How do you deal with the challenge of making work to fit the scale and beauty of a venue which in itself is stunning? Artist Casey Mackenzie, who is exhibiting Baptised by Blood in St Sepulchre's church, The City, London on 27th November, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to make sure she can do exactly that. She is aiming to raise funds to create a large-scale mixed media installation for one night, allowing contemporary art to interact with medieval architecture.

The church was built in 1450, gutted in the great fire of 1666, then renovated in the 18th Century. Captain John Smith is buried in the south aisle, and Roger Ascham, Queen Elizabeth I's tutor, and Sir Henry Wood, founder of the 'Proms' are also buried there. Located opposite the Old Bailey, the church is steeped in history.

Casey makes art dealing with the relationship between the institutions of art and religion, and the show is a culmination of her MA in Fashion Photography at London College of Fashion. If you'd like to support someone who is willing to take risks in order to create something ambitious, then you can back Casey's campaign here – bit.ly/cmjbbb – and get some original artwork or limited edition lithographic posters as one of the rewards.

Update: if you are ordering your own plastic figures, we have switched to using OO gauge (1:75) as N gauge (1:150) is just too teeny.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to explore your house while the height of a five-penny piece? Probably not. It was probably just me who spent too long reading The Borrowers as a child.

But, if you harbour fantasies of being teeny tiny, we'd like to invite you to take part in a pea-sized challenge.

Here's what you do. Send some tiny people on an adventure around your house: swinging off the loo roll, perhaps, or using a mixing bowl as a make-shift diving pool. Turn your home into the epic wilderness it would be if you were only 1cm high.

Take some photos of your people on their adventures and send to me at [email protected] by November 3rd with the subject "Pea-sized challenge." We'll print our favourites in the Great Indoors issue, which will be out in December.

You can obtain a set of five tiny people in our shop, where they come with a set of art cards, or buy a load by searching for OO Gauge people on eBay (just watch out for lengthy international shipping times).

It's the last day of the Oh Comely Book Club. We'd like to thank Penguin Classics for helping to make this happen. They're like a well-read friend who always has a good book to recommend.

Liz Ann Bennet was pretty confident that this Italian erotic novel would leave her joyless, but has been happily proved wrong. Here's how she's finding it:

I haven't finished The Art of Joy by Goliarda Sapienza yet. It's nearly 700 pages, and I haven't read anything that long since I was obsessed with The Lord of the Rings ten years ago.

Besides, I knew by page 15 that this wasn't going to be my sort of book. An early scene depicts our heroine Modesta, who is on the cusp of puberty, being raped by a man who claims to be her father. I have nothing against uncomfortable scenes, but this was so soon in the story. It felt tone-setting and gratuitous.

But sometimes the things you know ain't so, and I am now on page 260 and thoroughly enjoying the book. Set in 20th-century Sicily, Modesta grows up to be a masterful manipulator and killer. Yet she is a seductive personality and the inside of her head is a fascinating place to be. Sapienza handles Modesta's bisexuality with a refreshing deftness, and I've rarely read such an absorbing and convincing account of personal growth and change. It's no Fifty Shades.

What did you think, fellow readers? How far have you got?

And, as the book club finishes, I'd also like to hear about books that pleasantly surprised you. Being immersed in the unexpected is what makes reading so special.

Here's a review by Kirstin Papworth, who also blogged it here. We give Kirstin a round of applause for completing this in time.

I read the first half of the book fairly quickly. It was gripping, intriguing and unsettling. The structure reminded me of Jane Eyre, as the protagonist Modesta recounted her early memories of childhood and led the reader through her adolescence to her adulthood as, like Jane, a strong, capable woman. Yet The Art of Joy is almost an anti-Victorian novel, an inverted Jane Eyre.

Modesta's early experiences involve sadistic masturbation to the screams of her sister and sex with a stranger who claims to be her father. Even a decade spent in a convent doesn't transform Modesta into the chaste, obedient woman she's meant behave like. But The Art of Joy isn't the typical 'fallen woman' storyline like Madame Bovary. Modesta acquires wealth, an education and status, without giving up her sexual adventures with men and women.

I read the entire novel and really enjoyed it, but thought that it was a bit too long. Modesta was a really strong and likeable character, but other characters felt two dimensional in comparison, as if they were cameo roles to indulge her as a femme fatale. This might be because I got a bit bored of the plot and skim read the last 300 pages! With incestuous relationships continuing through the novel's fifty year span and numerous characters having nicknames, I got lost in a web of characters who may or may not have been related to each other. Unfortunately Sparknotes wasn't able to help me out either!

Reader Photos: Teri Polson and Kirstin Papworth. / Read more at Penguin Classics.

Do you like whiskey? If so, you'll appreciate Johnnie Walker Blue Label. It's a blend of Scotland's rare whiskies: I'm told that only one in ten-thousand casks is of sufficient quality to be chosen for the Blue Label blend.

With this standard in mind, the team behind Johnnie Walker Blue Label recently set out to make a short film to encapsulate the character of their whiskey. Called The Gentleman's Wager, it stars Jude Law and Giancarlo Giannini and begins on an old, beautiful boat in the Caribbean. 

While the film's scenario is miles away from anywhere I'd imagine myself to be hanging out, its exoticism is precisely the point. One pleasure of enjoying a good whiskey are the fantasies of the drink's history and persona that blend together one fine sip at a time.

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The best ideas often begin with a desire to celebrate something you love. For Jon Tutton and Sarah Young, it was the unsung prolificity of hard-working artists in their home town of Brighton. They plotted a fair to display Brighton's art - works not confined by style restrictions, but connected by a sense of place. 

This year the fair is taking place from 26th -28th September, and we are excited and proud to be the lead media sponsor. To coincide, Oh Comely readers can also claim 2-for-1 tickets here.

We'll also be rewarding our favourite artist a Best In Show prize, so look our for their work in our December issue.

We spoke to Jon Tutton about how Brighton Art Fair went from a chat down the pub to the largest art event on the South Coast.

Brighton Art Fair began more or less by accident, didn't it? Could you tell us the story. We are all artists--Sarah Young and I and the people we set up the show with--and we were sitting in the pub and came to the conclusion that Brighton needed a showcase to shine a spotlight on the town’s creativity. Brighton is quite a funny place in that way. There are an awful lot of artists, but historically it hasn’t had very good galleries. We got a really big audience on the first year, so much that we had to shut the doors and have one in one out, which for an art event is unheard of.

That is impressive. Why do you think that was? I think our selection distinguishes us from other shows. We don’t have a look, so it’s not a graffiti show, or painting only. We welcome any sort of art, it can be traditional, modern and in any medium. One of the dangers of having a show in Brighton is that it can be very easy to have everyone selling pictures of the pier or the Brighton pavilion. We really veer away from the obvious and select work from people who seem to have a passion for what they’re doing.

Are there any exhibitors you are particularly excited about this year?

Lauri Hopkins did one of our shows a couple of years ago and it felt very crisp--nice compositions, really fresh work. You find yourself drawn to its simple beauty over and over.

It's Marta Juvanteny's first time exhibiting with us so we have yet to see her work in the flesh. We found its throbbing, hypnotic nature quite compelling.

The combination of stitch and paint in one way or another is quite a strong theme in a few of the artists exhibiting this year. This is Kelly Jenkins’s first year at Brighton. We loved the carefulness of the embroidered stitches mirroring the energetic randomness of paint.

Melanie Max is another first-timer. Unexpected and mood-filled landscapes that you want to live with.

Mark Charlton's work immediately grabs you. It is vital and inspiring.

Guy Holder has exhibited with us for many years. His work is always changing and moving forward. This year, Guy is presenting new figurative sculptures referencing historical themes and folk art.

I can't help hearing the echoes of Greek mythology's Nine Muses in Selfridges' ambitious The Masters project. The store has collaborated with twelve designers on an otherwordly video, signature pieces by each, and a twelve display windows on Oxford Street.

You'll find that Paul Smith is Master of Inspiration ("you can find inspiration in anything, and if you can't you should look again"). The elusive Azzedine Alaïa, who calls himself a builder rather than a designer, is Master of Architecture. Stella McCartney is Master of Modernity.

Yes, it whiffs of pomposity. But I enjoyed it all the same, because Selfridges' daring project is a beautifully-curated one, that maintains consistency despite the impression diversity of the names involved.

See if you can work out who's who in the video below, then check your answers here:

Here are a few of our favourite Muses. Sorry, Masters. Azzedine Alaïa, Master of Architecture.

Oscar de la Renta, Master of Elegance. He's curated a collection of evening gowns for the store that are breath-taking both in beauty and in price.

Thom Browne, Master of Showmanship. Search his name on the Selfridges' website to find black, white and red cardigans and vests with striking diagonal stripes.

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Do you dream about escaping to the country for a week, just you and your pen? Arvon offers the time and space to get away and write.

You can take your pick of four beautiful centres spread about the British countryside, and choose from courses that range from novel writing and poetry, to literary translation and writing for musical theatre. Their residential retreats accomodate every level of experience, and are led by leading authors, who in the past have included Simon Armitage, Jim Crace and Ali Smith. 

Find a hideaway somewhere serene here.

Photos: Arvon 

Keeping a diary is not always enough; sometimes all you need is to let it all out.

Next up in our series on graphic journals is Jacob Louis Beaney, author of A History of My Fatness, a tragi-comic autobiographical comic. Jacob’s work touches on history, mythology and contemporary society, but his penchant for telling it like it is gives hard-knock issues a laugh-out-loud factor.  

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I'm an artist based in Nottingham and I'm 30 this year. I suffer from a terrible addiction to fried chicken.

What's the story behind A History of My Fatness?

It's about me being fat, then losing weight, then getting fat again, then getting thin and then becoming grotesquely obese.

Childhood obesity is such a hot topic these days and yet you approach it with wit and humor. Has this take enabled you to reach out to a broader audience?

When I started writing it, I didn't really think that a comic book about me being fat had much appeal, but Britain is the fattest country in Europe so that's a large target audience for the book. Some people have said that they appreciate the honesty of it; I think we all feel a bit better when we realise that someone else has been through something similar.

In your comic, you're depicted as a self-conscious teenager dealing with obesity and bad body image. Has your work helped you to overcome some difficult experiences growing up?

Making autobiographical work has helped me to examine and understand certain areas of my life. As Socrates said, "the unexamined life is not worth living," so a certain amount of self-analysis is good (though not to the extent that you're up half the night worrying that you held eye contact too long with the man who works in Co-op). Self-consciousness can be very debilitating and it's definitely something to overcome.

How have family and friends responded to your candidness?

An ex-girlfriend, who was featured in one of my books, threatened legal action against me for 'defamation of character'. I don't let my mum and dad see a lot of what I make; no one’s mum really needs to know that their son has a penchant for strap-ons. I think openness is seen as being a bit un-British, but it's important to talk about the things that affect us.

Your book Modern Moral Subjects takes a satirical look at Britain’s recent economic woes. What interests you about this time?

I think as you get a bit older you start to pay more attention to what's going on around you. Being a current beneficiary of unemployment benefits, I've definitely noticed the change in attitude towards those on state welfare. It's now the mentality of strivers vs. skivers, and the unemployed are being scapegoated and held in the kind of contempt that's normally reserved for people who sneeze without covering their mouth, or those who sexually molest ferrets.

What’s next for you?

I've just finished a new book, Back Home and Broke, which is about being a recent arts graduate living under a philistine conservative government, and having to move back home to and stay with an ex-addict, ex-con, bi-polar uncle.

Read more in this series: An Interview with Brittany Long, An Interview with Sofia Niazi.