Tag: reading blog

  • Favourite Reads of 2018 So Far

    Favourite Reads of 2018 So Far

    Somehow, we’re already over half-way through 2018 and as the summer holidays approach I’ve had lots of people asking me what books they should read on holiday. So for this blog, I thought I’d try and pick my five favourite books from the first half of 2018, whether or not you fancy reading them on holiday is up to you.

    Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi

    Let’s start with one I actually read on holiday, shall we? My general rule is that if a book is recommended to me by two or more people in a short space of time then I should ignore the pile of unread books next to my bed and read it immediately. As was the case with this beautiful book. Homegoing traces two parallel family trees through every generation from the colonised Gold Coast to twenty-first century Mississippi. The stories in this book intertwine seamlessly, to reveal how slavery and colonialism leave indelible traces. So much happens in so many different places (in the world and in time) and yet every character in Gyasi’s book is fully formed and deeply complicated. Homegoing is a really special book.

    There’s also lots of interesting period commentary in this book if you’re here for the #Periodically blogs.

    The Cows – Dawn O’Porter

    I’ve talked about this book a lot since I read it in January, so why would I stop now? Everyone I’ve recommened The Cows to so far has loved it and it always kickstarts some really interesting conversations about motherhood, womanhood and, for want of a better word, unmotherhood. The book has a twist that literally dropped my jaw – I’ve had texts of shock as each of my friends have reached this page. Want to know what the twist is? Well, you’ll have to read it.

    Read my full review of The Cows here.

    Chanson Douce – Leïla Slimani

    In English this book is called Lullaby – you’ve probably heard of it as it’s been all over the place with headlines like, “The Killer-Nanny Novel that Conquered France.” It’s such an unusual, gripping and dark book. Thrillers are not usually my cup of tea, but I might have to reconsider that after Chanson Douce. The social, political and moral issues it explores give this book a real edge. This was one of the first contemporary French novels I’ve read and now I must read more. 

    Hag-Seed – Margaret Atwood

    This half-play half-novel is a retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and is Atwood like you’ve never read her before. Set in a Canadian prison, this contemporary retelling uses Shakespeare’s themes and Atwood’s skill to create something brand new and brilliant.

    Read my full review of Hag-Seed here.

    Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race – Reni Eddo-Lodge

    If you’re looking to swatt up on BME history in the UK this book is a great place to start. Eddo-Lodge’s voice is so refreshing and hard-hitting, informed yet digestible that it creates something truly unique. Her chapter on White Feminism was particularly poignant to me, as well as her discussion about how it’s no longer enough to simply just not be racist. I loved it so much that I then binged her podcast About Race, which I also recommend.

     Like the sound of these books? Buy them now from Wordery.

  • Set texts from my degree at Swansea

    Set texts from my degree at Swansea

    Some say that your essays, or your certificate, or your experiences are the accumulation of your time at university. For me however, I would say my bursting bookshelves are the product of my degree (and demise of my student loan). This blog is a list of the 59 books from my reading lists over four years at university. To clarify these are the set texts I have studied and my dissertation texts, god knows how many other books I’ve read for fun, recommended and secondary reading, or those I read during my year abroad.

    Some are in French, most are in English, some are translations of other European languages. Some poems have probably been left off but chances are they can be found in the Norton Anthology. Some books, like Jane Eyre, reoccured throughout my degree haunting me like bloody Bertha. Others I would never have picked up if it hadn’t of been for a module I reluctantly took and I’m so grateful that university led me to them.

    They’re roughly in a chronological order, mostly by module, over the last four years. I can’t comment on every single book, that would make this a never ending blog. There’s also a long list of films I’ve studied but again, this blog will need to end at some point.

    I’m half way through the final book Neuromancer, and as much as I’m enjoying it, and have enjoyed this entire reading list, a little part of me is giddy with excitement over the fact that once I finish this last book, I am free to read whatever I want whenever I want, as quickly or as slowly as I like for the first time since I was 14! Eek! That’s such an exciting prospect! So without further ado, here’s my reading list from a degree in English Literature and French at Swansea University, and what a reading list it’s been.

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    1. La femme rompue – Simone de Beauvoir
    2. Entretien d’un philosophe avec la Maréchale de *** – Denis Diderot My first philosophical text and I got an awful grade for the essay I wrote on it too… though I was also given kudos for attempting a harder text. Because kudos are exactly what every first year student wants.
    3. Against Nature – Joris-Karl Huysmans
    4. Tonio Kröger – Thomas Mann
    5. Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka This was the point in my degree when I became convinced I was living my dream of becoming Rory Gilmore. 
    6. The Cloven Viscount – Italo Calvino
    7. Cat and Mouse – Günter Grass
    8. Cleaned Out – Annie Ernaux This started a love affair with Ernaux. Absolutely love her and have continued to read her books in French but still need to read Cleaned Out in the original French. 
    9. The Garden of Secrets – Juan Goytisolo
    10. Norton Anthology of Poetry (Fifth Edition) I don’t want to talk about it… 
    11.  Lady Oracle – Margaret Atwood Is any reading list complete without Atwood? 
    12. The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
    13. Trumpet – Jackie Kay READ IT. READ IT NOW. 
    14. A Room of One’s Own – Virginia Woolf Woolf cropped up many times throughout my degree, in fact we recently translated part of A Room in our French grammar class which was a total joy. This speech was hugely influential on the world, but also on me. IMG_6994
    15. Daughters of Decadence: Women Writers of the Fin de Siècle – ed. Elaine Showalter
    16. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
    17. Dracula – Bram Stoker
    18. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë I REALLY don’t want to talk about it. 
    19. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
    20. Le Coq et l’Arlequin – Jean Cocteau
    21. Rue Ordener, Rue Labat – Sarah Kofman
    22. Les Petits Enfants du siècle – Christiane Rochefort Know those books you mostly like simply because of how passionate your lecturer was about the course material? No? Just me then. This was one of those… I can’t even read the title or hear Christiane Rochefort without reminiscing to that fortnight of second year classes.
    23. La Seine était rouge – Leila Sebbar I’d never heard of the Algerian massacre in Paris on May 8th 1945 until I studied this book. It opened up a whole part of history to me, it’s cool when a book can do that. 
    24. The Taming of the Shrew – William Shakespeare
    25. As You Like It -William Shakespeare
    26. Richard III -William Shakespeare These five were, clearly, part of a Shakespeare module. Since I studied Romeo and Juliet every year from year 6 to year 11, it was so refreshing to mix it up in the Shakespeare department. A lecture on Richard III actually led me to watching House of Cards so that was cool. 
    27. Hamlet -William Shakespeare
    28. The Tempest -William Shakespeare
    29. Charles Perrault’s Fairy Tales
    30. The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories – Angela Carter
    31. The Golden Legend – Jacobus de Voragine Maybe it’s the former Catholic School Girl in me but I really enjoyed studying some of these stories. 
    32. The Lais of Marie de France Cropped up many, many times in English and French modules alike. 
    33. Chaucer’s Clerk’s Tale
    34. The Duchess of Malfi – John Webster
    35. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
    36. Impossible Saints – Michèle Roberts Ditto to The Golden Legend but perhaps because I am a former Catholic School Girl… 
    37. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad Let’s not… 
    38. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce The books around this part of the list come from a Modernist module, a module which came from Hell. Portrait was the solace in the storm though as I enjoyed it more than anything else in the module even more than To The Lighthouse! 
    39. To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
    40. Le Jeu d’Adam 
    41. L’école des femmes – Jean Baptiste Molière
    42. Phèdre – Jean Racine I just really enjoyed revising this for the exam… is that weird? 
    43. Le Mariage de Figaro – Beaumarcharais
    44. Les Liaisons Dangereuses – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos Love, love, love. 
    45. The Magic Toyshop – Angela Carter
    46. The Little Stranger – Sarah Waters Was so excited when I saw Waters on the reading list for this module. I had tried and failed to get her into my dissertation so jumped at the chance to write about her. 
    47. The Moth Diaries – Rachel Klein
    48. The Female Man – Joanna Russ
    49. vN – Madeleine Ashby Rekindled a love for Sci-Fi that I forgot I had! 
    50. Neuromancer – William Gibson
    51. Cyrano de Bergerac – Edmond Rostand
    52. Venus in Furs – Leopold Sacher-Masoch When it comes to S&M everyone seems to focus on de Sade, so it was really interesting the learn and understand the origin of Masochism. 
    53. Venus in Fur – David Ives
    54. The Leopard – Guisspe Tomasi di Lampedusa
    55. The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek Disturbing but really damn enjoyable. 
    56. Blood Wedding – Frederico Garcia Lorca
    57. Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D. H. Lawrence
    58. Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson
    59. Fear of Flying – Erica Jong These final three texts are my core dissertation books… so while they weren’t set by the university they’ve been a huge part, if not the biggest part, of my final year at Swansea. I now have a total love-hate relationship with Lady Chatterley’s Lover but I am more in love with Fear of Flying than I think is healthy… 

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  • Blood, books and Vagina

    Blood, books and Vagina

    A year ago I was living in Lyon with A LOT of spare time, that I mostly spent reading, and today is one year since I finished reading Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf. I’ve spoken on this blog already about how this book ‘changed my life’ but nope, I’m still not over it.

    My mum bought the book for me as a joke, as my family had noticed a trend in my university work, the books I was reading and a tendency to talk about menstruation, suggesting that my feminist agenda was beginning to form around vaginas. They did not anticipate that Vagina would fuel that fire tenfold, neither did I.

    It’s fair to say I was feeling pretty inspired after reading Wolf’s biography; inspired by Wolf, by womankind, by science, by psychology and of course by vaginas. In fact this week I quoted Vagina in my undergraduate dissertation (which the book inspired, of course). I’m looking at my 2016 journal and am amazed to see that after talking about Vagina on 21st February 2016, I wrote: ‘I can feel it in my blood. Is that weird? I can literally feel a novel floating around my blood, ready to be typed and penned through my fingers. I just wish it would stop bloody leaking out my fucking vagina!’

    This makes me laugh for so many reasons, a few of which I’m sure my mum will yell at me for putting on the internet, so I’ll skip those ones (for now). Mostly, it makes me laugh because little did I know then, but eleven days later I would start writing my first novel. Four months later I would finish the first draft of Project 27 (cat’s out the bag!) and by the end of summer I had a novel that was whole, complete and, in my totally unbiassed opinion, pretty great.

    Now, with a new years resolution to submit my manuscript to three literary agents a month, it’s been sent to seven agents and I’ve had my first two rejections. Project 27 may never be published but the point is that I started, wrote and finished a novel and will do it again and again, all off the back of being inspired about a nonfiction book about pelvic nerves, female sexuality and the yoni.

    I cannot wait to read the next book that inspires me as much as Vagina did. Thanks Naomi Wolf, I owe you a pint.

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