The Immortalists

Read 17/11/2018-25/11/2018

Rating: 4 stars

The Immortalists is Chloe Benjamin’s second novel. I read a review of it that made me want to read it immediately. Unfortunately, most of the other members of my local library service did too, so I had a bit of a wait. It was worth it, though.

From the off, Chloe Benjamin’s choice of words evokes sights and sounds poetically.

Dear Ijeawele: A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

Read 14/11/2018-16/11/2018

Rating: 3 stars

This letter written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to her friend doesn’t say anything new. It doesn’t, as the blurb on the back states, start a new and urgently needed conversation about what it really means to be a woman today. That conversation is ongoing. Women are having it every day. The book is part of that conversation, though, perhaps in a way Adichie didn’t intend and the publishers didn’t recognise.

Help the Witch

Read 31/10/2018-14/11/2018

Rating: 5 stars

Last year, Tom Cox published his wonderful book of nature writing, 21st Century Yokel, through Unbound. Having loved that book, the writing, the design, the entire spirit of the thing, as soon as he announced his first collection of fiction, I pledged.

The book arrived a couple of weeks ago. I saved it to take on holiday, to read on my birthday. Hallowe’en seemed an appropriate moment to read a collection of spooky short stories. I didn’t read it all on my birthday. I ended up drawing it out for as long as possible because I wanted to relish the stories.

Six Drinks of Separation

 

No, it’s not a new meme or a typo. Weezelle posted a fun and interesting rumination on which literary characters she’d sup with given half the chance and I thought I’d join in.

Washington Black

Read 21/10/2018-10/11/2018

Rating: 3.5 stars

I was itching to read Washington Black as soon as it made the long list for the 2018 Booker Prize. Its strapline “Escape is only the beginning” carried an air of intrigue and adventure with it, and the premise of a young black slave plucked from the horrors of plantation life to assist an inventor in his flights of fancy promised something a little different in approach to the usual telling of the story of slavery. The book mostly hits its mark and is worthy of its place on the Booker short list, the thing that prompted me to pick the book off the New Stock Just In shelves at the library.