Seb Emina
Seb Emina is a prolific writer and editor whose work has appeared in newspapers and books internationally. He is the editor-in-chief of The Happy Reader and writer behind its fortnightly newsletter called Happy Readings. Seb is also the former deputy editor of Fantastic Man.
Issue 15 of The Happy Reader will be released on 29 October.
If you could recommend 3 books to anyone, what would they be?
Species of Spaces and Other Pieces by Georges Perec
To anyone bored with the routines of daily life, to anyone numb to the buses, clocks and teaspoons they are confronted with relentlessly. Perec shows why we should maintain a sense of wonder even when it comes to everyday existence and the stuff it consists of. I think that is such a great gift.
With Bold Knife and Fork by M.F.K. Fisher
For someone who likes eating. Her writing was a revelation when I dug into it while writing a book about breakfast ten years ago. It's what happens when one of the greatest prose stylists of any kind chooses not fiction, politics or science as her subject, but food.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
It's a powerful story told brilliantly, and about a part of the world, the Igbo area of Nigeria, that means something to me as one of my grandfathers was from there but which I can mainly only access or understand through books like this. That's my personal reason for enjoying it but I'd recommend it to anyone. It's just a classic, by any metric.
What are you reading now?
Today I just finished Paris Stories by Mavis Gallant. I am about to read Afropean by Johny Pitts and Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson.
Whose reading list are you most curious about?
"Michelle Obama.”
— Seb Emina
