For two years I've been writing a novel which involves some Greek mythological figures (my agent [still a new enough relationship for it to feel quite unreal] is going to send me final revision notes next week). Naturally I have been avoiding reading new fiction about Greek mythology, because I don't want to inadvertently poach, … Continue reading William Golding, The Double Tongue
Category: myth
Inaka. Portraits of Life in Rural Japan
A mention of this book popped up on Twitter, and I went straight to the Camphor Press website and bought it. I've never been to Japan, but two family members have, one for a year, and she's been trying to get back there ever since. Japanese books are stacked up in her bedroom, not just … Continue reading Inaka. Portraits of Life in Rural Japan
Farah Mendlesohn, Creating Memory
Farah Mendlesohn has a new book out, and it is a dense deep dive into how the history of the English Civil Wars has been written for children, and therefore for everyone, and what this says about how our understanding of seventeenth-century history has been shaped by its teaching. Mendlesohn is a scholar in the … Continue reading Farah Mendlesohn, Creating Memory
Philip Pullman, The Secret Commonwealth
I finally finished this immensely thick paperback last night, after six nights of reading. I’m not a slow reader, but the time I took to get through this novel - volume two in The Book of Dust trilogy - was down to its interminability. It is 719 pages long, and concludes nothing in itself, setting … Continue reading Philip Pullman, The Secret Commonwealth
Liz Williams, Miracles of Our Own Making: A History of Paganism
Liz Williams is a very well respected science fiction and fantasy author, and (until very recently) the co-proprietor of a witchcraft shop in Glastonbury (the shop may re-open after the pandemic has been brought under control). I have professional delaings with her, in that in February she spoke on a panel on women in sff … Continue reading Liz Williams, Miracles of Our Own Making: A History of Paganism
Where are The Women? A Guide to an Imagined Scotland
Poised as I was to fly to Scotland for a pre-Christmas visit, this was an excellent guidebook to dip into. Sara Sheridan decided that a new guide to Scotland was needed, that included all the women who have not been celebrated as they should have been. She was inspired by Rebecca Solnit's map of the … Continue reading Where are The Women? A Guide to an Imagined Scotland
Enjoyed, with caveats
M C Bolitho, A Victorian Lady in the Himalayas, edited by Jean Burnett Jean Burnett is part of Writers Unchained, a collective of writers from Bristol, and has published novels with Little, Brown about the adventures of Lydia Bennett. She has edited the diary of Maria Bolitho, a Victorian Englishwoman who travelled across the Himalayas … Continue reading Enjoyed, with caveats
Raging aggravations
Another in an irregular series of reviews of books I have not enjoyed. Links to earlier episodes are at the end. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough, Beyond the Northlands. Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas This book, bought at the British Museum’s bookshop, was so promising, with such a good pedigree: an exciting young(ish) scholar; a … Continue reading Raging aggravations
Avengers: Endgame.
HERE BE SPOILERS. Avengers: Endgame is not a film you can talk about in detail without spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, so please don't read on if you get upset by spoilers. I MEAN IT. I don't yet know if I liked the whole film or not. I was very bored in … Continue reading Avengers: Endgame.
J B Priestley and Jacquetta Hawkes, Journey Down a Rainbow
I found this book of travel writing about the south-west of mid-1950s USA in The Second Shelf, a new antiquarian bookshop in London specialising in works by women. This was only the second book (partly) by a man I've seen there (the other was a lesbian pulp novel apparently written by a man with a … Continue reading J B Priestley and Jacquetta Hawkes, Journey Down a Rainbow
