The Obsessive Diary

“Books are radical technology” said Louisa Joyner on the Main Stage yesterday and although London Book Fair can sometimes feel like the slick debut from an Enfant Terrible; overly wordy and as pleased with itself as all hell, I’m with Louisa. Reading is an act of protest and rebellion and books are the latest and oldest in the fight. The watchword at every talk seemed to be libraries, especially o...

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Morning all, Just a quick head’s up for all those thinking of going the Hybrid route. In line with London Book Fair happening all week (and yes, I’ll be there, might even do a bit of LIVE streaming…), my Substack LIVE guest today will be Stephanie Buck , creator of The Hybrid Publishing Toolkit. Join us with your questions and pens at the ready 6pm tonight (GMT) plus listen out for the special dis...

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

It was a train ride to Gladstone Library which began with a complicated shifting of luggage and repacking awkwardly in the back of my car in an echoey London NCP where always something is dribbling over the concrete floor and wafts of urine meet the sense that a car chase or attack is imminent. They are look-over-your-shoulder scary, city carparks, especially the ones underground. From there, suit...

I’ll be honest with you. I’m pre-pub stressed. Alisa Kennedy Jones and I jumped on a zoom last night and I said, “I’m apologising in advance for how annoying I’m going to be between now and book launch.” She’s busting a gut to get everything happening at the right time and in the right order and I’m trying really hard to trust in god and tie up my camel. Tying up my camel, I’m good at. Trusting in...

So he’s been arrested. I might have been the last person in the UK to hear this, my day being spent well away from ticker-tape streaming breaking news and anything resembling The State of Things bar the small and flighty references made by me and P as we walked in the woods, marvelling at moss. I’ll start at the beginning. It’s reading week and the farm has been peopled by a herd of Yoot, friends...

Thank you Angie Browne , Billy Bumbo , Lindsey Trout Hughes , Isabel Peralta , Kristin Austin , and many others for tuning into my live video with London Writers' Salon ! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

On the tube yesterday it struck me, this splintering of reality, so many versions, one for every passenger moving along the platform. It wasn’t always that our politics divided us, there have been eras when a shared reality went all the way up the tree and only at the very edges did one person say the world is flat while another said it was round. Mostly we shared a lens. Mostly we saw things, in...

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

Increasingly, there is poetry. From Andrea Gibson ‘s every time i ever said i want to die , to Sherman Alexie ‘s Black Box . Yesterday I met with the man who chose a phone call while 4,000 miles distant as an apt way to end an eight year relationship. We hadn’t spoken since that moment. I needed time to calibrate. Our relationship had been so fuelled by rage and passion, such complicated and huge...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

I’m tired. It’s been a lot. It’s only January. And then I speak to my friends in the states and the grief and rage comes in pins through their faces on the screen and pierces me too. It’s only January. Yesterday Jojo came for lunch and we laughed about stupid funny things and she told me some tragedies and we shared vegetable soup and sausages and lemon drizzle cake and walked in the easy cooling...

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

Be a winner! Pre order Geraint Anderson ‘s latest book, How To Con Friends And Manipulate People This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe