I'd say it was a lonely childhood driving him to some kind of consolation in a loving God, except his version of God is pretty heavy on the smiting and prejudice.

These are short stories rather than a novel, but I'm sure they'll be (grimly) worth your time. I loved McGlue (was less sold on Eileen for reasons of the ending of it) but Moshfegh knows her way around a sentence.

Agreed! That one is so good - unexpected twists and Dennis's increasing upset rage. Perfect. Though not as an intro, I suppose.

I tried to narrow down a list of essential episodes for a friend who wanted to get into it - I had a list of 50. So now we're watching the whole thing straight through (we watched the Christmas special before Christmas though, obviously). There are just too many greats.

I've just started Joanna Walsh's Vertigo, a short story collection that's full of knives gleaming under a flat affect. Planning to read To Be Continued by James Robertson a little later in the month - it's a comic novel with a talking toad, and apparently really good.

You know, you make a good point. It is a pretty complex thing - hard to know what he knew. And I'm not saying the Grapes of Wrath isn't a well-written book. My heart's just always going to be with the perceived underdog. Who knows though.

I think the thing is, it doesn't really matter if he did different things, it was her research, not his. He took those notes and basically pipped her to the post, ruining the worth of what she had done and taking it for himself.

Do it! Short and sweet.

No! I believe I've heard her name though. Something to check out, probably next year as my shelf is packed right now (book subscription things are good if you can read them fast enough…)

I decided to try and read more dead Scottish women writers, since they tend to get left out of discussions of best Scottish writers in general. Accordingly I read:

I'm still mad that Steinbeck basically stole notes from Sanora Babb to be able to write the novel - and gave no credit: http://broadstreetonline.or…

Oh! One to check out then.

Immediately after finishing Fleabag I embarked on a marathon of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (which I'd never seen before) and it's been so interesting trying to compare the two edgy comedy styles and the cultural differences that separate them.

Fleabag is great (particular highlight for me being the retreat episode) but just to make clear there is a lot of awkward humping in that show. It's terribly English in that respect.

Here's a fun database of world English-speaking accents .They're given a script and then talk a bit about their backgrounds, and there's some analysis by an expert underneath.

Johnny Depp's accent in Finding Neverland sounded gently posh Edinburgh to me, while JM Barrie was from Kirriemuir (I've no real idea how the historical accent of Kirriemuir sounded). It's a good one though for what it is.

Not helpful if they are bronze age Chinese or Welsh though.

I spent most of the day in bed ill yesterday reading The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson, her memoir of gender and motherhood and living with her trans partner. It's really great - little snippets of smartness with a lot of feeling threaded through, on a topic I don't know much at all about.

If Elsie comes back knowing how to properly swear instead of sounding like an awkward tween trying it out for the first time - that's when we'll know she's been replaced.

I find it kind of eerie - by any logic, William is totally off the deep end. 'my real life is so fake! my fling with a robot with dubious flikerings of consciousness (to him at least) is so real! I love you darling!'