Hello! I am taking Shelf Improvement off Substack. I have put up a website and will be moving the newsletter over to a mailing list there. If you’d like to keep receiving Shelf Improvement you will need to sign up again. If you do that by the 23rd of January, you’ll get the first new instalment. It’s a good one! If you’ve been enjoying my emails, I really hope you resubscribe. Website in usual places and link in my stories.
Shelf Improvement will be fully free with no paid subscribers (again.) Paid subscriptions are paused now and will stop altogether at the end of January. If you’ve been a paid subscriber here, thank you! It has enabled me to take this new, exciting, scary step, and invest a bit more in Shelf Improvement, and keep it going in a sustainable way.
Many, many thanks must go to wonderful Chloë @sevensistersspices for encouragement and bolstering re: this new chapter!! If you have enjoyed Shelf Improvement and feel moved to tell a friend or share this post: THANK YOU!!
It’s today! You can now listen to my interview with Sara Paretsky for @cookingthebookswithgillysmith on Spotify, Apple podcasts or Acast via the link in Gilly’s bio. We discuss food in Paretsky’s latest novel Dead Land which is out now from @hodderbooks 📚
Thank you to @foodgillysmith for asking me to step in! And thank you to Sara Paretsky whose books continue to keep me sane in times of uncertainty and upheaval (yes, I’m rereading them...again)
P.S. the espresso bar Sara Paretsky mentions is @saintespresso on Baker Street! ☕️
a certain bookshoppe has been open five years today. a few highlights here including everyone’s fave bookseller (juno) but not including all my treasured colleagues and writers and publicists and new friends. what a gift. ily
shelf improvement subscribers: the latest instalment is now in your inboxes and the theme is courts! basketball courts, tennis courts, courts of law. many thanks to @kitty_____winks for stepping in while my label maker was lost and many thanks to @rossmcleood who has now FOUND MY LABEL MAKER!!!!!!!
The theme for the latest instalment of Shelf Improvement was FICTIONAL FAME. Please enjoy this image of a few of the books I chose, carefully edited onto Lily Allen’s West End Girl stage, as seen with @paulblack_books & @katmckenna_ 📸
The full list!
📸I Make My Own Fun by Hannah Beer
📸Beware Beware by Steph Cha
📸Hot Desk by Laura Dickerman
📸Sheer by Vanessa Lawrence
📸Dear Daughter by Elizabeth Little
📸Fallout by Sara Paretsky
📸Celestial Lights by Cecile Pin
📸The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
📸The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton
Shelf Improvement is a monthly email newsletter recommending books on a theme, link to sign up in the usual places.
Chloë of @sevensistersspices mentioned that she used to search the Shelf Improvement archive for recommendations, when it was hosted on substack - did anybody else do this? I am toying with the idea of creating a searchable database of all the themes and books, or possibly just sharing my Shelf Improvement spreadsheet as a google doc. Do you refer back to past instalments? Let me know!
absolutely loved this wonderful exhibition curated by @mrdamianbarr celebrating the art & lives of Robert MacBryde & Robert Colquhoun. Such a joy to see their signatures side by side, to see the still lives that are anything but still, to see (and hear!!) the scrrrreaming yellow of a lemon!! It’s on at @charlestontrust in Lewes until 12th April and is well worth the trip, and perfectly pairs with Damian’s gorgeous novel The Two Roberts, before or after seeing the paintings themselves (if you go after reading the book, you will want to read it again.) There was one sketch towards the end that was really remarkable and moving to stand in front of but I don’t want to spoil its impact by saying more!! Also was highly entertained by a painting of the Miller sisters by Cedric Morris that the sisters apparently hated so much they never spoke to Morris again, and since then I have had several dreams in which I paint a bad portrait of someone and really upset them…lol.
1) the Roberts
2) the Roberts by Ian Fleming
5) Bobby MacBryde’s not so still still lives
6) Painter & Model by John Minton
7) the Roberts and me and Jack!
it’s almost time for almost life!!! welcome to kiran marchwood hargrave month!!! here’s an almost life master post including: taking my proof to the spot where erica & laure meet, early title discussion, the time i planned to take a copy of almost life to a king princess gig (foiled bc i swapped bags and forgot to transfer the book. anyone got an email for kp?), some almost life coded graffiti i saw (there are almost lives everywhere for those with eyes to see), my stash of homemade almost life memes (erica heavy, not posting my laure thirsting out of respect to my partner), fan edit cover, finished copy!!!!!!, copy of the book and the wines you might win if you come to the event next week unless i snap and drink them. just kidding!! mostly. i have had the immense pleasure of reading this book more than once and in various forms. each read has been richer. i love this gorgeous book and these gorgeous characters that now feel like old friends and i am so excited for it to trot out into the world and say bonjour to new readers!!!!!!!!!! out in the UK on the 12th and the US on the 24th. Oxford friends: come see @kiran_mh & @ellarisbridger NEXT WEEK! if you don’t i will take it personally.
Oxford friends, do not miss the chance to hear Fatima Bhutto next week - she will be in conversation about her remarkable memoir The Hour of the Wolf on Monday evening.
About the book: From acclaimed journalist and novelist Fatima Bhutto, a searing, intimate memoir of grief, heartbreak, and what we owe the natural world – all learned from the dog who saved her life. Only a teenager when her beloved father was murdered, shot outside their home by his political opponents, as an adult, Fatima Bhutto longed for a happy family life. And so when one day she meets an intoxicatingly charismatic man who promises just that, she falls for him – and falls hard. This is the story of how Fatima freed herself from the tight, dangerous coils of the man’s manipulative charm.
It’s a tale that crosses continents, travels into myth, literature, astronomy and art, and explores Fatima’s own yearning for motherhood. By her side for the entire journey is Coco: a small, ferociously loyal Jack Russell terrier. Heartbreaking yet hopeful, this kaleidoscopic memoir is a testament to resilience, self-acceptance, the restorative power of friendship, and humanity’s connection to nature.
The theme for the latest instalment of Shelf Improvement was CRUCIAL LIBRARIANS and these were the featured books. This was the first instalment off of substack! Did you get it? Have you signed up for a library card? Did you know authors get money from library loans of their books? Is an archivist a librarian? Etc. Next instalment in March!
You can see Tom’s beautiful exhibition poíēsis at @varvararozagalleries in London until 20th December, and if you can’t make it to see the paintings, you can (and should) read his book Strange Bodies. There’s also a brilliant piece from @rhiannonlucycosslett in the Guardian. It was very, very special to celebrate @tomdefrestonart & @kiran_mh this week at the private view. ❤️
