Storyscoutes Co / Reading Guides
I love setting myself a small, intense reading mission: seven days, one region, a handful of midlist British novels that never quite hit the mass-market headlines but glow when you sit with them....
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I often find that the first barrier to reading translated poetry is not the language itself but a hesitation: will I be reading the poet, the translator, or both? Over the years I’ve learned that...
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I build reading lists the way I pack a small bag for a trip: with attention to mood, a hunger for surprise and a soft refusal to overplan. Rainy weekends and quiet afternoons call for lists that feel...
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When I think about building a reading guide, I usually start with a single stubborn image or idea that keeps returning to me long after I close a book. A motif — an object, a colour, a weather...
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I love the little thrill that comes when a book you thought you knew finds a surprising echo in something new. Pairing a neglected classic with a contemporary counterpart is one of my favourite...
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I still remember the thrill of opening a novelist’s backlist for the first time—the sense that a whole world of books had been waiting, quietly, behind the one everyone had been talking about....
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I confess: serialized Victorian novels used to intimidate me. The idea of starting a book that sprawled across months (or years) of instalments felt like opening a ledger rather than sinking into a...
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I still remember the first time I realised my relationship with crime fiction could be more than Nordic thrillers and blockbuster TV adaptations. A reader at the shop asked me for “something like...
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I open nearly every translated book these days with two small but powerful rituals: I skim the translation notes (if there are any) and I check who the translator is. Over years of reading across...
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I like reading routes—small, deliberate itineraries you can follow that bring you to unexpected places. A month-long reading route through postcolonial short fiction is one of my favourite ways to...
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