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    Susie Boyt

    Life & Arts Columnist

    Susie Boyt writes a column on shopping for the FT Weekend supplement. She is a novelist and lives in London.

    Email Susie Boyt @SusieBoyt  on Twitter (link opens in a new browser window)

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    • Thursday, 10 August, 2023
      ReviewFiction
      Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue — the school girls’ secret liaison

      Based on a true tale of the tangled love affair between two girls in a boarding school in 19th-century Britain

    • Thursday, 2 March, 2023
      ReviewFiction
      Old God’s Time — Sebastian Barry’s enthralling, haunting new novel

      A broken-down detective reckons with the past in a story full of pathos, love and grief

      Illustration by James Fryer
    • Thursday, 5 January, 2023
      Books
      Fay Weldon: ‘It seems important that you should risk not being liked’

      The writer, who has died aged 91, was exhilaratingly defiant to the end. Susie Boyt reflects on the life and work of a remarkable figure who gave women a different voice

      Close up of a woman with blonde hair
    • Friday, 9 December, 2022
      House & Home
      This year, Christmas needs its devotees

      Perhaps more than ever, childhood memories of magical Christmases are an irresistible inspiration to pass the wonder on to others

      An illustration of a girl in pyjamas opening a present, surrounded by Christmas decorations and motifs
    • Thursday, 6 October, 2022
      ReviewFiction
      Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout — courage through stormy waters

      The latest Lucy Barton novel explores how buried fears resurfaced during the Covid lockdown

    • Friday, 1 July, 2022
      House & Home
      The interiors life: how writers use decor to draw fictional characters

      From Philip Larkin’s bleak bedsits to Henry James’s ‘slippery’ armchair, rooms and furniture hold surprising insights

      ‘Interior II’, 1964, by Richard Hamilton
    • Thursday, 12 May, 2022
      ReviewBooks
      Fight Night — a visceral yet witty foray into family trauma

      Miriam Toews’s eighth novel tackles birth, life and loss through the eyes of a daughter, mother and grandmother

    • Friday, 8 April, 2022
      Life & Arts
      A love letter to The Wolseley

      How did a grand London institution come to feel as comforting as home?

    • Wednesday, 2 February, 2022
      ReviewFiction
      Love Marriage by Monica Ali — matrimony under the microscope

      The author’s fifth novel is a sweeping tale of intercultural love and family truths, bristling with domestic epiphanies and brutalities

    • Thursday, 9 September, 2021
      ReviewFiction
      Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt — cascades of hope

      This novel deftly sidesteps the clichés of drug abuse and conveys the complexities of loving someone who can’t love you back

    • Saturday, 28 August, 2021
      Life & Arts
      The sweet return of friendship

      Spending time again with those closest to her, Susie Boyt reflects on what she was missing

    • Thursday, 22 July, 2021
      ReviewFiction
      The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak — war and figs

      The Turkish-British author’s 12th novel weaves its magic through civil conflict, love, family and an arboreal narrator

    • Thursday, 29 April, 2021
      Booker Prize 2021
      Great Circle — two distinct heroines reach for the skies

      Maggie Shipstead’s novel spans the world to interweave the stories of a 1930s aviator and a modern-day Hollywood star

    • Wednesday, 23 December, 2020
      Life & Arts
      Dreaming of a wild Christmas

      We’ve been given a reprieve from the season’s excesses — so why does it all feel so wrong?

      Deanna Durbin dressed as a Christmas tree fairy, c1945
    • Tuesday, 15 December, 2020
      ReviewNon-Fiction
      Kant’s Little Prussian Head & Other Reasons Why I Write — uplifting tales on the power of books

      Claire Messud’s complex collection of essays look at authors and artists through her own family dynamics  

    • Friday, 7 February, 2020
      Style
      Embrace Valentine’s Day — lean in to the lovely

      Could the day be remastered with a bit of wit and flair?

      T2XCFP RENEE ZELLWEGER, HUGH GRANT, BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY, 2001 credit Alamy
    • Friday, 17 January, 2020
      ReviewBiography and memoir
      Motherwell — a heart-rending and generous memoir of girlhood

      The late Deborah Orr’s book evokes working-class origins in a patriarchal Scottish community

    • Friday, 20 December, 2019
      Life & Arts
      Why not have Christmas every other year?

      The season of goodwill plays to my strengths — but it asks a lot of its devotees

      Brigitte Fossey (1946-), French actress born in Tourcoing (Nord, France). Ca. 1960. (Photo by adoc-photos/Corbis via Getty Images)
    • Friday, 6 December, 2019
      Style
      How to make your big party truly memorable

      Is having a loved one jump out of a giant cake too much to ask?

      Debbie Reynolds & Gene Kelly in ‘Singing in the Rain’
    • Friday, 1 November, 2019
      ReviewFashion
      How to dress the crown

      Tiaras, tweed and cups of tea: a new book by the monarch’s personal stylist reveals the inner workings of the royal wardrobe

      LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 21: Queen Elizabeth II makes a speech at the State Opening Of Parliament in the House of Lords on June 21, 2017 in London, England. This year saw a scaled-back State opening of Parliament Ceremony with the Queen arriving by car rather than carriage and not wearing the Imperial State Crown or the Robes of State. (Photo by Carl Court - WPA Pool/Getty Images)
    • Friday, 4 October, 2019
      The art of grief
      Loss, grief and how I learnt the art of consolation

      To be reminded that what we feel is natural and sane can make all the difference, writes Susie Boyt

    • Friday, 27 September, 2019
      Style
      From girlish ginghams to stage sequins: Judy Garland’s star style

      A new biopic starring Renée Zellweger is set to put the singer’s wardrobe back in the spotlight

      American singer and actress Judy Garland (1922 - 1969) on stage, circa 1960. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
    • Friday, 12 July, 2019
      ReviewFiction
      Big Sky by Kate Atkinson — detective with a purpose

      Loveable Yorkshire sleuth is drawn into a case worth fighting for

      An ice cream van stands on a foggy beach in Whitby, northern England July 7, 2012. REUTERS/Darren Staples (BRITAIN - Tags: ENVIRONMENT FOOD SOCIETY) - LM1E87714CK01
    • Friday, 19 April, 2019
      ReviewFiction
      Things In Jars — the worst place to get in a pickle

      Jess Kidd’s detective heroine inhabits a Victorian London that is revealed in all its stench and glory

      Berwick Street in Soho, London, on a Sunday morning, c1901
    • Friday, 1 March, 2019
      ReviewFiction
      Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi — elegant but complex

      Family history and mythical lands pervade a rich, clever, rueful and sometimes maddening work

      please credit: Grace Russell
    Previous page You are on page 1 Next page

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