Histories of reading — writing on love —stories of grief.

Works include the hybrid memoir, Loss, a Love Story (published in the UK as The Lost Properties of Love), and On Sympathy, an exploration of why (and whether) we care about fictional characters. In 2026 I was honoured with the E.M. Forster Award, given to one writer in the UK each year by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. I’m currently working on a novel about archives, and a project about why libraries matter. I teach and research at the University of Oxford. Click on the images below to find out more