Skip to main content

The Good, The Bleak & The Unread: What I read in April & What's on my List in May

I don't know about you, readers, but after an initial surge, I for one have found it pretty hard to concentrate on reading - or writing - lately. Other book-bloggers who have got through 12 books or more in a month - how?! I have however rounded up what I have managed to get through over the past few weeks and  what I'm looking forward to reading in May.

April Wrap-up:


Title: The Last Man 
Author: Mary Shelley
Lots of people have been talking about this recently. Set 60 years from now, this book follows one man's fortunes and friendships while mankind is in the process of being wiped out by a pandemic. The faint glimmer of hope Shelley eventually holds out doesn't stop this from being bleak, bleak, bleak. Give it a miss if you're feeling fragile.

Title: Hashim & Family
Author: Shahnaz Ahsan
A thoughtful look at migration, belonging and racism through the experiences of one family's experiences in Manchester and Bangladesh. This is John Murray's lead fiction debut for 2020.



Title: 'Exterminate All The Brutes'
Author: Sven Lindqvist
Every so often I take a break from fiction to stretch other parts of my brain. Lindqvist's unflinching examination of the ideological roots of European genocide gave me lots to think about and critique.




Title: The Ten Thousand Doors of January 
Author: Alix E. Harrow
Imaginative, adventurous, humorous, ironic. Just what I needed to get myself out of my reading funk. 

May To-Be-Read List: 

In May I'm trying to read more S. Asian writers, starting with the following:


Title: You Beneath Your Skin
Author: Damyanti Biswas
An atmospheric crime thriller that explores poverty, misogyny and political corruption in New Delhi. I'm partway through this right now and finding it gripping so far. All author proceeds from this book go to two New Delhi nonprofits that work for the empowerment of women and children, Stop Acid Attacks and ProjectWhy. Stay tuned for a review coming soon.


Title: To Lahore With Love
Author: Hina Belitz
A lot of my reading list lately has been quite dark and heavy, so I picked this because the cover looks optimistic and fun. Yes, I judged a book by its cover! It's a journey of discovery and identity through stories, food and faith for Irish-Pakistani Addy, which takes her - and the reader to Lahore, a city I'd love to visit.


Title: The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters
Author: Balli Kaur
I'm looking forward to some much-needed humour and warmth from this roadtrip across India with three sisters, as they attempt to carry out their late mother's final rites. From the author of Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows.

Thanks to Netgalley, John Murray Press, Mr B's Emporium, @damyantiwrites 💝


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mahmood Mattan, Fortune Man: review

  I remember one time when my daughter, aged 10, came home from school, shocked that some countries still have the death penalty. ‘You mean they actually execute people?’ She asked. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But it’s the 21 st century!’ she said. ‘It’s cruel!’ ‘I know,’ I said. ‘We might think it shouldn’t happen, but it does.’ I was reminded of that conversation recently while reading Nadifa Mohamed’s The Fortune Men , alongside listening to Danielle Fahiya’s excellent BBC podcast Mattan: Injustice of a Hanged Man . Both the novel and the podcast tell of the wrongful conviction and hanging of Mahmood Mattan, a Somali Muslim seaman living in Cardiff’s Tiger Bay, in 1952. Mattan was accused of having brutally murdered a local shopkeeper, Lily Volpert (her name is changed in the book to Violet Volacki). Mattan maintained his innocence right to the end, but his appeals were unsuccessful, and he was hanged in Cardiff prison on 3 rd September 1952. His body was interred in the prison grou
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Helen Graham is the Best Brontë Heroine

This month was Anne Bront ë ’s 200 th birthday, so I couldn’t let it go without writing a post in honour of it.  Anne Bronte, Project Gutenberg I don't think I'm alone in thinking that Anne was the boldest of her sisters. Her novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall certainly is the bravest in rebelling against social expectations of women, and Helen Graham is by far my favourite heroine. Here’s why: 1.  She’s an adult, independent woman who has lived a full(er) life in society. Rather than living in the margins of society, in a state of arrested development, like Jane, Lucy, Agnes or even Cathy who never wanted to leave the moors, Helen’s previous life means she seems more like a well-rounded person. This might have made her story all the more shocking to Victorian audiences, as Helen’s social standing combined with her radical ideas would have been more likely to influence other people than those of a governess. She can’t be dismissed as just a naïve or unrelia
Post a Comment
Read more

Sultana’s Dream: A Bengali Feminist Sci-Fi Utopia

Sultana’s Dream is a science fiction short story by the Bengali writer and activist Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain , which was first published in the Indian Ladies’ Magazine, Madras, in 1905.  It imagines the journey of a woman – Sultana - to a fantastical place called Ladyland, “free from sin and harm, where Virtue reigns supreme”. Here, the powers and spheres of men and women are reversed so that women are active in public life, and men are restricted to domestic duties.  The result is a utopia where there is no crime, violence or corruption. Their main diet is fruit; they use technology to carry out manual labour and grow crops, and flying cars to travel. Work is carried out more efficiently as women do not waste time smoking and talking, and they come up with innovative, non-violent ways of defending themselves against enemies. At a time when India was under British colonial rule and women’s emancipation had not yet become a reality even in Britain, Hossain satirised the patri
Post a Comment
Read more