Category: Book reviews
-
There’s a one-in-five chance you just don’t matter
What if someone convinced you that we have a government that has consciously abandoned around one fifth of our population to a miserable life and an early death? Doesn’t it make you angry? Doesn’t it make you want to leap over all the bullshit and fix this hellishly dysfunctional country? In the course of education…
-
A cascade of burning books
Three books, a short film and a talk This morning, I read somewhere that Israel has a huge mental health crisis to deal with after all the tormenting and killing of Palestinians the IDF have been doing in Gaza and across the West Bank. It made me think about what kind of trauma must be…
-
Viva FiLiA!
It’s three weeks now since I got my hands on a copy of Rahila Gupta’s ‘British Feminism Through a FiLiA Lens.’ I’ve been reading furiously ever since, and have only just emerged. 384 closely printed pages about all that FiLiA has instigated, inspired or been a part of over the last ten years. To say…
-
The most evil people in the world?
“Why did they kill the children? Even the most savage beast in the jungle isn’t that brutal.” Go on, guess the country, guess the year. It’s not Palestine and it’s not 2025. (Five book recommendations and a musing — well, it’s been raining out there!) I read The Kite Runner a few years ago, and…
-
Nobody here is innocent
I wrote elsewhere about the weekend I spent at Winchester Writers’ Conference, way back in – oh I don’t know, the early years of the 21st century. It was great – Terry Prachett was the guest speaker, and brought a jazz band along. Carol-Ann Duffy and Michael Morpurgo were there doing signings. I went to…
-
Pirates ahoy!
A cry central to the history and spirit of Hastings — I wonder if an understanding of that will outlast the determination of commercial developers to fill the town with those who can afford affordable (and even unaffordable) housing. The Stade and all who sail in her It’s a favourite twist in Hastings history, the…
-
This woman won’t wheesht about Palestine
I think one of the most disastrous things that’s happened as our lives moved online is that ‘block’ function on social media. I think we’ve brought up a generation of humans who can’t cope with the fact that they can’t block everyone they don’t like in real life. What’s even more destructive is that it’s…
-
Not a single firefighter, police officer or soldier had come
“Nearly 20 minutes had passed since Huda and her staff had come across the burning bus … she and the UN nurses gently carried burned children to waiting volunteer cars…” The drivers would take the burn victims to “the nearest accessible hospital. For most of them, that was Ramallah. The hospitals in Jerusalem were far…
-
Sweet little UXB
Why am I tempted to say ‘this is a sweet little book’? It’s no such thing and anyway, I don’t say things like that but I’m trying to figure out how Xiaolu Guo has cunningly disguised an unusual and important piece of work as a sweet little book. The rare and quiet determination of someone…
-
Jewish not Zionist: an invitation from JVL
Leah Levane, Co-Chair of JVL (Jewish Voice for Labour) kindly wrote the introduction to the UK edition of Marilyn Garson’s latest book, Jewish not Zionist. Her introduction summarizes how the situation we are now challenging in Israel / Palestine came about. It covers the Balfour Declaration, and the likely motivations behind it, and how the…
Kay Green 