Max Liu

Max Liu argues that New Year’s reading resolutions and platforms such as Goodreads can make people treat books as targets to be completed rather than experiences to enjoy. Drawing on his own slow reading pace, professional book reviewing, and habit of subvocalising, he defends taking time with language. He criticizes speed-reading services such as Blinkist and Spreeder and concludes that readers should resolve to read for pleasure and quality rather than impose a numerical goal.

Stefan Hertmans’s autofictional history investigates Willem Verhulst, the Flemish nationalist and SS recruit who once lived in Hertmans’s Ghent home. Drawing on memoirs, diaries, documents and interviews, the book reconstructs Verhulst’s collaboration, family life and postwar unrepentant imprisonment while examining nationalism, guilt, family memory and the meaning of home. The review praises the novel’s humane power and its reminder that the crimes of the 20th century continue to resonate, while finding it less original and substantial than works such as W G Sebald’s Austerlitz.

Max Liu reflects humorously on his former extreme untidiness, including sleeping on a bare mattress and avoiding laundry, after reports that many single men in the UK leave their bed linen unchanged for months. He argues that poor hygiene often reflects ingrained habits and a lack of self-respect, while noting that domestic chores can be awkward for people living alone. The essay also points to gendered expectations around housework and suggests that building better routines requires ongoing vigilance.

Tash Aw’s memoir explores his Malaysian Chinese heritage, his grandfathers’ migration from southern China, family silences and the lasting effects of unexamined trauma. The review praises the book’s intimate scale, concise prose and sensitive treatment of identity, separation and migration, contrasting it with the broader, more socially sweeping style of Aw’s novel Five Star Billionaire. Its brevity and white space are presented as strengths that invite readers to reflect on their own roots and inherited histories.

As tourism returns to St Ives and other parts of Cornwall after lockdown, local residents fear that crowded streets and holiday accommodation could accelerate coronavirus transmission in a county with an older population and limited critical-care infrastructure. The tourism economy is vital, but residents who depend on holiday income face a painful choice between financial security and protecting their health. The surge also exposes tensions over affluent visitors, second homes and government support, with Cornwall Council seeking £700 million over a decade to replace funding lost after Brexit.

Max Liu reflects on growing up in a warm, creative but exceptionally untidy family home and how that environment initially left him disorganized and unprepared for domestic life. His partner Lucy and later circumstances prompted him to learn and appreciate cleaning, though he worries that tidiness may distance him from his past. Conversations with his mother, brother and a psychology professor highlight the effects of household chaos and the gendered distribution of domestic labor. Liu ultimately rejects blaming his mother, valuing the love and stimulation his family provided while acknowledging that the adults and children should have shared more responsibility for housework.

Max Liu reflects on his adolescent and university-era experiences of sending unwanted Valentine’s messages and recognizes that romantic pursuit can be frightening or unpleasant when interest is not mutual. He argues that 1990s popular culture often normalized male entitlement and rewarded harassment, citing examples from The Breakfast Club, Nirvana, Friends and the work of David Foster Wallace. The #MeToo movement is presented as a positive cultural correction rather than a threat to romance. Liu advises making Valentine’s gestures clearly identifiable, avoiding unwanted advances toward colleagues or people who are not interested, choosing thoughtful gifts and moving on without resentment when affection is not returned.

Max Liu reflects humorously on the tensions, eccentricities and unexpected rewards of spending Christmas with in-laws. Drawing on family food traditions, divorce and remarriage, cultural differences, and examples from writers and popular culture, he argues that relationships with a partner’s family can deepen over time and become genuinely rewarding. Despite his growing appreciation for his in-laws, he remains firmly opposed to cold turkey.

Cornwall is geographically remote, economically deprived and culturally overlooked, yet much of the fiction set there presents a romanticized past or a tourist fantasy rather than contemporary life. Drawing on personal experience and examples from Cornish, Scottish and Irish writers, Max Liu argues that Cornwall needs a literature created by people shaped by the county itself. Such writing would not exclude outsiders but would offer the specificity needed to make local stories universal. Emerging writers including Natasha Carthew and Rachael Allen suggest that a more confident Cornish literary culture may be developing, helping residents assert their identity while fostering wider understanding.

Max Liu argues that arts degrees should not be judged primarily by graduates’ earnings. Responding to Institute for Fiscal Studies figures showing that male arts graduates earn less than non-graduates at age 29, and to calls from Sam Gyimah and Amanda Spielman for greater scrutiny of courses with weak employment outcomes, Liu defends the intellectual, cultural and personal value of studying the arts. Drawing on his own experience as a writer, he says arts education develops the ability to think, interpret and communicate, while giving students time to discover meaningful work. He acknowledges the financial hardships of creative careers and the importance of employment, but rejects the idea that universities or arts degrees should be blamed for modest earnings.