Kate Loveman, "The Strange History of Samuel Pepys's Diary"

Congratulations to Prof Kate Loveman, whose book The Strange History of Samuel Pepys's Diary has just been published!

Kate Loveman is Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture at the University of Leicester. She researches the literature and history of the seventeenth, notably things to do with Samuel Pepys (who rarely met a thing he did not want to have to do with). She is the author of Reading Fictions 1660-1740 (2008) and Samuel Pepys and his Books (2015,) and has edited Pepys’s diary for Everyman (2018).

About The Strange History of Samuel Pepys's Diary, by Kate Loveman
During the 1660s, Samuel Pepys kept a secret diary, full of intimate details and political scandal. First published two hundred years ago, it is now the most famous diary in the English language. The Strange History of Samuel Pepys’s Diary explores why Pepys’s diary was written, how this secret diary came to be published, and the many remarkable roles it has played in British culture since then. Pepys’s journal has prompted creative responses ranging from Victorian fanfiction to World War II propaganda and COVID parodies. For two centuries, it has also encouraged debates about what counts as ‘history’ and about whose stories are worth telling.

You can read more about The Strange History of Samuel Pepys's Diary on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read a short excerpt from the book. 

From The Strange History of Samuel Pepys's Diary
Pepys’s journal vividly describes momentous events, such as the plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of London, alongside small moments – quarrels with his wife or jokes with servants. Since it was first published in 1825, it has variously been called an ‘incomparable masterpiece,’ ‘an historical and literary work of an outstanding character,’ ‘trifling,’ ‘tedious,’ ‘very amusing,’ ‘too gross to print,’ and ‘obscene.’ Those divided judgements come just from the people (the editors, the publishers, and the lawyers) who were tasked with getting this extremely bizarre, frequently filthy text into print. For most of the last two hundred years, significant sections of the diary were deemed unpublishable, thanks to Pepys’s habits of describing court scandals, his sex life, and his bowel movements. Since nothing could be more intriguing than a secret diary too shocking to print, this censorship only increased the public’s fascination. 

Joanna Nadin, "Birdy Arbuthnot's Year of 'Yes'"

Dr Joanna Nadin is the author of more than 90 books for children, teenagers and adults, including the Sunday Times-bestselling series The Worst Class in the World, and the Carnegie-nominated Joe All Alone, which is now a BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated BBC drama. She is an Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Bristol and lives in Bath.

 

About Birdy Arbuthnot's Year of "Yes", by Joanna Nadin
Birdy Arbuthnot’s Year of "Yes" follows 18-year-old Margaret "Birdy" Arbuthnot from Surbiton to Soho in 1960, on her quest for a life less ordinary, and more like one in the novels she reads. It’s a companion novel to the Carnegie-nominated A Calamity of Mannerings, which was also a Sunday Times Book of the Week. The cover is by Anna Morrison, who also designed Anne Enright’s The Wren, The Wren.

1960 is knocking on the door, and eighteen-year-old Margaret "Birdy" Arbuthnot, presently of Surbiton, wants more than her current existence in the dull suburbs. She wants to LIVE – in capital letters! Could Soho, with its bright lights and dark corridors, hold the key to a life more novel-like and less … Surrey? (Even if Mummy thinks it is a square mile of vice, full of men with overly shiny shoes).

At the cusp of the new year, Birdy resolves to only say "yes" to everything for the next twelve months. She can’t possibly realise that her biggest "yes" will launch her directly into the London orbit of the aristocratic Mannering family, and transform her life into one worth writing novels about. 

From Birdy Arbuthnot's Year of "Yes" 

DECEMBER 1959

Saturday 26th December

11 a.m.

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. Or, rather, I tried to, but the sink is perilously small and slippery, the ceramic draining board is horribly cold, and I was just wondering whether or not to run the hot water lest I get chilblains when my mother walked in. She said at eighteen it was high time I grew out of all that "Cassandra Mortmain nonsense" and in any case she needed it for scrubbing potatoes as Aunt Barbara (ambitious, bunions) and Uncle Roy (obsessed with war and golf) are coming for lunch, so please go and do whatever it is I was doing in somewhere more suitable, i.e. the dining room. I was about to point out that I am barred from the dining room (for reasons I cannot be bothered to explain here but suffice to say I vehemently disagree with) but I could tell she was in no mood to brook argument (her lips go inexplicably thin) so I have come upstairs to my bedroom and she has gone back to doing something inventive with mince.

So, in actuality, I write this sitting on lavender candlewick, whilst wishing, yet again, that my life were more novel-like. I shouldn’t even mind if it wasn’t I Capture the Castle, however attractive moving to a dilapidated mansion in East Anglia might be; I’d settle for anything disaffected and preferably French – like Cécile in Bonjour Tristesse, perhaps. Sadly there is no chance of torrid poolside affairs in Surbiton, where private swimming pools and disaffection are regarded with the same suspicion as are exotic pets and ambitious hair. Instead I am constrained by complete mediocrity. Even my name – Margaret – is average (Princess Margaret notwithstanding, as she is a goddess amongst women). Why can I not be a Calypso? A Viola? A Genevieve? 

Rishi Dastidar, "A hobby of mine"

Rishi Dastidar’s poetry has been published by the Financial Times, New Scientist and the BBC, amongst many others. His third collection, Neptune’s Projects (Nine Arches Press), was longlisted for the Laurel Prize, and a poem from it was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2024. He is also editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century (Nine Arches Press), and co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (Corsair). He reviews poetry for The Guardian and is chair of Wasafiri. His latest publication is A hobby of mine (Broken Sleep Books).

A hobby of mine, by Rishi Dastidar
My publisher says: “In A hobby of mine, Rishi Dastidar’s unrelenting catalogue of cultural observations becomes an absurd and profound portrait of modern life. With a playful spirit and incisive wit, Dastidar examines identity, memory, and the contradictions of everyday existence. He invites us to consider the idiosyncrasies that shape how we navigate a fragmented world, and the hidden dimensions of our routines: repetition becomes revelation – if we pay enough attention.”

I say: it was also a way for me to pay tribute and homage to Joe Brainard, and his wonderful memoir, I remember. Think of my attempt as a way exhausting some current obsessions, in a very George Perec-esque way too.

You can read more about A hobby of mine on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read two extracts from the book. 

From A hobby of mine

Extract 1:

A hobby of mine is perverting the course of language.

A hobby of mine is the habit of mining.

A hobby of mine is wondering what the modern equivalent of mining school in nineteenth century Europe is.

A hobby of mine is running away to Rome.

A hobby of mine is imagining living in the south of France with a large of amount of cash that is demanding to be whittled away.

A hobby of mine is telling people why I haven’t launched a Substack yet.

A hobby of mine is deciding which of the endangered heritage crafts I should attempt to pick up.

A hobby of mine is calling the sun my father.

A hobby of mine is sitting in the middle of the road, crying that the passing scooters won’t stop and play with me.

A hobby of mine is wishing I was a cat.

A hobby of mine is knowing I would have been a very good clerk for the East India Company.

A hobby of mine is cultivating an emollient aspect to my personality.

Extract 2:

A hobby of mine is asking: how would David Foster Wallace have written it?

A hobby of mine is attempting to write things the way David Foster Wallace might have done, and failing.

A hobby of mine is buying any second-hand edition of The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth I ever see.

A hobby of mine is Tabasco.

A hobby of mine is predicting when money dies.

A hobby of mine is predicting when Miami sinks.

A hobby of mine is thinking up sports entertainment formats for a post-apocalyptic planet.

A hobby of mine is re-litigating the past until it asks to be taken from the courtroom and hanged until it is dead.

A hobby of mine is saying ‘wait till next year’ even though I know my team will be crap then also.

A hobby of mine is only reading my horoscope when I feel some part of my life is out of control.

A hobby of mine is opening all the cupboards in the kitchen looking for chocolate to eat, even though I know there isn’t any in the house.

"Tâigael: Stories from Taiwanese and Gaelic," ed. Will Buckingham and Hannah Stevens (Wind&Bones)

About Tâigael: Stories from Taiwanese and Gaelic 
Four writers, four stories, and four languages, Tâigael is a first-of-its-kind collaborative writing and translation project, bringing together the cultures of Scotland and Taiwan to find new and surprising connections. From elderly prophets on the Taipei subway to sheep tangled in brambles by the roadside in rural Scotland, and from a goddess of saliva who disappears without trace to an unexpected guest at a Hogmanay party, these stories cross between languages and cultures to reimagine the past, present and future. For the project, Wind&Bones worked with writers Elissa Hunter-Dorans (Scotland), Kiú-kiong 玖芎 (Taiwan), Lisa MacDonald (Scotland) and Naomi Sím (Taiwan) to write and collaboratively translate between Taiwanese (Tâi-gí) and Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig), via Mandarin and English. These are stories that weave together myth, dream and everyday life, as they reveal unexpected parallels between these two languages, their historical marginalisation, and their revival.

Tâigael: Stories from Taiwanese and Gaelic will be published by Wind&Bones Books on 15th June 2025. You can pre-order the book here. If you pre-order by 1st May, 2025, your name will be listed in the final edition, in appreciation of your support.

About Wind&Bones
Wind&Bones Books is a small, non-profit indie press founded by University of Leicester PhD graduate Dr Hannah Stevens, and former De Montfort University Reader in Writing and Creativity, Dr Will Buckingham. Wind&Bones also run projects exploring writing, storytelling and philosophy for social change. Hannah and Will currently split their time between Scotland, Taiwan and sometimes Leicester. You can head to their website to find out more here.   

Literary Leicester 2025 Podcasts

 

You can now listen to podcasts of the brilliant events at Literary Leicester Festival 2025 here.

These include:

• The Creative Writing Student Showcase 2025 here. Speakers included Sonya Hundal, Anna Walsh, Joe Bedford, Aidan Trulove, Laura Besley, Olivia Peachey, Kimaya Patil, Cate Morris, Shauna Strathmann, Daneil Hibberd, Nina Walker, Aarini Mehta, Sandra Shaji, Dave Clarke. 
• The "Bullying, School and Power" event, with Morag Edwards, James Scudamore and Jonathan Taylor, here. 
• The "Voices from the Other Side of Hope" event here. 
• Kit de Waal on The Best of Everything here. 
• "The Air We Breathe: How to Write about Our Air and Our Future" event here. 

And there are many others!

Morag Edwards / Isobel Ross, "Almost Boys: The Psychology of Co-Ed Boarding in the 1960s"

 

Before retiring, Morag Edwards had worked as an educational psychologist for over thirty years, with a career focus on children who had experienced early relationship trauma and neglect. She was a published author before leaving work but the demands of family and professional life meant that her writing ambitions, while powerful and enduring, had always remained stuck within the margins of her life. Morag now writes historical fiction as Morag Edwards and is published by Bloodhound Books. The third volume in her Jacobite trilogy, The Jacobite’s Heir, is due to be published in September 2025. Morag writes contemporary fiction as Isobel Ross, also published by Bloodhound Books, and is working hard on completing another domestic suspense novel. 

Morag recently gave a talk at Literary Leicester Festival 2025, as part of the "Bullying, School and Power" event, along with James Scudamore and Jonathan Taylor. You can listen to the podcast of the event here.  

About Almost Boys, by Morag Edwards / Isobel Ross
Morag was a pupil at a co-educational boarding school in Scotland from 1965 to 1971. Unique about this school was that boy boarders far outnumbered girl boarders and by the late 1960s, the adults in charge had become confused about their duty of care. She now uses her background to help others understand the psychological implications of early boarding for young children and actively campaigns to end early boarding. 

Under the author name Isobel Ross, Morag has written a memoir about her own boarding school experience: Almost Boys: The Psychology of Co-Ed Boarding in the 1960s. The narrative is based upon her memories and diaries written between 1969 and 1971, embedded within the framework of developmental psychology, Attachment Theory and Adverse Childhood Experience (ACEs). The memoir was self-published early in 2024, in order to catch a growing wave of concern that young children were still sent away from their families to be educated. This proved to be the right decision, as Morag has regularly been asked to appear on podcasts, webinars and speak at conferences, providing a voice for women ex-boarders, particularly those who attended co-ed establishments, currently under-represented in the growing boarding school literature. 

From Almost Boys
In my first winter living in Fairview, I wouldn’t hurry back to the boarding house after school. Instead, I stayed behind in the dusk, on the school steps, watching the day girls amble towards their lamp-lit homes, chattering in groups. I felt an aching hunger for a place that might feel homely. Even without a parent actually present, the parents’ homemaking would create a continuity of care for these girls. There would be a gas or electric fire, a television, a tin of biscuits, coats and shoes in the hall. During term time, I struggled to remember my home, even though my older sister was now a boarder. It seemed to exist behind an opaque wall, a place that never truly came into focus. School was real and vivid, each moment lived in the present but couldn’t be talked about at home. My parents’ interest was limited and explanations of the cultural minutiae felt too lengthy and complicated. Unsure and lacking confidence about their decision to send us away, once we were at home it was clear they did not want to hear about our lives at school, embedding and reinforcing the gap between our home selves and our school personalities. 

Adam Roberts, "Lake of Darkness"

Adam Roberts was born in 1965 in London. He studied English and Classics at Aberdeen University, did a PhD at Cambridge and is now Professor of 19th Century Literature and Culture at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has published 26 novels, all (except one) science fiction, and intends to continue doing so. His latest novel is Lake of Darkness (Gollancz 2024).

 

About Lake of Darkness, by Adam Roberts
An expedition to explore a black hole discovers, or seems to, that some being or beings are living inside the event horizon. A crewmember, Raine, claims he has been contacted by a being he calls "The Gentleman," goes murderously mad, and kills all his crewmates. Evil passes like a contagion through the utopian societies of the far future. A second expedition is mounted and returns to the black hole. Its lead scientist, Guunarsonsdottir, is convinced an alien species has evolved inside the exacting conditions of the black hole, and that communications can be opened across the event horizon. Joyns, a mission specialist, comes to fear that something malevolent, an ancient evil, is inside the black hole, wanting to escape. The mood aboard the ship deteriorates, and the crew split into two factions, fighting amongst themselves. Joyns is confined to quarters.

You can read more about Lake of Darkness on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read an excerpt from the novel. 

 

From Lake of Darkness
But she couldn’t sleep. She turned from her left to her right side and then again to her left, feeling the slight difference when she turned with the direction of spin as opposed to against it. She instructed the room to turn out all lights but then felt abandoned and scared in the dark, and so ordered the lights back on, to shine a low yellow-orange glow. She lay on her back. She tried to compose her mind into a meditative state, but it wouldn’t settle. She got up and knelt and prayed, but it was a vacancy, a mere going through the motions, and she soon stopped.

It was impossible to sleep.

At one point she heard two people outside her room. Given the great size of the startship and the relatively small number of crew, this was odd. Joyns sat up, believing they had specifically come to speak with her, and wondering why they hadn’t simply called her. But they hadn’t come to her.

There were two of them, one who sounded a little like Samuel, the other whose voice she didn’t recognise. That struck Joyns as odd, because she thought Guunarsonsdottir had barricaded herself and her followers in a separate part of the ship. But there they were, outside her room. Or their voices at any rate. Perhaps the barricade had been breached and Guunarsonsdottir’s followers were on the run. Perhaps they themselves were staging a raid behind enemy lines. The two of them were talking loudly about the best way of incapacitating Saccade—which must mean not only that Saccade had arrived, but the news of her advent must have reached Guunarsonsdottir’s portion of the ship as well. One of the two, perhaps Samuel said, distinctly, "kill her, it’s the only way" and the other person, Joyns didn’t recognise their voice, said: "she’s really here! really! she’s here!" and then laughed like a cat miaowing, then their voices dropped and Joyns couldn’t follow them. There followed a strange melange of sounds, scrapings and gruntings and smacking sounds, and it took Joyns a moment to piece together than the two figures were grappling and fighting one another.

Then there was a loud slapping sound, and the sound of somebody running away, their footsteps slightly syncopated by the fact that one foot was placed more spinwise than the other.

Had both parties run away? Was one lying wounded or dead outside her door?

Joyns contemplated getting up and checking, but a deep resistance to the idea occupied her limbs. She sat up and checked the ship’s time. One minute to midnight—the startship’s arbitrary midnight, by which the arbitrary business of timekeeping was calibrated, as it was on a million ships and habitats around the inhabited galaxy. I should get up, she told herself. But she did not.

It was dead midnight and the lights in her room glowed blue.

She hadn’t told the room to change the colour, and it was a chilly, morbid shade of blue that was accompanied by a distinct drop in temperature. She hadn’t ordered that either! It certainly wasn’t going to help her get to sleep, so she said "Room!" preparatory to ordering it to restore the earlier light and heat settings when she saw she was not alone.

She saw at once who it was: the Gentleman. He was dressed in a mauve jacket and trousers, the jacket sharply cut and folded over a harlequin-green shirt and necktie, after the manner and style of an actor in an historical drama. He carried a walking stick shaped like the Hebrew letter vav. His face was lean and sharp-featured. Joyns was not a fan of antique painted art and so was unaware of the old Vannick painting The Arnolfini Betrothal, but had she ever seen that image she would have recognised the face of the man in her visitor (though not the lavish Flemish cloak; the Gentleman wore nothing so voluminous). And here he was, as—Joyns assumed—he had appeared to Raine, years before. He was seated in a chair that had not been there before, surveying Joyns with prominently-lidded eyes.

"Good grief," said Joyns.

"Half right," said the Gentleman.

"You’re not here," Joyns said. She drew herself back along the floor, and rested her spine against the wall of her room. If she sprinted she would surely reach the door before the Gentleman could stop her. Indeed, it looked, from his demeanour and his posture, as if any decision on his part to rise from his seat would be a leisurely and unhurried business. But then she thought: he appeared instantly from nowhere. She thought: if I rush the door he’ll be there in the way before I move an inch. Then she reassured herself: he was a vision, a hallucination, and certainly not real. "You," she reiterated, "are not here."

"Here," he said looking around, "is a more complicated concept than perhaps you give it credit."