Strange worlds, fungi, and raw landscapes: February 2026 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Climate Fiction, Creative Non Fiction, Eco-criticism, Fantasy, Science-Fiction, Short Story Collection, Speculative Fiction, Thrutopia

Eve by Una

A gorgeously dark graphic novel. I admired this author already – having read her debut, Becoming Unbecoming, which had a great impact on me. This is her most recent work and far more complex in terms of the art’s rendition. The story is still set in the north of England (where I live). It imagines a bleak near future in which climate collapse and the spread of far-right politics dominate the country. Eve, the main character, is born in the 2020s – a decade of great upheaval – from an English mother and an immigrant father who is a refugee in the UK. The story follows Eve’s upbringing alongside that of two of her closest friends, Si and Ruby.

Whereas Si and Ruby must eventually conform to a different set of standards, Eve remains creative and wild. When a terrible storm brings unprecedented chaos and violence to the country, she decides to walk away to nature all on her own. She may be only sixteen, but it’s clear that she’s done with civilisation. She’s confident she can survive in the wildness (having been taught various survival skills but her parents) and she doesn’t mind the solitude. Her friends, on the other hand, seek the comfort and security of community by joining two different organisations.

Si, the son of a single mother, joins a juvenile military squad. This is part of a national measure offered by a far-right party that promotes the militarisation of youth as a key effort to preserve the ‘nation’ and the ‘British values’ safe. Ruby, the daughter of a rich family, becomes a political activist with the most extreme far-right organisations. She goes around the country spreading chaos and violence to ‘wake people up’ and even gets herself pregnant via artificial insemination because she believes that, as a white woman, it is her duty to ‘preserve’ the purity of the race.

Against all odds, these three characters end up encountering each other in the wilderness as society seems to be collapsing in England. Tired of fighting and living through violence and trauma they decide to start all over together despite their many differences.

This felt like a dark and disturbing book to read – especially at this particular time of war in which countries are becoming more heavily militarised societies and even bringing back conscription. I had a few conversations about this in January with several students of mine at university (we discussed what the UK would look like if conscription was reintroduced, we talked about the familial memories my students had of their grandfathers fighting in the Second World War… etc.) – so when I picked this book at random from my local library and I found similar themes it all felt too familiar.

A brave work from an author with a very distinctive voice. I definitely recommend her work. Check here for a fascinating interview about her creative process and this book.

Trans by Juliet Jacques

I picked this book from my local library – and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Jacques is a talented writer and this memoir is also ambitious in the way that is narrated, with a very strong focus on history and setting. It starts with Jacques writing about going through sex reassignment surgery in great detail – I felt a bit queasy as someone easily terrified by surgery and medical procedures of any kind. Apparently, this part of the book is based on a series of articles commissioned by The Guardian in 2012 and titled ‘A Transgender journey0.

From then on, there is a jump back in time to Jacques as a teenager. She then starts narrating how she realised she was trans and how rhea impacted her experience as a university student. The book also covers the period in which Jacques pursued hormonal and then surgical transition and how she navigated the NHS and the medical system to obtain this. But this book is so much more than a story of transition. This is also a book about the struggle of pursuing an artistic career, about being trapped in soulless jobs which trigger depression. It’s also about Jacques’ passions: music, cinema and football. I loved reading about it all.

Jacques voice is honest and raw when it needs to be – but also, at other times, incredibly funny. One of the most touching scenes for me was when Jacques describes a conversation with her parents. She has her sex reassignment surgery scheduled and has been told that the recovery time will be quite lengthy (two months). Jacques’ parents don’t understand their daughter’s transition but when they talk about recovery they are concerned that Jacques will be on her own in her London apartment. Jacques tries to reassure them by explaining that her flatmate will help her. But her parents are not sure this will be enough and so convince her to move back home so they can take care of her instead. To me, this a sign of love – even though they don’t fully understand her journey they still want to be part of Jacques’ life and help her go through complex surgery. In subsequent scenes, we get to see how this experience of recovering at home helps Jacques get closer to her parents and in fact it leads to some significant conversations between them.

The end of this book features an interview that author Sheila Sheti did to Juliet Jacques. I really liked it – it gave me a good insight into Jacques’ creative process behind her memoir. I wish more books included extras such as this!

Before Gender: lost stories from trans history 1850-1950 by Eli Erlick

This book covered many stories about trans people living in the 19th and 20th century. It was refreshing and very interesting – and showed how trans individuals have always existed (as we all know) and lived integrated in their own communities (with more or less success). One of the most interesting stories perhaps was the one about trans brothers Mark and David Ferrow in the UK.

In a chapter about German trans woman Gerda von Zobeltitz, I found a lengthy description of a violent altercation (in which she had been present) which involved a queer organisation from the Weimar Republic and a police sport club. This happened at an inn on the Rauchfangswerder peninsula in south-east Berlin which the queer organisation had rented to have a celebration. It was really disturbing to read such a detailed account of the event at a time (this happened on the 5th of July 1930) in which being gay was allowed at the Weimar Republic.

Even though I enjoyed the book and I think this was very refreshing research I found the writing a bit too plain and repetitive. This is possibly because I believe the author, a scholar, wrote this book as a PhD thesis, at least initially, and it definitely reads like that.

Exhalation by Ted Chiang

I had this book for years but I didn’t dare to read it. Why, you ask? Well, Ted Chiang is one of my favourite writers. And he doesn’t publish books all that too often, so I was keeping it as a treat. Time finally came this February of 2026 which has been a very trying and sad month for all sorts of reasons. And this book somehow kept me company and brought me instants of solace in the midst of bleakness.

Chiang writes short stories – a form that I love, more and more, as I develop as a writer. Every time I read a collection by him I adore every single short story which is extremely rare. My experience of reading a short story collection is that I’d find a few pieces brilliant, a few pieces good and some meh. Not with Chiang, though. Maybe this is because every short story tends to be quite different, in terms of tone, formatting and themes. I can almost see him (as a writer) challenging himself with every single piece. A new creative puzzle. (Also, in a world where many authors are compelled and told to put new work out constantly, Chiang seems to be taking his sweet time, and I admire him for it).

The Merchant and the Alchemist Gate – this has elements of historical fiction and fantasy. It’s a creative exploration of an idea developed by physicist Kip Thorne – who suggested that it should be possible to create a device that obeys Einstein’s theory of relativity but also that, apparently, we can’t change what has already happened in the past (something that time-travelling stories tend to go against, as many of them are about the butterfly effect produced by someone tinkering with events that have happened before).

Exhalation – the story that names the collection. The style in this piece is lyrical, full of detail, oneiric, beautifully sad. It tells the story of sentient creatures who are also machines – and are having to come to terms with the fact that they will also ‘die’ as the mechanisms which keep them functioning and ‘alive’ will eventually deteriorate with the passing of time.

The Lifecycle of Software Objects – one of the saddest stories I’ve ever read. A tech company develops cute AI pets that users can ‘grow’ and ‘evolve’ in their own time by interacting with them. In my mind, these AI creatures (‘digients’ in the story), are a sort of tamagotchi. What starts as something simple soon becomes more nuanced as one of the newest employees of this company, Ana Alvarado, who has experience working with animals, decides to start caring for digients as one would care for another human being. With time and effort she starts creating a real connection with them – and even stars teaching them new skills as one would teach a young child. Her methods soon become non-viable – tech advances way too fast and digients end up being phased out as digital pets by newer and sexier advances. But throughout the expand of two decades our protagonist and her friend invest their time in a handful of digients showing that time, care and empathy may be essential to create an artificial consciousness. It was really interesting to read this story in this new AI era (I’m saying this as someone distrustful of AI as it is now). I’m not sure Chiang would have quite written the same piece say in 2026 – you can read his thoughts on generative AI here if you are interested. Yet this story really moved me and I found its suggestions (time, empathy and care equal love) inspiring.

Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny – a short but fun and dark story about a 19th-century male engineer who decides to create a mechanical nanny to streamline the complicated process of taking care of an infant. To prove the value of his creation he decides to use it on his own son. Surprising no one, the story gets quite disturbing, but it is also a delicious parody of several (now considered old-fashioned) parenting techniques.

The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling – what if technology developed to create a software that allowed us to record all we experience giving us, in this way, a library of perfect memories? How would this alter our own sense of self? And our relationships with others? Would this change society irrevocably, the same way that written language forever altered societies? In this piece, a well-known journalist who has always refused to use this specific software (in part because he thinks that holding on to sad or traumatic memories doesn’t do any good) decides to use it for the first time to write an article to criticise it. But by doing so, his relationship with his daughter is forever changed. This was such an ambitious, complex and perfect story. I loved the combination of timelines and focal characters. And the ending – with a great twist – was just sublime.

The Great Silence – and extremely brief piece about parrots and how amazing they are. Did you know that parrots give themselves names? And that their use and understanding of language exceeds that of many animals, including apes? You are welcome…

Omphalos – another brilliant story set in a parallel reality to ours – similar in all ways except of one key thing. In this world, the existence of God has been scientifically proven and as such the idea of God (and religion) is essential not only to science but to how people understand each other and their place in the vast universe. I loved how the beginning considered the existence of ‘primordial creatures’ (that is, creatures created directly by God, creatures who are parentless and never evolved from infancy but already started perfectly formed in adulthood). The ending also came in with a surprising powerful (and moving) twist. In fact, this short story could make an incredible movie.

Anxiety Is the Diziness of Freedom – to me this was the most complex story in terms of science and mechanics. It considers a reality in which humans are able to contact parallel universes which contain alternative versions of themselves. It considers the idea of free will in quite an interesting way – that is, you would think that if there are different universes with different versions of ourselves perhaps all of these other versions are exploring different life choices. But what if our character, our inclinations, our tastes and our curiosity always led us to a collection of similar outcomes instead of wildly different scenarios?

Forest Euphoria by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian

I bought this book on a whim when I was visiting Sheffield – and upon discovering its gorgeous bookshop Juno which has an amazing selection of queer and feminist books. Not going to lie here – seeing that Robin Wall Kimmerer (I loved her book Braiding Sweet Grass) had written an endorsement for it really encouraged me to purchase it.

I ended up enjoying it thoroughly and I’d say that if you like Kimmerer’s work you’ll probably like this too. Kaishian is a talented writer and mycologist and she blends memoir with science research in really fascinating ways. This was a book that taught me a lot – as I was reading it and discovering pretty incredible stuff about fungi, snakes, ravens and cicadas, I’d be talking to my partner about it – I really needed to share it with someone!

One of the most interesting aspects of this book was how Kaishian wrote about her own gender identity – and how she feels she’s in between female and male. She also speaks of nature with such reverence and compassion. There’s a beautiful chapter about finding her own ‘secret’ spot in nature wherever she goes – a place that feels special and safe to rest away from everything else. I relate to that – I also have my own special secret place in the countryside near where I live. (I’m thinking of a specific spot with a gorgeous hawthorn three and beautiful views of the river and the mountains where I’ve always felt embraced).

Kaishian’s writing is also incredibly lyrical – her description of snails having sex is so lush – and believe me, I wouldn’t have thought I’d be saying this about snail sex like… ever. You have to be a truly talented writer to pull that off.

These are other things that felt like delicious discoveries in this book:

First of all, fungi have more in common with animals than plant. Yes, this means, in Kaishian’s words, that we are more similar to the mould appearing on a bit of bread that we forgot in our counter than the mould is to the praying plat in the kitchen’s windowsill – like… what???!!! (Apparently, it was Carl Linnaeus who mistakenly saw fungi as ‘inferior’ plants…)
The marks we have in our fingertips (fingerprints) come from us a babies in the womb pressing our little still-forming hands against the walls of the womb – am I the first one to ever realise this? Did everyone know already? Why wasn’t I taught this in school?
The breeding cycle of the cicadas is absolutely fascinating. Basically, some species of cicada develop as larva underneath the ground to then emerge all together every 13 or 17 years. Scientists are still unsure of how exactly they all when is time to come out. Apparently, if one cicada is ‘ready’ before this it just goes closer to the surface and waits there for her friends. How considerate. The reason why this happens is that cicadas need to breed as soon as they all emerge – but they are also very vulnerable to predators. Appearing in massive numbers maximises their chances to create the next generation. Kaishian actually compares this to activism and collective movements – how sometimes revolutions may seem too sudden but actually many of them have been brewing ‘underground’ for a very long time.
Scientists still don’t know how animals manage impressive migration routes that can take them from one side to the world to another. But apparently animals (including us, humans) have a bacteria living inside our guts with some magnetic particles. Some scientists have proposed that this magnetic particles are what allow animals to intuitively move around the planet. It’s not completely proven – but it sounds like a fascinating idea to me. I also absolutely adore the fact that we are who we are thanks to all the bacteria that decided to live inside us, making us stronger because of it. Which reinforces the idea that neither ‘strength’ nor ‘dominance’ drive evolution and survival – collaboration is still the most important skill.
Finally, beauty (which we can easily connect with art) does play an important part in evolution even though for many centuries scientists refused to believe it. Kaishian gives the example of bowerbirds, who spend a large amount of time building these little shrines to attract females. This is important, because females choose who they will mate with completely based on how they like (or not) the shrine – that is, they don’t consider if the bowerbird is strong, or weak and so on. Apparently there are even examples of male bowerbirds who live together so the less experiencing one can learn from the building expertise of the older one.

All in all, I loved this book, and I can’t wait to see what Kaishian writes next. Also, what a beautiful job she has – as the Curator of Mycology at the New York State Museum. I hope she’s really enjoying it.

Best Reads of 2025

Book Review, Books, Climate Fiction, Creative Non Fiction, Crime Fiction, Eco-criticism, Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Historical Fiction, Horror, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature, Science-Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Speculative historical fiction, Thrutopia, Weird Fiction

This was a hard year for me – I was ill for a lot of it which impacted on my reading speed. During the second half of December, however, I decided to consciously stop checking social media and make my life much more analogue. Surprising no one, this was the month I read the most – and also when I mentally felt the healthiest I’ve been in a long while. So this is something I’m hoping to embrace in 2026 – less time in the digital sphere and more time with a book in my hands…

Books that blew my mind:

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K Le Guin

Very late to the party with this one, I know, but it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. Cosmic horror, philosophy and religion. Fantasy at its best. We follow a teenager who has been hailed as the high-priestess of an ancient religion. Who has been educated to believe she’s one of the most important humans on Earth – but actually, does she have any power at all to decide her own fate? The descriptions of the maze of caves under the tombs of Atuan had be dizzy with fear and wonder.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

A premise that is so ridiculous that shouldn’t work: in their quest to restart the human race to terraform another planet (since humans have destroyed planet Earth) a scientist develops a virus that will drastically accelerate the evolutionary process of a group of monkeys. However, the virus ends up landing in a planet without its monkeys. The planet does have some form of life, though: spiders… Hear me out. This book is absolutely brilliant. I’m not a fan of spiders – actually, I’m really scared of the bigger ones – but this book had me in tears at the end rooting for the spider civilisation.

Most heartbreaking and beautiful non-fiction:

Hijab Butch Blues by Lama H

One of the best books I’ve read about the non-binary experience. It touches many interesting topics as well such as migration and religion. Plus I felt so inspired by the author’s experiences to embrace complicated truths in all its hardships and glories. Truly remarkable: it needs to be translated into many languages.

This Part is Silent by S J Kim

A gorgeous and heartbreaking book about being an immigrant, living in the in between of cultures and languages. And also, a compassionate and brave collection of essays about being a writer and an academic in the United Kingdom today. I’m in awe of the author who has so generously shared very complex and painful experiences.

Most ground-breaking graphic novels:

Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls

This is the second graphic novel to earn a Pulitzer Prize (after Maus) and the recognition it is getting thanks to it is truly well-deserving. A complex and chilling overview of China’s recent history (specially its cultural revolution and the society that followed). A book also about generational trauma and complex family relationships. Also, a book about migration and multilingualism. As of this day, its author maintains she won’t ever create another graphic novel – this makes me sad, but also I think I understand as this is such a masterpiece!

It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood

Experimental, ambitious, one of the best books about depression and the artist experience I’ve ever read. It’s so playful and dark and nuanced. I know I will re-read it many times.

A book I enjoyed as a child and I still love today:

The Lottie Project by Jacqueline Wilson

One of the books that made me want to become a writer – I enjoyed going back to it as an adult as I could then read it in English, its original language. It was as good as I remembered.

Horror insights into the darkest parts of the human experience:

Old Soul by Susan Barker

A cosmic horror novel camouflaged as a literary thriller. Lyrical and experimental – and no less terrifying because of that. It asks a really interesting set of questions: why are we all so obsessed with being seen? And who are those bearing witness or observing, and what are their true intentions? A very original novel that combined settings all over the world with very distinctive narrators.

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

One of the best horror books I’ve ever read which combines historical fiction with the speculative to create a gothic tale that won’t leave you indifferent. Books like this reaffirm to me how important it is to preserve our historical memory through fiction to remind us all of the atrocities of the past, but also, of the strength of people that survived them. Masterful and touching. I was shaking reading the last twenty pages or so – I haven’t been so moved by a book and its characters in a long time.

Books about gender I couldn’t stop thinking about:

Butter by Asako Yuzuki

This was a very hyped book – and I wasn’t sure was my thing at all until several good friends (and excellent readers) recommended it to me. Even though the blurb makes you think this is going to be a thriller, it goes way beyond the premise. An interesting meditation about the ways gender, fatphobia, food and care connect to each other. The main character is a journalist in her early thirties, more interested in her career than having a community, more interested in being thin (the society she lives in tells her a woman must be thin to be a good woman) than in enjoying delicious food and other visceral life pleasures. The ending still stays with me.

The Vegetarian by Kang

Very late to the party with this one too. A book that horrified me and yet I’m in awe of it. It was hard to read because it reminded me that sometimes being socialised as a woman comes with the understanding (from you, or imposed by others) that you a) are nothing but a piece of flesh others can enjoy or utilise as they see fit b) you don’t have any control over your own body, who may belong to a man, to the state or your family.

Looking back at these two books together (Butter and The Vegetarian) makes me see that they use genre (horror, crime) in very interesting ways to force us to question gender rules in society. Both books have women in them who take ownership over their bodies (and lives) by deciding what they want to consume even if this angers others. The difference in tone comes with the access their main characters have (or not) to a supportive community – in Butter, the main character has a very close friend who is also her supporter; she’s also financially independent (which gains her some basic freedom) and she’s able to form healthy bonds with others as she enters a period of intense change. In The Vegetarian the main character is irrevocably tied to her husband (she depends financially on him) and her family. This second book ends on a dark note that is quite difficult to digest.

Books that celebrate community and challenge our ideas about it:

Any Human Power by Manda Scott

This is an interesting one, because I don’t think it’s a perfect book by any means. In fact, at times I thought the characters seemed a bit too much like concepts the author wanted get across her audience. And yet, this was a fascinating read because it discussed the current sociopolitical situation of the place where I live (England) and used the speculative to imagine different ways into a more positive future. Despite of it not being a happy book at all, it was inspiring in a year when I felt like I had to work really hard to be hopeful. It also discovered me other interesting resources on how humans can co-exist with with the environment and with each other.

The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong

The characters felt so lost in their own complicated circumstances – and I said complicated because almost every character here has a background that means they are facing at least one form of discrimination – being an immigrant, being gay, being Black and so on. Like Hai, the main character of this novel, I’ve also worked in retail and found a very strong community through a job whose sole purpose seemed to dehumanise me. So this is why the story of Hai, who works in HomeMarket, a fast food outlet part of a national chain with a manager who actually cares about every single employer in this job that many would dismiss rang true to me. I was also very interested in the intergenerational friendship between nineteen-year-old Hai and eighty-two-year-old Grazina.

Surrounded by Ghosts: October 2025 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Creative Non Fiction, Graphic Novels, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature, Spanish

El Celo by Sabina Urraca

The writing of this book is frenetic, visceral and full of detail that is sometimes luscious and other times absolutely disgusting. It took me a while to finish this book because its themes – societal misogyny, sexism, abuse. It follows a female character – ‘The Human’ – who finds a female dog in the streets of Madrid and becomes her owner almost against her will. Taking care of another creature becomes a mammoth task, but The Human, who can barely take of herself as it is, is willing. What she’s not prepared for is her dog in heat – which comes with its own set of complications and pressures for her to handle this wild side of her animal.

As the book advances – often mixing different timelines, The Human as a child growing up in Tenerife, and also as a young woman trying to make life work in Madrid – a few things are revealed. First, that The Human is addicted to anti-anxiety pills she takes to numb a traumatic experience. Her doctor recognises her as a someone who’s suffered from the abuse of an ex-partner so he sends her to group therapy where she meets other women that are nothing like her (they are much older, much younger, they come from complete different places and classes) but that can understand her experience of being hurt by someone they love. The Human bonds with one of the members of this group – Mecha (is interesting to see that other characters are given actual names) – who becomes a friend, a bad influence, and a saviour.

I really enjoyed this story and thought the writing (in Spanish) was really good. It was an uncomfortable, claustrophobic read – which makes sense, considering the narrator is constantly surrounded by many ghosts, the ghost of her grandmother, who she adored when she was a child, but who died of dementia, the ghost of her ex partner, still controlling and frightening her even though they are not together anymore, the ghost of a still birth in the family which was never discussed or acknowledged, the ghost of her grandfather, who dies during the book right after confessing an unsettling truth, the ghost of the career she’s left behind in marketing, the money and the stability, as she tries to become a writer and recover from trauma, the ghosts of all the abusive lovers of the women from her group therapy sessions… and so on.

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More queerness and manta rays: June 2025 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Climate Fiction, Creative Non Fiction, Eco-criticism, Graphic Novels, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature

Mimosa by Archie Bongiovanni

One of the things I enjoyed the most about this graphic novel is how it focused on queer characters in their thirties/forties. A lot of queer literature tends to have a focus on coming out stories, normally featuring younger characters – but I’m often eager to find more literature written about middle-aged queer people and old queer people too!

In this story, the four protagonists (Chris, Elise, Jo, and Alex) are struggling with many different things, from divorce to single parenting to dating in your thirties (when you may feel the extra pressure of having it all ‘figured out’) to looking for a job that feels meaningful and so on. One of the best moments in this story is when the characters decide to put all together a new club night for older queers (that they call ‘Grind’), so the club scene is not only dominated by the younger generation.

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Reading in transit: April 2025 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Creative Non Fiction, Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Queer Literature, Spanish

Un Apartamento en Urano (An Apartment in Urano) by Paul B Preciado

Since last year, it seems that I’ve been on a self-imposed quest to read Preciado’s entire backlist, and what can I say? I’m loving the journey, and I can’t stop talking about how great he is as a writer and philosopher. This book is a special one, as it’s a collection of short articles that Preciado originally published in French in the newspaper Libération from 2013 to 2018. This is, coincidentally, the time when Preciado decided to transition and started using a male name and male pronouns, so many of these articles – which he refers to as ‘crónicas del cruce’ (‘chronics of a crossing’) – document it. But Preciado is not only experiencing a gender transition – as he writes, he goes through an important romantic break-up, he travels from France to Spain to Greece and many other countries in between. He reflects deeply on the idea of belonging to a place (and a gender).

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Provocateurs, agitators and change-makers: March 2025 Reading Long

Book Review, Books, Creative Non Fiction, Crime Fiction, Graphic Novels, Horror, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature, Science-Fiction, Speculative Fiction

Overwork by Brigid Schulte

I found this book in the ‘highlights’ section of my local library, and it came at the right time. Since suffering from academic burnout (and depression and anxiety) during my PhD (while having six other part-time jobs to make a living, because my studentships weren’t really enough), I became interested in work and all the social and legal implications around it. I consider myself an artist first (a writer, primarily). Still, I’ve also had a series of jobs to make a living because the money I make from my writing is pitiful and doesn’t even remotely get close to minimum wage. I know this is the case for many of my writer friends (actually, all of them). I’m pretty fine with it. I mean, I know writing as a profession is extremely devalued, and I’d like to fight to change things in that regard. But I also enjoy having other occupations – I’m a social creature by nature and an extrovert. When I was working in retail, for example, I really thrived by serving other people and aiming to make their days better through our short interactions. It not only made me feel useful, but it also made me feel closer to my community. (For context, I worked as a bookseller for a few years.) Now, I despise some jobs I’ve done (ahem, marketing is pretty up on the list, it was too soul crushing) and loved others (being an academic, teaching and researching Creative Writing). But the constant of my job life has been marked by overwork, uncertainty, precariousness, and generally feeling dehumanised by the businesses I have been part of as an employee. Sometimes I’ve wondered if that’s my fault (am I too sensitive, like my grandmother used to say? Am I just weak? Am I just too much of an idealist?) But also, slowly but surely, I come to realise that a lot of systems we are part of are not designed to make us feel cherished, or to make us feel like our development matters or that we are important. On the contrary, we are treated as liabilities, as highly disposable parts.

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Futures, the spirit world and bodies: February 2025 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Climate Fiction, Creative Non Fiction, Eco-criticism, Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Horror, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature, Science-Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Thrutopia

Any Human Power by Manda Scott

This is, probably, one of the books I enjoyed the most this year because I keep thinking about it even months after finishing it. This is a thrutopia, that is, it imagines ways in which we could navigate an uncertain future (considering how things are going right now in 2025, I think we all know what an ‘uncertain future’ feels like).

The start of the book is interesting: we get introduced to Lan, an old woman on her deathbed. Lan is a queer scientist and an English shaman (in that she uses dreams to travel to the ). As she says goodbye to her family, she promises her grandson that she’ll take care of him.

We move forward, and Lan is the Otherworld, enjoying her existence there but somehow unable to cross to the land of the dead as the promise she made to her grandson is somehow keeping her in a sort of limbo (which seems a chill place where she can enjoy wild nature and even the company of a mysterious dog, but still, she’s on her own). Suddenly, she gets pulled back into the world of the living (as a ghost) because her grandson, now a young man, is asking for her help. And from then on, Lan will need to do everything in her power (as a ghost, so she can’t even communicate with the living unless she uses the dreamworld) to save her family, who is about to undergo a perilous time.

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Queer medieval utopias, polyamory and complicated adulthoods: December 2024 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Creative Non Fiction, Graphic Novels, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature

The Con Artists by Luke Healy

I loved How to Survive in the North and Americana by the same author. I found this one in the library and immediately picked it up. This is an interesting story in that it’s framed in such a way that you are never sure if it’s autobiographical (like Americana) or a complete work of fiction (like How to Survive in the North).

This is the story of Frank and Giorgio, two gay men living in London. Their friendship goes way back: they grew up in Ireland and their families know each other. But as adults, they’ve also grown apart and even though they live in the same city, they rarely see each other. Frank is far too busy, focusing on his goal of becoming a reputable comedian and struggling with an anxiety disorder. However, when Giorgio gets hit by a bus and ends up hospitalised, it’s Frank he callsin the first instance. Horrified seeing Giorgio doesn’t have anyone else (and that he refuses to tell his family what happened not to worry them) Frank agrees to move in temporarily with his friend as he recovers from his wounds and needs a bit of help to get around the house.

As soon as they start living together, Frank starts noticing a few strange things. Giorgio is unemployed and living on benefits, yet there are a few luxurious items lying around the house. On top of everything, Giorgio spends his day buying extremely expensive designer products online, such as bags and clothing. Where is all that money coming from?

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Seahorses, aliens and willows: September 2024 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Creative Non Fiction, Graphic Novels, Horror, Queer Literature, Science-Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Weird Fiction

The Hollow Places by T Kingfisher

This is the third book I read by T Kingfisher and it’s possibly the one that I’ve found the spookiest. By now I know Kingfisher is an author I enjoy – I’ve literally devoured all her books. What I love the most is her fast-paced writing style and her characters.

In this story, we follow Kara, a thirty-something-year-old recently divorced who goes back to live with her uncle Earl in North Carolina. Now, Uncle Earl has quite a special job. He’s the owner and curator of a very particular museum: Natural Wonders, Curiosity and Taxidermy. You can imagine the deal: all sorts of quirky stuffed animals (including a Fiji siren) and strange artefacts. Kara, however, is anything but spooked. In fact, she has very good memories of growing up around the museum, so when her uncle offers her a job there helping him out she immediately accepts.

Things are going normal until one day, when she’s taking care of the museum while his uncle is in the hospital healingfrom back surgery, she discovers a strange hole in the wall. At the beginning she tries to patch it up but ends up realising that the hole is actually quite large – she gets inside (of course!) and discovers that she’s actually in a tunnel in a completely different dimension. That’s how she ends up accessing another world. Now, this new space she discovers is one of my favourite parts of the book. A strange alien, empty land filled only with water and willows.

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Thrutopias: May 2024 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Climate Fiction, Creative Non Fiction, Eco-criticism, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature, Science-Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Thrutopia

None of the Above by Travis Alabanza

This year I’m doing a lot of reading around gender (starting with books I really liked, such as A Real Piece of Work by Erin Riley and Disphoria Mundi by Paul B. Preciado). I was very excited to find this book at the university library because it is written by a non-binary author, which is a perspective I haven’t encountered all that often.

This was an entertaining book I read very quickly, each chapter centring on a specific theme around Alabanza’s experience of transness, queerness and being non-binary. It was thought-provoking – for example, their experience of being harassed in the street because of the way they look was painfully shocking. It made me think of the many ways appearances are policed, specifically when it comes to how appearances fail to fit the idea of ‘womanness’ ingrained in our society. For example, Alabanza’s anguish of showing themselves as someone who is femme but also has hair in their legs or even facial hair reminded me of a similar anguish I feel as someone who is femme and has hair in all these places but is not supposed to show it when being out in public.

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