Blog Archives

6 positive social changes in my lifetime: trans visibility; deinstitutionalisation; reproductive rights and more

23/2/2023

January marked ten years since I started this blog and last October I published my 1000th post. Whether or not that’s a good thing, I’m minded to celebrate. How about a retrospective?

I achieved my dream of becoming a novelist almost 8 years ago, but I want this post to go beyond my bookshelves. Yet, when I look at the world outside, with the climate crisis and increasing inequalities, the view is bleak.

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Woman Power: Daisy Jones and the Six; The Birdcage; The Witches of Vardø; Amazing Grace Adams

14/2/2023

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I think there is a deep-seated fear and resentment of female power even in situations where we don’t have much of it, so I make no apologies for grouping these novels that touch on the theme from vastly different angles. The first is a historical novel about misogyny manifest in a fantasy of witchcraft. In the second, three half-sisters are haunted by the harm done when they tried to claim their power in adolescence. In the third, a seemingly powerless and self-loathing woman takes a tortured journey through her city and her mistakes. The final novel contemplates the relative power of the singer with a rock band versus the homemaker wife who stands by her man.

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Poland and Hungary under the Soviet system: The Snow Hare & The Fawn

7/2/2023

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As the Russian invasion of Ukraine approaches its second year, a couple of recent reads reminds me of how other eastern European countries have suffered under the Soviet regime. These novels are about women’s lives in the late 1940s and early 1950s: the first set in Poland and the second in Hungary. Would you believe that it wasn’t until I came to post this that I realised both titles feature animals that should be in the wild?

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Exiled: All Your Children Scattered & Sisters

2/2/2023

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I’ve recently read two very different novels in which traumatised mothers suffer a second blow in being distanced from both their children, albeit the separation is for very good reasons. The first is a translation set against the backdrop of the Rwandan genocide. The tragedy in the second is less widespread, restricted to one particular family, but nevertheless extremely painful for those concerned. Read on to discover how these books are about so much more.