Next up #WomensHistoryMonth
Next up #WomensHistoryMonth
This is a fascinating exploration of gender identities throughout history and across various cultures, challenging the idea that trans and gender-nonconforming identities are a modern ‘trend‘ or ‘fad‘. You may not agree with everything that Kit Hayem argues, but it‘s thought provoking and incredibly well researched.
This is a beautifully written memoir, and an enlightening insight into the LGBTQ+ Muslim community we're often led to believe doesn't exist. Lamya describes moving to the Middle East as a child then moving to the USA, how she draws strength from her faith, the pitfalls of dating/'not-dating', and of finding community where she can be her true self.
Next up #lgbtqhistorymonth
This is as brilliant and funny as I hoped it would be. Rob Delaney is a superb writer, and hearing him relate his life story with brutal honesty (graphically and hilariously so when describing a range of bodily functions) is so enjoyable.
Book post is best post
This is a brilliant book. A beautiful, vivid portrait of the visceral pain of grief, and of the joy of learning to love life again.
This is a brilliant collection. Powerful, radical, eclectic. There are a lot of classics that you'll probably be familiar with here (I don't recommend reading Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas in a cafe a week after you've watched a parent die btw) but, like all good anthologies, there were new discoveries that I want to follow up.
Sometimes poetry and vodka is the only thing that's gonna make you feel any better #BooksAndBooze
Oof. This poem is hitting hard right now. My mum passed away last Saturday after being ill for a few months with lung cancer and my God, did she rage against the dying of the light.
Another brilliant collection from Shaun Fallows. Witty, honest, often funny reflections on the frustrations of managing in a world built for able bodied people, politics, loneliness, the forthcoming robot war, and the Rothwell incident. Thought provoking and good fun.
(by the way Shaun, rugby was NOT better when Wigan used to win the league every year, I sincerely hope those days aren't returning.)
Awwwww. I asked Andy to get me this but I didn't think he would, we're VERY opposite politically and he's not a fan of Jeremy Corbyn and Len McCluskey. All the best everyone, I hope you got the books you wanted xxx
Oh God, this is such a beautiful, heartbreaking book. A visceral outpouring of grief and love.
New e-book from the library
New audiobook
Awful weekend again, but at least I finished three books and I get to start three new ones today. New week, new books.
This is a sweet, charming retelling of A Christmas Carol. Good, heartwarming, festive fun.
Oh, Elfie. So young, so feisty, so full of joie de vivre, but still so much to learn. This is another beautifully written, charming episode in her adventures with Angus King, and the illustrations are as beautiful as ever.
Oof. This is brilliantly written but my God it's bleak.
This is a brilliant memoir. Sylvia Patterson describes her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment in unflinching detail, and is brutally honest about how she felt, and how the pandemic made a horrible situation worse. She also reflects on the perspective the experience gave her, and her appreciation for her loved ones and the joys in life. Funny, moving, and a surprising amount of snooker chat.
Next up
This is a brilliant, wide-ranging book, telling the forgotten (or deliberately airbrushed) story of the millions of colonial and non-white troops who served in World War One, the patronising and racist attitudes they encountered, and how the backlash against them fed into the ideology and rise of the Nazis in Germany and the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan in the USA.
Next up
This is a fascinating story. Having been celebrity gossip fodder for most of the 21st century, it's great that Britney Spears is finally getting to tell her own story. The emotional & financial abuse her family inflicted on her is shocking, and I've never understood how, if she was so unwell that she couldn't be allowed to see her kids or access her own money, she could be forced to work. Oh & Justin Timberlake and Kevin Federline are utter dicks.
This is a remarkable, sinister book. As always with fantasy/magical realism, I struggled a bit getting my head round what was going on ("so is she hallucinating and/or mentally ill, or has she actually given birth to an owl baby?"), but it's brilliantly written and really gripping. A dark, unsettling parable of the violence and brutality and motherhood and caregiving.
Went to bed at 1.45am. Awake again at 5.45am. Looking after a sick parent must be what having kids is like.
The lack of sleep is probably why I found this sentence so unfathomably funny.
Next up
This is a really sweet, funny, quirky book. Highly recommend listening on audio because Jarvis Cocker is as lovely and charming as ever.
This is a beautiful, funny, moving book. Jo Caulfield gives an unflinching, heartfelt account of her sister's illness and death, and doesn't shy away from how inconvenient and intrusive grief is, and how difficult family relationships can be, as well as the joy of them. Part of the proceeds go to Macmillan Cancer Care so you should definitely buy it.
This is brilliant, a heartfelt love letter to Gerry's family and the community he grew up in. It's viscerally evocative of both the unbearable grief and loss his family suffered in his childhood, and of the joy and camaraderie he was surrounded by. Made me dead homesick.
This just wasn't for me. The epic scope of the book is ambitious and the author has clearly done an impressive amount of research, but I found it difficult to follow and some of the writing was icky to be honest.
Wow. This book is amazing. The protagonist, June Hayward/Juniper Song, is...... Quite something. Unreliable, complex, unlikeable and likeable and relatable and awful. And if you're a fan of a twisty plot, this is definitely the book for you. There is SO much going on here.
This is a lovely charming book, both a gripping historical adventure and a love letter to the city of Kraków. Some of the descriptions of the characters are a bit (ahem) 'of their time' but it's also really beautifully written and illustrated. Given that it was written in 1926, and what Poland has suffered since then, the final line - "May it bring in an epoch of peace to all men!" - is heartbreaking.
Next up. Looks like an uplifting feel-good read. #BooksAndBooze #InappropriateHashtagForThisBook
This is a brilliant collection. Gerry's poems evoke and reflect on the joy and pain of life in his unique Scouse voice. Me and my family are going through a really crappy time at the moment and this book was exactly what I needed. This is what poetry should be. Can't wait to read 6A Blackstock Gardens. #BooksAndBooze