Grimy fiction is having something of a popular renaissance. Novels saturated in those gross, utterly human details that we fully expect literary fiction to bypass as tonally inconsistent with 'highbrow' literature. Yet Ottessa Moshfegh's place at the apex of everything downright dirty shows how trends have carried us back to a place where to revel … Continue reading Review: ‘Toad’ by Katherine Dunn
Do I need to intro this post with an exposition on just how strange this year has been? Although 2020 has brought an array of very personal challenges our way, 2020 has, for many of us, been the first time that we've experienced a truly global event. In that sense, it's needless to put words … Continue reading My Favourite Reads of 2020
For those currently tuned into the mayhem of British and American politics, the world appears to be existing on the brink of apocalyptic doom. While political trends usually operate on an endless pendulum swing from left to right, the vitriol and division that seems to characterise both contemporary policy and propaganda has instilled the sense … Continue reading Monday Musing: Liberalism, Literature, And The Myth Of ‘Political Correctness Gone Mad’
"She learned letters and manners from the pale, dismayed wives of her father's subordinates, who raised her to defend the hearth and revile a lie - nominally at least, for the older she grew the more she came to recognize falsehood as the preservative that allowed the world to maintain its shape. The lumbermen, for … Continue reading Review: Inland by Téa Obreht
From the moment that we wake up to a sense of our own place in the world, we are forced to grapple with the question of belonging. Where our adolescent selves willingly turn our entire sense of identity over to the emotional landscape of our favoured groups - skaters and emos being the most popular … Continue reading The Best Books By Immigrants (And For Immigrants)
One of my first introductions to the history of women in the world was through the anti-suffrage propaganda poster 'A Woman's Mind Magnified'. A mind-bendingly offensive insight into the machinations of the political and social elite, this sort of propaganda has always accompanied efforts by marginalised groups to escape the confines into which their entire … Continue reading The Original Goths: Why Women Write Gothic Horror
A few weeks back, I wrote what is essentially my love letter to all adults who indulge their desire for the fantastic with a willing dive into the world of children's fiction. Where books have been the principal markers through which I remember significant moments in my life, there is an incredible amount of sentiment attached to … Continue reading Monday Musing: How Children’s Fiction Has Made Me A Better Reader (And Person)
"The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness. There was something strange in my sensations, … Continue reading Review: Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
The year's spookiest month is upon us, with pumpkins and inconveniently adhesive cobwebs a-plenty. My love for October has grown exponentially since I moved to the US. Where my childhood memories of the month have little in the way of costumes and candy, my husband's experience of pumpkin carving and the annual terrorising of neighbourhood … Continue reading The Monthly Reader: October 2019
A few years ago, I had the unbelievable good fortune of working on the film sets of both Poirot and Miss Marple. I stumbled into this as an unexpected consequence of my time spent as a tour guide and House deputy at the triumphantly gothic Knebworth House. The building's uniquely turreted, gargoyled exterior has secured its position as … Continue reading The Genius Of Agatha Christie: 99 Years On
The Book Habit 