New Blog Posts!

Hallo old friends! I just wanted to alert your attention to the fact that, whilst The Middlebrow Reader remains (alas) defunct, I can still be found posting irregular book recommendations over on my website, fayekeegan.co.uk. You can check out my most recent one, on Cult Classics, and What One Even Is, here! To be notified…

‘History of Wolves’ by Emily Fridlund

I’ve been surprised at the reaction on social media since History of Wolves was shortlisted for the Booker prize. Of course, many people often feel dissatisfied and frustrated with the decisions made by the judging panels of literary awards, but it does strike me that this year is particularly contentious, with many singling-out History of…

‘This Must Be the Place’ by Maggie O’Farrell

I have long championed Maggie O'Farrell. I truly believe she is one of our most brilliant yet least celebrated living authors; I find it incomprehensible, for example, that she has never been long-listed (let alone shortlisted) for the Booker Prize. I am certain that, like many female authors, O’Farrell suffers as a result of misogyny. Her…

‘My Cousin Rachel’ by Daphne du Maurier

‘For further development of the Rebecca type, this time narrated by a man’ writes Daphne du Maurier in reply to one of her many fan letters, ‘try and get a copy of My Cousin Rachel […] I got a lot out of my system when I wrote this, but what exactly I don’t know!’. Du…

‘The Roanoke Girls’ by Amy Engel

When Lane learns that her cousin Allegra is missing, she is forced to return to her family home at Roanoke. As a result, she reflects on the first and last time she came to Roanoke, one eventful summer, twenty years ago. The Roanoke Girls is a trashy novel. And when I say that, please bear…

‘The Town in Bloom’ by Dodie Smith

The Town in Bloom opens with a chase scene: when Molly, Lilian, and the ironically named Mouse spot their old but estranged friend Zelle, Mouse is determined to track her down. She races round London in her pursuit, eventually finding her in a ‘rather shabby’ tenement flat. The encounter prompts Mouse to reflect on the…

Well, Its Been a While…

Hello lovely readers! As you may or may not have noticed, I have been on something of a blogging hiatus lately - in fact, its been about three months since my last post. During that time I've been up to all sorts of nonsense, including getting engaged, getting a new job, and almost (but not…

‘The Midwich Cuckoos’ by John Wyndham

Nothing ever happens in Midwich. The sleepy country village is the epitome of English ordinariness, so when residents Richard and Janet Gayford are prevented by police from returning after a weekend away, they are understandably eager to discover the cause of these highly unusual circumstances. It transpires that, Sleeping Beauty-like, the whole town has fallen…

‘Girl Meets Boy’ by Ali Smith

‘Let me tell you about when I was a girl, my grandfather says’. Girls meets Boy had me hooked from the first line. An imaginative re-version of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, it follows two sisters as they grapple with life, love, and finding a place to exist in the modern world. This book is joyful, funny, poetic,…

‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Bronte

Mr Lockwood has rented a house on the Yorkshire moors. When he pays a visit to his landlord – a Mr Heathcliff – he is bemused by the man’s unusual household, comprised of his beautiful but beleaguered daughter-in-law, her rough and seemingly illiterate cousin, and an elderly and religiously fanatical servant. When Lockwood is forced…