Staff picks for the month of August at The London Magazine! Here’s what we’ve been reading recently:

 

Steven O’Brien – Editor 

The Music of Chance – Paul Auster

A frustratingly annoying, yet brilliant story.

 

 

 

 

Lucy Binnersley – Assistant Editor

My Year of Rest and Relaxation – Ottessa Moshfegh

An arresting and original read with the premise of a 24-year-old woman deciding to take a daily – indeed, hourly – cocktail of psychopharmaceuticals culminating in her essentially sleeping, and sometimes sleepwalking, through an entire year. This is a novel of enormous and yet very ordinary human sadness.

 

 

 

Robert Greer – Marketing & Research Executive

Liberating the Canon – An Anthology of Innovative Literature

I couldn’t recommend this more for anybody even remotely interested in forward-thinking contemporary literature. Featuring amazing writers such as Joanna Walsh, Eley Williams and Isabel Waidner, Liberating the Canon is a genuinely diverse and brilliantly entertaining collection from the excellent and prolific publishers Dostoyevsky Wannabe.

 

 

 

 

Lucy Morris – Temporary Subscriptions Executive

Confessions of a Single Mum – Amy Nickell

Confessions of a Single Mum is great, a witty and honest memoir that celebrates single parenthood.

 

 

 

 

 

Laila Obeidat – Editorial Intern

Tenir Tête Aux Dieux – Mahmoud Hussein

My pick is Tenir Tête Aux Dieux, a short novel telling the story of a student’s incarceration under Nasser’s regime in the late 1950s. It’s a captivating tale that follows the rebellious young man’s thoughts during his time in prison, going from childhood memories, the the woman he is in love with and his thirst for knowledge and freedom.