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4 days ago | 
natashap.substack.com | Natasha Poliszczuk
I am asked this at least once a week and it’s one of those ‘how long is a piece of string’ style questions. See also: what’s the best book you’ve read recently? In answer to which I always, always, without fail….go completely blank. I met Cesca Major (who was lovely) at a book launch last Wednesday, and she asked me this and I gaped like a particularly clueless goldfish. I must start keeping a list on my phone which I can whip out on such occasions.
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1 week ago | 
natashap.substack.com | Natasha Poliszczuk
I knew I was going to love Consider Yourself Kissed from the very first moment I heard about it. And I read it with unfettered joy. Twice. It has everything I want in a romantic comedy: brains, wit, spark, a pitch-perfect meet-cute, a real love story, not a flimsy facsimile.
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1 week ago | 
natashap.substack.com | Natasha Poliszczuk
It’s May. Jilly Cooper fans will know what this means. Everyone else: wisteria hysteria is here! Obviously is your go-to woman - apparently this is a very good year for it.
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2 weeks ago | 
natashap.substack.com | Natasha Poliszczuk
Hello friends! A midweek post from me - whatever next? But it’s the first of May, the weather feels like July, and there are some cracking books published this month: The Names, Consider Yourself Kissed, One Golden Summer, When the Cranes Fly South, Dream State, Cat Fight… Truly, we are spoiled rotten. What better reason for a bonus book post?
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3 weeks ago | 
natashap.substack.com | Natasha Poliszczuk
Girl meets boy. Girl is charming, chatty, optimistic, and determined. Boy is the clever, brooding, aloof type, but with a deep undertow of wit and kindness. The two are pitted against each other and the sparks are incendiary. Nope. Not Pride and Prejudice. The new Emily Henry: Great Big Beautiful Life. Henry’s fifth book in five years, which was published this week. Her fifth bestseller in five years.
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4 weeks ago | 
natashap.substack.com | Natasha Poliszczuk |Emma Gannon
What have you been reading lately? Anything I should add to my list? And how did you decide what to pick up. I ask because I’ve been reading in a very piecemeal fashion over the last couple of weeks. There’s been no system to what I’ve picked up - not even a whim has dictated. I’ve simply reached mindlessly for the next book on the towering piles that surround my desk and bedside table.
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1 month ago | 
natashap.substack.com | Natasha Poliszczuk
Spring has blown in! Tubs of tulips (or I would have had I planted mine sooner), coffee in the garden, brisk river walks, laundry blowing on the washing line, blossom against blue skies. Bliss. In this fulsome spirit, I have an abundance of links and thoughts to share: they are wide-ranging, generally enthusiastic - and long, so you might have to click through to read it online or in the app.
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1 month ago | 
natashap.substack.com | Natasha Poliszczuk
This post is a reflective one on motherhood - with a cheery look at some of my favourite mothers in fiction. (Controversially, Marmee March does not feature. Discuss.) With love to all mothers, and all those who mother - in whatever form that might take. Particular love to those for whom today is difficult or marked by sorrow, loss, or separation: days (and posts) like these can be difficult and you must of course protect your heart as necessary.
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2 months ago | 
natashap.substack.com | Natasha Poliszczuk
Sounds like a very drunken dinner party, right? But is in fact a chat with the entirely excellent Elizabeth Harris, who whom I am very taken because she is ferociously smart, witty, and wise about life, relationships and the complexity of being a forty-something woman. We’re not talking about her life, incidentally (I’m not that nosy), but her novel, How to Sleep at Night.
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Feb 2, 2025 | 
natashap.substack.com | Natasha Poliszczuk |Anna James |Jessica Fellowes |Amy Abrahams
January - the month of approximately 146 days - is done. Over. Finally. As much as I might have liked to spend it hunkering down with a book (isn’t this illustration by Lore Pemberton your idea of absolute bliss? Perhaps minus the cat in my case (allergies not anathema), life and work does tend to intervene. But it is Sunday, so avail yourself of a hot cup of something and settle down for a bumper post of links and recommendations and general goodness.
