This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch

Starred review from February 28, 2022
A surprise midlife obsession with British actor Benedict Cumberbatch provides the occasion for musings on passion, aging, and identity in this spirited debut from essayist Carvan. She describes how she became fixated on Cumberbatch after watching an episode of Sherlock, stockpiling her desk with ephemera featuring the actor’s face and watching his television and film performances multiple times over. The author details her investigation into her infatuation, including how her passion revealed to her the toll that motherhood and midlife had taken on her sense of self (“That’s the joke of motherhood: you don’t get to have children and be yourself”). Carvan shares her conversations with middle-aged (and older) fans, some of whom refer to themselves as “Cumberbitches,” including a high-ranking corporate executive and a retail worker who moonlights as a narrator of fanfiction audiobooks. Carvan’s self-aware approach wrings the absurdity out of her story to hilarious effect while touching on the realities of motherhood and fandom: “It’s not just about what we love, but how that love figures in our lives, and how it makes us feel.” The result is a weird-in-the-best-way account of self-discovery that brims with humor and insight. Agent: Catherine Drayton, InkWell.

Starred review from January 1, 2023

In her witty first book, Australian journalist Carvan offers a compelling argument for prioritizing "pure leisure" interests and activities that do nothing except provide joy. As an overwhelmed young parent, Carvan felt that her identity had been buried under mountains of motherhood responsibilities. One morning, standing in line for coffee (celebrating that "for the first time in one thousand years" she was neither pregnant nor breastfeeding), she spots Benedict Cumberbatch on a magazine cover and is overwhelmed by a sense of yearning. From there, she describes her increasing infatuation with the actor, and the corresponding feelings of guilt which lead her to research the fandom mindset. Through this research and interviews with academics and other superfans, Carvan concludes that being passionate about anything, whether it's playing chess or writing Sherlock fan fiction, can help people find community, cultivate creativity, and improve their overall well-being. With spot-on comedic timing, narrator Tanya Schneider perfectly conveys Carvan's self-deprecating tone. She deftly delivers Carvan's sparkling prose, which gracefully flows from laugh-out-loud to heartfelt to inspirational. VERDICT Part feminist essay, part memoir, this compassionate and utterly hilarious testament to the value of all passions and hobbies, no matter how niche, will offer much needed encouragement to mothers and non-mothers alike.--Beth Farrell

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 8, 2021
When Tabitha Carvan suddenly falls in love with the actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who she has never met, she doesn’t know what to make of it. Her growing obsession simultaneously puzzles, embarrasses and intrigues her so she sets out to understand women’s passions, those deemed embarrassing and unserious by society. This book takes the reader back to Internet 2.0, the BBC series Sherlock and the personal essays that characterised the 2010s, and the author’s blogging credentials are clear from her intimate, self-deprecating writing style. She sounds like an Australian Caitlin Moran or Dolly Alderton. Carvan explores what her infatuation with Cumberbatch means by speaking to critics, journalists, content creators and fellow fans, as well as professors of history, psychology, biology and sociology. She searches for the source of and science behind her celebrity worship in case studies from history and medicine. Carvan also offers her personal experience. She writes honestly about losing her sense of self in early motherhood, her formative childhood and adolescent experiences, and the embarrassment and guilt she associates with her newfound love. She then expands this research into feminist territory, looking at the way women’s interests and things deemed ‘feminine’ are often disdained by mainstream society. This is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch is an easy, lighthearted read about serious subject matter: feminism, passion, relationships and creativity, and owning the strength of the passions felt in childhood and adolescence. Fay Helfenbaum is a freelance writer and editor and was a bookseller for five years.