A Very British Murder by Lucy WorsleyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
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Sunday, 28 June 2020
Monday, 22 June 2020
Review: Don't Touch My Hair
Don't Touch My Hair by Emma DabiriMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This could so easily have been a facts dump - Dabiri has obviously done a lot of painstaking research. But, she skilfully reviews the history of black hair in the context of Western European supremacy without either overburdening you with information or dumbing things down. Also, while obviously very passionate about the subject (fair enough given the crap she's had to put up with over the years), she never comes across as preachy.
I was never one of those idiots who thought touching a black woman's hair was OK, but I was completely clueless about the cultural significance of "bad hair" vs "good hair" (so that's what Beyonce meant by "Becky with the good hair"). And, that proves once again how important it is for white people to read books about black experiences. You can't be anti-racist if you're oblivious to what what is going on.
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Tuesday, 16 June 2020
Friday, 12 June 2020
Saturday, 30 May 2020
Review: Quartet in Autumn
Quartet in Autumn by Barbara PymMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Pym could have so easily made the Quartet's members - Edwin, Norma, Marcia, and Letty - pathetic figures of fun. But while she does makes jokes at their expense, she doesn't belittle them. You end up for having sympathy for all of them, even Marcia who really is the definitive of an "odd bod".
So often in books, the lonely singleton is a socially inept fool who has to be "rescued" in someway - a person taking pity or a new romance etc. Quartet in Autumn, however, is much more realistic. That lonely people accept their loneliness as they don't really have a clue about what to do about it; but that they would rather be lonely than be "rescued". If fact, Pym makes even more fun out of the Marcia's would-be rescuer (a social worker called Janice) than she does of Marcia.
I suspect when writing this book, Pym was writing from experience (she was single with no children and spent several years being forgotten before being rediscovered). Therefore, I feel this is a valid take on loneliness. Certainly more valid than those "Mandy is doing completely dandy" type books that seem to have been written by people who have never truly experienced being socially isolated.
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Saturday, 23 May 2020
Saturday, 16 May 2020
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