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How the London Review of Books became a bestseller

By Andrew Kersley

London Review of Books|

When was the last time you read about Japanese bondage clubs and ancient Roman poets wanting to make their critics perform fellatio ?

If it’s been a while, then you have not been reading the London Review of Books.

“There was a piece somewhere on the internet recently that referred to us as being rather staid and mentioned we had recently opened an issue with a review of a new translation of Catullus,” co-editor Alice Spawls tells me. “In fact, that piece was one of the funniest things we’ve published this year.

“It described Roman poetry through metaphors of Japanese bondage and was very sexy and unexpected.”

Guardian forecasting £39m deficit as ad revenue falls 16%

Guardian forecasting £39m deficit as ad revenue falls 16%

Paul Morgan-Bentley of The Times on going undercover with British Gas debt collectors

Paul Morgan-Bentley of The Times on going undercover with British Gas debt collectors

Marie Colvin Award winner Bel Trew pays tribute to journalists of Gaza

Marie Colvin Award winner Bel Trew pays tribute to journalists of Gaza

Despite running articles that can stretch into the tens of thousands of words, the LRB has gone from being a niche offering to one of the most popular cultural and current affairs magazines in the UK.

The publication proudly boasts on its website that one reader described it as “the best thing about being a human”.

“A lot of people feel they know the character of the paper better than we do. We get told off for any perceived fallings off from perfection,” says Jean McNicol, the magazine’s other co-editor. “People feel part of something… In all sorts of strange places you go you meet somebody who has some encyclopaedic knowledge of the paper, some people are quite obsessed with it.”

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And that fanbase isn’t small anymore either. The LRB’s fortnightly print magazine has a circulation of 91,859, according to the most recent ABC figures (95% of which were actively purchased).

'Looking for sustainable, profitable growth'

That’s a 4% increase on the year before and well over double the readership the magazine had 15 years ago . It makes it the fifth best selling title in Press Gazette's news and current affairs ranking , with only The Economist, The Week, Private Eye and Time selling more. The New York Review of Books, the parent publication that helped launch the LRB in 1979, itself had a 2020 circulation of 131,598.

“Looking for sustainable, profitable growth is what underpins our subscription strategy,” says LRB publisher Reneé Doegar, who adds that the magazine saw five years' worth of subscription growth during the pandemic. “In terms of the annual growth over time, it's just been based on really clear data and using really various kinds of sophisticated modelling."

But despite its success, the LRB team often struggle to find the words to define themselves. Each year, in its annual ABC circulation audit the magazine is classified as a general interest literary magazine, the sole publication in that category. Doegar says the group “have the conversation all the time of whether or not we're in the right one”.

It seems a fitting problem for a publication that publishes content that few other outlets would. “I think part of what we would hope is the appeal everywhere is eclecticism. Our diary slot can be anything from someone reporting from a warzone to Alan Bennett listing the best churches he's visited,” says Spawls. “A good example of it might be in the last issue, there's a short piece about using a typewriter. I don't know where else you would read that.”

The LRB list of 15 contributing editors (the title given to regular contributors) covers journalists, professors and Booker Prize-winning authors, including Hilary Mantel, Colm Tóibín and Patricia Lockwood. Over the years, the likes of Alan Bennett, Martin Amis, Christopher Hitchens and Paul Foot have been regular contributors to the magazine.

But it also features unknown writers and journalists, some of whom go on to become household names, and finding the right people to feature is an ongoing challenge.

'The pressure is there to be 24/7'

The magazine’s captivated followers send in hundreds of submissions for each edition – “most of them aren't very good, or very interesting though,” Spawls remarks. “You just have to try lots of people. And some of them work and can end up being a big thing.”

Being fortnighly (like Private Eye) brings its own complications. “You always seem to go to press at the wrong time,” McNicol explains. “Elections always come on the wrong week, the war starts on the wrong day – which actually happened with one of our most recent issues.”

Do they ever want to break from the straitjacket of the fortnightly print cycle? “The pressure is there to be a 24/7 publication,” says Spawls. “But we try to add to the conversation in a way that the quickfire news responses can’t.”

Despite its geographically-weighted name, the LRB is also increasingly a global phenomenon with roughly 44% of its readers coming from the UK, 33% from the US and the remaining 23% from the rest of the world.

That global community has always been part of LRB's DNA according to McNicol, who is herself Scottish. Even in the old LRB office she recalls machines printing out addresses as far away as Vanuatu in indelible black ink.

Her mention of the old office is telling. She and Spawls only took over the editorship of the LRB in January 2021, when LRB co-founder Mary-Kay Wilmers, who edited the publication for more than 30 years, stood down. Later that year, Doegar took over the mantle of publisher from Nicholas Spice, who had been in the role for almost the magazine’s entire 41-year lifespan.

london review of books reputation

Image: Renee Doegar / The LRB

Both Spawls and McNicol are LRB lifers. Joining in 2011 and 1987 respectively, both spent their entire careers at the magazine working under Wilmers. Doegar stands out as the closest thing to an outsider, having worked for Haymarket Publishing for just over six years before joining the LRB in 2011.

All three speak with an almost sacred reverence for Wilmers and her tenure as editor of the LRB, from her open-mindedness and ability to find new writers to her dedication to constantly searching for articles in the colossal "slush pile" - their name for pitches or un-commissioned articles the publication gets sent.

“Lots of people just don't bother with them. But she was always very keen that we should look at them,” says McNicol. “There are things in the paper that are changing, and I'm not saying it's a statue that can't be altered, but it's definitely just a development of what went before rather than any kind of break.”

While the  shadow of Wilmers looms large over the publication, not least because she has stayed on as a consulting editor, that hasn’t meant the organisation hasn’t been going through some big changes recently.

As with many news titles, and society more generally, the pandemic became a catalyst for innovation at the often stubbornly unchanging LRB. Events normally hosted in the LRB bookshop shifted online, book sales moved to a newly launched e-commerce arm (that has since moved on to selling everything from stationery to scarfs) and then there were podcasts.

“We hadn't had a regular podcast until the pandemic. And it sort of fell into place then,” says Spawls. “We had an occasional series of a very good podcast called close readings by Seamus Perry and Mark Ford in which they would look at a particular poet… During the pandemic, we made it more regular, and now we have a podcast after each issue, which talks about a piece in the issue with the writer.”

In some ways, the reverence for Wilmers is no surprise given how much the publication owes her, both figuratively and, as it turns out, literally.

The outlet shies away from discussing its bottom line but was reported by The Times to be £27m in debt to the Wilmers' family trust in 2010 , though Wilmers, an heiress to a fortune made in the fur trade, said she had no intention of recouping that debt.

The most recent Company House accounts suggest the company lost £4.6m in 2020, and £3.6m the year before that, though when we asked about those figures Doegar reiterated that “there was no intention to collect that debt”.

Picture: London Review of Books

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london review of books reputation

Two cheers for the LRB

The magazine that declares its main aim is to review books does anything but

  • The Secret Author

This article is taken from the March 2021 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering three issue for just £5 .

H abitué of the high-brow boulevards that he is, the Secret Author has been reading the London Review of Books almost since it began, back in the winter of 1979 when its presiding genius, Mary-Kay Wilmers, was but a slip of a girl.

It was from the LRB that he snipped the photograph of Jacques Derrida that adorned the wall of his college rooms, and in its august and stately pages that he read the work of Terry Eagleton, Ferdinand Mount, Jenny Diski and half-a-dozen other writers who have since taken up residence in his mental lumber room.

For a publication which describes itself as a “review of books”, the LRB sometimes seems to do anything but

And yet this immersion in what Ronald Firbank would have called “the heart of a brainy district” has come at a price, for if the LRB has always been the principal flag-waver for an exacting brand of austere, left-leaning high-brow culture, then, equally, it has always made an agreeable habit of exposing some of that culture’s limitations.

You can read it to see what the high-minded liberal-left is thinking, but it is also a fail-safe route into some of the topics that the high-minded liberal left doesn’t want to think about for fear of what those topics might tell it about itself.

But first things first. High on the charge-sheet is simple administrative laziness. What is the point of running reviews of books 18 months after publication, particularly when they have (or rather had) some claim to topicality — see, for example, the recent issue which led with two studies of American foreign policy published, respectively, in 2017 and 2018?

Item two is the terrible, terrible poetry which, with rare exceptions, neither rhymes nor scans or has any kind of internal rhythm but is simply prose chopped up into irregular lines and distributed around the page.

Item three is the resolute imperviousness to criticism. Are you a writer whose work has been traduced in the LRB , i.e. badly reviewed by someone who has not only mistaken its point but made elementary errors in doing so? Well, don’t bother writing in to complain because — unlike the Times Literary Supplement , which positively falls over itself in its efforts to allow wounded authors redress — they won’t print it.

Item four is the wonderfully small percentage of female contributors — again, worth comparing to the TLS , which managed to get its gender ratio up to 50:50 during the reign of its last editor, Stig Abell.

But it is item five on which the magazine really slips up. This its failure to honour the promise made on the masthead. In fact, for a publication which describes itself as a “review of books”, the LRB sometimes seems to do anything but. To particularise, the edition of 16 July 2020 managed to feature exactly 10 books over 44 closely printed pages, as did the edition of 22 October. By contrast, the edition of 3 December was a bibliophile’s pool-party with 20 books covered in 52 pages.

And then, having lined up a book for review, how does the LRB go about reviewing it? Why, by specialising in the review-essay, a redoubt of modern literary criticism in which whatever the author happens to have written generally takes second spot to what the reviewer thinks about things in general.

You can read it to see what the high-minded liberal-left is thinking, but it is also a fail-safe route into some of the topics that the high-minded liberal left doesn’t want to think about

Bless you, an academic specialising in the politics of the 1960s and 1970s given a book about Harold Wilson’s government to review doesn’t really want to tell the punters what it’s like. He — and it mostly is he — wants to unload his own opinions, and the book itself will be lucky to get a dismissive paragraph or two somewhere towards the end.

As for the LRB ’s “stance”, its keenness on all the good brave causes, its resolute anti-Zionism, its suspicion of almost every aspect of US domestic and foreign policy, its perpetual sneering at Boris and its contempt for the Brexiteers are undercut by a delicious irony. For what is the magazine but a by-product of late capitalism, kept going on money (quite a lot of money, countless millions in fact, prodigally supplied over the years) from the Wilmers family trust, first established by Ms Wilmers’s redoubtable plutocrat father Charles?

None of this is to detract from the pleasure the Secret Author derives from his alternate Friday morning stake-outs over, say, David Runciman’s politics column, or Andrew O’Hagan’s reportage or James Meek’s peregrinations. On the other hand, the LRB ’s influence is pernicious. For what has the TLS been doing in the past year or so but following in its wake, attempting to beguile its readers with reports from the Covid frontline or worthy cultural stuff that has very little to do with literature?

Oh for an editor of a major literary organ who realised that his, or her, professional responsibilities are actually very straightforward. Ms Wilmers has recently retired in favour of two under-strappers, Jean McNicol and Alice Spawls. All they need to do is work out what the best books being published are and review the bloody things — on time and with the minimum of fuss. It’s as simple as that.

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The 13 Best Book Review Sites and Book Rating Sites

Knowing where to buy books can be challenging. So, here are the best book review sites to help you avoid buying books that you'll regret reading.

Nobody likes to spend money on a new book only to face that overwhelming feeling of disappointment when it doesn't live up to your expectations. The solution is to check out a few book review sites before you hit the shops. The greater the diversity of opinions you can gather, the more confidence you can have that you'll enjoy the title.

Which book review and book rating sites are worth considering? Here are the best ones.

1. Goodreads

goodreads

Goodreads is arguably the leading online community for book lovers. If you want some inspiration for which novel or biography to read next, this is the book review site to visit.

There's an endless number of user-generated reading lists to explore, and Goodreads itself publishes dozens of "best of" lists across a number of categories. You can do a book search by plot or subject , or join book discussions and reading groups with thousands of members.

You can participate in the community by adding your own rankings to books you've read and leaving reviews for other people to check out. Occasionally, there are even bonus events like question and answer sessions with authors.

2. LibraryThing

librarything book review

LibraryThing is the self-proclaimed largest book club in the world. It has more than 2.3 million members and is one of the best social networking platforms for book lovers .

With a free account, you can add up to 200 books to your library and share them with other users. But it's in the other areas where LibraryThing can claim to be one of the best book review sites.

Naturally, there are ratings, user reviews, and tags. But be sure to click on the Zeitgeist tab at the top of the page. It contains masses of information, including the top books by rating, by the number of reviews, by authors, and loads more.

3. Book Riot

book riot

Book Riot is a blog. It publishes listicles on dozens of different topics, many of which review the best books in a certain genre. To give you an idea, some recent articles include Keeping Hoping Alive: 11 Thrilling YA Survival Stories and The Best Historical Fiction Books You’ve Never Heard Of .

Of course, there's also plenty of non-reading list content. If you have a general affinity for literature, Book Riot is definitely worth adding to the list of websites you browse every day.

bookish

Bookish is a site that all members of book clubs should know about. It helps you prep for your next meeting with discussion guides, book quizzes, and book games. There are even food and drink suggestions, as well as playlist recommendations.

But the site is more than just book club meetings. It also offers lots of editorial content. That comes in the form of author interviews, opinion essays, book reviews and recommendations, reading challenges, and giveaways.

Be sure to look at the Must-Reads section of the site regularly to get the latest book reviews. Also, it goes without saying that the people behind Bookish are book lovers, too. To get a glimpse of what they’re reading, check out their Staff Reads articles.

5. Booklist

booklist

Booklist is a print magazine that also offers an online portal. Trusted experts from the American Library Association write all the book reviews.

You can see snippets of reviews for different books. However, to read them in full, you will need to subscribe. An annual plan for this book review site costs $184.95 per year.

6. Fantasy Book Review

fantasy book review website

Fantasy Book Review should be high on the list for anyone who is a fan of fantasy works. The book review site publishes reviews for both children's books and adults' books.

It has a section on the top fantasy books of all time and a continually updated list of must-read books for each year. You can also search through the recommended books by sub-genres such as Sword and Sorcery, Parallel Worlds, and Epic Fantasy.

7. LoveReading

lovereading

LoveReading is one of the most popular book review sites in the UK, but American audiences will find it to be equally useful.

The site is divided into fiction and non-fiction works. In each area, it publishes weekly staff picks, books of the month, debuts of the month, ebooks of the month, audiobooks of the month, and the nationwide bestsellers. Each book on every list has a full review that you can read for free.

Make sure you also check out their Highlights tab to get book reviews for selected titles of the month. In Collections , you'll also find themed reading lists such as World War One Literature and Green Reads .

kirkus

Kirkus has been involved in producing book reviews since the 1930s. This book review site looks at the week's bestselling books, and provides lengthy critiques for each one.

As you'd expect, you'll also find dozens of "best of" lists and individual book reviews across many categories and genres.

And while you're on the site, make sure you click on the Kirkus Prize section. You can look at all the past winners and finalists, complete with the accompanying reviews of their books.

reddit books

Although Reddit is a social media site, you can use it to get book reviews of famous books, or almost any other book for that matter! Reddit has a Subreddit, r/books, that is dedicated to book reviews and reading lists.

The subreddit has weekly scheduled threads about a particular topic or genre. Anyone can then chip in with their opinions about which books are recommendable. Several new threads are published every day, with people discussing their latest discovery with an accompanying book rating or review.

You'll also discover a weekly recommendation thread. Recent threads have included subjects such as Favorite Books About Climate Science , Literature of Indigenous Peoples , and Books Set in the Desert . There’s also a weekly What are you Reading? discussion and frequent AMAs.

For more social media-like platforms, check out these must-have apps for book lovers .

10. YouTube

YouTube is not the type of place that immediately springs to mind when you think of the best book review sites online.

Nonetheless, there are several engaging YouTube channels that frequently offer opinions on books they've read. You’ll easily find book reviews of famous books here.

Some of the most notable book review YouTube channels include Better Than Food: Book Reviews , Little Book Owl , PolandBananasBooks , and Rincey Reads .

man in the music book on amazon

Amazon is probably one of your go-to site when you want to buy something. If you don’t mind used copies, it’s also one of the best websites to buy second-hand books .

Now, to get book reviews, just search and click on a title, then scroll down to see the ratings and what others who have bought the book are saying. It’s a quick way to have an overview of the book’s rating. If you spot the words Look Inside above the book cover, it means you get to preview the first few pages of the book, too!

Regardless of the praises or criticisms you have heard from other book review sites, reading a sample is the most direct way to help you gauge the content’s potential and see whether the author’s writing style suits your tastes.

12. StoryGraph

storygraph

StoryGraph is another good book review site that's worth checking out. The book rating is determined by the site's large community of readers. Key in the title of a book you're interested in and click on it in StoryGraph's search results to have an overall view of its rating.

Each book review provides information on the moods and pacing of the story. It also indicates whether the tale is plot or character-driven, what readers feel about the extent of character development, how lovable the characters generally are, and the diversity of the cast.

13. London Review of Books

london review of books

The London Review of Books is a magazine that covers a range of subjects such as culture, literature, and philosophy. Part of its content includes amazingly detailed book reviews. If you feel that most modern book reviews are too brief for your liking, the London Review of Books should suit you best.

You'll gain insight into the flow and themes of the story, as well as a more thorough picture of the events taking place in the book.

Read Book Reviews Before You Buy

The book review sites we've discussed will appeal to different types of readers. Some people will be more comfortable with the easy-to-interpret book rating systems; others will prefer extensive reviews written by experienced professionals.

Although it’s easy to be tempted by a gorgeous book cover, it’s always best to have a quick look at the book reviews before actually buying a copy. This way, you can save your money and spend it on the books that you’ll be proud to display on your shelves for a long time. And check out recommendations, as well, to help you find what's worth reading.

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1. Royal Bodies: Writing about the Windsors

‘I used to think the interesting question was whether we should have a monarchy or not. But now I think that question is rather like, should we have pandas or not?’  – Hilary Mantel

Featuring: Jenny Diski, William Empson, Paul Foot, Thomas Jones, Hilary Mantel, Ferdinand Mount, Caroline Murphy, Tom Nairn, Glen Newey and Bee Wilson.

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‘If, as Lévi-Strauss once opined, “to eat is to fuck,” then that coconut kirsch roulade is just asking for it.’  – Angela Carter

Featuring: John Bayley, Joanna Biggs, Angela Carter, John Lanchester, James Meek, Emma Rothschild, Steven Shapin, Adam Smyth, E.S. Turner, Margaret Visser, Bee Wilson and Francis Wyndham.

3. The Flood: Writing about rising seas

‘Soon it will be everywhere, overheard conversations with no human source. Soon we will all think it. And then it will happen.’  – Iain Sinclair

Featuring: Meehan Crist, James Davidson, Frank Kermode, James Meek, Patrick O’Brian, Iain Sinclair, Rebecca Solnit, Theo Tait, Margaret Visser, Marina Warner and Emily Witt.

4. Four in a Bed: Writing about sex

‘Ten, no, five seconds after coming all over the place too soon

I was lying there wondering where to put the line-breaks in.’

– Hugo Williams

Featuring: Mary Beard, Jenny Diski, Wendy Doniger, Frank Kermode, Andrew O’Hagan, Adam Phillips, Amia Srinivasan, David Sylvester, Barbara Taylor, Hugo Williams and Mary-Kay Wilmers.

5. Sinomania: Writing about China

‘What a European Old China Hand said had to be listened to carefully for the bits absurd enough to be repeated.’ – William Empson  

Featuring: William Empson, Isabel Hilton, Christopher Hitchens, Long Ling, Hilary Mantel, Zheng Peidi, Roy Porter, Nikil Saval, Eliot Weinberger, Sheng Yun and Slavoj Žižek.

6. Frock Consciousness: Writing about clothes

‘I don’t know when I’ll be going, but at least now I know what I’ll be wearing.’ – Elaine Showalter

Featuring: Joanna Biggs, Anita Brookner, Angela Carter, Jenny Diski, Rosemary Hill, Anne Hollander, Kevin Kopelson, David Nasaw, Elaine Showalter, Alice Spawls and E.S. Turner.

7. Broom, Broom: Writing about witches

‘the witches eat your book then you then everything’ – Rebecca Tamás

Featuring: John Bayley, Wendy Doniger, Malcolm Gaskill, Jeremy Harding, Hilary Mantel, Rosalind Mitchinson, Rebecca Tamás, Robert Tashman, Lee Palmer Wandel, Marina Warner and Leslie Wilson.

8. The Meaninglessness of Meaning: Writing about the theory wars

‘Shall I batter the cat, and then stew it, thus turning the  cru  to the  cuit ? And when I am had up for cru- elty, plead it was only  écrit ?’ – Penny McCarthy

Featuring: Pierre Bourdieu, Brigid Brophy, Judith Butler, Terry Eagleton, Frank Kermode, Penny McCarthy, Richard Rorty, Lorna Sage, Adam Shatz, John Sturrock, Sherry Turkle and Michael Wood.

9. Anyone for gulli-danda? Writing about sport

‘We were learning to cope with the ordinary truth sport brings out more clearly than any other endeavour: there is always somebody better.’  – Benjamin Markovits

Featuring: Tariq Ali, Gabrielle Annan, Terry Castle, Marjorie Garber, Jane Holland, Benjamin Markovits, Karl Miller, David Runciman, Amia Srinivasan and Heathcote Williams. 

10. Why Goldwyn Wore Jodhpurs: Writing about Hollywood

‘It must be the light that sends them crazy, that white light now refracting from the sibilant Pacific, the precious light that, when it is distilled, becomes the movies.’  – Angela Carter

Featuring: Gabriele Annan, Betsy Blair, Angela Carter, Jenny Diski, Stephen Frears, David Hare, Andrew O’Hagan, Michael Rogin, David Thomson, Bee Wilson and Michael Wood.

LRB Selections 1: Frank Kermode

‘Papers speak through their writers. And of all the London Review ’s writers Frank Kermode was the one through whom we spoke most often and most eloquently.’  – Mary-Kay Wilmers

Without Frank Kermode there would have been no London Review of Books . In July 1979, during the management lock-out at the Times , he wrote an article in the Observer calling for a new magazine to fill the gap left by the Times Literary Supplement . The first issue of the LRB appeared three months later. One of the reviews in it was by Kermode, of a book on popular millenarianism. Nearly 250 pieces would follow over the next thirty years, on subjects ranging from Paul de Man to Muriel Spark, from Empson and the Renaissance to Jesus and sex. Here, for his centenary, are 18 of the best, with a new introduction by Michael Wood, an afterword by Mary-Kay Wilmers and a cover by Jon McNaught.

LRB Selections 2: Penelope Fitzgerald

Penelope Fitzgerald complained to her older daughter in 1999:

I have at the moment two pieces for the LRB to do (but have written to get out of one of them), an intro for Folio Society for Middlemarch , an intro for J.L. Carr’s A Month in the Country . . . a serious piece for the New York Times on Vol 2 of Richard Holmes’s Coleridge and a vexatious piece which I’m also trying to get out of, for the New York Times magazine on the Best Idea of the Past Millennium, an absurd subject.

Susannah Clapp, who worked on many of her pieces, has described her as an ideal contributor who needed no ‘handling’: ‘She wrote to length, she wrote to time, she wrote without fuss, she wrote a lot, and she wrote always with a steady brilliance.’ As a reviewer, she was appreciative, knowledgeable, succinct, and usually, though not always, benign.  – From Hermione Lee’s introduction

Featuring pieces for the  LRB  on subjects including Stevie Smith, Alain-Fournier, Adrian Mole, girls’ schools,  Wild Swans , wartime London and Anne Enright, half of which haven’t been anthologised before, by the Booker Prize-winning author of  Offshore  and  The Blue Flower .

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Book Review: Richard Roper charms and surprises with ’This Disaster Loves You’

This cover image released by Putnam shows “This Disaster Loves You” by Richard Roper. (Putnam via AP)

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Richard Roper, whose debut novel “Something to Live For” (2020) featured a character seeking the aspiration of the title, is back with “This Disaster Loves You,” about another man whose story is not quite what it seems.

Brian owns a pub on the English coast, purchased with his wife more than a decade ago. He worked at a London insurance agency before that, while his wife, Lily, edited a magazine. They bought The County Arms in Thrupstone, U.K., in 2007, refurbished it, and as the online review that prefaces the book says, turned it into a “charming pub” with “lovely wine and local beers, too.”

The story opens in 2017 with Brian waking up, alone, in the apartment above the pub, and we learn that Lily disappeared seven years ago. No note, didn’t take her phone, just vanished. From then on it’s a pretty rapid back-and-forth between the present and the past, as we are treated to the major beats of Brian and Lily’s relationship, beginning with their meet-cute in 1995 on Primrose Hill, to their happiest days as young lovers in London and then owners of their “dream pub.”

When Brian reads a series of Tripadvisor reviews from someone called PinkMoonLily1970 and traces them back to the time of Lily’s disappearance, he sets off on an adventure. The goal, of course, is to find Lily, but it naturally becomes a voyage of self-discovery as well.

Roper writes fluid, readable prose, as charming as The County Arms: “In the flush of youthful love, there I was removing half a Twix from between the pages of an A to Z street map and feeling like the luckiest man in the world,” is how Roper describes the first time Brian rode in Lily’s white Renault Clio. Or Brian’s inaugural meeting of Lily’s parents, Forbes and Verity, who inhabit a different level of British society: “I found myself making lots of nervous jokes about how I wouldn’t know what fork to use with my quail at dinner, and how we should have brought a bottle of the ’52 with us rather than the ’58.”

As Brian’s search for Lily takes him from Bath to Stonehenge to other places worthy of online reviews, he meets a fellow traveler named Tess, a New Zealander separated from her husband after 22 years. Tess provides someone for Brian to open up to and allows Roper to deftly change the tone of the book. By the end, all the details of Brian and Lily’s story are satisfyingly filled in, and we’re dropped off as readers back at The County Arms, which just might earn another five-star review again in the future.

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The London Review of Books is the largest cultural, political and literary magazine in Europe and has an unparalleled international reputation for long form literary journalism. Published every two weeks, each issue contains unique contributions by the world’s leading thinkers, scholars and writers on a range of subjects such as history, politics, philosophy, art, poetry, biography, film and more. The LRB doesn’t just review books - it uses recently published books for wide-ranging discussions and analysis. The result is a collection of original, independent and self-sufficient essays.

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Heart-shaped biscuits

Lonely hearts club band

T he internet generation of daters hasn't abandoned personal ads. Rather, lonely heart sections have raised their game. Advertisers have evolved the formulaic WTLM/GSOH standard of old into clever haikus of longing and desire. No longer the realm of (whisper it) losers, there is a sophistication to the modern day personal ad that is both fascinating and, for those who are compelled to respond, frequently thrilling.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow was cautionary about the difficulties of achieving self-actualisation - fulfilling every aspect of one's innate potential. So, as unobtainable as such a state of being is, the London Review of Books' personal ads ask: "Why bother?" Their appeal comes from subverting those archetypal elements of attraction that press so heavily on our insecurities but that few of us actually have; the six-pack, the firm buttocks, the non-lethargic sperm. Bespectacled and melanin-deprived, they tell us not to be ashamed; to relax a little and enjoy what's out there without feeling threatened by it.

Perhaps they create something of a Scheherazade effect - a term coined by psychologist Geoffrey Miller in reference to the ancient Persian queen and storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights. Like King Shahryar, beheading his virgin brides once he's had his way with them, we read personal ads ready to laugh and brush them aside. But, just as Scheherazade stays her execution and wins the king's affection with tales of history and humour, so LRB personals compel the reader with their inventiveness, engaging us in such a way as to keep us wanting more.

And yet, when all's said and done, their purpose is to attract a mate. Their absurdity and humour aren't disguises for some deeper intent. They are simple, genuine statements about the people who write them and the people they hope to find. They're modestly successful too. We've had many reports of romances, dalliances, marriages and children. Granted, their honesty subverts the traditional lonely heart form, and we're often surprised, delighted or infuriated by their unwavering and messy emotion, but if an advert doesn't garner a positive response - however witty it may be - its author will always consider it a failure.

David's favourite ads

I celebrated my fortieth birthday last week by cataloguing my collection of bird feeders. Next year I'm hoping for sexual intercourse. And a cake. Join my invite mailing list at box no. 6831. Man

If intense, post-fight sex scares you , I'm not the woman for you (amateur big-boned cage wrestler, 62). Box no. 8744.

My last seven adverts in this column were influenced by the early catalogue of Krautrock band, Paternoster. This one, however, is based entirely around the work of Gil Scott-Heron. Man, 32. Possibly the last person you want to be stood next to at a house-party you've been dragged along to by a friend who wants to get off with the flatmate of the guy whose birthday it is. Hey! Have you ever heard Boards of Canada? They're amazing; I'll burn you a CD. Box no. 3178.

Meet the new face of indoor bowling! More or less the same as the old face, but less facial hair and better teeth. M, 28. Box no. 3377.

The celebrity I resemble the most is Potsie from Happy Days. What feels so right can't be wrong. Man, 46. Box no. 2480.

Mentally, I'm a size eight. Compulsive-eating F, 52, WLTM man to 25 for whom the phrase 'beauty is only skin-deep' is both a lifestyle choice and a religious ethos. Box no. 5115.

I vacillate wildly between a number of archetypes including, but not limited to, Muriel Spark witticism-trading doyenne, Mariella Frostrup charismatic socialite, brooding, intense Marianne Faithful visionary, and kleptomaniac Germaine Greer amateur upholsterer and ladies' league darts champion. Woman, 43. Everything I just said was a lie. Apart from the bit about darts. And kleptomania. Great tits though. Box no. 2236.

Philanthropy is my middle name. It's just a name though so don't be expecting any free rides. You can call me Mr Wallace. My first name is none of your business. Applications to box no. 9741.

I have a mug that says 'World's Greatest Lover'. I think that's my referees covered. How about you? Man. 37. Bishopsgate. Box no. 8763

If clumsy, unfeeling lust is your bag, write to the ad above. Otherwise write to me, mid-forties M with boy next door looks, man from U.N.C.L.E. charm, and Fresh Prince of Bel Air casual insouciance. Wikky wikky wick yo. Box no. 2851.

All humans are 99.9% genetically identical, so don't even think of ending any potential relationship begun here with 'I just don't think we have enough in common'. Science has long since proven that I am the man for you (41, likes to be referred to as 'Wing Commander' in the bedroom). Box no. 3501.

Normally on the first few dates I borrow mannerisms from the more interesting people I know and very often steal phrases and anecdotes from them along with concepts and ideas from obscure yet wittily-written books. It makes me appear more attractive and personable than I actually am. With you, however, I'm going to be a belligerent old shit from the very beginning. That's because I like you and feel ready to give you honesty. Belligerent old shit (M, 53). Box no. 6378.

They call me Mr Boombastic. You can call me Monty. My real name, however, is Quentin. But only Mother uses that. And Nanny. Monty is fine, though. Anything but Peg Leg (Shrewsbury Prep, 1956, 'Please don't make me do cross-country, sir'). Box no. 0473.

All I need is the air that I breathe and to love you. And a five-door saloon (fully air-con). And minimum income of £55K per annum. And two holidays a year (Latin America plus one other of my choosing). If you can meet these requirements, apply to 'Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions' (37), box no. 3685.

You're a brunette, 6', long legs, 25-30, intelligent, articulate and drop dead gorgeous. I, on the other hand, have the looks of Herve Villechaize and an odour of wheat. No returns and no refunds at box no. 3321.

If I could be anywhere in time right now it would be 17 December 1972. I have my reasons. Man, 57. Box no. 1553.

The usual hyperbole infuses this ad with a whiff of playful narcissism and Falstaffian bathos. But scratch below the surface and you'll soon find that I really am the greatest man ever to have lived. Truly great man, 37. Better than Elvis and Gandhi. You'll never be a genuinely worthy partner, but try anyway by first replying to box no. 7637. Include a full list of qualifications, your aspirations, and a full frontal nude body shot.

When not in my London city office overseeing the day-to-day business of my successful accountancy firm, I can be found leaning inside taxi cabs, spitting wild obscenities and challenging the drivers to fisticuffs. M, 47. We take the direct route home, we don't stop at Belisha beacons and we never - and I mean never - leave the impudence of a box junction unquestioned. Don't expect a tip from box no. 9091.

OMG! This magazine is the shizz. Seriously, dudes. Awesome! LOL! Classics lecturer (M, 48). Possibly out of his depth with today's youth. KTHX! Box no. 2680.

Google-search this: 'Inherited wealth real estate Bentley' - that's me, result 63 of 275. It'll take 0.21 seconds to find me online, but an eternity of heartache in real life. Save time now by writing to box no. 4511, or by just giving up. Mother says you'll never be good enough for me anyway. And you carry the odour of your class.

We've all made mistakes. Mine was a cerise pump during London Fashion Week 2004. Style troubadour, (M, 35). WLTM similar, or appropriately dour fag hag. Box no. 8643.

The toughest decision I ever had to make was choosing between soup and fish in a Brighton café in 1987 (I went for the fish, though later regretted my decision when I discovered the cod had been over-seasoned). Now, however, I'll have to pick one of you delicious women. The selection procedure will involve a four-part interview, along with an aptitude test and multiple-choice questionnaire. Apply now for full details to stupid man, 45. Box no. 6821.

Remember when all this was open fields, and you could go out and leave your door unlocked? Woman, 24. Inherited her mother's unreasonable and utterly unfounded nostalgia (and her father's hirsute back). WLTM barber with fondness for Sherbet Dib-Dabs and Parma Violets. Box no. 8486.

God appeared to me in a dream last night and spoke your name in my ear. He gave me the winning lottery numbers, too, though, so you can understand where my priorities lay when I raced to grab a notebook and pen. Man, 37, living on hope and the next seven weeks' bonus balls seeks woman whose first name begins with S, or maybe F, and rhymes with chicken, and has a surname that's either a place in Shropshire or the title of a 1979 Earth, Wind and Fire track. Shicken Boogiewonderland, I know you're reading this. Write now to box no. 5729.

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Our booklists represent our personal selection of books we’re excited about, drawn from every corner of the shop. Not all the titles featured here will be new releases – they’re a reflection of our own tastes and enthusiasms. We hope you share them, and find something of interest.

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£15.00, the lodgers, holly pester, £14.99, john cooper clarke, £16.99, glorious exploits, ferdia lennon, god complex, rachael allen, £12.99, missing persons, or my grandmother's secrets, clair wills, £20.00, come and get it, this train is for, bernie mcgill, £12.00, the new life, £9.99, the vast extent, lavinia greenlaw, hansel & gretel, simon armitage, collected poems, fleur adcock, £25.00, the corporeal life of seafaring, laleh khalili, £14.00, where we come from, aniefiok ekpoudom, no judgement, lauren oyler, revolutionary acts, jason okundaye, the rebel's clinic, the rising down, alexandra harris, bite your friends, fernanda eberstadt, £18.99, our current bestsellers, alphabetical diaries, sheila heti, £10.99, édouard louis, on giving up, adam phillips, on palestine, noam chomsky, ilan pappé, £8.99, spent light, lara pawson, a philosophy of walking, frédéric gros, follow the money, paul johnson, natalia’s new year picks 2024, hisham matar, until august, gabriel garcia marquez, rodrigo blanco calderón, the great divide, cristina henríquez, where there was fire, john manuel arias, tana french, asako yuzuki, faber editions, neighbors and other stories (faber editions), diane oliver, hackenfeller's ape, brigid brophy, the mountain lion, jean stafford, termush (faber editions), the shutter of snow (faber editions), emily holmes coleman, a wreath for udomo (faber editions), peter abrahams, the glass pearls, emeric pressburger, maud martha (faber editions), gwendolyn brooks, palace of the peacock (faber editions), wilson harris, mrs caliban (faber editions), rachel ingalls, the republic of consciousness prize longlist 2024, out of earth, sheyla smanioto, avenues by train, farai mudzingwa, of cattle and men, ana paula maia, £11.99, truth & dare, summa kaotica, ventura ametller, krisztina tóth, may the tigris grieve for you, emilienne malfatto, the zekameron, the end of august, £18.00, author of the month: sheila heti, pure colour, how should a person be, search all titles.

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‘One Day’ Is Back. This Time, It’s Longer.

The hit novel became a movie, and now it’s a 14-episode Netflix series. More time let the screenwriter get deeper into the characters of Emma and Dexter.

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Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall sit on a black sofa against an orange wall, looking at one another and smiling.

By Precious Adesina

Reporting from London

For the British author David Nicholls, the key to a good romantic story is avoiding the clichés. “The first kiss, the first night together, the wedding day. There are all these landmarks which are quite familiar and quite obvious,” he said recently.

Instead, his 2009 novel “One Day” follows its two protagonists, Emma and Dexter, on the same day each year for two decades, as they weave in and out of each other’s lives as friends, partners and everything in between. What has happened on the previous 364 days is revealed slowly and indirectly, with many key moments left to the reader’s imagination.

In 2011, the novel — which has been translated into 40 languages and sold millions of copies — was adapted into a film starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess, and the story has now found new life as a limited series, created by the Scottish screenwriter Nicole Taylor and available on Netflix.

While both adaptations closely follow the structure and plot of the novel, the show devotes the majority of its 14 half-hour-ish episodes to a different year in the pair’s lives. The film’s shorter run time meant significant cuts, so that it ultimately became a “little synopsis of the novel,” according to Nicholls. (In a Times review, the critic A.O. Scott wrote that the film “turns an episodic story into an anthology of feelings and associations.”)

The show’s extended length allows more rounded characters to emerge for Emma (played by Ambika Mod, previously Shruti in “ This Is Going to Hurt ”) and Dexter (Leo Woodall, who was Jack in Season 2 of “The White Lotus”). We meet them in 1988, on their last night of college, where Emma has kept her head down and worked hard on a double major and Dexter has been a popular party guy, achieving below average grades in anthropology.

Like in the film, Dexter is rich, handsome and can be arrogant, but Taylor said didn’t want her script to make him an “archetypal posh boy,” but to emphasize his vulnerability, instead. We see Dexter on the verge of tears at a train station after a heated conversation with his father, and using a pay phone to leave a weepy message on Emma’s answering machine, begging her to pick up the phone.

“The kind of vulnerabilities that Dexter has, Leo played beautifully,” Taylor said, adding that the actor had “brought quite a different kind of a Dexter to the performance.”

In an interview, Woodall said that playing Dexter had allowed him to experience “the deep depths and real lows of someone else’s life.” In his character’s early years, “he wants just to have fun,” Woodall said, but “the booze, the drugs, and his coping mechanism for grief and escaping,” get the better of him.

“There’s a lot of sympathy that you can have for him,” Woodall added. “He makes it difficult, but when you look at it through a long lens, he’s trying really hard to stay afloat.”

For many “One Day” fans, Emma is the more relatable character: an underdog fighting for a chance to get ahead. This was also true for Taylor, who was 29 when the novel was released, living in London and desperate to become a writer. “I felt like I was trying to make something happen for myself in a world full of Dexters,” she said. As a result, she said, “there’s more Emma in the series than there has been in the film or maybe even in the book.”

In the show’s early episodes, Emma is guarded and lacks confidence, which Mod said felt “realistic” for a woman of color in her character’s situation. “Many people, when reading the book, wouldn’t have imagined a brown Emma, but I think that, if anything, it amplifies and puts a spotlight on the things that make her more relatable,” Mod said. “The world pushes us to feel small and stay in our lane, and Emma’s lack of confidence and insecurity is definitely a result of that.”

As the episodes and years go by, both Emma and Dexter grow: Dexter becomes more serious, and Emma feels more certain of herself. Taylor said she hoped that fans of the book will watch the show — which feels a little like a more upbeat “ Normal People ” — and “fall in love with Ambika and Leo, and feel like ‘yes, there’s my Emma and Dexter,’” she said.

Nicholls’s story has such longevity, Taylor said, because everyone has a relationship similar to Emma and Dexter’s, even if it is not romantic. “We’ve all got that one person that always brings you back to the best version of yourself,” she said.

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The hit novel “One Day” first became a movie, and now it’s a 14-episode Netflix series. Here’s how more time let the screenwriter get deeper into the characters of Emma and Dexter .

“The Taste of Things” didn’t use cooking doubles, but a pro offscreen helped guide the stars. Getting the meals right was everything to the director Tran Anh Hung .

In “The New Look,” Juliette Binoche and Ben Mendelsohn play the fashion icons Chanel and Dior during the Nazi occupation of France  in a new series from Apple TV+.

The current season of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” meets Merce Cunningham in an incongruous mash-up of reality TV and modern dance , our critic writes.

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    I would read the London Review of Books from front to back. I had to read it all, from front to back. I couldn't miss any part of what I then saw as the absolute requirement of reading the London Review of Books and absorbing all of the information contained in the London Review of Book s (excluding classifieds and incidental advertising about books, copywriters, book-based dating etc).

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    The London Review of Books ( LRB) is a British literary magazine published bimonthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. [2] History

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    T he London Review of Books is 40 this month. The paper, which has always considered itself something of a red rag, celebrates its ruby anniversary with a handsome anthology of articles,...

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  25. Explore Our Shelves

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  26. On Netflix's 'One Day,' Emma and Dexter Meet Again

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