Category: Climate Crisis

Recent reads: The Lobster’s Shell & Harrow

21/1/2022

I’ve paired these two novels because they both address human failings in unconventional ways. The first, translated from the Danish, illustrates the barriers to connection via a large cast of characters. The second is a zany take on our collective complicity in environmental collapse. Oh, and because the title of the first reminds me of Dali’s telephone, while I can only assume the enigmatic title of the second is intentionally surreal.

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Ten more mini reviews and a fun flash about the flying penis

26/11/2021

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These ten new reviews might be condensed, but the books they represent are vast in scope. The settings range from a small town half an hour’s drive from me (where I hope to go tomorrow to sing choruses from the Messiah) to Scotland, Belgium, Libya, Southern Africa, the Philippines and North America, from past atrocities to a hi-tech future. Themes range from scarred families, writers’ fragile egos, identity, corruption and the climate crisis. My selection includes one memoir, one literary translation and two novels aimed at young adults. Let me know if any take your fancy.

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Interiority: The Performance & Nervous System

17/4/2021

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Let’s consider two novels published this month which direct the reader’s gaze towards the characters’ inner lives, mentally and physically. The first, set in Australia during the recent rampaging bushfires, focuses on the characters’ wandering minds as they watch a play. The second, set in the Americas, looks in on the body and outwards to the stars.

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Families under pressure: Kololo Hill & The Living Sea of Waking Dreams

18/2/2021

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Both these recent reads have complex family dynamics at the centre, while addressing wider political issues in very different ways. In the first, we follow a middle-class Asian family forced to migrate from Uganda to Britain on the whim of a tin-pot dictator; in the second, three siblings re-enact their childhood rivalries around their mother’s deathbed as bushfires envelop their country and the world colludes in its own extinction.

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Come into the garden, Maud!

26/7/2020

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When Charli invited her followers to write a story to show what it is to protect nature around us, I thought I’d tag mine onto a recent post addressing that theme. But both of those that sprang to mind – see below for links – already had a 99-word story or two attached. I could have used the prompt to develop my skills in nature writing – I certainly need the practice – but more pressing projects – again, linked below – meant I didn’t have the time or headspace. Although nature cues my creativity, I’m more adept articulating human nature than weather, animals and plants. So I’ve gone for a predominantly pictorial post, based on my garden, leading to my flash fiction contribution about distanced dating, a prompt from the early days of lockdown, and clashing concepts of what protecting nature actually means.

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Supernatural / super-natural: The Rain Heron & Pine

6/7/2020

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I recently read very different two novels with a supernatural element and a forest setting where nature cannot be ignored. The first is a meditation on our collective fragility involving a fantastic – in the literal sense – bird. The second is a psychological suspense story about a family and community haunted by a young mother’s disappearance a decade before.

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Silver linings: 9 good things about the coronavirus pandemic

20/3/2020

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These are strange times, scary times, depressing times. If the virus doesn’t get us physically, we’ll be hurt psychologically through anxiety, grief for lost loved ones and the claustrophobia of social isolation. It will harm us economically and socially too. But there are silver linings and, although they might not balance the negatives, these potential benefits are real.

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Staying afloat in choppy waters: Just after the Wave & On Wilder Seas

4/3/2020

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Allow me to introduce you to a pair of novels about literally and metaphorically staying afloat in choppy waters. The first is a cli-fi translated novel about abandoned children; the second a historical debut about a woman at sea in a man’s world. Both are page-turners, so read on!

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Dislocation: The Lost Lights of St Kilda & Gun Island

21/2/2020

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These two novels feature the displacement of people and the unique cultures and environments they left behind. The first introduces us to the remote Scottish island of St Kilda whose depleted population was evacuated to the mainland in 1930. The second links Venice with the Sunderbans in the Bay of Bengal via folklore and cli-fi. Despite their complementary covers, they’re very different books.

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Survival skills for wintry weather: The Year without Summer & Snow, Dog, Foot

14/2/2020

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These two recent reads explore physical and psychological survival, or otherwise, in extreme weather conditions. The first is a historical novel about the devastating human, climactic and economic consequences of a volcanic eruption in Indonesia. The second is a translated novella about vulnerable hermit overwintering in the Italian Alps. If you choose to read either of these, you won’t be disappointed.

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Intergenerational dependence: Akin & The Last Children of Tokyo

10/12/2019

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In both these novels, the first set in contemporary New York and Nice and the second in a hypothetical future Tokyo, an older man is looking after a young relative in less than ideal circumstances. In different ways, they illustrate generational interdependence and how the past actions, or inactions, of the older generation have brought about some of the difficulties experienced by the young.