WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE by @jennymustard.bsky.social was chosen as a @nytimes.com editor's choice pick for the week! Check it out:

"A nuanced look at the uneven playing fields of friendship and love." @nytimes.com reviewed WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE by @jennymustard.bsky.social! 🔥

Thank you @irishtimes.com & Doreen Finn! @sceptrebooks.bsky.social

New York! Come celebrate the US launch of What A Time To Be Alive with me and the one and only @katiekitamura.bsky.social Tickets: www.strandbooks.com/event11225-2... @strandbookstore.bsky.social

New podcast episode – with my brilliant friend & novelist extraordinaire @caoilinnhughes.bsky.social We discuss our new novels, voice-driven literature & the forever thorny subject of unlikeable female characters Find iton all major podcast apps or here: open.spotify.com/episode/3BLI...

Chairing the launch of @elainefeeney.bsky.social ’s spectacular new novel Let Me Go Mad In My Own Way, I talked to so many intelligent people I felt my brain swell by osmosis. Thank you @foylesforbooks.bsky.social for having us!

Tomorrow! I’m interviewing the formidable @elainefeeney.bsky.social ! Tickets: www.foyles.co.uk/events/elain... @foylesforbooks.bsky.social @sceptrebooks.bsky.social

For Stylist, I wrote about female friendships on the verge of romance: www.stylist.co.uk/relationship... @sceptrebooks.bsky.social

This week in the column, I rattle on a lot about theatre and art, hoping my editor would let me get way with it. He did. Recent reading includes new novels from Seán Hewitt and @jennymustard.bsky.social and the most recent series of essays from Ta-Nehisi Coates. In Saturday's @independent.ie or:

Day 4 of my 7-day birthday extravaganza: Ridiculously long brunch, crossword puzzles, two pots of Earl Grey, Swedish '40s music

Tomorrow! Nice weather, good company, a glass of wine why not Tickets: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/its-hardba... @sceptrebooks.bsky.social

Thrilled to be a guest on one of my favourite podcasts: Monocle Radio’s MEET THE WRITERS with the wonderful @georginagodwin.bsky.social Listen to the episode: open.spotify.com/episode/0522... @sceptrebooks.bsky.social

Tonight! Foyles Charing Cross Road! www.foyles.co.uk/events/jenny... @foylesforbooks.bsky.social @sceptrebooks.bsky.social

One of the best things I've read this year. Loved it!

I loved this. Funny and real and interesting.

It’s my publication day! What a time to be alive, indeed @sceptrebooks.bsky.social

This is one of the best things I have read this year. @jennymustard.bsky.social's novel of a young woman's early student life in Stockholm as she desperately wants to escape unhappy years of bullying in a small town and find meaningful relationships is exquisitely observed. Loved it. #BookSky

May 1st! With wonderful It’s Hardback Out There at favourite bookshop Libreria Tickets: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/its-hardba...

For the Evening Standard, I wrote about Stockholm: www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/tr... @thelondonstandard.bsky.social

Join me and Dakota Warren at Foyles Charing Cross! Tickets: www.foyles.co.uk/events/jenny... @foylesforbooks.bsky.social

Life, eh? variety.com/2025/film/gl...

foyles charing cross! april 28th! hope to see you: www.foyles.co.uk/events/jenny... @foylesforbooks.bsky.social @sceptrebooks.bsky.social

it hasn’t happened until it’s on publishers marketplace because yes! overjoyed to share that WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE will be published in the US by Pegasus this october! heartfelt thanks to Pegasus, & to my smashing agent Peter Straus at RCW

i loved maggie nelson’s new book (to no one’s surprise). written with more or less perfect emotional pitch: melancholia balanced with humour, grief and pain tempered by joy. full of warmth, wisdom, and weirdness.

pics from Sceptre Salon! we heard from the wildly talented authors on their 2025 list, including superstars below: @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social, @jennymustard.bsky.social, @gabrielflynn.bsky.social, @arifa.bsky.social, @elfodongo.bsky.social & @jennashworth.bsky.social @sceptrebooks.bsky.social

taking a severely needed breather. see you on monday: 4 days, 3 romcoms, 1 french musical, 3 novels, 14 coupes of champagne, and my own weight in popcorn from now.

the wonderful @caoilinnhughes.bsky.social ‘s THE ALTERNATIVES is out in paperback today a truly unique and exciting novel @oneworldbooks.bsky.social

My January favorites x

Really loved WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE, the forthcoming (second) novel by @jennymustard.bsky.social, how unexpected it is, how subtle, yet open and direct, its beautiful relationship to light and darkness, closeness and distance, gentleness and violence, in interior and exterior ways both.

I loved/bonded with What A Time To Be Alive by @jennymustard.bsky.social A young woman from southern Sweden searching for herself in love, in friendship and, most of all, in the micro-awareness of one's own endlessly dissectible nature. Heartfelt in all sorts of surprising ways. Romantic too.

current (wonderful) company

this is supposed to be my high priority stack. i look away a second and it somehow swells.

This morning I'm enjoying What A Time To Be Alive by Jenny Mustard. A student from southern Sweden finding her way at college in Stockholm. Love the point of view – a half beat before, to the side of or after the action, hitting the bullseye of deadpan. It mentions cinnamon rolls, so naturally ...

when visiting 15 bookshops on tuesday, in a remarkable show of self-discipline, i came home with only these. starting the levy tonight, a glass of wine, an empty flat, blueberries. i’ve read 1 of her novels before, but the memoirs are a whole other species of text, no? @picadorbooks.bsky.social

yesterday’s results: 15 bookshops 15 proofs of WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE 1 david 30 bags of horrible swedish sweets (warning labelled) 1 tofu rice salad 4 buses 2 cups of black coffee 1 cup of black tea 476 layers of clothing countless charming & intelligent booksellers @sceptrebooks.bsky.social

just finished the dystopian coming-of-age THE MORNINGSIDE by @teaobreht.bsky.social – a thrilling, magical, beautifully written novel. i flew through it, but expect it will stay will me for a long time. thank you @letticefranklin.bsky.social & @wnbooks.bsky.social

It's blue Monday so i decided to make toast at 10.20 like a true decadent & then this exciting book post arrived, thus affirming my choice of decadence & all future choices of decadence for 2025 ✨️ @bansheepress.bsky.social @clairek12.bsky.social @jennymustard.bsky.social @sceptrebooks.bsky.social

quite the enticing delivery today. might just simultaneously read all three because frankly i don’t know where to start. thank you peninsula press, you have done it again. @therakha.net

bookcase reorganisation, before & after (took 2 blue ikea bags to the charity shop) before you come for me: i know in which stack every single book is. i can find them in 2 secs flat. also have 100 or so other books milling around the flat, and those are sometimes a bit harder to locate.

awfully inviting

fiction to look forward to according to the one and only @rickoshea.bsky.social in the @irishindependent.bsky.social

thank you to @sweetoblivion.bsky.social and @thejournal.ie for looking out for WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE

today’s itinerary:

happy holidays, rest up now and eat a lot.

okay my at home writing retreat (finished yesterday): 7 days 6 writing sessions, 1 reading session 11,623 words i'm a bit like a dog with a bone when it comes to writing so what i want is to keep going. but taking a break today. then 4 more days of writing before christmas.

very exciting mail today! i love megan hunter’s work and am beyond eager to read her new novel – pitched as mothering sunday meets the hours which frankly is quite the knockout pitch, no? out in april thank you @picadorbooks.bsky.social

fifth and final day of my writing retreat, because tonight, blessedly, david is coming home. i don't really care about anything else today, so will sit and write at my leasure, for my pleasure.

at home writing retreat | DAY 4: re-emerging from my room of one’s own 2,136 words and 2,136 braincells lighter. now, i feel like eating a lot. taking a walk. maybe watching some reality tv.

day four of my writing retreat. still very far from cabin fever i have to say. enjoying life here in my bubble. kind of wish i could go one more week? (with david here though, i’m over being home alone.) it’s good for my brain to monotask. i wish i got to do it more often.

at home writing retreat | day 2 i have my sencha matcha blend i have my "today's special" spotify playlist i have my gold spinning thing raising morale little bit tired, but drank only 1.5 glasses of wine at last night’s RCW christmas party so should be okay