Alice O'Keeffe's guest appearances

Alice O'Keeffe

HodderPod - Hodder books podcast

Monocle Radio: The Monocle Arts Review

Alice Vincent

Chris Ryan

Shea Serrano

Joyce Meyer

Andrew Peterson

Siri Hustvedt

Anita Moorjani

Arianna Huffington

Laura Vanderkam

Ijeoma Oluo

David Burkus

Ethan Hawke

Ryan Serhant

Rob Bell

Kristin Neff

OwlTail

Imogen Church

'By reading Style magazine, I was training myself not to want things. It was going quite well. I had already found that I did not want a pair of Yves Saint Laurent mules, a chandelier made from plastic antlers, or a diamond-encrusted necklace in the shape of a pineapple. I was still working on not wanting a fitted farmhouse kitchen in warm wood.'Sylvia lives in a flat on a council estate with her not-quite-husband Obe and their two young children. She dreams of buying a house on a leafy street like the one she grew up in. If she closes her eyes, she can see it all so clearly: the stripped floorboards, the wisteria growing around the door...It's not ideal that she's about to be made redundant, or that Obe, a playworker, is never going to earn more than the minimum wage. As sleep deprivation sets in, and the RnB downstairs gets ever louder, Sylvia's life starts to unravel.But when the estate is earmarked for redevelopment, the threat to her community gives Sylvia a renewed sense of purpose. With a bit of help from her activist sister, and her film-maker friend Frankie, she's ready to take a stand for what she believes in.Warm, witty and brilliantly observed, On the Up is about relationships and community, finding a way through the tough times, and figuring out what's really worth fighting for.

'By reading Style magazine, I was training myself not to want things. It was going quite well. I had already found that I did not want a pair of Yves Saint Laurent mules, a chandelier made from plastic antlers, or a diamond-encrusted necklace in the shape of a pineapple. I was still working on not wanting a fitted farmhouse kitchen in warm wood.' Sylvia lives in a flat on a council estate with her not-quite-husband Obe and their two young children. She dreams of buying a house on a leafy street like the one she grew up in. If she closes her eyes, she can see it all so clearly: the stripped floorboards, the wisteria growing around the door... It's not ideal that she's about to be made redundant, or that Obe, a playworker, is never going to earn more than the minimum wage. As sleep deprivation sets in, and the RnB downstairs gets ever louder, Sylvia's life starts to unravel. But when the estate is earmarked for redevelopment, the threat to her community gives Sylvia a renewed sense of purpose. With a bit of help from her activist sister, and her film-maker friend Frankie, she's ready to take a stand for what she believes in. Warm, witty and brilliantly observed, On the Up is about relationships and community, finding a way through the tough times, and figuring out what's really worth fighting for.

ON THE UP, by Alice O'Keeffe, read by Imogen Church - Audiobook extract

Books editor at 'The Bookseller', Alice O'Keeffe, brings in the novels that she’s looking forward to this month by the authors Kate Hamer, Sara Baume and Ayobami Adebayo.

Books: Alice O'Keeffe