without wanting to labour over her use of the word cock, I feel the boldness of her language choice echoes and/or reflects her overall choice to document her paranoia about her ex-partner‘s new paramour so honestly.

It’s all just about true. I relate. And I note the decision to publish in Fitzcaraldo Cream, rather than blue, reiterating that this is an essay and not fiction.

(Incidentally, I’ve never used the word paramour before, nor do I know if even I’ve used it correctly here. I do feel it was appropriate. Much like overusing the word cock.)

Anyhow, it’s good. It’s precise. It gives, as they say, no fucks. And I admire that.

Halfway through, I thought Annie might be on a bit of a mad ‘un. But come the end, I think she’s got her shit together.

Even with such a small sample, I can see she’s all the things people say she is, and I guess they don’t give out Nobel Prizes for shits and giggles.

Indeed, I presume you already know all this and are more likely screaming for me to read more. But if not… if you’re as behind as me… this is an ideal starter, which will leave plenty of room for the main.

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My recommendation: Any break-up will do, but for maximum relatability while reading, move to Paris, read nothing but The Unbearable Lightness of Being until you’re 50, and then have an affair with a student you met at the Sorbonne. Spend some intense nights together in your chambre de bonne, take walks along the Canal Saint-Martin, and then introduce your partner to someone similar to you but less messed up. Let that simmer for a month or so, and then you’ll be ready to read this.

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Before he can speak to the woman he’s come to see, he must converse with the assistant dealer, a strong-accented chap called Serge.

During the exchange, one of Serge’s own assistants appears with a shirt open one button too many, revealing an overly hairy ‘80s chest.

Serge admonishes him, tells him to cover up, and then delivers one of the greatest lines in modern cinema:

“It’s not sexy; it’s animal.”

As the kids say, this scene lives in my head “rent free,” and I often recall it anew whenever someone utters the word “sexy” or, indeed, “animal.”

Given that the book my guest chose for this episode is called How to Be Animal, recalling the scene was inevitable.

That said, the book is really about humans, and how—whether Serge likes it or not—we all are, indeed, animals.

My guest for the episode is the rather brilliant Sally O’Reilly, and we had a thoroughly enjoyable and far-ranging chat live here in Sheffield, which I hope you enjoy.

Indeed, welcome to The Library of Lazy Thinking Podcast, with me, your host, Glenn Fisher.

As you may know by now, in each episode, I'm joined by a guest from the world of books and culture to talk about a specific book they'd like to put in the library.

There's no plan and no agenda, just two people lazily thinking about literature.

If you enjoy the show and would like to help us (and get your hands on a coveted Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, sticker, and pin badge), you can become a supporter of the library by upgrading to a paid subscription.

But either way, please do like and share the show—it all helps.

Subscribe now

In this episode, as I say, my very special guest is the writer, Sally O’Reilly, whose most recent book Hagtale is published in the UK by Scribe. We discuss her pick for the library, the 2007 non-fiction book How to Be Animal: What It Means to Be Human by Melanie Challenger.

About Sally

Sally O’Reilly is a writer based in Sheffield. Her latest novel Hagtale: A Macbeth Origin Story (Scribe, 2025) is a dark fairy tale which retells Shakespeare’s play Macbeth from the perspective of a feral witch and a fourteenth-century monk who is attempting to find a document which records the Scottish king line. Her historical novel Dark Aemilia (Myriad Editions/Picador US) draws on the life of Aemilia Lanyer, one of the first women to be published professionally in England and possibly the Dark Lady who inspired Shakespeare’s later sonnets. Dark Aemilia was nominated for the Kirkus Reviews Fiction prize in the US, and the Italian translation was shortlisted for the Premio Letteraria prize and was a Finalist for the Premio Vino del Terriccio award. Sally’s contemporary novels The Best Possible Taste and You Spin Me Round, are both published by Michael Joseph. Her non-fiction guide How To Be A Writer is published by Piatkus/Little, Brown.

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About Melanie

Melanie began her career in the creative arts, working in classical music and literature. Her first poetry collection, Galatea, won the 2005 Eric Gregory Award and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. In 2007, she shifted her focus to intellectual history and humanity’s relationship with nature. That year, she received a Darwin Now Award for her research in the Canadian Arctic, followed by an International Fellowship with the British Antarctic Survey for her work on the history of whaling. From 2007 to 2010, she was a Fellow at the AHRC Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity at University College London. This research led to her first general trade nonfiction book, On Extinction: How We Became Estranged from Nature, published in 2011. The book was named one of Publishers Weekly’s best nonfiction books of 2012 and received the Santa Barbara Library’s Green Award for environmental writing. Most recently, she is the author of How to Be Animal: What it means to be human (2021) and the editor of Animal Dignity: Philosophical Reflections on Non-human Existence (2023) and Alive: The Hidden Intelligence of the Living World (2026).

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Links to obscure (and not so obscure) things mentioned in this episode

• Order How to be Animal: What It Means to Be Human by Melanie Challenger and Hagtail by Sally O’Reilly from my local independent bookshop in Sheffield here.

• Find out more about Sally here.

• You can watch the scene I reference from Beverly Hills Cop here.

• Find Glenn Fisher on Instagram here.

• Find The Library of Lazy Thinking on Instagram here.

About the Library

The Library of Lazy Thinking is a place to hang out and learn more about books. If you’d like to support the library and get access to everything here, you can become a paid member (and get an exclusive The Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, sticker, and pin badge). All support goes back into the library, helping to organize live events, exclusive merchandise, and more podcasts.

Subscribe now

About Glenn

Glenn Fisher is a writer—wait, Glenn Fisher is me. I’m the one writing this. Let’s drop the third-person act. My writing has been published in Lunate, The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit, 3am Magazine, Dogmatika, and Litro Magazine. I write about books and interview other writers and artists here in The Library of Lazy Thinking. I live in Sheffield and work as a freelance copywriter. I have had a best-selling non-fiction book published on the subject called The Art of the Click. It was published by Harriman House and shortlisted for Business Book of the Year. It has been translated into Simplified Chinese and Korean. I also have a dog called Pablo. He is harder to translate. Indeed, most of my life revolves around trying to understand his often unreasonable demands. Meanwhile, I am currently working on my first novel, The Invention of Memory, and on the eternal, soul-destroying journey of finding an agent.

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I’ll start revealing the lineup tomorrow (Friday), but I’d encourage you to grab a ticket now as they’re strictly limited and are already flying out the door.

When people see who’s performing and everything I’ve got planned, I expect they’ll disappear pretty quickly.

More details and the link to tickets here.

That sorted, it’s time to convene the first annual meeting of the Heidi James Fan Club.

I was familiar with bits of Heidi’s work, but it wasn’t until my guest suggested her 2020 novel, The Sound Mirror (published by Bluemoose), that I had the pleasure of spending time in her world for an extended period.

I’m glad I did. And I’m thankful to my guest for this episode, the brilliant Stu Hennigan, for choosing it for induction into the library.

Indeed, welcome to The Library of Lazy Thinking Podcast, with me, your host, Glenn Fisher.

As you may know by now, in each episode, I'm joined by a guest from the world of books and culture to talk about a specific book they'd like to put in the library.

There's no plan and no agenda, just two people lazily thinking about literature.

If you enjoy the show and would like to help us (and get your hands on a coveted Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, sticker, and pin badge), you can become a supporter of the library by upgrading to a paid subscription.

But either way, please do like and share the show—it all helps.

Subscribe now

In this episode, as I say, my very special guest is the author, Stu Hennigan, whose book Keshed has just been published in the UK by Ortac Press. We discuss his pick for the library, the 2020 novel The Sound Mirror by Heidi James.

About Stu

Stu Hennigan is a writer, poet, and musician from the north of England. His book Ghost Signs (Bluemoose, 2022) was shortlisted for best non-fiction at the Books Are My Bag Awards and Best Political Book By A Non-Parliamentarian at the Parliamentary Book Awards in 2022/3. His short fiction, essays, poetry, criticism, and articles have been published widely in print and online. Keshed is his first novel.

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About Heidi

Heidi James is the author of critically acclaimed novels Wounding, So the Doves (a Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month), and The Sound Mirror. She won The Saboteur Award for her novella, The Mesmerist’s Daughter, and was a finalist in The Cinnamon Poetry Collection Prize. Her short stories, poetry, and essays have been published in various anthologies and magazines, including, among others, We’ll Never Have Paris, Somesuch, Dazed and Confused, and Galley Beggar Press. She hosts a podcast, First Graft, where she discusses writing and procrastination with other writers.

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Links to obscure (and not so obscure) things mentioned in this episode

• Order The Sound Mirror by Heidi James and Keshed by Stu Hennigan from my local independent bookshop in Sheffield here.

• Find Heidi James on Instagram here.

• Find Glenn Fisher on Instagram here.

• Find The Library of Lazy Thinking on Instagram here.

• You can’t find Stu on Instagram, so don’t try — he’ll know you did.

About the Library

The Library of Lazy Thinking is a place to hang out and learn more about books. If you’d like to support the library and get access to everything here, you can become a paid member (and get an exclusive The Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, sticker, and pin badge). All support goes back into the library, helping to organize live events, exclusive merchandise, and more podcasts.

Subscribe now

About Glenn

Glenn Fisher is a writer—wait, Glenn Fisher is me. I’m the one writing this. Let’s drop the third-person act. My writing has been published in Lunate, The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit, 3am Magazine, Dogmatika, and Litro Magazine. I write about books and interview other writers and artists here in The Library of Lazy Thinking. I live in Sheffield and work as a freelance copywriter. I have had a best-selling non-fiction book published on the subject called The Art of the Click. It was published by Harriman House and shortlisted for Business Book of the Year. It has been translated into Simplified Chinese and Korean. I also have a dog called Pablo. He is harder to translate. Indeed, most of my life revolves around trying to understand his often unreasonable demands. Meanwhile, I am currently working on my first novel, The Invention of Memory, and on the eternal, soul-destroying journey of finding an agent.

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Living in London, a cheeky one after work would often be followed by an even cheekier one, and then, indeed, by the cheekiest of cheekies, until the concept of cheekiness itself gave way to merely dedicating each drink that followed to the road.

Having moved to the capital from Grimsby in 2007(ish), after my first day at work (which finished earlier than expected), I remember finding myself in a propa Landan booza with my new colleagues, attempting to speedily integrate myself in the social circle.

The financial shock of the move was so severe, I remember calling home to borrow a fiver. You need food, my Mum wondered. No, I explained, I gave up on food a long time ago—I just need to buy a drink so they don’t think I’m a scrounger.

Back at the table, surrounded by exciting and confident people with strange and colourful clothing, thoughtfully styled hair, and a cultural knowledge I previously thought impossible outside of an Oxbridge education, I watched and listened intently.

I’d soon discover that I’d been employed at a pretty non-hierarchical company, but in the meantime, I remember the man who’d taken a risk on me, and who we loosely thought of as “the boss,” came over with a couple of beers and two bags of crisps.

Placing them in front of me, he proceeded to tear open both bags along the seam, fanning the packets open like tiny metallic picnic blankets on which the potato buffet naturally spread.

This is all to say, Gwendoline Riley is great and should be celebrated as one of the best novelists writing today.

You see, there is a line… no, not even a line… a passing comment, a minor detail on page four, in which she describes a similar London setting with one of the characters fetching from the bar “bags of salt and vinegar.”

The brilliance of her latest novel, The Palm House, can be summed up and extrapolated from this detail alone.

First, she does not need to say “crisps.” The precision of her writing is perfect.

Second, in this single detail, she evoked for me the entire feeling I had of living in London in a sudden Proustian rush.

Third, on page 197 of the book, as the novel closes, she bookends with the same minor detail—the “bags of salt and vinegar”—so subtly, a lesser writer would never dare.

It’s brilliant.

Ironically, I read this back in London. I was there to interview Sasha Bonét. That morning, I went into the book shop and bought two books. This and Transcription by Ben Lerner.

I spent most of the day reading Transcription and “transcribing” my live thoughts on the novel. You can read those here.

I love Ben Lerner’s writing, but I couldn’t help think there was a certain clumsiness to the book’s structure. Only slight, but still. I enjoyed it. I admired it. (I still hesitate from gushing, as so many in literary circles have been quick to.)

The next day, still in London, I started reading The Palm House. It felt like a minor revelation.

There is no clumsiness here.

It is sharp.

Precise.

Elegant.

When I read Riley’s previous novel—My Phantoms—I enjoyed that too, but the nature of the subject matter (a difficult relationship between mother and daughter) meant the sharpness in Riley’s prose stabbed, as, I believe, was the intention.

Still, no one likes being stabbed, however elegantly.

The Palm House is a much softer and much sadder novel, concerned with aging, loneliness, and modernity (in some ways, a tad similar to the themes in Lerner’s Transcription).

What’s fascinating is that this softer subject matter allows you to experience the sharpness of Riley’s prose in a completely different way than in My Phatoms.

It still hits hard and carries a heavy emotional punch, but in place of anger and angst, there is a wistfulness, a knowing, a confidence.

With a nod to Riley’s own mastery of brevity, I will simply say:

The Palm House is very good.

Wait. We don’t need the “very.”

The Palm House is good.

No, wait. The book is good. Why say it? Let’s just go with:

The Palm House.

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My recommendation: Get down to London for the day. Once there (or even if you are already there), get a second job to save up enough money for the three or four obscenely expensive pints you’ll need to accompany you as you sit and read the book. By the time you’ve saved the money, the paperback will be out and that much cheaper. Phew. Having saved enough for the pints and the book, find a way to get sacked from the job you acquired so you can sit in a dimly-lit Thames-side pub for the entire afternoon drinking the pints, reading the book, and relating to the character who also just got let go. Bags of salt and vinegar are optional—depending on how much you have left over from the pints and book.

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P.S. You can also listen to Aidan Cottrell-Boyce and me discuss Gwendoline’s previous novel, My Phantoms, back in the very first episode of the podcast. It’s right here:

“It’s supposed to be the blue door from the film Notting Hill,” I explain. “Though I’m not sure it’s the real one.”

We’re just stepping out the door next to the blue one after an hour hidden away in a tiny podcast studio, where, much like in one of the scenes in the film, a stylish American woman is quizzed by a bumbling British fool.

I am a bumbling British fool, for many reasons. But particularly relevant to my foolishness in this case is the fact that I’ve never read Toni Morrison. Thankfully, Sasha picked one of her books to discuss, and now I have had the pleasure.

Indeed, welcome to The Library of Lazy Thinking Podcast, with me, your host, Glenn Fisher.

As you may well know by now, in each episode, I'm joined by a guest from the world of books and culture to talk about a specific book they'd like to put in the library.

There's no plan and no agenda, just two people lazily thinking about literature.

If you enjoy the show and would like to help us (and get your hands on a coveted Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, sticker, and pin badge), you can become a supporter of the library by upgrading your subscription.

But either way, please do like and share the show—it all helps.

Subscribe now

In this episode, as I say, my very special guest is the journalist, critic, and author, Sasha Bonét, whose brilliant book The Waterbearers is published in the UK by Merky Books. We discuss her pick for the library, the 1981 novel Tar Baby by Toni Morrison.

About Sasha

Sasha Bonét is a writer, critic, and editor living in New York City. Sasha’s debut book, The Waterbearers, is a sweeping intergenerational memoir and cultural history on Black matriarchy in America. (Knopf, 2025). Her criticism and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Aperture, New York Magazine, Vogue, and BOMB, among other publications. She received her MFA from Columbia University and teaches nonfiction writing at Columbia’s School of the Arts and Barnard College. Sasha is the nonfiction editor at Apogee Journal.

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About Toni

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) was a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning American author, editor, and professor renowned for her powerful, poetic prose exploring the African American experience. As the first Black female fiction editor at Random House, she shaped literary canon before achieving acclaim for novels like Beloved and The Bluest Eye.

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Links to obscure (and not so obscure) things mentioned in this episode

• Order Tar Baby by Toni Morrison and The Waterbearers by Sasha Bonét from my local independent bookshop in Sheffield here.

• Find Sasha Bonét on Instagram here.

• Find Glenn Fisher on Instagram here.

• Find The Library of Lazy Thinking on Instagram here.

About the Library

The Library of Lazy Thinking is a place to hang out and learn more about books. If you’d like to support the library and get access to everything here, you can become a paid member (and get an exclusive The Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, sticker, and pin badge). All support goes back into the library, helping to organize live events, exclusive merchandise, and more podcasts.

Subscribe now

About Glenn

Glenn Fisher is a writer—wait, Glenn Fisher is me. I’m the one writing this. Let’s drop the third-person act. My writing has been published in Lunate, The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit, 3am Magazine, Dogmatika, and Litro Magazine. I write about books and interview other writers and artists here in The Library of Lazy Thinking. I live in Sheffield and work as a freelance copywriter. I have had a best-selling non-fiction book published on the subject called The Art of the Click. It was published by Harriman House and shortlisted for Business Book of the Year. It has been translated into Simplified Chinese and Korean. I also have a dog called Pablo. He is harder to translate. Indeed, most of my life revolves around trying to understand his often unreasonable demands. Meanwhile, I am currently working on my first novel, The Invention of Memory.

Leave a comment

The fish and chips arrive from the gastro-pub’s deep freeze via an unknown heating device and a last-minute introduction to “crushed peas” and a lemon half that’s spent too long with a Bunsen burner.

I’m in London and 12 pages into Ben Lerner’s latest dispatch from the withered front lines of the Great American Novel.

A line into the blurb, I predict I am going to name this piece TikTok Roth.

I have already seen this morning (it’s the day of the book’s UK release), Keiran Goddard raise polite doubt over the “greatness” of the book as signaled by liberal media’s cultural catch-up merchants. The sense is that everyone has agreed it’s great now—and so it must be. This is both the blessing and curse visited upon critically successful writers of “our time.”

And wtf, he’s using text speak—so contemporary

Of course, Ben Lerner is good. Great, even. That’s the only reason I would attempt this.

What is “this,” exactly? Not the book—my rambling. It’s my condensed thoughts as live as can be during my reading of the book. It’s a kind of transcription experiment, an homage of sorts.

Will it work? Who knows?

I’m in London to interview Sasha Bonét, author of The Waterbearers. That happened this morning (and was wonderful), and before her launch tonight, I have a few hours free. I’m going to use it to read the release-fresh copy of Transcription I just bought, and see how we get on.

And so, 12 pages in, it’s clean. Maybe too clean. But as yet, the piece is still called TikTok Roth.

Let’s see if it changes.

But first, I need to eat.

Maybe the piece should be called Philip Roth Loses His Phone?

Lerner’s good because, despite his obvious anxieties about the art of literature, the world he describes he believes in entirely, and in doing so he forces you to follow him. It is a high culture world, inaccessible to most, but like all the best literature, it brings you with it (just) and makes you feel part of it. Temporarily, you feel that bit smarter than you really are. This is one of Kafka’s skills, too, one that isn’t spoken about enough.

“You will also contribute, yes? How you came to be here, and your art, should be part of it.”

Hmm. I just deleted a similar line of dialogue from the novel I’m working on, thinking it was too indulgent or too obvious a signal. I’m interested to see how/if it’s resolved, or does the indulgence become the book, and the character of Thomas merely a vessel for Lerner to speak. Is that all novels are? If so, why dress it up?

Why is everyone drinking matcha? Not in the book—in London. It’s strange. I’m getting old; habits are changing. Is it enough to base a novel around? We’re back to the book. Somebody should write about such things, I suppose. Matcha, iPhones, etc.

Maybe the piece should be called Philip Roth Is Anxious. But the way Lerner tells you all you need to know about his/the protagonist’s anxiety in the reveal that Mia is his wife now—that’s clever. That’s why he’s Ben Lerner.

Page 35. He lies. The manners farce gets serious.

Soon after, in revealing his daughter is called Eva “in this book,” the meta is laid bare too.

I take a nap. Traveling from Sheffield to London isn’t a huge distance, but culturally it still strains.

We’re in it now. Less Monty Python phone etiquette and more fiction. Or is it all fiction? Lerner is at great pains to say it is. That this is what fiction is to him. And that’s fine. If the author can’t choose what the fiction is, who can? But then, who are the protestations aimed at? Lady doth, and so on.

INTERLUDE: I stop reading to drop in on Sasha Bonét’s book launch at a swanky place off the Strand called Reference Point (there is, of course, a period between the words in the logo). Everyone is stylish, effortlessly cool. The woman in front of me has a copy of Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism in her handbag. I swoon.

Sasha writes about America’s relationship with Black Women and Black Motherhood in a way that is genuinely incredible and opens a white kid from Grimsby’s mind to a reality he otherwise wouldn’t see. When we spoke earlier, she used the word “soul” with a naturalness that sounds alien in my spiritually bereft working-class mouth. At the time, unable to comprehend the meaning of soul, my mind instead went to the word “truth.” Maybe they’re synonyms.

On the Circle Line back to my hotel. The meta payoff is in the middle section. The lie was a lie. Fiction is a lie. But in being so, it can create a greater truth. Big nods. It’s the eternal paradox. I’m here for it, Ben. I’m here for it.

Indeed, our protagonist/author/Ben Lerner is coming through too—the anxiety, the burden (albeit chosen) of literature.

We’re good, Ben. We’re good.

But wait.

What’s this about sweets, about eating disorders?

You did hint. I saw you hint. And placing stories next to each other is what creates unique thought. But this seems like a tightrope strung extremely high across the spires of whatever fancy college you went to.

I’m with you, sure. But I am scared. And besides, it’s my stop. The hidden Kensington curry house I like to visit when I’m in town is calling my name.

We’re finely balanced, Ben. Finely balanced.

SEMI-INTERLUDE: I’m eavesdropping on a guy next to me in the restaurant whose privileged arrogance and loud voice make it impossible not to eavesdrop.

He is talking into his phone about politics in a way that suggests he is a special advisor, possibly to the Tory party.

Quotes:

“I was at Cambridge with him.” (He namechecks uber-arse Robert Jenrick).

“They have to get away from dog whistle politics.” (He sounds like a dog whistle.)

“Has he told her?” (Said derisively, and I wonder if the “her” is Badenoch. It feels that way.)

Overall, it’s the tone. It’s the tone that reminds me that while we might discuss and philosophize on the impact of technology on society, let alone what fiction is, much less desirable people (who feel it’s appropriate to have a phone meeting in a quiet indian restaurant after ten in the evening) are busy setting fire to the culture (and the society it supports) regardless.

As to why I frequent the same curry houses as such undesirables? Hey, we all have issues. But the food really is very good.

We’re in set piece zone. It’s great writing. A moving passage, building powerful momentum. It’s still about eating disorders, but I think he might bring it back. I’m still not sure. The tightrope is tightening.

He’s bringing it back. Our boy is bringing it back. It’s Thomas. It’s his Dad. This is the Max character, right? Come on, Lerner. I’m expecting magic here.

Oh wait. Is this what Goddard was talking about? Is this ALL a tirade against kids’ screen time?

Wait. Was the Tory dogwhistle guy onto something? Is this what culture is now? Please, no. This is getting too meta—even a die-hard Auster fan like me can’t take it.

Save us, Ben. Save us…

I used to love the Irish comedian Dylan Moran. He had this brilliant riff around potential and leaving it untapped. Then he had kids, and the tour that followed was just him essentially being amused by the funny things kids say. Kids do say funny things, but we don’t pay money to see them in smoky nightclubs.

Wait. Is it a Covid novel? What’s happening here?

So I was starting to think the title of the piece was wrong after all. It’s not. It’s right. We’re fielding calls on Zoom, borrowing laptops that keep getting shit spilled on them. It’s all written with aplomb—the Roth remains. But we’re firmly in a TikTok world.

Fair play, Lerner.

That was a rollercoaster.

I thought for a moment we were going full bleak. Kids’ screen time is one thing—saying goodbye to a parent through the speaker of an iPhone is another.

Then, the tricksy bugger did what I thought was too audacious even for him and turned it into a techno-gag. Bravo, Lerner. Bravo.

Structurally, I’m still thinking it seems a little clumsy, and the two Rothian opening sections are reaching a little to connect to the third.

Any more tricks up your sleeve?

Yes. The trick is complete. I’ve finished the book. But it’s midnight. Conclusion tomorrow. Besides, I need to put my phone on charge. (As part of my homage, I’m writing all of this in the Notes app on my iPhone.)

Breakfast. Matcha and croissants for everyone!

He did it. He brought it all back. A tightrope. My god, a tightrope. But yes, it is good.

I don’t think it’s right (or necessary) to say it’s great. I think the three-part structure is a little uneven, and despite admiring its brevity, the thematic depth it hints at could be amplified with more time. Maybe we all need more time to measure the effects of this modern moment—Lerner is just laying the table, admirably.

Scanning the news this morning, I saw a review that says this may be the best book you’ll read all year, gushing over Lerner like he’s Book Jesus. He’s not. And this isn’t the best book you’ll read all year (nor is there really such a thing as “best,” especially in literature).

It is good, but it is a book only Lerner could have written. Not necessarily in its style (others are writing like this—Daniel Kehlman most immediately comes to mind). Instead, it’s a book only Lerner could write in the sense that a debut novelist would never be able to pitch this to an agent, nor would an agent be able to sell it to a publisher from an unknown.

That’s not Lerner’s fault—it’s the industry’s. It just strikes me that in choosing to semi-document my reading experience like this, there were many times when—if I weren’t a reader/writer/admirer of Ben’s work—I may have given up or become too frustrated. I refuse to believe that it wouldn’t be the same for others, too. Yet in giving a writer the space and time to explore and experiment (and at times possibly lose the reader), the outcome is a book that is lauded as genius and its author as Book Jesus. That’s interesting to me.

Perhaps to consider our troubling relationship with technology, its effect on truth, and the human impact it has, we need look no further than the immediate pay-offs we seek even in the world of books—the last technology you would expect Lerner’s riff to be aimed at (and yes, books are a technology). Maybe we’re guilty of turning our relationship with books into little more than a child watching unboxing videos on YouTube.

It’s all to say, it’s another hit for Benny Boy.

It’s not perfect, nor does it need to be. But it’s pretty damn fine, it’s thought-provoking, and, given I was able to enjoy it over a relatively busy afternoon and evening in the Big Smoke, it’s extremely readable.

What more do you want?

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My recommendation: Mirror the opening of the novel by dropping the book itself into a large bowl of water, for as long as this sentence. Should the experiment go awry, there are far more bookshops than Apple Stores (for now), so you won’t have such a problem replacing your spoiled tome.

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Also, if you’d like to spend more time exploring Lerner’s work, novelist Gurnaik Johal chose to discuss The Topeka School when he was a guest on the show:

The Library of Lazy Thinking

Gurnaik Johal on The Topeka School

Ah, Ben Lerner…

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a year ago · Glenn Fisher

“Hey, Mom. I’ve written another book about you.”

“Oh, for fuck sake, Édouard. Again?”

“I guess. I mean, it’s about class. And male violence. About identity and that kind of thing, too. It’s about escaping our circumstances, our expectations.”

“Okay. So, I’m not too prominent? It’s not like you’re laying my life out for all to see in minute detail again, right? All my deepest anxieties?”

“Well.”

“You’ve masked me, at least. What’s it called?”

“Monique Escapes.”

“For fuck sake. How many times?”

“It’s an act of love.”

“Can’t you write romantasy or some cute shit about putting butter in your rice. Those sell just as well.”

“It’s honest. It’s an expression of authenticity.”

“It’s fucking embarrasing is what it is.”

“You should be proud. You’re brave. The violence you’ve experienced, both personal and financial. The class struggle.”

“Stephen King doesn’t have to write about his mother all the time.”

“It’s different.”

“Do you see Richard Osman forensically detailing his familial strife?”

“It’s—”

“Different my arse.”

“What about Carrère? You like him, don’t you? You said he was attractive, in a rugged way.”

“That posh man at the awards thing?”

“He’s not that posh, but—”

“His mother was a historian! What am I?”

“It’s part of a tradition. Autofiction. The way it’s evolving. Using life to express art, art to express life.”

“Can’t you make something up? What happened to making shit up?”

“It’s different.”

“You’re different in the head.”

“I did tell you I was writing this. You said you didn’t mind.”

“Well, it’s too late now, isn’t it? At least tell me the reviews are good, and there isn’t some strange man in Sheffield putting words in my mouth?”

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My recommendation: Read it. It’s only small, but the guy seems to be doing something that I can’t quite put my finger on. It might be brilliant literature. It might just be someone journaling the stuff that keeps happening to him. Who knows? Either way, it’s got a certain magic to it. Chapeau, Louis. Chapeau.

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In the red corner, as far as I can tell, there’s a specific part of the Hindu population, known as Jats.

In the blue, there is the local Muslim population.

There is also the government, which I think is biased towards Hindus, but there also seems to be something about needing the Muslim vote in the area to secure power, so the government appears to sometimes act against the Hindu Jats.

There are also the police, but they—like the government—appear to be corrupt.

Maybe.

We’re in a part of India called Uttar Pradesh.

Specifically, a place called Muzaffarnagar.

And this all happened, by the way. It’s still happening.

But if I had to sit an exam on how the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots began after reading The Once and Future Riot, or explain their impact, I would fail.

Fail a) because I’m stupid and was always shit at writing essays. (My friend Tom once misspelled Mr. Pumblechook throughout an essay about Mr. Pumblechook in Great Expectations and still got a higher mark than I did.)

But also b) because I think Joe Sacco, in his typical way, intends you to come away from this graphic novel unsure and unresolved, much like the conclusion of the original riot from which the book takes its title.

John Pilger with pictures

We live in a big and busy world.

It’s easy to forget that.

This is why I like Sacco’s graphic novels. He reports on stories that aren’t always in the mainstream, or when they are, he investigates from a more nuanced angle.

Then he couples his investigative journalism with his trademark visual style, and something clever happens—it all comes together to create a sense of what’s going on, without being too prescriptive or black and white.

It’s a bit like reading John Pilger if Pilger published his work in the Beano.

Here, the approach works particularly well because there seems to be a certain amount of ambiguity about who is to blame for the animosity between Hindus and Muslims in Uttar Pradesh.

Chances are, it was probably the British that fucked it all up after the war, when we just started drawing arbitrary lines across huge land masses with what seems like an ip-dip-dog-shit approach (but more sinisterly, probably involved oil and/or minerals).

But our post-war failings aside, more recent populism, political power-grabbing, and a general rise in inequality (which I’m guessing has something to do with globalisation) have all led to things kicking off again. Where Hindus and Muslims once lived side by side happily, there is now increasing secularism.

Should the Hindus be blamed?

Should the Muslims?

Should the police?

The government?

That’s the question Sacco is trying to figure out—to some extent—in The Once and Future Riot.

There is, of course, no clear answer.

Where religious lines are concerned, there is questionable behaviour on both sides.

Where the police and politicians are concerned… hmmm.

Like with most police and almost every politician, they are interested in power—and we all know what power has a habit of doing.

Am I any clearer on how or why the Muzaffarnagar riots started after reading this?

Maybe not.

Am I glad to be aware of them and glad that my awareness was raised by another fascinating and brilliantly drawn graphic novel by Joe Sacco?

Yes.

And that’s at least something.

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My recommendation: If you’ve never read a graphic novel by Joe Sacco, this is as good a place as any to start. I’d also check out his other work, particularly Paying the Land and Palestine. You’ll come away a little stressed and possibly frightened by how big and bad the world around us really is. But I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing.

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Do you not quite know what’s going on?

Does it make you want to book a cheap city break in Europe?

Does it make you want to be a spy?

All three?

Then it’s a John Le Carré novel.

Or is it?

Much as the famous George Smiley might cross an East German border under a covert identity, this latest installment from the Circus takes Le Carré’s authorship ruse to a new level.

We knew Smiley was really Le Carré. And we knew Le Carré was really David Cornwell. But now David Cornwell is in fact Nick Harkaway.

But wait.

Check that passport again.

Nick Harkaway is Nicholas Cornwell. And Nicholas Cornwell is the son of David Cornwell. So now Nicholas Cornwell is Nick Harkaway is John Le Carré, who is and always was George Smiley.

Of course, before you’ve even considered the meta de plume madness going on here, Smiley himself has already retrieved several agents from the cold and is back in old Blighty sheepishly following his wife Ann to socialite events where he doesn’t feel comfortable.

This is all to say, do you judge this novel as the son imitating the father?

Or judge it as a novel in its own right?

Are we watching a covers band in the Walkabout on a Friday night? Or are we watching an exciting new band paying homage to the old at an all-dayer in the Brudenell?

Are Geese just The Strokes with heavy bits and song arrangement by Nick Cave, or are they a new band altogether?

Are they both?

Is Nick Harkaway John Le Carré?

Does it matter?

Who am I?

Who are you?

When I was moving my books recently, as I was boxing them up and unpacking them into their new home, I was surprised by two things.

The first was how many authors’ surnames begin with M. It seemed disproportionate, and completely fucked with the spacing I’d planned in the library.

Second, I was surprised by just how many John Le Carré novels I have.

I think I have all of them, many in hardback.

I was surprised because I consider myself a pretentious, literary dickhead, and if you’d asked me to guess which author’s books I have the most of, I’d have gone for Kundera, or possibly Roth, most likely Auster. (Did I say male literary dickhead? I should have done.)

Though I do have a shit tonne of their books, a visual scan of the shelves would more overwhelmingly suggest Le Carré was one of my favourite authors.

Was.

Or is?

After all, the person at the head of the Circus is known not by their name, but by a codename: Control.

And on the evidence of Karla’s Choice—which I enjoyed not least because it met all three of the qualifiers I mentioned at the start—Control is still very much in the driving seat.

Maybe Le Carré is still alive too.

And if so, I’d be happy to keep adding books like this to my collection.

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My recommendation: Take yourself to Budapest, or Paris, or maybe even Sofia. Find a cafe with outdoor seating and a waiter who looks as if they want you to die. Order a coffee. Ask for two sachets of sugar and place them on the table next to your coffee in a very deliberate manner. Do not open them. Instead, catch the waiter’s eye and then immediately look away. At this point, you’ll be ready to start reading the book.

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“Have you heard my latest song?” asked Murderer John.

“Go on.”

“It’s called Rootin’ for Putin.”

John is a brilliant musician, both because of and despite his penchant for the somewhat provocative titles and lyrics he chooses to accompany his compositions.

As you might have guessed, in If Russia Wins: A Scenario, Carlo Masala is not rootin’ for Putin. Rather, it imagines a series of not ideal (for Europe, at least) events that might follow if Ol’ Pooty comes out on top in Ukraine.

It’s a kind of war game scenario, but somewhat elevated by the fact that Masala has taken some Le Carré-style liberty to make the scenario more readable, instead of publishing a cold official assessment that might otherwise be found on a White House desk.

Thinking about it, I’m surprised this kind of thing isn’t published more often.

I used to write copy for a former advisor to the Pentagon on a phenomenon known as “currency wars.”

As Masala does here, this guy would imagine—based on current knowledge and genuine intel—how one country might “attack” another country by using its currency, and its financial system in general.

The meetings I’d have with this guy were fascinating, and the scenarios he calculated were extremely compelling.

It’s the same with this, to the extent that the day after reading, I read in the news about Russia ordering a move that was not at all dissimilar to one of the imagined moves in the book.

Hmmm, I thought. That is weird. Maybe this Masala guy is onto something.

Of course, as Masala is at pains to point out, the scenario is imagined and is only one of an infinite number of possible outcomes of the war in Ukraine.

Despite that, there is still a certain political bias baked into the book—its very publication is effectively an act of political bias.

I’m not judging that—it’s just that whenever I read anything overtly political, I try to at least be aware of what biases might be baked in. I encourage people to do the same, regardless of their own views on any subject.

Ironically, I picked this up because I heard Alastair Campbell mention it on The Rest is Politics podcast. Ironic because I feel that show has become far too biased, or rather, it’s lost its awareness of its own bias. But that’s just me—I’m getting old, and I’m told this tends to happen, until the only thing you can actually engage with are niche history programmes on VHS, which you watch with the heating turned off, sneering at the mere presence of other people outside your home.

To be fair, though, Masala doesn’t offer any moral judgment on the implications of his scenario. He just describes what could happen, and whether you think that’s right or wrong or good or bad, that’s up to you.

I enjoyed it, even if the thought of inevitably having to learn Mandarin doesn’t sound too appealing.

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My recommendation: Read in the old Anderson shelter at the bottom of your garden, just in case.

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Rob Doyle makes me want to stop writing.

I won’t.

I can’t.

But I should.

He is doing something great.

I don't have the words to “review” Cameo.

Maybe I have. People say he is heir to Emmanuel Carrère. To Michael Houllebeq. I understand, but he’s not. He is a young Philip Roth reborn. Reborn godless yet hopeful as he roams the wreckage of society, piecing together the remnants of religion and spirituality, and maybe even love.

But who knows? I might be talking nonsense. I almost certainly am. Aren’t we all?

Either way, I will reserve this platform for my exaltation of his work.

He deserves it.

Read the book. And if you don’t enjoy it, spend some time thinking about why not.

That is all.

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My recommendation: Read Rob Doyle. Or else you can listen to him talk here.

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