Six Degrees of Separation: from Rodham to Hag-Seed

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Hello September. You’ve come around quickly, and almost a week old already. That means it’s time for Six Degrees of Separation, in which Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best chooses a book and we all add six more in a chain. The concept is explained here.

Random Thoughts on Lockdown 4

The world seems to be coming out of hibernation.

His Bloody Project: Documents relating to the case of Roderick Macrae

Read 26/04/2020-03/05/2020

Rating 3 stars

I’ve had Graeme Macrae Burnet’s book hanging around on my Kindle for three or so years. A friend’s recent review of Burnet’s debut novel reminded me that I hadn’t got round to reading His Bloody Project.

I was in the mood for some historical fiction after the last book I read, so I charged up my neglected Kindle and opened His Bloody Project up.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

Read 01/03/2020-08/03/2020

Rating 5 stars

Read for Dewithon 2020.

The Men Who Stare at Goats is a book and a film. I knew when I picked it up that I hadn’t read the book. It was on my To Read pile after all. The film is one of those that I think I’ve seen, because it has George Clooney in it and I love Clooney, but I haven’t watched it yet.

I decided to shuttle the book to the top of the pile because it was Saint David’s Day when I finished my last book.

Over on Book Jotter, Paula is running the second Dewithon, a reading challenge that celebrates Welsh writers. It starts on Saint David’s Day. There’s a group read, which sounds wonderful, but I’ve banned myself from buying books and my local library doesn’t have a copy for me to borrow. So I’m ploughing my own furrow and knocking a title off my To Read pile.

Invisible Women: Exposing data bias in a world designed for men

Read 14/12/2019-04/01/2020

Rating 4 stars

I found Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women a difficult read. It’s essential in its content and the topics Perez shines a light on, but I found its wide ranging subject and the approach Perez takes in evidencing and unpicking the topics she focuses on resulted in a somewhat dense, exhausting book. It relentlessly raises lots of issues across 300+ pages but leaves any possible solutions to the final dozen. It felt at times like one woman railing against injustice rather than a practical call to arms across society.

The book begins with a simple statement.

Six Degrees of Separation: from Hold Tight to The Handmaid’s Tale

For August’s 6 degrees of separation, we’ve been asked to start with the last book we finished in the month of July.

Hold Tight: Black Masculinity, Millennials and the Meaning of Grime

Read 06/07/2019-16/07/2019

Rating 4 stars

Read as part of the 20 Books of Summer readathon.

I read Hold Tight as someone who isn’t strictly a fan but who likes the Grime I’ve heard and wanted to know more about its artists and evolution. I’m aware that this review might not be of interest to most of the readers who regularly follow my meandering thoughts on what I’m reading. However, if you’re even vaguely interested in the sociology of working class culture and the music genres that emerge from it, then give this review and the book it’s about a chance. For anyone black, urban and millennial dropping by, please be aware that this review is going to be a bit like the bromance between Michael Buerke and Tinchy Stryder on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.

This Searing Light, the Sun and Everything Else

Read 28/04/2019-03/04/2019

Rating 5 stars

This Searing Light, the Sun and Everything Else is a history of the Manchester band Joy Division, drawn from oral history interviews compiled by Jon Savage and from music press reviews and interviews, and fanzines. It made me nostalgic for a moment in my childhood where I could only ever have been an observer.

Six Degrees of Separation: from The Arsonist to Shrinking Violets

 

I’m late to the March Six Degrees of Separation party because I’ve been struggling to get a jump from the first book in the chain. I haven’t read The Arsonist, only meme-coordinator Kate’s review of it.

BRIT(ish)

Read 17/01/2019-26/01/2019

Rating 4 stars

In BRIT(ish), Afua Hirsch has written a sort of memoir, sort of political appraisal, sort of social history of race and racism in the UK. There’s a bit of travelog in there as well. I struggled to get to grips with it at first, finding it a little piecemeal in its approach, jumping from personal experience peppered with historical context to historiography peppered with personal experience to journalistic investigation of specific aspects of racism in Britain. Each piece had its merits, but for me they didn’t always hang together as a whole. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy it. It’s articulate, it draws out different strands of the issue, there were lots of things that I learnt from reading it. Hirsch clearly has something she wants to say, and has struggled to understand her own existence, and there is value in what she extracts and shares from that personal struggle.