#11 Culture Fix

La Rentrée Special Edition - Part 1 | Books and Substack recommendations

The Culture Fix is the place where I share the books, films, music, articles, interviews, plays, exhibitions, places, and even food, I’ve enjoyed recently.

Recommendations may refer to content in either English, Spanish, French or Italian and sometimes not available in English. But since this is a publication called Abroad written by a multilingual foreigner in London, and hopefully appealing to those curious to explore beyond their own borders, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

“Alright, alright, alright,” the Culture Fix is back.

In the last installment I already discussed the challenges of juggling an inner life to cultivate one’s interests and passions with the actual writing about them every couple of weeks. If you need to work to fund your subscription to life, forget about getting much else done. I don’t know about you, but as an introvert my creativity drains quicker than an iPhone 6s’s battery when work requires my focus and takes it away from the things that fill my heart with joy. Especially when it’s not meant to.

What happened to good manners and the values I grew up with? Have people lost all respect?

It may be the Spaniard in me but come the end of June and I’ve already mentally checked out until 15th September. The only thing you can reasonably expect me to do in the summer months is to mark emails as read and decline social gatherings as I sip coffees or spritzs (depending on time of the day) under the blazing sun with a book in hand. Demanding anything else from my side is not only rude, but also delusional on your part.

Come mid-July I wished everyone took a leaf from my French clients who, by the time I send them an email with information they have asked for 30 minutes ago marking it as ‘très urgent’ have already set up an out of the office message to let the world know you’re on your own until September. Bonne chance.

Say whatever you want about the French -that they may get a kick out of being on strike tout le temps, that Parisians think the rest of France c’est la mort, that the rest of France think les Parigots sont chiants, that all French are rude to tourists, or that they’re actually très benevolent considering how Emily in Paris butchers their culture season after season- at the end of the day they are our last beacon of hope for a better world and we must protect them at all costs.

People who unashadmely tell you, “Écoute, I’m going to vanish for two months during which you won’t be able to make any progress on that thing we’re working on, mais when I’m back I’ll ask pourquoi we’re still where we were back in July,” deserve all my admiration and respect. If nothing else because this is their way of paying homage to my home country. In fact, I am convinced that the French would secretly like to be Spanish, except that to be truly like us they should start taking their summer holiday earlier and come back later. Without saying a word to anyone. Just vanish for three months. Hasta luego.

Anyway, my resentment about how work has ruined summer, if by that we understand the period from June to September where perpetual gloominess reigns over British soil (also known as brummer, a term coined by the Californian husband of a colleague and which I’m embracing wholeheartedly) is a thing of the past. Much like the debate about the New York Times best books of the XXI century list or the collective obsession with the Paris 2024 Olympics and its unexpected stars, from unique broke dancers, honest equestrians, record-breaking pole vaulters that resemble not one but three different celebrities, and of course no-frills shooters.

So after shaking off the torpor of brummer, my inner Steve Nedoroscik has been activated and I’m now ready to pommel the horse out of this Culture Fix to mark the beginning of la rentrée (which is French for “Back from holidays, where’s the info I asked for in July, alors? I don’t understand what you’ve been doing all this time, franchement”) and saturate your inbox with the films, music, and books that I’ve been gushing about over the past few weeks to distract myself from the fact that, unlike my admired French, moi franchement, I have been working.

And worry not. This cultural tsunami will arrive in three separate instalments throughout September so that you can if not swim at least float in it instead of drowning.

This first edition will cover Substack recommendations and books, the second will focus on films/series, and the third on music. There are a few podcas recommendations that I’ll add to each based on whether they discuss books/films/music. That way everything gets proper attention and you get a break in between. Like the lazy French bastard you probably are.

Alors, c’est parti, les gars!

Before I share some of the Substacks I’ve been enjoying recently, let me blow my own trump for a minute.

While I haven’t published the Culture Fix in two months, I’ve been busy writing about the week I spent in Oxford watching iPlayer, the theatre adaptation of The Years by Annie Ernaux, the future of culture and human curiosity in the age of AI, travelling home for sun therapy (and hopefully marriage to Glen Powell), and the music that makes us, whether we listen to it willingly or not. And let me tell you something, I’ve had lots of fun doing so.

One of my biggests fears when starting to share my writing and letting my true voice be heard was that people could take verbatim what for me is an exploration of creative writing and consider those were my actual thoughts, especially when I give free rein to my natural sarcasm and contempt as tools to explore the absurdities of life. But the moment I let go of that reserve, the ideas started coming on their own and I had lots of fun putting them into words. Yes, I’m that kind of person that laughs at her own jokes and I’m proud of it.

Therefore, I shouldn’t be surprised that these lovely comments have started coming when I’ve finally given myself permision to write freely, as if no one who knows me in real life (or online) was reading. It means the world to me when people tell me how much fun they have reading my outrageous thoughts.

One of these comments came from a colleague who told me she didn’t know about John Ruskin and his phobia of pubic hair and was fascinated by the finding. She then clarified she also enjoyed reading the rest of the post and my thoughts on AI, but that having a dirty mind, that’s what stuck with her. I reassured her quickly. What on earth would I have gone for that specific reference if I didn’t have a dirty mind myself?

All this preamble to say that sometimes people may not leave you a comment on your Substack or rush to become a founding member to sustain you and your writing until eternity and beyond, and then you start questioning your writing. Wrong. Don’t do that. More often than not, people are busy obsessing about why no one leaves comments or subscribes en masse to their own Substack, or afraid to let you know they can match your freak without blinking. Being seen goes both ways.

On that thought, here are some Substacks that manage to put a smile on my face for different reasons. There are many substacks (perhaps too many) I enjoy reading regularly and I’m not necessarily subscribed to all of them for my own sanity (I’ve decided to cap it at 50), but since some of them have a steady and healthy following that keeps growing, these are some smaller ones that I would like to share here:

Substacks for all tastes (well, maybe only mine, but whatever)

— Shades of Greaves by

Carlos Greaves

One cannot talk about the tribulations of the modern comic writer without referencing Carlos Greaves.

Especially when he finds himself adding disclaimer after disclaimer in his Substack whether he writes about how not publishing a word ever again on Substack is going to make you a global author, or that spending 14 hours a day on Notes is refreshing after having been a slave to social media for years. Not to mention his killing growth strategy. And yet he is patient (I imagine him to be a benevolent and magnanimous person) when people in the comments suggest that he should clarify he’s writing humour and being sarcastic to avoid any confusion.

Which to me is the same as if someone told me, “You should consider leaving the house with a sign that says you’re a human just in case someone confuses you with a chair.” Wouldn’t that defy the purpose of my humanity somehow? Anyway, he’ll put a smile on your face, and if he doesn’t, please don’t be that person that comments, “Just wondering if you’re joking here.” He probably is (eye rolling emoji coming when???)

— My Gay Rom-Com by

Howl Darcy

Oh to be young and single… what a fucking nightmare!

But luckily, thanks to the failed dates of Howl Darcy I don’t have to experience the awkardness of meeting strangers anymore and I can instead feel the cringeness vicariously through him. I’m aware this may not be the best way to sell his Substack to you, so let me rephrase this. I thoroughly enjoy reading about how a hopeful romantic has his faith in love challenged by the string of unsuitable men he goes on dates with.

Selfishly I don’t want him to find love because then it’s game over, but morally I would feel bad, so in order to avoid my own discomfort I hope his quest for love pays off. Just not yet.

— Fictional Therapy by

Emma Hemingford

An agony aunt that uses the classic works of literature to offer advice for your troubles? I’m sold.

Whether it’s an annoying neighbourgh that ignores the meaning of the word boundaries, sex-fueled trips at 60 or grand gestures of love that result in epic fails, Emma Hemingford has the right words of wisdom for you. I’m completely fascinated by her level-headeness, touches of humour, and empathy because my standard response to anyone would be, “Told you so,” and admitedly that offers little in terms of comforting someone in times of need, or lust.

Perphas Howl Darcy should ask Emma about what to do when the guy you saw a future with wants to have a threesome with you and his ex.

— What to Read If
Imagine that it’s summer and you feel like reading something that is fitting for the season, but you don’t know where to start. Well, look no further than What to Read If, a Substack about books for all occasions!

From the sales to summer picnics or getting ready to tie the knot, here you will find books that suit a wide range of emotional states and events with in-depth analysis and acompanied by lovely vintage pictures and postcards. In fact, What to Read If is literary aesthetic galore, and I’m hooked. The latest entry has made me discover Eric Ambler and head to the bookshop to acquire one of his novels, The Light of the Day because it sounds just right up my street. What’s not to love about spies in an exotic setting?

— Popped by

Gareth Bradwick

Because cinema has become a substantial part of my life in recent years, this is one of the first Substacks I subscribed to. Popped is a cinema lover’s delight as Gareth is a film enthusiast who shares his love for movies and the history of cinema, all while also uncovering the story behind some historical venues, like the Duke of York in Brighton. Besides learning the behind-the-scenes of classics like Rear Window or underrepresented acting pioneers like Ann May Wang, you can follow his cinema-related antics, which have led him to be the lucky possessor of no less than 576 DVDs for £30. The sadist in me wants him to watch them all before Christmas and publish detailed review of each because that has to be a great collection.

— Story Has It
Yara and Gillian are behind this Substack sharing the human stories behind movies, songs, art and books. They do great round-ups bringing to your attention hidden gems, such as a documentary on how three friends were inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark to recreate the film in real life, the true story behind The Holdovers, or how the original Twister movie influenced storm chasers back in the 90s. There are great podcasts and book recommendations as well, so definite worth checking out.

Books

Recent reads

— Beautiful World, Where Are You? by Sally Rooney
Can you really keep saying “I’m not a Sally Rooney fan” when you’ve read all her novels and are looking forward to Intermezzo? Guess not.

While I’m still appalled by the emotional platitute of her characters and their illogical choices (guess it’s a generational thing but maybe not really), there is something in Rooney’s latest novel that kept me glued to the page and perhaps has to do with the fact that this may be her more personal work yet as it reflects, through one of the main characters, on how becoming a successful writer can impact your life and relations.

Something that has helped me redimensioned the novel was reading

Elif Batuman

’s reflections on it as a writer, which is an excellent companion piece.

— Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan
At 640 pages, it is fair to say Caledonian Road is intense, ambitious, engrossing, contemporary and also underwhelming and overwhelming at the same time when it comes to the reality it aims to describe and depict on the page.

Andrew O’Hagan’s magnus opus, which has taken him a decade to write, is a scarily accurate portrait of modern British, and especifically London, society. Brexit, the pandemic, Black Lives Matter, the upper classes, the lower ones, self-appointed decent people, the establishment, and even the Russian oligarchs and native business moguls all get dissected and examined up closely by O’Hagan as he reflects, through his characters, on how we live today and the values that we think we are preserving and for whom.

This is a quintessential British novel, deeply rooted in London’s street geography with its eclectic mix of garden squares, council estates and private clubs and it’s such a joy to read a book that takes you on such an amazing journey through the city’s entangled communities and how they co-exist in precarious balance, each one impacting the other in many, not always subtle, ways.

The genius of O’Hagan as a writer lies in how he weaves a rich tapestry in which all strands that make up the fabric of a contemporary society come together with ease and scary accuracy. Many have used the word Dickensian to refer to the scope of Andrew O’Hagans latest novel. They are not wrong. The baddies are still bad, perhaps worse than they ever were in Dickens’ times, but the good guys are somewhat more difficult to identify in this portrait of modern British life.

Caledonian Road is indeed the literary love child of Serious Money by Caroline Knowles (highly recommended book to understand who owns London’s multibillion citizens and their impact on the city), the property section of the Evening Standard, the society pages of Harper’s Baazar and Brit(ish) by Afua Hirsch (another great book to understand the UK’s multicultural makeup and its discontents)

— Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
Romantic Comedy does what it says on the tin: It has romance and it has comedy and both are done brilliantly, which is incredibly satisfying if you’re a fan of good romantic comedy films and feel modern takes on the genre are somewhat “meh”.
An impulse buy as I found a copy at half-price led to one of the most entertaining and genuinely funny reads of this year.

The best way I can describe this book is by saying that if When Harry Met Sally and Notting Hill had produced a literary love child, it’d be Romantic Comedy. Which is to say that Curtis Sittenfeld combines the best of Nora Ephron and Richard Curtis in her writing and that’s why I couldn’t put the book down from the moment I started reading.

And when I did, I it was to watch Notting Hill for the tenth time and I marvelled at how good and hopeful in love a great romantic comedy makes you feel -and how fun it is to watch, or read- but how difficult it is to find the right formula. Which leads me on to add that I see great potential on Sittenfelds’ novel to be adapted to the screen with Glen Powell in it. He’d be fantastic. And as for the actress, well, if you read the novel you’ll understand why that can be a bit more challenging to get right in order to make the adaptation believable.

— Reina Roja trilogy (Red Queen, Black Wolf, White King) by Juan Gómez-Jurado
So here’s the thing: I’ve known of Juan Gómez-Jurado for a few years as I love the two podcasts he has with film director Rodrigo Cortés, comedian Javier Cansado and media royalty Arturo González-Campos, but I had never read his books because I feared they would be disappointing.

Thrillers in Spanish? No thanks, they’re usually too cliche-y and copy too many mechanism from the English speaking authors that don’t really resonate for Spanish readers. But what’s a girl gotta do when a £3 copy of the first volume of this trilogy appears at the charity shop? I embarked on it not expecting much and three weeks later I’ve finished the three novels, which average 500 pages on the paperback editions I have.

Are they good, you ask? Addictive is probably the word we’re going for here according to most reviews. And also very entertaining and with plenty of jokes I wasn’t expecting as Gómez-Jurado is often teased by his podcasts companions for his lack of sense of humour, which I’m starting to see was probably a smoke screen. This is actually a running joke that he appliesin the books to one of his characters.

As I often wonder how a book where the language it has been written in is fundamental for readers to get its nuances, English readers should not worry about missing out as Nicholas Caistor has done a great job of capturing the essence and humour of the first novel. I expect it’s the same in the other languages into which the novels have been translated into.

Books I’ve been recommending lately (and people came to tell me how much they enjoyed them)

— Civilisations by Laurent Binet
Laurent Binet is one of the most original writers today and I’m a big fan of his novels. Civilisations is a counterfactual account of the discovery of America where Binet turns the tables and puts Atahualpa, the last Inca Emperor, in the role of intrepid adventurer that lands in Europe.

In the fashion of Hernán Cortés, Atahualpa dismantles an empire (the Spanish one, in this case) and turns it upside down as he studies The Prince by Machiavelli and is confused by the endless religious wars European states wage against each other so he decides to grant freedom of cult to everyone.

Great fun to read if you love European history and very thought-provoking, like all Binet’s books.

— Elena Sabe by Claudia Piñeiro
Don’t be fooled by this slim novel for despite its 140 pages, be warned that Piñeiro doesn’t let you to warm up to her character. She hits you with a punch in the stomach from the first pages and will keep you gasping for air until the end.

Behind its apparently straight-foward premise - we’re following an old woman suffering from Parkinson on a day trip to visit someone she met 20 years ago in hope that they can help her to find out more about her daughter’s death- we unveil a level of complexity that touches on the deepest fears and hopes of human nature.

A fierce critic of Argentina’s laws against abortion, Piñeiro yuxtaposes in this novel the powerful narration to the slow actions of a woman weakened by Parkinson, who no longer feels at home in her body, only for us to discover she is not the only one to feel that way.

— Boy Parts by Eliza Clark
My technique of picking a book based on its aesthetics and title paid off big time with Boy Parts by Eliza Clark. One of the most mesmerising debuts I’ve read, Boy Parts made me an instant fan of Clark’s writing.

Some reviews have compared this novel and Irina, its protagonist, to Patrick Bale and American Psycho but it couldn’t be further from Brett Easton Ellis’ work. Yes, Irina is narcissitic, highly attractive, manipulative, unscrupulous, and self-destructive just as Bale is but that’s where the comparisons end between the characters and the books for Eliza Clark takes us down a very different, but equally sinister, road.

A young photographer from the North of England, Irina lives in London where she finds herself in a constant fight with the world around her and unsure of the role she plays in society both as a person and aspiring artists, as she can’t shake off the assumptions others make of her based on her accent, her looks, her art and her social background. Acting as the reader’s gaze, Irina is the lenses through which we read the people she interacts with. We join her in her voyeuristic and aggressive photographic sessions, as well as in the toxic power plays she draws people in, moving the strings as she pleases.

But is Irina a reliable narrator of her own life? You’ll have to read this novel and judge for yourself.

— In Love by Alfred Hayes
Another “I love that cover, let me take this book” bet that was hugely satisfying was My Face for the Wolrd to See by Alfred Hayes, which is the first instalment in Hayes’ trilogy (completed with The End of Me) about doomed love affairs and lost men and women as they graviate from parties to hotel bars in the not so glamourous Hollywood of the late 50s. A British looking fortune in Hollywood, where he worked as a scriptwriter, Hayes’ work could have been easily lost had it not been for the New York Review books, which has brought back his novels to the public.

I strongly recommend you read My Face for the World to See first as once you read In Love, the second volume of the trilogy and a thing of literary beauty, you won’t be able to be satisfied by the previous book. I won’t reveal anything about In Love because it’s one of those novels you need to walk into with as little information as possible.

So what’s Hayes like as a writer? Let’s say that if Francis Scott Fitzgerald and Richard Yates had had a child, they would have produced Alfred Hayes. If that’s not reason enough for you to read him, I don’t know what is.

— Il Deserto dei Tartari by Dino Buzzati
If you asked me why reading about a soldier who is sent to a second-rate garrison in the middle of nowhere in the border of an enemy country where nothing happens for most of the novel was so appealling considering I read this book during the pandemic (where isolation was perhaps the thing people wanted to read about the least), my anser would be that I felt it was the perfect time for me to absorb whatever this classic book of Italian literature had to teach me.

This novel was born out of the monotony and routine of Dino Buzzati’s night shifts at Il Corriere della Sera, where he worked as a journalist, spending many nights waiting for the phone to ring bringing newsworthy information for the following issue. For him this was the horror of city life: feeling trapped in the rigidity of schedules and the repetition of days where not much happened and where one’s existence seemed to be a prolongued waiting for something bigger, undefined, but transformative once it arrived. That shapeless event that keeps hope alive at the same time that it erodes it. Buzzati translated that atmosphere into a dream-like Kafkian military setting and The Tartar Steppe was born.

This is a deceptively simple novel in terms of premise but highly complex in its message, which explores the thirst for glory, the passing of time, the fear of wasting our best years waiting for something that we’ve been promised will eventually arrive if we just wait, except that it may never happen, or not us, all while we face the only certainty we have in life: death.

If this makes Buzzati’s novel sound too dreary, please shake off that feeling immediately because it will actually invite you to reflect on how you can steer your life into the direction you want it to go instead of waiting for things to just happen to you. At least that’s what it did for me.

Absolute masterpiece that everyone must read at least once in their lifetime (because I say so)

— Le Comte de Monte-Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
In Why Read the Classics? Italo Calvino offers up to 14 points to classify and reason what makes a work of literature a classic. The first point in Calvino’s list states that ‘The classics are the books of which we usually hear people say: "I am rereading…" and never "I am reading…."‘

And ain’t that true, dear reader? For I am currently re-reading Dumas’ masterpiece, this time in French as my first read was in Italian. The recent adaptation with Pierre Niney in the role of Edmond Dantès -more on it on the next Culture Fix- has left me in awe of how a good, timeless story can be spinned around in so many different directions and inspire new interpretations and bring new readers in. For, as Calvino said, “a classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say,” and so it will be relevant for new generations for whom its message will still be relevant long after it’s been published.

At 1300 -1500 pages (depending on your edition) Dumas’ classic tale of revenge and justice is not a light read, but trust me when I say you won’t be ble to put it down once you start reading it. The man poured everything he had on it, and it shows. My sister, who hadn’t read it before watching the new film, is now a new convert to Dumas’ writing, and I am elated we have been finally able to discuss it together.

There have been 18 adaptations made of Dumas’ masterpiece, and several have done a great work of highlighting different aspects of the larger-than-life Dantès. I have a soft spot for Depardieu’s tv series of 1998 even though I didn’t like the ending.

However, it’s only in Dumas’ novel that one can appreciate the richness of the character and all the emotional states he goes through, reflecting what taking the youth and happiness of a man away out of jealousy does to Dantès’ soul and how it leads him to believe he is entitled to become justice itself when that of God’s and of men’s have failed him, punishing and rewarding as he sees fit. All while preserving, hidden to the world, a soft, kind side that refuses to die least he forgets who he once was.

If I could only recommend one book to anyone I cross paths with, it’ll be, without a shadow of a doubt, The Count of Monte-Cristo for this is my classic, “the book that you cannot feel indifferent to, who helps you to define yourself in relation to him, even in dispute with him.” Calvino couldn’t have said it better.

Classics galore

And also

— La Grande Librairie - Rentrée littéraire: un sentiment d’appartenance
One can’t write a post about French people and la rentrée without including the latest episode of La Grande Librairie -the literary French podcast par excellence- discussing the latest arrivals to the Hexagone shelves.

La rentrée littéraire is one of the highlights of French cultural life each year, and while September is the month traditionally associated with it, the reality is that it runs between mid-August and mid-October, a period where this year alone 459 novels will be published. When my sister lived there, I used to plan a trip to Paris around late October to check out toutes les noveautés. For a keen reader la rentrée is as if Christmas had arrived earlier.

As I’ll be in Paris next week for work and then I’ll travel to Besançon to visit my sister, I’m sure we’ll be doing the rounds of the bookshops in her new city while discussing, once again, The Count of Monte-Cristo.

I’ve seen that Gaël Faye has a second novel out, Jacaranda, so I’m quite intrigued as I really enjoyed Petit Pays (Small Country). So does Maylis de Kerangal, whose Jour de Ressac is being defined as her best book since Réparer les vivants (Mend the Living) which I adored. Something to look forward to in my upcoming French trip.

— Todopoderosos: Agatha Christie
Todopoderosos is one of the two podcast where Juan Gómez-Jurado, Rodrigo Cortés, Javier Cansado and Arturo González-Campos discuss every month everything and anything under the sun, but mostly films, film directors, books, authors and themes that connect them all.

If you speak Spanish, I can’t recommend this podcast highly enough as it’s incredibly entertaining and fun (a couple of my absolute favourites are the ones about Charles Dickens Part 1 and Part 2, and Time Travelling because of the jokes throughout). I’ve recently discovered they have done one back in March about Agatha Christie, which is a great exploration of the Queen of Crime life and works.

— Literaturium
Last but not least, and for something completely different, I bring to you Literaturium. You really need your Spanish up to scratch as this is a podcast where Ignasi Taltavull, Tomàs Fuentes, Enzo Vizcaíno and Álex Martínez Vidal explore the latest literary arrivals to the Spanish market… as they make them up. Forget ChatGPT, this is the real deal when it comes to creating crazy plot ideas out of the bare minimum and taking them to the extreme.

It all began in 2020 when the four comedians created Culturium Club to discuss books and also movies (on the next Culture Fix) and people loved the absurb, brilliant, hilarious, and over-the-top recommendations the quartet comes up with as they try not to laugh.

The comments section on each of the episodes is an added bonus as people play along and show their disappointmet for not having seen their favourite novel reviewed and proceed to elaborate on what it is about. I kid you not, I would be up for reading a book based on any of the whacky titles and plots they suggest.

You can see the latest Literaturium episode below or catch up with Literaturium 2020 and Literaturium 2022.

The Culture Fix - La Rentrée edition Part 2 will be out next week with a focus on film/series/documentaries recommendations.

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Abroad is an independent publication about identity and belonging, living in between cultures and languages, the love of books, music, films, creativity, life in London, and being human in the age of artificial intelligence.

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