Merry Xmas from the Guardian

An item in  the Xmas Day edition

Top 10 books about loneliness

At what can be one of the loneliest times of year, a historian of emotion, [sic! a certain Fay Bound Alberti], picks the best books about a modern malady

As a historian of emotion, these complexities, and the absence of any existing extended historical inquiry, inspired my new book, A Biography of Loneliness.

Weird middle names seem to be compulsory,especially for feminists. Is this the old Victorian habit of remembering mothers' maiden names? The best ones also seem to hint at a fashionable ethnic minority heritage. There are some strange choices for the top two -- Robinson Crusoe, that testament to the resilience of the protocapitalist, and Frankenstein, which is to be read as a novel about -- emotions:

It contains just two references to loneliness (and one of those is a lonely road, reflecting its unemotional origin as a synonym for solitude). Yet the angst of Frankenstein’s monster, guilty of sin, abandoned and lost, [just like an ardent Remainer] expresses a remarkably familiar, modern version of loneliness.

Then more familiar Guardian fare. Radclyffe Hall:

One of the earliest, best-known accounts of lesbian experience in British and American culture

Virginia Woolf:

critical reflections on loneliness in a gendered world.

Sylvia Plath:

Plath’s novel explores a loneliness that again stemmed from social expectation – this time, what it was to be a woman in the 1950s, juggling the expectations of work, domesticity and desire.  

I could go on. I am sure the Guardina will, as the grieving over Brexit works through from anger to despair, and everyone else seems to be getting on with it. 

And as an indication of new petite bourgeois charity and compassion at this challenging time of year:

A London youth club credited with saving children from rising knife violence is facing calls for its closure from new residents who think it would be better used as a coffee shop.

The story is a lot more open and understanding of both sides --but it's Xmas and I am going to rest my stern responsibilities a bit.