Someone pointed out recently that what we need is a return to the days when you were prescribed a rest cure by the sea. I cannot tell how fervently I agree. I would love to be sent to Lyme Regis like a character in an Austen novel.

“No person could be really well - could be really in a state of secure and permanent health without spending at least six w…

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Hello! It feels ages since we sat down and had the virtual equivalent of a cup of coffee. Possibly because January stretched over its habitual 97 days. How are you? What news from your world? Tell me what you’re reading - in bed or otherwise. I love this by Dutch artist Robin Pieterse - it reminds me of when my children were little and bundled into bed …

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Do we consider this week the final furlong, or next? I suspect it depends upon how organised you are. I am very much in the ‘next week’ camp - partly because I am not quite ready, but mostly because I like to wring every moment of joy out of the run up to Christmas. (Have I mentioned it’s my favourite part of the season?) Last week I carolled on no less…

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Here we are then. Peak autumn. I think I have remarked on the excellence of the autumn colours on a daily basis, with a wild-eyed fervour. In this month’s very autumnal instalment of The Good Stuff (my monthly round-up) I offer you a bevy of reading recommendations, oodles of links, items to covet (bows! decorative book stacks!), and a piece about the Louvre heist that made me hoot.

Jumping right in with both feet… The light is all but gone by 5pm, get yourself a good thriller. But nothing too alarming. I once made the error of reading a too-terrifying-for-me novel when my husband was away. I had to sleep with a protective weapon by the side of the bed - just in case. Which I promptly forgot to return to the kitchen. “Why,” enquired my husband, “is there a potato masher under the bed?” I explained the need to protect myself and the children from nefarious intruders. “Did you plan to mash them into submission?” he asked, baffled.

To Love a Liar - L.V Matthews

This is such a brilliant conceit for a thriller: a former undercover officer who led a double life finds his past comes back to haunt him.

Years ago, Chris Fletcher had a relationship with Sophia, a green activist, who was pregnant with his child and died in suspicious circumstances. When new evidence is revealed, there is to be an inquest into her death, and Chris is called as a witness. He holes up in a remote cottage in Scotland with his devoted wife Jill, but he is spotted - and his face plastered all over social media. And then Jill vanishes…. He’s guilty of something - but what? It’s taut, tightly plotted, and tense (all the t’s) as events spiral wildly out of control in both present and past timelines. A compelling portrait of lies, marriage, and a fascinatingly complex protagonist who has an astonishing capacity to deceive on a grand scale - and justify that deception. A thriller tour de force!

The Black Wolf - Louise Penny

I confess I would like to visit Three Pines, the fictional, often snow-covered village in Quebec, from which Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec solves murders and delves into dark conspiracies. This picks up where the previous book, The Grey Wolf, left off: Gamache and his team uncovered a domestic terrorist attack in Montréal, arresting the man behind it aka the Black Wolf. Except this is only the beginning - and the evil is still out there. The parallels with real life are accidental, but chilling, and Penny’s writing is, as ever, impeccable.

Gone Before Goodbye -Harlan Coben and Reese Witherspoon

The crime-writing partnership we had no idea we needed. Maggie McCabe is a brilliant army combat surgeon, but her life is falling apart: her husband has been murdered, her partner has gone missing with a valuable medical prototype, her mother has died, and her licence has been revoked after an operation went disastrously awry. So she has nothing left to lose when she is made a lucrative yet dubious offer to perform secret, highly-skilled plastic surgery for the mistress of an oleaginous Russian oligarch. This, to paraphrase Maximum, unleashes hell. It ricochets around the globe with verve, from thrill to twist: sharp, cinematic, and enjoyable on the follies of the ultra-wealthy (to whom medical ethics are meaningless) and the fathoms-deep darkness of their twisted world.

Boleyn Traitor - Philippa Gregory

I know this is not a thriller per se, but plenty of people lose their heads (pun very much intended) and it’s a nail-biting ride. I galloped through PG’s novels in my teens - she has an unerring ability to whisk you back in time. Pity Jane Boleyn: advantageously married to handsome George Bolyn, who is far more interested in his sister than his wife; subject to the whims of not only Queen Anne, but the capricious Henry VIII, who having won Anne, is fast tiring of her. Jane somehow survives Anne’s downfall, but how do you navigate a court riven with sex and politics, spies, plotting, a great mastermind (Cromwell), but ultimately ruled by a megalomanic, vainglorious king who can turn on a whim. (Sound familiar?)

on his changing relationships with bookshops. (He mentions Blackwells in Oxford, where we went this week on a jaunt to the city. I had a real road not taken moment: should I have succumbed to my romantic dreams of being an academic (fuelled by AS Byatt’s Possession) and taken up the place to do a PhD? Would I have cycled through the streets, a scarf about my person, and spent hours and money I did not have in Blackwells? Almost certainly.)

on Hamnet (not the one you think). Laura writes so very well that I feel my brain expanding every time I click through to her newsletter, and nod vigorously in agreement with one or other of her points. This time, detective fiction as “a genre that enables wish-fulfilment”.

is just brilliant on Patricia Routledge.

Substack: should you stay or should you go? An excellent and thoughtful post from on what we have always known (or should have done): Substack is a social media platform and business, not a selfless noble endeavour.

I feel it is time to mention ’s Receipt from the Bookshop again, as it is a shot of joy in your inbox every week. And now it’s going to be a book!

I loved all the Jilly chat - this from ; that Sarra Manning and a delightful stream of Cooper consciousness from .

on running away. This made me weep.

I am cheating as this squeaks into November, but is stress-eating buns and writing when she is cross and makes some excellent points in this well-argued post about the copyrighting of a word used by billions of people. (Nobody asked me, but surely whoever allowed it to be copyrighted in the first place is the one who should have their knuckles rapped?)

Don’t read this because I wrote it, read it because Bookbanks are incredible - and so is Emily Rhodes, its founder director. I found it hugely inspiring to hear that the reading crisis into which the nation has fallen (in a bid to reverse the decline, the government have announced 2026 is Year of Reading) does not exist at Bookbanks. They cannot get enough. “We are bringing books into food banks, but we are also bringing books to people,” says Rhodes - in the very best example of books acting as a bridge. More information on Bookbanks and donating here.

Bravo to The Times for launching their Get Britain Reading campaign. Let’s make all the reluctant readers we know sign up to their six-week pledge.

After the paywall: lots more! Including thoughts on children’s books - including celebrities writing them, teens and phones, poetry, That Album dissected, exhibition chat, the Louvre jewel heist… Plus 10 objects of delight - including some nods to you-know-what. Subscribe now to get the goods - and beat the impending price rise. (The first since I launched Book(ish) btw.)

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It’s October. The fire is blazing, Strictly is on, the wind has been wild - whipping the leaves from the trees and setting them aswirl. May the month bring us more days like these.

*Edited to add that Hilary Mantel is even more of a god than we realised. She was a engaged and enthusiastic supporter of other writers in the early stages of their careers. S…

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Happy 1st September. Back-to-school season is upon us: freshly-sharpened pencils (I have spent an unfathomable amount of money on new stationery for my children), slightly stiff uniform, new books, and good intentions.

I am in a state of mild outrage that the weather has taken such an abrupt autumnal turn: I am wearing slippers as my feet are chilly for …

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I write this in between packing, washing, and drinking coffee. I cannot tell you how excited I am to be heading off on a holiday that feels like my kind of holiday. I am giddy like a child.

My packing thus far tends towards the desultory. I wish that I could pack like but I am more a ‘chuck in an extra dress just in case’ type. Speaking of which, I hav…

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The warmest (temperatures here in the UK have gone doolally so warm is the word. If not steaming) of welcomes to my monthly round-up. May we all find a shady spot and a cool breeze in which to read/lie supine - like the girl in this gorgeous print by Gwen van Knippenberg - excellent name btw. I find myself vaguely affronted to find life and work continu…

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May - you were glorious. Sunshine on the hedgerows, wisteria, cow parsley-thronged lanes, sunshine, the satisfaction of work, writing, a birthday trip to Jane Austen’s House, meals in the garden at every opportunity, sea swims, and re-reading Mary Wesley on the beach. And an extra joyous bonus - over 6000 subscribers on Substack! I am delighted and fran…

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It’s May. Jilly Cooper fans will know what this means. Everyone else: wisteria hysteria is here! Obviously is your go-to woman - apparently this is a very good year for it. (And there I was thinking our rather aggressive chopping had done the trick.)

Speaking of gardens, it’s my birthday this month and I’m going to Jane Austen’s House with my family (ap…

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Spring has blown in! Tubs of tulips (or I would have had I planted mine sooner), coffee in the garden, brisk river walks, laundry blowing on the washing line, blossom against blue skies. Bliss.

In this fulsome spirit, I have an abundance of links and thoughts to share: they are wide-ranging, generally enthusiastic - and long, so you might have to click t…

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My daughter recently asked if we ought to be worried about the world, and I suspect the answer is probably yes, but I couldn’t quite bear to tell her that, so instead we bought another book and watched Sort Your Life Out because it is impossibly cheering and watching order being restored is blissfully soothing. I also offer up this spring scene of the garden at Charleston in Spring bloom by Duncan Grant. (I’d very much like to make a pilgrimage to Charleston - and the Festival line-up is worth a moment or two of your time.)

I have a VERY full few weeks ahead with work, so please forgive me if posting is erratic. (I’m still posting weekly, but the day is a moveable feast!) Next week is the London Book Fair and I will be meeting and greeting, hopefully being charming, and chairing the Main Stage on day three, which is quite the thrill. And then I’m off to Bologna for the Children’s Book Fair/Bologna Book Plus. After which I will be ready to stay put for a while (which is lucky as our house renovation has eaten all our funds so we’ll be confined to local quarters for a while!)

I interviewed Kate Mosse and she surpassed all expectations.

On success later in life: “You are yourself when it happens later in life. You don't think, 'Oh, this is how it is': you appreciate it and know it's unusual; that some of it is luck that it [in this case, Labyrinth] happens to be the book that people want at that moment."

On the Women’s Prize: "It is wonderful how outraged younger women are now about what we put up with then because that is a sign of the changing times. When I launched the Prize, there was a still a residual sense of 'if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen’.”

On feminism: “For me, being a feminist means telling the truth about women's experiences and allowing their voices to be heard. I was given a brilliant piece of advice by the extraordinary Helena Kennedy: if you're invited to do something and you can't do it, never put the phone down without recommending another woman. That is the point: people think there's only a small pool, but if every woman adds one woman to the pool, the pool is twice as large.”

Speaking of the Women’s Prize - the long lists has just been announced! What do you make of it? I think it’s a good’un and am feeling smug as several books on my own wish/guess list make an appearance (Dream Count, Ministry of Time, The Safekeep, Nesting, Fundamentally, Tell Me Everything. I knew All Fours would make the longlist - although it definitely divides opinion.) I would have loved Cathy Rentzenbrink’s Ordinary Time to make the cut - it has such a quiet, spare beauty - but you cannot have everything. N.B. The Artist is next on my wish list.

If you require further lifting of spirits, I heartily recommend….

For more reading recommendations to cheer, move, and delight -including blind dates, gardens, and celebrity bookclubs - and my monthly round-up of treats - including a bargain Doen dupe dress and the best rug I have seen at the price, a paid subscription is still only £5 a month.

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January - the month of approximately 146 days - is done. Over. Finally. As much as I might have liked to spend it hunkering down with a book (isn’t this illustration by Lore Pemberton your idea of absolute bliss? Perhaps minus the cat in my case (allergies not anathema), life and work does tend to intervene. But it is Sunday, so avail yourself of a hot …

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Hello friends and beloved subscribers. How does the new year find you? Alive with the thrill of a fresh page or does it leave you cold? (Quite literally, for those who woke up to snow.)

Every month, I have written a round-up of the best things I did, read, listened to, and loved - consider this the best of the best. The things which actually made a diff…

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We are just back from Amsterdam, which is, it transpires, the perfect place for an autumnal break. As well as being cheerful, straightforward, international of sensibility and witty, the Dutch are good at autumn. They are undeterred by weather - cycling and strolling and generally being outdoorsy in a very stylish manner. They leave their curtains and s…

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This autumnal view is by Lore Pemberton - how I covet one of her beautiful prints

Not to sound too much like my grandmother, but that flew by, didn’t it? One minute we were lolling around on the dog days of summer; the next it was back to school - in a metaphorical or literal sense. Not a month ago, I was on the beach, now the barometer is falling and th…

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I am ambivalent about the end of August. (See above illustration of woman clinging onto summer by reading in the garden.)

On one hand, September is my January. The start of a new season, time for a reset, a new beginning. It’s a beautiful month of mists and mellow fruitfulness. It will forever be the month of back to school: freshly-sharpened pencils and…

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Hello friends, hello August, fare thee well July. And a very warm welcome to new subscribers. This is my monthly round-up, in which I take you on an amble through what’s caught my eye and preoccupied my attention (or tugged at my bank account). I think this harks back to my magazine days - when we did a lot of scouting for stories or the latest must-hav…

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June is such a glorious month - everything so verdant and in full bloom, before the hazy, heady days of late summer. On a balmy evening, a friend suggested an impromptu walk by the river - and it was cool, calm and soul soothing. (Please see photo above and tell me your soul is not marginally soothed?) Impromptu walks are to be recommended.

As is Rose Tr…

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This is a day late as I’m just back from a week in Kefalonia (don’t hate me) - and it turns out that Captain Corelli really was on to something. It’s the most beautiful island and the blue of the sea is so dazzling as to be unreal. We stayed near a bay where you could scramble through a forest and over rocks to a secret cove. We wandered around pretty h…

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