THE BOOKWORMERY
This week’s Substack
The four books I read this week were If Books Could Kill, Dissection of a Murder, The Sisterhood of Invisible Murderers and One of Us Is Guilty, which is about a murder. You could almost begin to spot a theme.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that my son is (supposed to be) revising for a battery of tests that are coming after half term (more on that, and the frothing madness induced by the fact that this genuinely seems to require not looking at a single physical book at all). I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I am still largely living with my mother in London as she recovers from injury and that I do not do at all well with my mother being in any way vulnerable. We were not brought up to believe this was possible. It is deeply unsettling. You should think of me, essentially, as a duckling imprinted with (on? By?) the Terminator – T1000 model, not that shonky original – to understand the full extent of my discombobulation. And I’m sure it has nothing to do with - *gestures widely at a world ruled by madmen, paedophiles and billionaires, none of them mutually exclusive categories* - anything else. Just the mood I’m in, I guess. We can blame the menopause, I suppose. I mean, I’m sure that’s not helping.
Anyway, good for books, offering the relief of any antisocial impulses I may be harbouring through the non-criminal means of printed words and alternative worlds and enabling me to contact you from my study rather than a holding cell. It could, currently, be so different.
Below the paywall are some thoughts I’ve been having about the Guardian’s 100 Best Books List and why I didn’t contribute to it (and yes, in case you were looking to the obvious answer, I was - as writer and reader in relatively good standing over there – asked to), some other thoughts about what I am going to call The Yesteryear Discourse, because this is my newsletter and no one can stop me, plus of course recommendations, new purchases, little things that have delighted me, the stationery hill I will die on, and a working through of some gardening trauma that may yet see me having to turn to macrame, needlepoint or Class B drugs to see me through retirement, instead of becoming a green-fingered guru raising endless bounty from the loamy soil as planned.
If any of that appeals to you at all, please do subscribe! If you’re not sure, then just follow along for a bit or have a nose round previous posts (or what I write for The Guardian) and see if you like my writing and/or The Bookwormery’s…look, I’m going to say ‘vibe’, even though I’ve already used ‘discourse.’ I’m sorry. It’s clearly been a more difficult week than I thought. But reading, and writing about books for you always help - so onward and upward! And I hope that if you’ve been having a crap week too, it might give you a bit of fun as well.
Love,
Lucy
A date for your diary - I’m doing an event at the Penzance Literary Festival on Thursday July 9th – do come! Tickets here Lucy Mangan at Penzance LitFest 2026: BOOKISH: A LOVE LETTER TO READING, LUCY MANGAN IN CONVERSATION WITH LIN ROGERS
