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.

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Black and British

Read 27/05/2018-02/09/2018 (with breaks!)

Rating: 4 stars

It took me a while to read this history of Black people in Britain, mainly because it’s an in-depth piece of research that warranted a slow read to absorb the multi-layered stories, but also because the majority of those stories are necessarily hard going. I needed to take a number of breaks to read books that were lighter in tone or pure fiction.

I watched David Olusoga’s BBC TV show Black and British last year and have been meaning to read the accompanying book for a while. I enjoyed his presenting style and the way he made a difficult subject accessible without diluting the message of white culpability in the enslavement and continued denigration of people of colour that is central to this history.

The Trick to Time

Read 08/05/2018-12/05/2018

Rating: 3 stars

I loved Kit de Waal’s debut novel, My Name is Leon, so when I heard that she had her second book out and it was on the longlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, I slung in a library reservation. I had a bit of a wait. Lots of people wanted to read it before me. Were we all justified in our anticipation?

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race

Read 21/02/2018-28/02/2018

Rating: 5 stars

Wow, this book. I’d heard it was good. I didn’t expect it to be this good.

Random Thoughts: new faces of fiction for 2018 in the Observer New Review

Image copied from the Observer website

I’m not supposed to be buying books again this year. I’ve already bought three. We’re not quite halfway through January. The bodings are heading in the wrong direction.

Today, the Observer newspaper has published its list of debut novelists to look out for. I’m excited by a few of them.

My Name is Leon

Read 29/05/2017-31/05/2017

Rating: 4 stars

My Name is Leon is a wonderful, warm, funny, tense, sad and hopeful book. When it appeared on the voting list for the Reader’s Room March Madness Challenge, I read the blurb and didn’t feel anything much for it. The blurb made the book sound twee and patronising. Now that I’ve read it, I can appreciate how difficult it is to try to condense its essence to a paragraph. The book is anything but twee or patronising.

Ayoade on Ayoade

Read 23/07/2015-26/07/2015

Rating: 3 stars

I’d like to advise that you don’t read this book* if you have an amount of isotonic sports drink (or any other liquid, for example tea) in your mouth (a small amount or a large amount, it doesn’t matter).