Tania Tay and Alex English, Booklovers' Retreat — Tania Tay and Alex English, Booklovers’ Retreat

With Booklovers’ Retreats they recently took a group of writers to a house in St Issey, near Padstow, Cornwall. Between writing sprints and workshops, they also provided home cooked meals, and people had plenty of time to write as well as go for seaside walks.

But, when they’re not hosting retreats, or writing themselves, what have they been reading, watching and attending to get their cultural kicks?

BOOKS

Tania: “I help run the bookclub for Two Lit Chicks and recently loved The Husbands by Holly Gramazio, soon to be an Apple TV series. It is a quirky tale about a woman with an endless supply of different husbands in her attic.

Alex: “I am currently reading The God of the Woods, set at an American summer camp in the seventies where a girl goes missing”.

FILM

Tania: “I saw some great films at the London Film Festival, Southbank Centre, last autumn and was stunned by the film Hamnet directed by Chloe Zhao – such brilliant cinematography and emotional performances. I also loved Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon as well as Nouvelle Vague and The History of Sound“.

Alex: “My favourite of the year was Sinners – a hard-to-describe genre-bending horror/historical film with music at its heart, set in the prohibition-era deep south.

EXHIBITIONS

Tania: “I recently took a portrait photography course at the City Lit I am gripped by street photography and enjoyed Lee Miller at Tate Britain, a retrospective of the surrealist muse turned artist and photographer”.

Tania also recommends a ghost walk in Padstow, run by Geoff Monk dressed as an eighteenth century guide. She says: ‘Twilight was falling as we entered the churchyard, greeted by the cawing of swooping crows.’

TV

Alex: “I love thrillers, especially Slow Horses (Apple TV), a darkly comic series following a bunch of reject spies in London, and Task (Sky Atlantic), a twisty tale that follows an FBI taskforce tracking down a duo who are raiding drug houses.

Tania: “I will watch everything, from comedies, thrillers to period dramas, but I most recently enjoyed Severance, Loot, and Succession. I love Jane Austen adaptations, such as the latest Emma and am looking forward the next instalment of the most recent season of Bridgerton“.

Bridgerton s4 — Bridgerton. (L to R) Yerin Ha as Sophie Beckett, Luke Thompson as Benedict Bridgerton in episode 401 of Bridgerton. Cr. Liam Daniel/Netflix © 2025

Tania Tay’s domestic suspense novel, The Other Woman is published by Headline. She also writes the Spellcasters series as Crystal Sung. She has a new novel, The Matcha Makers Café, coming out in April 2026, under pen name Lily Chen.

Tania Tay and Alex English run Booklovers’ Retreats – follow on Instagram @bookloversretreats and on Facebook.

BOOKS

FILM

EXHIBITIONS

TV

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My cultural kicks: Tania Tay & Alex English, Authors

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