The memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful left me breathless. It’s a scorching, gorgeous memoir about the end of a marriage, written by American poet Maggie Smith. Keep reading for my quick review!

Why I love Romantic Comedy, the new novel by Curtis Sittenfeld.

Romantic Comedy is the story of Sally Milz, a successful script writer for a legendary late night television show called The Night Owls (TNO, inspired by Saturday Night Live). Sally is divorced, and wary of romantic attachments. She is guarded but not hapless. She’s very clever, very successful, well-paid, confident in her writing and not at all desperate to fall in love either.

The book is centred around Sally’s observation that average-looking men somehow end up with above average-looking, beautiful, accomplished women, but that the reverse rarely happens for the so-called average woman. Sally turns this ‘social rule’ into a comedy sketch for TNO and though she makes it into a joke, she obviously believes herself to be ‘average’ when really, she isn’t. Then she meets Noah, a pop idol… would someone like him ever date someone like her?

Feeling low lately, I have been craving books full of delight. At times like this, I want nothing less from my literature than for it it be charming. I want to read books that make me laugh and smile. Books that aren’t twee, but are witty and warm. Books that are quite simply lovely.

And so I found myself re-reading Katherine Heiny, author of the short story collection Single, Carefree, Mellow, and novels Standard Deviation and Early Morning Riser. I started again with her short stories, a collection I must have already read three or four times but feels just as refreshing every time I return to it.