Emily Rhodes

writer

I write, mostly about books. Sometimes books are a means of writing about something else – a way of getting closer to the truth of a situation.

My features and reviews have appeared in publications including the Financial Times, Spectator, Guardian, 1843, the TLS and Country Life.

These pieces are the most important to me:

How do authors earn a living? It's a Catch-22 situation (FT Weekend Life & Arts, 7 June 2019)
Read

Inside Stories from a Prison Book Club (Guardian, 2016)
Read

What Books Mean to Rough Sleepers – and the Library that Helps them (Spectator, 2016)
Read

You can read more of and about my work here:

I began Emily’s Walking Book Club in 2012, and it's still going strong. We meet monthly, in all weathers, to walk and talk books on Hampstead Heath. Find out more and sign up to the monthly newsletter

Author Events and Broadcasting

I enjoy participating in live events - talking about books, interviewing authors and chairing panel discussions; I’m also confident in broadcast journalism. More on that here.

I hope you enjoy the site. Drop me a line and say hello!

Instagram

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The Peregrine by JA Baker absolutely split #emilyswalkingbookclub.
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Those who really loved it tended to be pretty knowledgeable about nature, or, in the case of one walker, read it beside her computer so that she could look up what all the wildlife looked like as she went.
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One member made a list of all the types of bird mentioned in the book - quite a few as you can see in the pic!
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We all thought the writing was extraordinary - dense with hyperreal images, thick with verbs turned into nouns and more. Some of us felt it was just too intense to read it all in just a few days, but would rather like to read along with the diary entries, which start in October and end in April, as a way of managing the intensity. People who weren’t so into the book found it was hard to concentrate for pages and pages of description without much really “happening” in terms of plot. We reckon reading it bit by bit like this would be a great fix - so looking forward to hearing anyone’s thoughts on reading it like this back in April. I’m def going to give it a try.
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We talked a lot about killing. There is so much of it in the book. Specifically the purity and efficiency of the peregrine’s kill versus the awful killing of the Second World War and the environmental disaster of DDT.
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Many of us noted that reading the book had changed the way we look at the world. Now we are more inclined to look up at the sky and in the trees as we go. No peregrines spotted on our walk, alas, but we did spot the white rumps of some jays.
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Next meeting on Sunday 10th November to discuss Maxim Leo’s brilliant family memoir of East German life, Red Love. Meeting at @dauntbooks Hampstead at 1130 as usual. All details on the website, or pm me and I can add you to the mailing list.
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Thanks @juliamusings for pic number 2.
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#theperegrine #jabaker #naturewriting #classicbooks #rereading #whattoreadnext #slowreading #bookclubselection #bookclubofinstagram #bookclubs #bookclubstagram #booksbooksbooks #booknerd #booknook #bookstagramuk #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookfeatures #walkingbookclub #hampsteadheath #outdoorreading #walkandtalk

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Here’s my @spectator1828 review of the new Jessie Burton novel.
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People can be a bit snotty about her books, but, personally, I think she can write very beautifully. Take this moment of puzzling over her friends having babies: “mythical women, wax-winged ... soaring up towards the sun” who then “used the old feathers on their wings for nests”. .
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She certainly lays out a gripping plot, or in the case of this novel, a gripping double plot. I won’t spoil it for you here.
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It would have been a very enjoyable read, only Burton doesn’t half spell things out for her reader. We are told that the book within the book is “about responsibility”: how’s that for a signpost?! There are also a few rather painful moments in which opinions about eg the unfairness of having to work with extreme morning sickness, are shoehorned into the narrative. .
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Burton has so many fans, I just wish she’d trust us to do a bit more of the legwork ourselves. We are perfectly capable of reading between the lines!
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#jessieburton #theconfession #bookreview #newbookreview #bookstagramuk #bookstagrammer #booksbooksbooks #picador @picadorbooks #fictionreview #booknerdigan #booknerds #whattoreadnext #bookcommunity #readabook #booksforlife #bookishgirl #fortheloveofreading #readingnow #alwaysreading #bookish

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What an honour to interview Kathleen Jamie about her luminous new collection of essays, Surfacing, at Daunt Books Hampstead last night.
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She read out some choice extracts as our conversation meandered along, taking us from Alaska to Orkney and back through memories of her grandmother, father, and a crucial political moment in Tibet. .
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She spoke beautifully about the shape of a woman’s life, and the coming together of our personal past and the deep cultural past. .
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She pointed out the importance of noticing, and how in the Yup’ik village these observations are shared, unilaterally, immediately, and how different that is from the way in our culture knowledge is power, and how little drips down from above. .
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She also talked about the importance of the Arts and Sciences coming together to help us cope with climate change. .
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And, perhaps equally fascinating for her fans: she edits her work by literally cutting bits out with scissors and moving them around. .
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#booktalk #bookshop #bookshopevents #scottishliterature #scotsbooks #londondbooktalks #surfacing #kathleenjamie #sortofbooks #dauntbooks #dauntbookshampstead #booknerdigans #bookstagram #bookstagramuk #bookstagrammer #booksbooksbooks #whattoreadnext #readingnow #alwaysreading #booksforlife #bookgeek #naturewriting #bookaholic #booklover #authorinterview #booktalks #bookshops #bookshoplover
@dauntbooks @sortofbooks

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Emily Rhodes

Features

Reviews

Books

Emily's Walking Book Club

Author Events and Broadcasting

Instagram