Mia Levitin

London

Cultural and Literary Critic at Freelance

Lit critic at large 🧐 Author of The Future of Seduction: https://t.co/E8cbw5ArNN

Articles

On the Calculation of Volume I, II by Solvej Balle

2 weeks ago | the-tls.co.uk | Mia Levitin

Welcome to the TLSWinner of the 2024 Niche Market Newspaper of the Year Award and proudly niche since 1902.
How to End a Story: Collected Diaries by Helen Garner review – ‘small, random stabs of extreme interestingness’ captured on the page

3 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Mia Levitin

How to End a Story: Collected Diaries Author: Helen Garner ISBN-13: 978-1399606745Publisher: W&N Guideline Price: £20When the octogenarian author Helen Garner published her 1977 debut, Monkey Grip, about a single mother in love with a drug addict, some critics dismissed the novel for “only” lifting from her diaries.
Novelist Natasha Brown: there’s ‘debate about what’s universal and what’s niche’

1 month ago | ft.com | Mia Levitin

Vivified by a photoshoot on her publisher’s rooftop terrace, with its views of the City of London to the east and a stone’s throw from...
The Boy from the Sea — myths and masculinity on Ireland’s west coast

2 months ago | ft.com | Mia Levitin

Garrett Carr’s first novel for adults is set in his hometown in County Donegal, on the Atlantic coast of Ireland.
This tale of young love and abusive parents is a modern masterpiece

Jan 16, 2025 | telegraph.co.uk | Mia Levitin

Never judge a book by its dedication. I feared the worst when I opened The Edges and saw it was “for Twinkles”; by the time I’d finished the first page, however, any qualms were allayed. The Edges is the debut work of fiction of the Flemish author Angelo Tijssens, translated from the Dutch by Michele Hutchison. It sees an unnamed narrator return to his hometown to settle his mother’s affairs after her death.
Building a world through playful free association

Jan 8, 2025 | the-tls.co.uk | Heather White |Susie Mesure |Mia Levitin |Richard Lea

Lynne Tillman’s American Genius, a Comedy follows a woman over the course of a day during her stay in an artist’s retreat. The woman doesn’t use the term “artist’s retreat”, but she does call the people who are there with her “residents” or “fellows”. Each of them arrives and leaves at personally determined intervals; each issues elaborate dietary instructions to the beleaguered kitchen staff; and each, it transpires over time, practises a different arcane art.
Bad vibrations: Lazarus Man, by Richard Price, reviewed

Jan 8, 2025 | spectator.co.uk | Mia Levitin

Text size Small Medium Large Line Spacing Compact Normal Spacious Comments Richard Price’s tenth novel follows four characters in the wake of a tenement building collapse in Harlem that kills six people and leaves others missing. Detective Mary Roe is on a mission to find a missing resident whose wife was among the dead. Royal Davis is a funeral home director hoping to drum up much-needed business from the tragedy, going so far as to dispatch his young son to hand out business cards at the...
Bad vibrations: Lazarus Man, by Richard Price, reviewed

Jan 7, 2025 | spectator.com.au | Mia Levitin

Lazarus Man Corsair, pp.252, 20 Richard Price’s tenth novel follows four characters in the wake of a tenement building collapse in Harlem that kills six people and leaves others missing. Detective Mary Roe is on a mission to find a missing resident whose wife was among the dead. Royal Davis is a funeral home director hoping to drum up much-needed business from the tragedy, going so far as to dispatch his young son to hand out business cards at the site.
Social media, brain rot and the slow death of reading

Dec 27, 2024 | ft.com | Mia Levitin

My job as a book critic used to elicit envy at cocktail parties, with people fantasising about a life spent reading.
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Dec 27, 2024 | ft.com | Mia Levitin

The dopamine hit of smartphone scrolling makes reading a book feel more effortful — but the rewards are worth the extra effort