Anyone remotely bookish has heard of Normal People. At its core, the story follows a 'will they won't they' coming of age relationship between two teenagers, set in Ireland. At face value, it appears to be nothing out of the ordinary.

Suddenly, by April 2020, as England and much of the world was in a state of lockdown, it was hard to escape Sally Rooney as the BBC produced a TV adaptation of Normal People, which drove numerous sales of the book.

Rooney has now become somewhat of a buzzword within the bookish community. She's often viewed as being like…

Reading is a time-consuming activity. But do you know what else is? Scrolling on your phone. Eating. Sleeping. Exercising. For most of us, those are non-negotiable for living a healthy life.

However, many non-readers or struggling readers view spending time with a book as a luxury. A habit they can't afford. They may find the idea of sitting down with a book whilst leaving a message on read or an email drafted but not sent as a failure.

Life these days is instant. It can be a struggle to find time to do activities we enjoy. But we must make…

Hello writers,

It’s been another busy month where we have received more and more submissions and writer requests every day. It’s lovely to see but proving quite hard to manage.

Not a lot of people know this, but every writer request has to be processed manually. This means putting your username into the settings by hand.

Therefore, it takes time. You can’t just click a button. I took my eye off the ball for a few weeks and realised I had over 100 writer requests in our inbox.

Whilst I love keeping this publication alive, it is hard to prioritise…

A customer at work told me he didn’t have the time to read. But if he didn’t have kids, he probably would. His companion, who he was having coffee with, then asked,

“Don’t you read before you go to bed?” To which he responded, “Well, no, when I go to bed, I sleep.”

I laughed. I didn’t want to tell him I thought it was a ludicrous excuse. For me, the idea of instantly falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow is an unachievable dream. Also, at the end of a long day and when I’m in…

Last year I really enjoyed my birthday. There was no pressure for me to do anything with England being in a constant state of on and off lockdown. In fact, it was advised by the government and common sense that I didn’t.

Without the expectation to go out for dinner, celebrate and make a big deal of it, I found myself feeling relieved. I could let the day whittle away without any judgement from others. I could spend it exactly as I pleased. Doing nothing, avoiding staged social interaction and getting on with whatever I wanted.

To put it bluntly…

It is still a man’s world. Although a lot has changed in the past few decades, women are still playing catch up in almost every sphere, and literature is no exemption. When we think about classics, the most read books, or the most studied, are usually written by men.

For modern classics, think The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, 1984, Lord of the Flies and Ulysses — not a woman in sight. …

Now that I’ve almost entirely re-entered the ‘normal' world, everything is starting to annoy me again. After having the luxury of being in my own space, without life’s daily annoyances to grind me down for well over a year, it’s been hard not to let my patience shatter in recent weeks by inconsiderate strangers.

I consider myself to be a nice person on the whole. I’m polite and don’t like to create problems for myself and others. But as my life gets busier and more back to ‘normal,’ I’ve been getting annoyed about plenty of things.

I guess you could…

Whenever I return to a book I know and love to re-read it, I can’t help but feel overshadowed by a dominant feeling of guilt.

With a never-ending to be read list and my bookshelves full of books yet to be explored, it always feels like a waste. But, after all, our days are numbered.

So is re-reading the same books a waste of time?

You’d think so. However, a re-read of a favourite book serves a purpose. There’s a reason we turn to a book again. It’s comforting to fall back into pages and stories you’ve loved before. …