Essays about books and the thoughts I have reading them
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Woman, Idle is Laura Vogt’s third novel, and her second to be translated into English. I read and loved What Concerns Us and had no hesitation in buying Woman, Idle as soon as it was announced by Héloïse Press. The translator is once again the excellent Caroline Waight. As with What Concerns Us, three women […]
It took some lateral thinking to remember which of the Australian bloggers I follow persuaded me in 2018 to buy a copy of The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree. I knew it must be someone Australian, because Shokoofeh Azar’s novel of displacement and fracture in the years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran wasn’t […]
Every year, Mayri (who blogs as Bookforager) puts together a bingo card of picture prompts to inspire us to get creative with our reading. Picture Prompt Book Bingo is one of my favourite challenges, along with 20 Books of Summer, because there are no rules. You just have to read books and find a way […]
I’m going to start by saying that, while I like poetry, I don’t like all of it. Some poets have voices that jar with me. Others write so opaquely that I can’t quite work out what they’re trying to say to me. Both of these are true of Itō Hiromi, it turns out. Killing Kanoko […]
Free Loaves on Fridays is an anthology of writing by 100 care experienced people. Its subtitle is “The care system as told by people who actually get it”. Its editor, Rebekah Pierre, is care experienced herself and has worked in child protection social work. Gathered together in the pages of this book are stories, poems, […]
How is it August already? I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing that the year feels like it’s flying by. Today it’s the first day of the month and the first Saturday of the month, which means it’s time for Six Degrees of Separation. Kate has chosen Land by Maggie O’Farrell as […]
I became aware of Myfanwy Tristram’s Noisy Valley: The Art of Protest thanks to the Rickard Sisters, adapters of classic novels like The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, No Surrender and This Slavery into graphic novel form. The Rickards and Tristram share a publisher in Self Made Hero. Noisy Valley is a graphic art presentation of the […]
Julie Janson’s Benevolence takes place in the early 19th century and is the story of Muraging, the daughter of a leader from the Darug Nation. Muraging is given to the Parramatta Native School by her father in 1816. He believes that, if she learns the waibala/’whitefella’ ways, she will be able to help her people. […]
Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories is the first novel in the Jackson Brodie series. I loved the tv adaptation, with Jason Isaacs in the lead role and Edinburgh as its location. My sister recommended the books to me many years ago, but it took Cathy’s recent review at 746 Books to finally persuade me to borrow […]
After reading Insurgent Empire in May, I decided it was time to get to grips with Angela Y Davis’s 1981 essay collection Women, Race and Class, in which Davis explores the history of oppression in the United States, from slavery to the unequal treatment of women in society and the workplace. The collection was groundbreaking […]
