The Better Half does much of the work online – so I don’t have to. Wired up to Twitter, bookmarked to the max and frantically paperchasing his way through the library of the net, he’s constantly editing out the bad in the virtual world. He’s a kind of literary-political Kevin Flynn from Tron.
His latest, lovely discovery is Elif Batuman. Her 2010 US bestseller The Possessed is a personal and intellectual exploration of Russian literature. It should, therefore, be right up my street and appears now in a handsome UK edition, published by the always imaginative book wing of Granta. Batuman has a witty piece in the Guardian on how life changes – and stays the same – after a bestseller, including an amusing fangirl anecdote about an encounter with Jonathan Franzen. She also has this great blog, fizzing with sparkle, smart and irreverence.
Kathryn Gray 