"Rigor of beauty is the quest." – WCW
I took a bit of a reading holiday in August and spent a large part of the month re-reading old favourites, also just reading a bit less in general. Even with a longer list to pick from though, I’m pretty sure I still would have selected these three. This is not the first Patrick Gale…
The hunt is on: through ashes, photographs and lists, through bone and prayer, through violations – from ‘Utterance’ Jacqueline Saphra’s previous collection All My Mad Mothers, was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2017, and she returns with a stunning companion collection in which it is her father who takes centre stage. The poems…
…bewildered were the dead going about their days and nights in the dark putting their feet down carefully and finding themselves floating… – Alice Oswald, ‘Body’ …A light song of light swells up in the dark times, in wolf time and knife time, in knuckle and blood times; it hums a small tune in the…
This was a shorter reading month as I extended Pride reading up until July 5th, but I still managed to add three books to my ‘almost certainly on my shortlist for the year’ pile. I also just started writing about the first book (it was The Night Watch, by Sarah Waters) and realised that it…
June is Pride Month, and in London the Pride festival took place on July 6, so this post covers my reading up to that point. I read only books with LGBTQ+ authors or themes during the month, and although I did pick a top three, I thought I’d also share the rest of what I…
So many good books this month. It was hard to choose… But then I always say that – time to just accept it perhaps?! Best Queer Read: Tin Man, by Sarah Winman. I loved this. I was telling everybody about it, it was going to be in my top reads of the year. In my…
A very colour-coordinated group today, but chosen on merit I promise! I read a lot more during April, mostly because of the Easter holidays, and also because I finished off a few books I’d been reading for a while. Again, it was very hard to choose, and I toyed with the idea of allowing myself…
March was a more usual reading month for me, although I didn’t read as diversely as usual – lots of novels. The more I read, the harder it is to pick the three top books, but I like that. It makes me think more about what I’ve read, and forces me to articulate what it…
I didn’t read as much as usual in February, but what I did read was mostly excellent so it didn’t matter that I didn’t have many on the list to choose from! I’m about halfway through several books at the moment, so I feel like I already have a good start on March. Best in…
There are ‘Best Of’ posts and articles all over the place at the moment, and I always find myself wondering what reviewers’ criteria are. Most likely to re-read? To recommend to a friend? Most moved by? Most excellent writing? I now forgive them all for not specifying, because when I decided that I’d try a…