Book after Book

Having recently been part of the audience at a literary event she took part in, I knew when I saw Viv Groskop ’s name that this episode was going to be hilarious. Needless to say that I was right! Even if you couldn’t care less about books, you’d still enjoy this episode of Book Off! purely based on the entertainment value of the banter between the two writers. The bubbly writer and comedian spoke about her new book - The Anna Karenina Fix - that she describes as a combination of memoir, literary criticism and self-help manual. The other guest of this episode was John Niven , whose latest book is No Good Deed . After listening to the anecdote that was the origin of the idea behindthe book , I just had to pause the audio and go straight to Amazon to add it to my wish list. How school dynamics keep replaying themselves into adulthood is a topic I find super interesting. I haven’t been to a school reunion in at least 15 years and I don’t plan on making that mistake again. Living ab...

On International Women’s Day 2018 I was lucky enough to be invited to attend a literary event held at the art-filled Kings Place in London during Jewish Book Week . Chaired by Alex Clark , Bibliotherapy saw Viv Groskop and Laura Freeman engage in light-hearted but also meaningful conversation about books and the role that we, as readers, expect them to fulfil. Viv Groskop – writer and comedian – talked about her new book, The Anna Karenina Fix , and read an excerpt from it that had many people in the room discreetly giggling. With a foreign-sounding last name and no Internet to use for her research as a child in the 70s, she decided at a young age that she was Russian and she proceeded to find out about ‘her people’ by exploring the Russian classics! Her book charts the life lessons that she has learnt in this process and I thank the Internet for not having come too soon or this book wouldn’t have been written! Laura Freeman – writer and art critic – is the author of T...