Category: Book reviews
-
Fly a kite, tell a story, read a book…
In February last year, I went to a talk by Dr Zahira Jaser, which focused on what it’s like being a Palestinian woman in the UK lately. One of the issues mentioned was some people’s attitudes to people wearing the keffiyah. These days, people seem to think it means ‘terrorist’. Jaser spoke eloquently about the…
-
This article has nothing whatsoever to do with shopping…
…it is a salute to Valerie Coultas and all the other women and men who have hung in there for Your Party, and still hope to build socialism there. Sexism has always been there – where has the socialist understanding of it gone? 1910 When women thrown into prison for marching for women’s rights began…
-
Books and broligarchy
A couple of blogs ago, I wrote about a Rose Tremain novel that I’d missed… … that set me off looking through her works to see what else I hadn’t read, and I came across Islands of Mercy. More of that presently… This week, I wrote about what the Epstein files really show up, and…
-
A shameful day for the English
One of the ironies of any work in publishing and the book trade is that, because your work involves a lot of reading, you’re always at least a decade behind on what ‘everyone’ has read. That’s why, now the book-work is down to a minimum, I like doing my occasional series of ‘reviews of old…
-
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…
Kay Green 