Books

Finding comfort in darkness: May 2023 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Horror, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature, Speculative Fiction, Speculative historical fiction

Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt

I came across this book by chance thanks to a horror reading book club I joined last year (thanks Jess!) and it was such a wonderful discovery. This is a twisted, experimental, beautifully written novel I couldn’t put down and finished in a couple of days. An interesting take of the idea of the hunted house that links a decadent (formerly majestic) mansion near Brighton with a rotten version of dangerous nationalism – the kind of nationalism that feeds on dark made-up fantasies that justify things like xenophobia, racism, violence and colonialism.

The story is told (mainly) through the points of view of its two main characters – Alice, a trans woman, and Ila, a second generation immigrant queer woman who used to be in a relationship with Alice which ended in an extremely traumatic way.

This book makes very interesting links between transphobia and xenophobic nationalism. If gender/nationality are social constructs and justified by powerful (yet, in many cases, fictional) narratives, what happens when these narratives use the hatred of the other to create a sense of self and of community?

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A month of magic and dispair: March 2023 Reading log

Book Review, Books, Fantasy, Horror, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature, Speculative Fiction
Photo credits: Neil Rolph

Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

“What is it like to be you? I need to say: This is the question that has made me a writer; always that deep desire to know what it feels like to be a different person.”

Elizabeth Strout

When I used to work in a bookshop, Elizabeth Strout was an author that many of my University friends came for. They’d get every book Strout published, telling me how much they adored her writing. I remember shelving those same books. The covers didn’t seem particularly attractive. When I read the blurbs I wasn’t especially inspired either. Once we got a review copy of Olive, Again and instead of reading it I gave it to one of these friends, who was very, very happy.

Fast forward to March 2023 – I saw Lucy by the Sea in the library. I picked the book just to try and see but very much doubted it was going to be my thing. Where to start? Strout is one of those authors that manage to imbue a certain hypnotic quality to their writing that traps you, no matter how interested you really are in the characters or the plot. She’s similar to Haruki Murakami and Sally Rooney in that regard. Especially to Sally Rooney, even though she writes about a demographic that’s in their sixties and seventies, rather than late twenties and thirties (I suspect Rooney’s characters may grow with her as she keeps writing them, though?)

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A fair share of horrors: February 2023 reading log

Book Review, Books, Horror, Literary Fiction
Photo credits: Jacques Peltre

Women Talking by Miriam Toews

“No, Ernie, says Agata, there’s no plot, we’re only women talking.”

Miriam Toews

I’m currently working on a novel that features a religious community, so a writer friend of mine recommended I read this book. She told me it was based on the real case of a Mennonite community in which women of all ages were raped in their sleep by some men from the same community who were using an animal anaesthetic to render them unconscious. Their complaints were dismissed by the elders – who went as far as to suggest the women were being attacked by demons – until the truth was revealed.

Toews’ novel focuses on the aftermath of these traumatic events. A group of women meet at a barn to discuss what they are going to do next. The options are to stay and forgive the men, to stay and fight back, or to leave the community. The story is narrated by August, the only man allowed in the barn with these women, who’s taking the minutes of the meeting because none of the women knows how to read or write.

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But… where are the murders?: January 2023 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature, Speculative Fiction
Photo credits: Cuba Gallery

We Can Do Better Than This: 35 Voices on the Future of LGTBQ+ Rights, edited by Amelia Abraham

I read Amelia Abraham’s Queer Intentions last year and really enjoyed it. Her writing style is very engaging and she covered many interesting LGTBQ+ topics that I wasn’t aware of (I found the chapter on drag really fascinating, for example). We Can Do Better Than This contains essays by thirty-five different writers, artists and LGTBQ+ advocates. To fit in so many essays they are – understandably – all relatively short which is all in all a good idea to include a vast array of perspectives. Some essays, written by authors from countries like Nigeria or Bangladesh, where being gay is illegal, are particularly heartbreaking.

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Best Books of 2021

Books, Nature Writing, Science-Fiction, Speculative Fiction
Luna agrees, these books are also high up on her list of all-time favourites

Sure, 2021 feels like a decade ago, especially because, thanks to Covid-19, that whole year felt like a very long day. But this was also a very fruitful year reading-wise for me, and before I wanted to share three of the books that stayed with me and that I still keep thinking about to this date. A list of interesting readings from 2022 shall follow in due course…

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