State of the TBR – March 2024

And so it grows. Yup, I’ve had to go into piles. Compared to last month it’s even bigger! I did a fair bit of book token spending in the month. I only took six print books off the shelf and read them (but four of them were Three Investigators Mysteries!), and I have one more I’m in the middle of. I didn’t take any of the oldest books off the TBR but I did read five more of my TBR Project books (twelve read, ten reviewed, 129 to go; will be reporting quarterly). The Liz and Emma Read Together books are in a separate pile (top shelf, to the right) because they don’t form part of the TBR project.

I completed 17 books in January (two with reviews to be published, one review to come on Shiny). Two of those were review books and two were books that I acquired in February. I am part-way through four more (including my current Reading With Emma Read and a read that will take all year). I read my remaining January NetGalley books and all but two of my February ones in February and my NetGalley review percentage is back up to 92%. I read four books for ReadIndies month, which was a bit disappointing, and am more than half-way through a fifth.

I didn’t review “Fourteen Days” edited by Margaret Atwood as I found it uninspiring, got annoyed by how they arranged the author list at the back so you couldn’t easily check who wrote what, and accidentally spotted a major plot point which unnerved me!

Incomings

I had a lot of lovely print incomings, thanks to book tokens I could spend now Christmas and Birthday Season were out of the way, lovely gifts, a publisher, a book event and subscribing to a book via Unbound:

“Forest Silver” by E.M. Ward came from the lovely folk at the British Library and I’ve read and reviewed it here. Michael Paramo’s “Ending the Pursuit” is a book about asexuality, aromanticism and agender identity I subscribed to from Unbound a few years ago.

The next six books are from The Heath Bookshop, mostly book token spends: “We Come with this Place” by Debra Dank is a powerful book of memoir and history of the original people of Gudanji Country in Australia, which a good few of my Australian blogger friends have read and recommended; Louise Erdrich’s “Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country” does the same in Canada; and “Birmingham’s Public Art” details current and former art in my home city, a great reminder that the Bookshop can order in books that cover the world and one’s particular interests. Andrew McMillan’s “Pity” I bought at his book event and couldn’t resist (review here); it’s likely to be one of my books of the year. Adèle Oliver’s “Deeping It” is from a small press and I thought I might use it for ReadIndies: it tells of colonialism and the criminalisation of UK Drill music; and Oliver Smith’s “Atlas of Abandoned Places” has pictures, maps and descriptions of amazing places around the world. I’d seen both of these on the shelves of the shop and finally snapped them up, hooray!

I was very restrained when Bookish Beck sent round a list of ARCs she was passing along and only asked for Rebecca Smith’s “Rural” about rural lives in the UK now, and Bianca Bosker’s “Get the Picture” which is a deep dive into the art world. Finally, my lovely friend Cari in New York had tried to send me Christian Cooper’s “Better Living Through Birding” (he’s the Black birdwatcher a White woman called the police on in Central Park: social justice and birdwatching in one book!) and it had come back to her, so she added Alicia Garza’s “The Purpose of Power: How to Build Movements for the 21st Century” and sent them a different way for a lovely extended birthday present!

I have been incredibly restrained on NetGalley and only three books have come in!

I was offered Clare Pooley’s “How to Age Disgracefully” (published in June) because I’d enthusiastically reviewed “The Authenticity Project” and “The People on Platform Five“; it features a Senior Citizens’ Social Club that strikes back against ageing (and the local council). Layal Liverpool’s “Systemic: How Racism is Making us Ill” (June) looks worldwide at how racism and bias are affecting health outcomes systematically and looks to offer solutions. Lauren Farnsworth’s “The Lonely Hearts Quiz League” (July) is another community novel set around pub quizzes.

So that was 17 read and 12 coming in in February, and I’ve read two of the print ones already.

Currently reading

I’m currently reading Barclay Price’s “The Chinese in Britain” which I wanted to get read for ReadIndies month but didn’t finish; it’s a good survey of Chinese visitors and residents with some reservations. I’ve started Beverley Kendall’s “Token” from NetGalley and am enjoying reading about a non-Disaster Millennial Woman Black central character in this New York novel. Emma and I are getting along very well with “London Parks”. Not pictured: I’m continuing to read “Bedside Companion for Book Lovers” along with Ali.

Coming up and my 2024 reading challenge

I mainly wanted to take books from the TBR Challenge off the shelf, but I’ve changed tactic slightly. The point of the TBR challenge was to allow me to read books I acquire more quickly, but was potentially blocking me from reading new books till they were all done, so I am now going to read one new one for every two of the oldest ones I read. This extends the up-to-the-end-of-2023 reading deadline to the end of June 2025 (I think!).

I have almost no other challenges in March as amazingly I have no books by Welsh writers on the TBR (unless you have a squint at the photo at the top and spot any) and just Marian Keyes’s “Again, Rachel” for an Irish one, so it’s a free for all on the print TBR, and you can imagine I’m going to take two from the top and one from the bottom.

I have two remaining reads from February (“If You See Them” and “A Dirty Filthy Book”) and “Token” has moved to publication in March so this my March e-book TBR:

There’s “Token” by Beverley Kendall (New York business/romance); Lisa Ko’s “Memory Piece” (three American women with Chinese heritage from their teens into the future); “Dominoes” by Phoebe McIntosh (Black woman, White man, same surname, oh-oh); Sara Cox’s second novel, “Way Back” (North London middle-aged woman rediscovers herself); Olivia Ford’s “Mrs Quinn’s Rise to Fame” (bake-off style show reveals secrets); and Helen Scales’ “The Shell Spotter’s Guide” (well, what it says). These don’t seem too demanding so I’m hoping I’ll catch myself up.

I’m already reading “Token” so with the ones I’m currently reading, that’s two books to finish and at least eight to read, which might just happen!

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How was your February reading? What are you reading this month? Are you doing any book challenges for the year? Have you read or picked up any of my selection and can you spot any Welsh or Irish authors I’ve missed?

Book review – Andrew McMillan – “Pity”

I’ve got a few book challenges on the go, one being reading all my TBR this year, the other being reading books for KaggsysBookishRamblings and LizzySiddal‘s #ReadIndies month. Well, I acquired this one THIS MONTH so it doesn’t exactly fulfil the TBR project, however, the point of the project is to allow me to read lovely books I acquire more quickly, and I just couldn’t resist this one. I attended an excellent author event at The Heath Bookshop for this one and Andrew was great and I got to babble about 12-year-old me’s fundraising for the miners’ strike (how on earth did I send the money in?). Andrew read out some sections and I will admit to a frisson of concern when he mentioned Jon McGregor as an infuence as I’m not a big fan. I really didn’t want this to be a writing-course-exercise type of book. Fortunately, even though it plays with form and voice and is extremely clever, it isn’t.

Andrew McMillan – “Pity”

(10 February 2024, The Heath Bookshop author event)

As Simon walked back across to his phone, he remembered the time he’d left his mobile in the temporary classroom where they were taught history in secndary school; someone had picked it up and read out the text messages he’d been sending to another boy. He’d refused to go to the next lesson. He’d had to tell a teacher he was gay. The teacher paused momentarily, looked up to the Styrofoam ceiling tiles, and then whispered ‘fuck Thatcher’ before turning back to resssure him as he sobbed. Simon still remembered that, it came back to him every so often, when the wheel of memory dredged it up and brought it into the light and then sunk it down inside of him. (p. 40)

Set in Barnsley, which isn’t something you hear often for a start, this book charts a week or so in the life of a town, a family within that town, the miners who came before them and the academics who come to study them. Alex and Brian are brothers who’ve both worked in the local mine, following their father.

We open as Alex starts to come of age and experience a sexual awakening and this is the first hugely clever passage of many, as we’re led subtly to see what’s happening in his life and later find out how that’s fallen out across his life. Alex’s son Simon, one of the two hearts of the book as I read it, is negotiating a new relationship with Ryan, who is a security guard and seemingly less secure in his identity than Simon. He certainly does’t like it when he comes to see Simon’s drag show and Simon doesn’t remove all his makeup before they travel home.

Simon also works in a call centre and has an online sex work side hustle (it’s worth noting that this is quite an explicit book, something I will always flag up as regular readers know; however nothing is gratuitous and the scenes are written with such care and precision). But his drag work forms a thread through the book, especially as he builds up to moving away from his standard character to a portrayal of Margaret Thatcher. Meanwhile, Uncle Brian is somewhat confusedly attending drop-in sessions by a group of academics (and a poet with a handful of post-it notes who McMillan suggested might be his Alfred Hitchcock-style cameo appearance; I laughed out loud revisiting his scene because of one particular phrase!) who want to know about the layers of his experience of his town, and Ryan and then some unnkown viewers watch the shopping centre on CCTV and Simon’s films online. All of these sections are interspersed with passages taking us through miners’ lives – earlier miners, it turns out, of the grandfather’s generation, repeated mornings, each slightly different, the trip in the cage, the coal face.

So sections, in different type faces, revolve around each other: Simon, Ryan, Brian, sometimes Alex, the viewers, the academics, and while that sounds writing-school-exercisey, it somehow isn’t; it’s too integrated and well-done for that. There are moments of wry laughter at the academics and their academic code, their bubble of acceptance of regional dialect pricked by Brian’s practicality, and quiet appreciation of the technical brilliance of the writing: while I can’t give too much away, one scene seen on a CCTV echoes many points of one of Simon’s videos, telling us something important about the way we see people and identity through a screen. The culminating scene for Simon’s Thatcher drag story is seen partially, through a screen; the culminating scene for his grandfather is so very there.

All this is packed into just 171 pages, too – a spare and careful book, so well-crafted but with an emotional punch.

One for Bookish Beck’s Book Serendipity collection: this was the second book I read in a week that was the first published prose work of someone who’d previously only published poetry, the first being “How to Say Babylon” which while seemingly very different, was also about very much about family and place.

Published by Canongate and read this month, this is officially Book 3 in my offering for KaggsysBookishRamblings and LizzySiddal‘s #ReadIndies month!

Book review – Jon Bounds, Jon Hickman and Danny Smith – “Birmingham: It’s Not Shit”

I took part in the crowdfunding campaign for this book back in 2021; it’s always interesting to me how the subscription model that was how a lot of publishing operated originally is alive and well today. I love the fact that so many people I know are listed in the subscribers at the back! Of the 12 books that came in during the same month, I have read and reviewed nine and discarded one and have two left to read still. Paradise Circus are an organisation which disseminates information about Birmingham in various ways, though a blog, events and publishing.

Jon Bounds, Jon Hickman and Danny Smith – “Birmingham: It’s Not Shit: 50 Things that Delight About Brum”

(6 December 2021, subscribed for)

There was a solution to the problem of Birmingham’s image, they said. But it turned out to be the physically impossible act of banging a drum while bowing your own trumpet and shouting loudly about yourself. That and bulldozing the only truly interesting building in town to replace it with some more grade-one office space, with a bistro at the bottom. (Introduction, p. 8)

A book of fifty essays on various topics that mean Birmingham is in fact marvellous, while still being gloriously self-deprecating in that way that means we’ll always let Manchester think it’s the second city, there’s something to love and to bring up some memories for anyone who’s lived in Birmingham during the last decade or so (I’ve been here for 26 years in two batches so plenty for me).

From the late and great Benjamin Zephaniah, alive at the time of the book’s writing of course, turning down an OBE to the No 11 bus and Mr Egg, there’s a true range of Birmingham icons here. Danny Smith’s piece on “Your Local Balti House” is both true (you pick one and it’s the only one you go to, however many there are locally: we did it with the one we went to on our first evening in our new house) and touching; Jon Hickman’s piece on “The Canals” reminds us that it’s not all fancy like around Brindleyplace but goes decidedly more dodgy as soon as you leave the city centre, more real; Danny Smith catches the non-driver’s unfounded yearning for a visit to the shiny delights of “The Inevitable Perfect Disappointment of Star City” and captures the atmosphere of Snobs, the much-lamented nightclub (it’s moved so it’s not the same) where at least three of my friends met their husbands; and Jon Bounds explains why we don’t have an underground. The only bit I couldn’t identify with was meeting on the ramp, because I always met people at the top or bottom of escalators between the Pallasades and New Street Station, now only a ghost in people’s memories, anyway.

Those were my favourites, but not by much at all, in a super book I’ll return to again and again.

Published by Paradise Circus and read this month, this is officially Book 2 in my offering for KaggsysBookishRamblings and LizzySiddal‘s #ReadIndies month! It’s also Book 10 in my 2024 TBR project – just 131 to go!

Book review – Grace Dent – “Comfort Eating”

I bought this book and had it signed at a super event run by the Heath Bookshop at a local school. I attended with my friend Julia, missed Gill entirely and saw a whole host of other people I knew. The queue for signing was so long but well-organised and it had to be done. I picked this one off for my 2024 TBR project and because I wanted to read the hardback before the paperback came out, and it was such a good read, I raced through it. Of the nine books I acquired in print in October 2023, I’ve read this one and read half of a review book I didn’t realise I’d had for so long …

Grace Dent – “Comfort Eating: What We Eat When Nobody’s Looking”

(04 October 2023, The Heath Bookshop – book event)

And although this moment in time is gone, and my parents are gone, and the dog is gone, and the family house is sold, and I’m now a grown adult who can have crisps any time I choose, I get goosebumps just thinking about it. In fact, every time someone puts crisps in a bowl to be fancy, well, I think about all of it. (p. 189)

Grace Dent has a Comfort Eating podcast in which she invites celebrities into her home to talk about the food they eat for comfort: they cook the food together and share it and talk about all sorts. This book arose from the podcast and also the loss of Dent’s mother; they were together sharing comfort food during her last weeks and her loss is woven through the book as well as that of Dent’s father earlier.

That’s not to say it’s a sad book – although there are poignant moments there are also surprises, memories for everyone (especially if you’re of the same vintage as Dent, as I am approximately), interesting points about class, and laugh-out-loud moments.

Perishable ingredients are allowed, but frowned upon, Almost everything in your recipe could survive a nuclear incident. Just cockroaches, acid rain and a jar of Dorito Dip.

All herbs must be dried and with long-ago sell-by dates, in tiny glass pots that have survived at least two house moves. No comfort food requires fresh tarragon. (p. 20)

After starting with the Golden Rules for comfort eating (see quotation above), we go through the six main (comfort) food groups are covered in the book (Cheese, Butter, Pasta, Bread, Potatoes and Sweet Treats) with each featuring one podcast guest’s food in detail and mentioning others as well as Dent’s experiences with the food group. There are aditional (hilarious) interludes: Comfort Eating Honours (Aunt Bessie and Mr Kipling get OBEs); Uncomfortable Eating (green peppers and quinoa feature); and Dent’s Dictionary Corner (see what she did there?).

School dinners and unashamed oddity are celebrated, and I saw Tottenham Cake mentioned just after seeing or hearing of it somewhere else (where?) as well as Chocolate Concrete, which I thought was just a Midlands thing but was apparently Cumbrian, too (what local school pudding did you have? I’m from Kent so “Gypsy” Tart was the thing-unknown-outside-the-county for us).

A super read, hard to put down and easy to read, highly recommended especially if you claim to eat seeded brown bread at every opportunity but then send your friend out for thick sliced white bread and strawberry jam when you have Covid. For example. Ahem.

This was Book 6 in my 2024 TBR project – just 135 to go!

And being published by Faber (Faber Guardian, actually), it’s Book 1 in my offering for KaggsysBookishRamblings and LizzySiddal‘s #ReadIndies month!

State of the TBR – February 2024

It’s got even bigger compared to last month! I had some birthday incomings I have already reported, plus some more. I took seven print books off the shelf and read them (but I will admit that five of them were Three Investigators Mysteries!), and one more I’m about to finsh. I didn’t take any of the oldest books off the TBR but I did read seven of my TBR Project books (seven read, five reviewed, 134 to go; will be reporting quarterly). I have moved the Liz and Emma Read Together books into a separate pile (top shelf, to the right) because they don’t form part of the TBR project; they will eventually sit between the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024.

I completed 14 books in January (three with reviews to be published as I’m reviewing two for Shiny New Books and only just finished one). I am part-way through four more (including my current Reading With Emma Read). I only read four out of my nine January NetGalley books and my NetGalley review percentage has dropped slightly to 90%.

I am not reviewing Kiley Reid’s “Come and Get it” as I was so disappointed by it, structurally so messy and I found it impossible to engage with, I would have been interested in the theme of money but it was sort of clumsily treated and as far as I could see at least two characters didn’t have consistent motivations and actions, and that’s all I can really say about it. 

Incomings

As well as the interim incomings, discussed here, I picked up two books in The Works’ sale, ordered two from The Heath Bookshop and bought another while I was there.

Talia Hibbert has been recommended to me and her “Highly Suspect and Unfairly Cute” features Global Majority Community people hiking, so I’m going to wave around that representation. I’ve wanted to get Marian Keyes’ update to her “Rachel’s Holiday”, “Again Rachel”, for ages but was waiting for the paperback: here was the hardback with a slightly worn cover for £1.50! Moving to The Heath Bookshop, I had to get Michael Cunningham‘s new novel, “Day” right away, in hardback, as a treat (I put a Heath Bookshop voucher towards these three). Simon from Stuck-in-a-book has reviewed it enthusiastically and I want a Cunnningham book I can love after a few not-so-good ones, so ordered it in. Em and I decided to read Hunter Davies’ “London Parks” next so I had to order it, and I spotted the Sampad organisation’s “My City, My Home” which is writings on Birmingham by unheard women writers and had to pick it up.

I went on a terrible NetGalley requesting spree in December and January, not helped by a couple of emails, and any ships that hadn’t come in in December have now.

Safiya Sinclair’s “How to Say Babylon” (published October 2023) is a memoir of her escape from a horrible upbringing in Jamaica in the Rastafarian tradition. “Memory Piece” by Lisa Ko (March 2024), which I saw on Laura Tisdall’s blog follows three East Asian American women through teenagerhood in the 1980s into the 2040s (I coped with the future bit in “Brown Girls” so I’m sure I can deal with this). Sara Cox’s second novel, “Way Back” (March) has a middle-aged mum in North London finding herself; I enjoyed her first one, “Thrown“, and “Mrs Quin’s Rise to Fame” by Olivia Ford (March) is set on a Bake-Off style show. The PR for the Collins / National Trust imprint has been busily emailing me with lovely offers and I have fallen for Helen Scales’ “The Shell-Spotter’s Guide” (March), Alex Johnson’s “100 Words for Rain” (April) and Rebecca Frank’s “Just Add Nature” (April), though I might need to read them on the horrible Shelf app to appreciate the illustrations. Holly Gramazio’s “The Husbands” (April), in which a woman’s attic keeps producing a variety of different husbands for her, looks hiliarous and different, while Amanda Addison’s “Looking for Lucie” (April) might be considered a more traditional “me” read as a young women of multiple heritages looks for her identity. Libby Page’s “The Lifeline” (April) is a sequel to “The Lido” and features wild swimming and more community, I’m trying Emily Henry again with “Funny Story” (April), an opposites attract romcom. And we’re bookended by another non-fiction book, “You Don’t Have to be Mad to Work Here: A Psychiatrist’s Life” (May) by Dr Benji Waterhouse.

I bought one book from Amazon this month – having found out that Simon and Kaggsy’s next Year will be the 1937 Club, I had a poke around the Dean Street Press output and found a beautifully cover illusrated Basil Thomson mystery, “The Milliner’s Hat Mystery”, to read in April.

So that was 14 read and 24 coming in in January: slightly better than December’s record but not much!

Currently reading

Emma and I have started “London Parks” so that will keep us going for a while. I’ve done well with my review books but am still part-way through Sarah Wild’s “Human Origins”. I’ve almost finished Grace Dent’s “Comfort Eating”, bought and signed at her book event last autumn and thoroughly enjoyable, and I’ve just about caught up with January in “Bedside Companion for Book Lovers” so I can now read along with Ali throughout the rest of the year.

Coming up and my 2024 reading challenge

Coming up this month it’s KaggsysBookishRamblings and LizzySiddal‘s #ReadIndies month and these are just a few of the books I could choose from my TBR to read (these are the six oldest indie books and I have a lot more). Anything I read for this challenge will take books from the TBR Challenge off the shelf, too!

I also have the five NetGalley books I haven’t read from January plus those published in February (and one from earlier but won in January):

I’ve mentioned the memoir “How to Say Babylon” above. “Token” by Beverley Kendal addresses tokenism in the workplace and Ela Lee’s “Jaded” has a second-generation American dealing with assault and identity; these might end up being “Disaster Millennial Woman” novels and I might give up on this genre but we’ll see! Cathy Kelly’s “Sisterhood” is the usual Irish community and families, I do like her novels. “Fourteen Days” is the multiauthor Decameron/Covid novel helmed by Margaret Atwood that’s getting mixed reviews. “Blessings” by Chukwuebuka Ibeh is an LGBTQ coming-of-age novel set in Nigeria and “If You see Them” by Viki Sokolik looks at the young unhoused population in America. “A Dirty, Filthy Book” is the story of birth control campaigner Annie Besant.

With the ones I’m currently reading, that’s two books to finish and 15 plus to read, which might just happen!

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How was your January reading? What are you reading this month? Are you doing any book challenges for the year? Have you read or picked up any of my selection?

State of the TBR – May 2023

The amount of my TBR has stayed pretty well the same as last month; I took seven books off the TBR to read so even though I acquired a few, three of them were review books or loans, and it’s doing OK.

I completed 15 books in March (two left to review) and am part-way through four more (plus my Reading With Emma Read). I took part in Kaggsy and Simon’s 1940 Club and read three books for that, and I read a hardback bought relatively recently for that mini-project of mine to not let those languish. I also got through all six of my NetGalley books published in April (I DNF’d two: “Love on the Menu just never got going and wasn’t what I thought it was and sadly, the plot of “Happy Place” about exes pretending to be together just didn’t work for me) and also a couple of May NG books already plus two older ones, and my percentage is still at 90%!

Incomings

I’ve had books in from different sources and for different reasons this month

I went to The Heath Bookshop to help Matthew to spend his book token from Gill and couldn’t resist “The Book of Birmingham”, edited by Kavita Bhanot, in the same series as the Reykjavik one I’ve read, which covered the remainder of his book token and a little more. I was in The Works looking for something else and (honestly) felt I wanted to encourage them to stock books by people from the Global Majority People community so bought Nisha Sharma’s “Dating Dr. Dil” and I haven’t read any of Beth O’Leary’s books so picked up “The Switch”. Emma suggested Catherine Mayer’s “Attack of the 50ft Women: How Gender Equality can Save the World” as a read-together book and I found a heavily discounted copy online so picked it up for our pile. Ali kindly passed me Ruth Ozeki’s “The Book of Form & Emptiness” (which I will read with Matthew at some point: edited to add after comments, I have read all her other books and loved “A Tale for the Time Being“, mentioned “All Over Creation” in my Best books of 2005 post and read “My Year of Meats” before the blog, but had seen varied reviews of this and hadn’t got round to getting a copy) and loaned me Daphne du Maurier’s “The Parasites” to read for her DDM week this month and Kaggsy of the Bookish Ramblings kindly sent me Virago’s new celebration book of short stories, “Furies”. And I have the beautiful but very substantial “The Book of Wilding” by Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell to review for Shiny New Books (thank you!).

I won quite a few NetGalley books this month (but I’ve already read two of them!):

I’ve already read Stephen Buoro’s “The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa”, an amazing novel about a 15 year old Nigerian boy (published in April, review here), and Rachel Barnett’s “A Summer on the Riviera” about high-faluting yacht life (published in May, review here). Ben Jacobi’s “The Orchid Outlaw”, non-fiction about the author’s attempt to see and save Britain’s orchids (published May 2023); Mariam Ansar’s “Good for Nothing” is a YA novel set in a small northern town with two British Asian and one British Black protagonists (published March, currently reading); I was invited by the publisher to read Elizabeth Acevedo’s “Family Lore” (Aug), a “deeply Dominican” book with a touch of magical realism (I have at least two of her earlier books to read!). “Everything’s Fine” by Cecilia Rabess (June) is a dual-heritage romance that asks questions of race and America; Lyn Liao’s “Crazy Bao You” (June) is a mistaken-identity love story with a Korean American heroine (though I’ve just spotted there’s a rescue dog in it so will be worrying now); I requested Caleb Azumah Nelson’s “Small Worlds” (May) because I was a bit ambivalent about his debut but said I’d read what he wrote next, and set between London and Ghana and about family, faith and friendship, this does look good. Rachel E. Cargle’s “A Renaissance of our Own” (June) offers essays on the power of reimagining yourself and of allowing Black women to be complex. Finally, I was offered “You were Always Mine” by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza (July) because I read and reviewed their previous novel, “We are Not Like Them” – this one explores race, class and ethics as a baby is abandoned and a baby is found.

So that was 15 read and 18 coming in in April (oops).

Currently reading

As well as Adam Nicolson’s “The Sea is Not Made of Water: Life Between the Tides” with Emma, I’m still reading “Shakespeare’s First Folio”, which is brilliant but takes some concentration and is in small print, I’m part way through Mariam Ansar’s YA novel “Good for Nothing” and Deesha Philyaw’s book of short stories, “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies” (which I was supposed to read along with my friend Melanie but managed not to) and have made a start on Nova Reid’s important book, “The Good Ally”.

Coming up

It’s Daphne Du Maurier week 8-15 May over on Heaven-Ali’s blog (and I’ll be helping out by hosting the book review list page, coming soon) and she kindly loaned me “The Parasites”, an autobiographical novel about DDM’s childhood, so I could take part. Then I have these two review copies, “The Book of Wilding” and “Mother Tongue by Jenni Nuttall.

My NetGalley TBR for May has seven books on it, however I’ve already read and reviewed “The Three of Us” and “A Summer on the Riviera” and am part-way through “Good for Nothing”.

With the ones I’m currently reading (including my readalong with Emma as should finish it this month), that’s five books to finish and eight to read, which seems doable. If I get those done, I would like to read some more older NetGalley books and some more from my TBR, although I have nearly succeeded in reading the hardbacks I bought recently before they come out in paperback …

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How was your April reading? What are you reading this month? Have you read or picked up any of my selection?

State of the TBR – April 2023

The amount of my TBR has stayed essentially the same as last month, as I didn’t acquire too many non-review books and took the grand total of four print ones off the shelf (not from the beginning of it).

I completed 16 books in March (one left to review) and am part-way through three more (plus my Reading With Emma Read). I was a bit disappointed as we did have a five-day holiday during the month, however I chatted on the plane rather than reading, we did some long walks while on the trip and two of my print books were quite substantial. I did read two books for #Reading Ireland Month and two for #Reading Wales, which I was really pleased about. And I also got through all eight of my NetGalley books published in March, although DNF’d two (one had an unfortunate description of a character that put me off but the publisher has been brilliant about it, so I’ll leave it there; one was more about a horrible marriage than about being Ghanaian-British so lost its appeal) and actually one April NG book already, and my percentage is 90%!

Incomings

I’ve had some super review books in this month as well as acquiring books from two trips. Here are the print incomings …

I was gutted to miss the Heath Bookshop’s event with Adam Nathanial Furman and Joshua Mardell with their beautiful book, “Queer Spaces” so made sure I bought a copy of the book from the bookshop before we went away. Matthew went to San Diego for work and explored the San Diego Public Library’s book sale on his free day and bought me the first two “Saddle Club” novels and took a punt on Alice Mattison’s “The Book Borrower” about a long friendship between two women based on a book passing between them early on. In Malaga, I was very excited to find two of the “Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators” books I collect, in Spanish, and snapped them up. British Library Publishing have very kindly sent me the next in their Women Writers series, “The Home” by Penelope Mortimer”, Little, Brown have sent me Jenni Nuttall’s book about women’s words, “Mother Tongue” (embargoed until late May) and Oxford University Press have sent a lovely copy of “Shakespeare’s First Folio” by Emma Smith, the last two for review for Shiny New Books.

I won four NetGalley books this month:

Tembe Denton-Hurst’s “Homebodies” (July 2023) is a novel about a woman who exposes the racism in her industry, gets fired and then goes viral; “Black Girl, No Magic” by Kimblerly McIntosh (June) is essays about being a Black woman today; Breanne McIvor’s “The God of Good Looks” (June) is liked by authors I like and shows us a young woman’s coming-of-age in Trinidad; and Emily Kerr’s “Her Fixer Upper” (May) is a light novel about doing up a house.

In addition to these e-books, I was sent one book to review on PDF and bought three in the Amazon spring sale (quite restrained, I felt):

“Broken” by Katie Treggiden was sent to me to review in Shiny by Ludion books; it’s about mending and repairing items to keep them going. Amusingly, I bought Repair Shop Jay Blades’ “Making It” in the Amazon sale and he wrote a Foreward to “Broken”. I also bought Elizabeth Nyamayaro’s memoir “I Am A Girl from Africa”, which was on my wishlist, and Olly Richards’ “Short Stories in Spanish” to help with my language learning.

So that was 16 read and 17 coming in in March (oops).

Currently reading

As well as Adam Nicolson’s “The Sea is Not Made of Water: Life Between the Tides” with Emma (which I’ve described as Hard Philosophy masquerading as mollusc talk” to her but is decently readable and very interesting), I’m still leafing through “Birmingham: the Brutiful Years” and my two most pressing review books, “Shakespeare’s First Folio” and “The Home”.

Coming up

It’s Simon Stuckinabook and Karen Kaggsysbookishramblings’ 1940 Club in the week of 10-16 April and, while I claim to do all challenges soley from the happenstance of what is on my TBR when the challenge is announced, I will admit that I added books published in 1940 specifically to my wish lists I gave to Ali and Emma at Christmas/birthday time. The result …

It’s a little bittersweet to be planning to read these after the tragic death of publisher, Rupert Heath: the books will still be available to buy as long as they remain in copyright and I’ve decided I will still run my Dean Street December challenge; but it will be sad not to have Rupert see and tweet about my reviews (his sister Victoria is doing superb work taking up the reins, though). I have Susan Scarlett’s (Noel Streatfeild) “Ten Way Street”, Margery Sharp’s “The Stone of Chastity” and D.E. Stevenson’s “The English Air” – three favourite DSP authors and the last two Heaven-Ali is also reading for the Week!

My NetGalley TBR for April has six books on it, all novels, half of them with diverse topics, and I’ve read the Christie Barlow already (reviewing later in the month if I can as it comes out at the end of the month). “Pineapple Street” asks if money can buy happiness, “Love on the Menu” is a romance set around a takeaway, “Small Joys” has a friendship between a gay Black man and a straight White man, also promising ornithology, “Arthur and Terry are Coming Out” has a grandfather and grandson blossoming into their sexuality and Emily Henry’s “Happy Place” is a romance that starts with a couple breaking up but still going to their holiday cottage … “Pineapple Street” is quite long but the others should be fairly quick reads.

With the ones I’m currently reading (not including my readalong with Emma as we won’t finish it this month), that’s three books to finish and nine to read, which seems doable. I would like to read some more from my TBR (obviously the Dean Street Press books count there), and make some progress on reading hardbacks I bought recently before they come out in paperback …

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How was your March reading? What are you reading this month? Have you read or picked up any of my selection?

Book review – Amrit Wilson – “Finding a Voice: Asian Women in Britain”

Well, I didn’t get as many books read for #ReadIndies Month as I had hoped – out of my image here I have read and reviewed three, started and rejected two and am part-way through one. But I did read two extras that came in during the month, and I don’t think I thought I’d get all of them read.

Here’s a great work of sociology, recently updated and republished by Daraja Press, a not-for-profit independent publisher based in Quebec, which “seeks to reclaim the past, contest the present and invent the future. Daraja is the KiSwahili word for ‘bridge’. As its name suggests, Daraja Press seeks to build bridges, especially bridges of solidarity between and amongst movements, intellectuals and those engaged in struggles for a just world.”

I first read this book in the 1990s and then spotted it in The Market Gardener Reader’s My Year in Nonfiction post in November 2021 and ordered myself a copy. Out of the eight print books I acquired that month, I have read and reviewed three – these are coming to the top of my print TBR now so should get to the others soon.

Amrit Wilson – “Finding a Voice: Asian Women in Britain. New and Expanded edition”

(18 November 2021)

The book is celebratory because it makes us realise how far we have come. The conservative views on mixed marriages that some Asian women express in the 1970s is no longer a dominant view in this country, and that is reflective of progress. However, institutionalised racism, the scraping away of social welfare programs that aid mothers, the gig economy that exploits and works against people of colour, have not made life easier for Asian women, and this book is a great reminder of how far we have to go in order to achieve equality and justice. (Foreword, p. vii)

This book was first published in 1978 and was a pioneer in studies of South Asian women (Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Christian) in the UK, a magnificent work of oral history which was published as the Grundwick Strike was still happening. I came across it in the mid-90s, presumably from Lewisham library, in its original edition: this edition was published in 2018, on its 40th anniversary, and has lots of additional content.

The new foreword by Meena Kandasamy makes it clear how important it was at the time in understanding structural oppression and how so much in the book hasn’t changed in the intervening 40 years. After Wilson’s introduction, which interestingly documents her battles with the White feminists of Virago Press, her original publishers (when she protested against the printing of selected sections in the newspaper and resorted to threatening direct action, she found,

‘She’s running amok in the Observer office! Stop her’ The displeasure I incurred from Virago as a result of this event was long-lasting. I realised that the warmth and support that they had shown me when I was writing the book had been conditional on my accepting their white middle-class version of feminism. (p. xvii)

The original content takes a wide view of the history of South Asian immigration into the UK, mostly looking at larger waves in the 20th century, and pointing out that people came from both India/Pakistan/Bangladesh and East Africa when they were expelled from previous UK colonial territories. It’s interesting to have the book point out the beginning of the changes in policy which worked against people being able to come to the UK as the government decided whose labour it wished to exploit when.

Wilson looks at the village economy most people came from, but also the life of luxury some people from East Africa lost, and how disconcerting it was to have to map that life onto a poor, urban, exploited life in a capitalist Western country. We’re taken through chapters on themes such as isolation, family, work outside the home, school life and marriage, each blending together oral records which Wilson recorded herself then translated into English, then there’s a powerful chapter of only oral testimonies from various women, in “Sisters in Struggle”. Labouring under both their own patriarchy and the capitalist one of institutionalised racism in the UK is a double burden that some women are sinking under heart-breakingly.

After Wilson’s own reflections, there’s a super long section called “In conversation with Finding a Voice: 40 years on” which includes pieces by women reacting to the book and discussing the role it’s had in their own lives, activism and practices. This includes the very necessary discussion of where we might find Queer spaces in these women’s testimonies, never made explicit in the originals, giving an added dimension, and also a piece by Wilson’s daughter about the experience of living with the book, typewriter noises in the evenings after Wilson’s day job was done. Last, there’s a section of photographs of powerful women in mostly strike situations, black-and-white and grainy but still moving.

This book is a call to collective action and sisterhood, a memorial and an instruction to keep going. In her Reflections, Wilson points out White feminists need to let Asian women work on their own problems while standing in support, not intrude and try to sort their issues out for them, and the valuable material she gathers in this book is indeed because she was part of the communities she was studying, speaking to the women in their kitchens in their own languages. I was so pleased to be able to revisit this wonderful work.

This is Book 6 of my contribution to #ReadIndies month!

State of the TBR – March 2023

Well, in good news, the bulk of books on my TBR has stayed essentially the same as last month, the bad news being that I still have almost an extra shelf of it!

I completed 20 books in February (one left to review) and am part-way through four more (one my new Reading With Emma Read). Sadly I didn’t read quite what I intended to, as I was struck down by an unpleasant virus that seems to be doing the rounds and only able to read a series of (nine!) very light and enjoyable novels on my kindle for about a week in the middle of it. I read three of the #ReadIndies books I’d laid out for myself, with one still on the go and therefore should still Count, and added two that came in through the month handily from indie publishers. So six ReadIndies challenge books in total, plus two of the ones I laid out for myself I really didn’t like at all and put to one side, at least thus removing five from the print TBR. I finished one of my other print review books (review to be done for Shiny) and am part-way through another (see below). And I DID read all five of my NetGalley books published in March, hooray, plus three more NetGalley books by Christie Barlow that were waiting for me to read the first six (I did). So eight books off the NetGalley TBR and my percentage is 88%!

Incomings

Not quite so many incomings this month (mainly because I couldn’t see very well or leave the house much this month, I suspect). The kindness of friends and publishers kept me supplied, though!

Ada Leverson’s “Bird of Paradise” was a kind gift from the publisher, Michael Walmer, and I have read and reviewed it already (here). Bookish Beck sent me Jeremiah Moss’ “Feral City” which is about New York and the pandemic (I’m aware I need to send this on to Laura Tisdall so will try to promote it up the TBR!). I spotted Bob Mortimer’s autobiography, “And Away” in The Works when milling around on the High Street and couldn’t resist it. Charlie Hill dropped a copy of his historical novel “The Pirate Queen” round (read and reviewed here) and my lovely friend Jenny dropped Deesha Philyaw’s “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies” (racy stories!) and Cyndia Lauper’s memoir round on the same day. I bought Hunter Davies’ “The Heath” for Emma as she lives near Hampstead Heath and we decided to make it one of our Read Together Books – even though we have one on the go and another two in hand, I decided I had to have this one, too, so ordered it from the (Heath!) Bookshop. Michael Hann’s “Denim and Leather” is the story of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal: I did a very small amount of transcribing for it (and he added me to the acknowledgements!) and decided to pre-order the paperback LAST Feb so thank you, Past Me. And Vertebrate Publishing sent an enticing email about review copies and I chose “The Outdoors Fix” by Liv Bolton which has essays by a lovely diverse group of people and how the British countryside has helped them in various ways (look out for that review soon as it’s out on 9 March).

I won four NetGalley books this month and didn’t buy any other ebooks:

Ryan Love’s “Arthur and Teddy Are Coming Out” (published April) is a feel-good novel where a grandfather and his grandson both want to come out as gay but one finds it easier than the other. Paul Morgan-Bentley’s “The Equal Parent” (March) looks at research from around the world about why parenting gets gendered and how to combat it – so much so that as a man married to a man, he gets called MummyDaddy by their local chemist. Christie Barlow has another one out but this time I’m caught up so can read it at the right time – “A Summer Surprise at the Little Blue Boathouse” (April) returns us to Heartcross and more warmth and community. Finally Catherine Joy White’s “A Thread of Gold” (June) brings Black women out of history to celebrate them as they should be.

So that was 20 read and 13 coming in in February, two of which I’ve already read – a win!

Currently reading

As well as Adam Nicolson’s “The Sea is Not Made of Water: Life Between the Tides” with Emma, I’m reading Lauren Fleshman’s “Good for a Girl”, about her own life in athletics and women’s experience in general, for Shiny New Books, and Liv Bolton’s “The Outdoor Fix” as described above.

Coming up

This month, I’ll also be reading for both Bookjotter’s Reading Wales (Richard Llewellyn’s “How Green was my Valley” and Charlotte Williams’ “Sugar and Slate” (which was the main read for it last year but I was balking at buying the ebook until I just had to) and Cathy at 746 Books’ Reading Ireland (Kate O’Brien‘s nun-based novel “The Land of Spices” and the novella “Small Things Like These” by Claire Keegan which I know everyone has read except me) for once (I usually manage one or the other).

My NetGalley TBR for March has eight books on it and an equal mix of fiction and non-fiction:

Jacqueline Crooks’ “Fire Rush” is set in reggae clubs in London and Bristol and takes our heroine through gangs and to Jamaica. Monica Macias tells of her life as a West African growing up in North Korea in “Black Girl from Pyongyang”. Nikesh Shukla’s YA novel “Stand Up” has teenager Madhu caught between helping her family and wanting to be a stand-up comedian. We’ve seen “The Equal Parent” above, and Katherine May’s “Enchantment” looks at how to help your mental health through finding wonder in life. Julie Shackwell returns to Scotland with “A Scottish Country Escape” – another reliably good light novelist. “Rootless” by Krystle Zara Appiah is a poignant novel about a British-Ghanaian marriage in crisis. Finally, Elizabeth Day explores her own friendships and broader discussions of friendship in “Friendaholic”.

With the ones I’m currently reading (not including my readalong with Emma as we won’t finish it this month), that’s three books to finish and twelve to read, which feels OK, though I would like to continue progress on reading hardbacks I bought recently before they come out in paperback …

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How was your February reading? What are you reading this month? Have you read or picked up any of my selection?

Book review – Ada Leverson – “Bird of Paradise”

I very much enjoyed Ada Leverson’s “Little Ottleys” trilogy (which, coincidentally, I also read at the same time as Heaven-Ali) and so I jumped at the chance to read this standalone novel when Michael from Michael Walmer publishing got in touch with me about his reissue. Leverson is known for being a close friend of Oscar Wilde, and she certainly has his sparkling wit and facility with one-liners, making her books very fun to read. This one has an unexpected turn, though, I felt …

This is another read for #ReadIndies Month, as it’s published by Michael Walmer. You can find more info about the book itself here.

Ada Leverson – “Bird of Paradise”

(03 February 2023, from the publisher)

A woman’s jealousy of another women is always sufficiently dreadful, but when the object of jealousy is hers by legal right, wen the sense of personal property is added to it, then it is one of the most terrible and unreasonable things in nature. (p. 162)

Three or four people were dotted about the room, but no one had ventured onto the [floor] cushions. There was one young lady whose hair was done in the early Victorian style, parted in the middle, with bunches of curls each side. As far as her chest she appeared to be strictly a Victorian – very English, about 1850 – but from that point she suddenly became Oriental, and for the rest was dressed principally in what looked like bead curtains. (p. 258)

A decade ago, Nigel Hillier was very much in love with the now-Bertha Kellynch. He had proposed, but then family pressure meant he unproposed and married an heiress, Mary. Of course, he then came into the money he needed, meaning he feels he has unfinished business with Bertha. Bertha, on the other hand, having been heartbroken, has come to a clear view of Nigel and his insufficiencies, and is blissfully happily married to Percy, a kind of nice but dim character, who she is determined will stay in love with her.

But Bertha is kind-hearted, and when she sees an opportunity to get the ever-faithful Nigel to help her help her young friend Madeline to attract the (dreadful) Rupert Denison, and tempt him away from his current “arty” friend, she unashamedly uses him and he manages to encourage himself to feel that he can become indispensible to her.

This is all very frothy, but poor Mary, Nigel’s wife, has been driven into a horrible, clingy paranoia by him making it obvious she was a poor (or rather rich) second choice, and she spends her time sitting by the window, looking out for him, rather ignoring their two children. In fact, she has riches untold there, too, as it becomes clear that the only thing lacking in Bertha and Percy’s marriage is a child.

So the scene is set for intrigue and anonymous letters and the like, but there is a massive current of morality to proceedings, as Bertha is clearly and only committed to her Percy and her marriage. Thus it could be a painful story, but it’s enlivened by the marvellous supporting characters, from the truly dreadful, prissy, lecturing Rupert to Percy’s peculiar mother and his rather astounding younger brother, Clifford, who produces half a play, some awful poems and a huge crush on his schoolfriend’s very unsuitable mother.

One-liners abound, but also wonderful set-pieces: Rupert and Madeline’s assignation in a tea shop where she gets herself into a terrible twist (contrasted with her rival’s coarse over-riding of Rupert, clearly satirising a particular type of “arty” girl who is actually very commonplace) and Lady Kellynch’s tea party into which Clifford’s crush is almost-disastrously introduced. There’s also a fun satire of an artistic salon, so a lot to enjoy outside the main story and its twists and turns, of course satisfactorily tied up.

The dual nature of the really quite sad at times main story and the social observation can be seen, I think, in the two quotations I include above, giving something for every reader, dare I say?

This is Book 5 of my contribution to #ReadIndies month!