Radical Reads & Social Justice
This idea has been a long time in the making, so I'm very excited to finally be able to share it with you all! I wanted to find more Own Voices book bloggers to follow, and I thought a tag would be an ideal way to do this - and to uplift the Own Voices book blogging community at the same time.
Rating: 4 stars Category: Biography Summary: Sarah Krasnostein first meets Sandra Pankhurst at a forensic services conference, where Sandra is promoting her trauma cleaning company. The lives (and deaths) touched by Sandra through her work, from murder victims to obsessive hoarders, immediately make an impression and inspire Krasnostein to learn more. There is one story, however, that will become the greatest fascination - one that holds all of these other disconnected and diverse lives together. It is the story of the trauma cleaner herself.
For our December meeting, my book club had the theme 'Best of 2020' and voted on an award-winning book to read. We ended up choosing Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams which won the British Book Award - I loved it and you can read my review here! However, the time I spent trawling through different book award shortlists to put our poll together got me thinking - do book awards really matter?
Diversity and representation has always been a key issue for my book blog, and I took this interest into the film world for my latest magazine article. Follow the link for a varied list of Christmas films that don't all consist of white nuclear families!
Rating: 4.5 stars Category: Literary fiction Synopsis: The Shock of the Fall begins with nine-year-old Matthew experiencing a tragedy which he cannot tell us about. It's just too painful. For the rest of the story, we follow him through the years of childhood, adolescence and into his first grimy flat and minimum-wage job. All the while, Matthew's grasp of reality fragments as he struggles to come to terms with what happened that fateful night on the coast.
To experiment with the idea of making poetry more fun, I created an anthology entitled 'Poetry, Comedy & The Modern World' for a recent project on my English Literature degree.
I thought I would share the twelve poems that made their way into the final anthology here on my blog! I hope you enjoy exploring and, hopefully, having a bit of a laugh along the way...
Rating: 5 stars Category: Literary fiction Synopsis: In Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo intertwines twelve lives - mostly black, British women. Their voices range from Hattie, an ancient mixed-race grandma struggling to keep her family farm and her pride along with it, to Amma, a black lesbian playwright whose radical work is showing at the National Theatre for the first time. Through this lively spectrum of characters, Evaristo explores the nuances of identity, connection, and what it means to be proud of who you are.
I am once again appealing to the amazing book blogging community for help with one of my English Literature degree projects! For my course on Modern & Contemporary poetry, I am collating an anthology that explores the link between poems and popular culture.
Questioning the Canon is a new feature in which I hope to bring to light lesser-known books about a certain issue, which can be read alongside or instead of infamous 'classics'.
People are starting to discuss whether the authors we hold up as cultural icons - Shakespeare, Dickens, Wordsworth - should be accompanied by previously marginalised writers. Our idea of what constitutes 'great literature' is becoming broader.
This can only be a good thing, as it means more diversity and social representation in what we read!
Rating: 3 stars
Category: Non-Fiction
Synopsis: From limited career progression to queueing for aaaages in the ladies' loos, there are some struggles that women across the world have resigned themselves to. But what if it didn't have to be like that?
In this collection of case studies covering cities, the workplace, hospitals, disaster zones and beyond, Caroline Criado Perez reveals how, in a modern society that revolves around data, women are being systematically excluded.
OffBeatBooks 