The Riverside Bookshop blog
Hanya Yanagihara – To Paradise
John Preston – Fall
Rutger Bregman – Humankind
Claire Fuller – Unsettled Ground
Sathnam Sanghera – Empireland
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Lucy Caldwell – Intimacies
Claire Keegan – Small Things Like These
Nan Shepherd – The Living Mountain
Maggie O’Farrell – Hamnet
Douglas Stuart – Shuggie Bain
Raven Leilani – Luster
Matt Haig – The Midnight Library
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Wendy Kendall – My Little Garden
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Sathnam Sanghera – Empireland
John Le Carre – Silverview
Frank Herbert – Dune
Qian Julie Wang – Beautiful Country
Marit Kapla – Osebol
Bernadine Evaristo – Manifesto
Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half
Marion Billett – Busy London
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Katherine Mansfield – Prelude & Other Stories
Tim Marshall – The Power of Geography
Damon Galgut – The Promise
Isabel Waidner – Sterling Karat Gold
Hardback, Hoxton Mini Press, £22.95, out now
Did you know that Fortnum and Mason’s was started by one of Queen Anne’s footmen, who had a side business flogging off used candle wax from the queen’s household? Or that the wooden flooring in Liberty’s department store is from a nineteenth century warship? These are the kind of excellent nuggets that feature alongside engaging photos in this beautiful coffee table book (see some of the photos here https://www.hoxtonminipress.com/products/pre-order-london-shopfronts).
I was delighted to see good representation of bookshops (shout out to colleagues at Marchpane and John Sandoe) alongside famous London shops such as the old-school art emporium L Cornelisson and the legendary Beigel Bake on Brick Lane. Many of the entries include an update on how the businesses have managed during the pandemic, reminding us that some are small independent and/or family companies. SE1 is well represented too, with the famous M Manze pie and mash shop and Terry’s Cafe.
Some of those working in the shops tell us why they love it, including Guido Gessaroli of the Coffee Run in the Seven Sisters Road: “This is the London I came here for… Diverse, multicultural, a friendly neighbourhood. The area is sometimes considered a bit shabby, but to me it feels real and down to earth”.
Most places included were new to me, and this book made me want to eat and shop my way around London purely to visit them. I’d love it if the next edition had a map of sites so that you could arrange walking tours between the places.
The shop fronts and interiors that have been preserved are especially valuable, and are my favourite things in the book. New designs that are clearly intended to lift the hearts of anyone even walking down the street are delightful too (Saint Aymes and Mira Mikati, I mean you). Plot your London days out now, and use this jolly book to do it.
Review by Bethan
Hardback, Melville House Publishing, £18.99, out now
Snow falls as the scientist Robert Hooke and his former assistant Harry Hunt are called to a child’s body which has been found on the Fleet riverbank. The body has been drained of blood. The city of London in 1678 is febrile with anti-Catholic feeling and the shadows of the recent civil war are all around.
This is an excellent historical mystery, and much of the action takes place around where the Riverside Bookshop now is. London Bridge, Southwark, the Monument, Bishopsgate, Westminster… for anyone who knows this area well, The Bloodless Boy will take you through areas at once familiar and strange. In Whitechapel market, “Black powder from hundreds of chimneys and from the fires, braziers and stoves set up to keep the traders warm, dusted the hard, refrozen snow”.
It is like C J Sansom’s Shardlake series, combining a compelling mystery with detailed research that’s lightly worn, and featuring some real-life characters (in this case John Locke and King Charles II as well as Hooke).
It is clear that Lloyd has expertise in the history of science and the history of ideas. I knew I was going to enjoy the book when it opened with a cast list of characters including a fanatic, an assassin, and one who is both “a clergyman, and perjurer”.
Originally published in 2013 and reprinted now in a gorgeous hardback edition, The Bloodless Boy has won praise quotes from Lee Child, Andrew Taylor and Christopher Fowler among others.
A great London book and a gripping and pacy story. Recommended.
Review by Bethan
Rutger Bregman – Humankind
Yotam Ottolenghi and Noor Murad – Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love
Michaela Coel – Misfits
Frank Herbert – Dune
Bernadine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other
Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women
Kate Ellis eds. – Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize Longlist
Richard Osman – The Man Who Died Twice
Jessica Harrison eds. – The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories
Sally Rooney – Conversations With Friends
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Maggie Shipstead – Great Circle
Tom Chivers – London Clay
Clare Chambers – Small Pleasures
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Bernadine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other
Frank Herbert – Dune
Hannah Jane Parkinson – The Joy of Small Things
Stanley Tucci – Taste
Michaela Coel – Misfits
John Banville – Snow
Susanna Clarke – Piranesi
Damon Galgut – The Promise
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Sally Rooney – Beautiful World, Where Are You?
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Rutger Bregman – Humankind
Marion Billet – Busy London
Marion Billet – Busy London at Christmas
Hardback, Hoxton Mini Press, £16.95, out now
London in the Snow is not only about the humans. There are elephants with shovels, camels looking a bit chilly, and pigeons making the best of it.
This charming small hardback photo book has a good range of black and white images from the 1900s to the 1960s, and they are not just the usual subjects (for a sample of the images, see (https://www.hoxtonminipress.com/products/london-in-the-snow-book-10-vintage-britain). There are parks and zoos, synagogues and cathedrals, streets and schools, canals and the river. I like that there are diverse images from a diverse city. My favourite photo is a young Sikh man in 1900 tobogganing with the intensity of a champion. This is a well edited and entertaining selection.
Snow is unusual enough in London that Londoners still react in a variety of ways when it falls. We might run wild in the park or steer clear of a deserted Oxford Street. We might valiantly keep working in freezing conditions, or skate across a frozen pond to usher swans towards open water like a woman in this book (perhaps).
We love the Opinionated Guide series from this independent press (see https://riversidebookshop.co.uk/2021/07/12/london-green-spaces-by-harry-ades/). This latest book in the Vintage Britain series is as beautifully made as its predecessors, and would make a cheerful gift.
Review by Bethan
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Frank Herbert – Dune
Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women
Bernadine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Susanna Clarke – Piranesi
Damon Galgut – The Promise
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Richard Osman – The Man Who Died Twice
eds. Jessica Harrison – The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Sosuke Natsukawa – The Cat Who Saved Books
Merlin Sheldrake – Entangled Life
Shirley Jackson – The Missing Girl
Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche – Notes on Grief
Frank Herbert – Dune
Piranesi – Susanna Clarke
Harper Lee – To Kill A Mockingbird
Jessica Harrison eds – The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories
Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half
Sosuke Natsukawa – The Cat Who Saved Books
Sarah Moss – The Fell
Noor Murad, Yotam Ottolenghi – Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love
Elena Ferrante – The Lying Life of Adults
John Le Carre – Silverview
Sally Rooney – Beautiful World, Where Are You?
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Merlin Sheldrake – Entangled Life
Amor Towles – The Lincoln Highway
Matt Haig – The Midnight Library
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Elizabeth Strout – Oh William!
John Banville – Snow
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Noor Murad and Yotam Ottolenghi – Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love
Harper Lee – To Kill A Mockingbird
Stanley Tucci – Taste: My Life Through Food
John Le Carre – Silverview
Frank Herbert – Dune
Nora Ephron – Heartburn
Rutger Bregman – Humankind: A Hopeful History
Susanna Clarke – Piranesi
Charlie Macksey – The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse
Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Damon Galgut – The Promise
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Taylor Jenkins Reid – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Susanna Clarke – Piranesi
Frank Herbert – Dune
Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half
Tom Chivers – London Clay
Florence Given – Women Don’t Owe You Pretty
Stanley Tucci – Taste: My Life Through Food
Sosuke Natsukawa – The Cat Who Saved Books
Tim Marshall – The Power of Geography
Various Authors – A Scandinavian Christmas: Festive Tales For a Nordic Noel
Nigel Slater – A Cook’s Book
George Orwell – 1984
Frank Herbert – Dune
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Various Authors – A Scandinavian Christmas: Festive Tales For a Nordic Noel
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
John Preston – Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell
Jonathon Franzen – Crossroads
Lea Ypi – Free: Coming of Age at the End of History
Sally Rooney – Beautiful World, Where Are You?
Rutger Bregman – Humankind
Sosuke Natsukawa – The Cat Who Saved Books
Rachel Morrisroe, Steven Lenton – How To Grow a Unicorn
Stephanie Garnier – How to Live Like Your Cat
Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man
John Steinbeck – The Vigilante
Shon Faye – The Transgender Issue
John le Carre – Silverview
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Stanley Tucci – Taste: My Life Through Food
Sally Rooney – Beautiful World, Where Are You?
Elizabeth Strout – Oh William!
Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women
Elena Ferrante – The Lying Life of Adults
Colm Toibin – The Magician
Bernadine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other
Suzanna Clarke – Piranesi
Rumaan Alam – Leave The World Behind
Yotam Ottolenghi, Noor Murad – Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Florence Given – Women Don’t Owe You Pretty
Shirley Jackson – The Haunting of Hill House
Sally Rooney – Beautiful World, Where Are You
Richard Osman – The Man Who Died Twice
Karina Lickorish Quinn – The Dust Never Settles
Sosuke Natsukawa – The Cat Who Saved Books
Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women
Shon Faye – The Transgender Issue
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Merlin Sheldrake – Entangled Life
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Pat Barker – The Women of Troy
Stanley Tucci – Taste: My Life Through Food
William Boyd – Trio
Richard Osman – The Thursday Murder Club
Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half
Bob Mortimer – And Away…
Paperback, Daunt Books, £9.99, out now
Filthy Animals is the new collection of short stories from Booker Prize shortlisted writer Brandon Taylor, fans of his characteristically vivid prose and razor-sharp observations will not be disappointed by this stunning collection.
Taylor has a gift for portraying social discomfort in excruciating detail and this is perhaps best on display in the first story in the collection ‘Potluck’. Lionel, a character recovering from a suicide attempt becomes caught up in the world of Charles and Sophie, both dancers involved in an open relationship. Their encounters are ambiguous but powerful, affectionate but also distant and strange. In stories such as ‘Mass’ there is often an emphasis on the characters physicality, many of them are training to be professional dancers and there is an acute, Degas-like focus on their muscular bodies as a site for potential greatness and also a possible site of disaster. There is a kind of slipperiness throughout the book, many of the interactions between characters turn rapidly from friendly to hostile and back again. But love is always present, after so much anxiety and fraught relationships, the tenderness of ‘Anne of Cleves’ caught me off guard, it’s a beautifully realised story about a relationship blossoming between two women.
The stunning, cinematic quality of Taylor’s prose never fails, each story has a complete world within it, even when the characters fail to communicate verbally, the atmosphere is palpable. I recommend this book especially for fans of Lucia Berlin.
Review by Phoebe
Sally Rooney – Beautiful World, Where Are You
Roma Agrawal and Katie Hickey – How Was That Built?
Shon Faye – The Transgender Issue
Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women
Richard Osman – The Man Who Died Twice
Tom Chivers – London Clay
Maggie O’Farrell – Hamnet
Suzannah Clarke – Piranesi
Frank Herbert – Dune
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche – Notes on Grief
Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half
Colson Whitehead – Harlem Shuffle
Bob Mortimer – And Away…
Marion Billet – Busy London
Sally Rooney – Beautiful World, Where Are You
Suzannah Clarke – Piranesi
Richard Osman – The Man Who Died Twice
Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half
Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women
Bernadine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other
Frank Herbert – Dune
John Cooper Clarke – I Wanna Be Yours
Monique Roffey – The Mermaid of Black Conch
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Colm Toibin – The Magician
Nadifa Mohamed – The Fortune Men
Sally Rooney – Normal People
Eoin McLaughlin – The Hug
Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and The Sun
Sally Rooney – Beautiful World, Where Are You
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Pat Barker – The Women of Troy
Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and The Sun
Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half
Emily St. John Mandel – The Glass Hotel
Caitlin Moran – More Than a Woman
Fran Lebowitz – The Fran Lebowitz Reader
Bernadine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other
Rutger Bregman – Humankind
Clare Chambers – Small Pleasures
Charlie Macksey – The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse
Merlin Sheldrake – Entangled Life
Sebastian Faulks – Snow Country
Elena Ferrante – The Lying Life of Adults
Paperback, Hoxton Mini Press, £9.95, out now
After a year of intermittent lockdowns, when I was lucky enough to have a lively local park near me and to be able to visit it, I am very ready to try out some new London green spots. London Green Spaces is one of a gorgeous new series of small London guidebooks, and this book makes it fun to start a day-out wishlist. Even looking at the photos cheered me up.
I thought I knew most of the cool parks and green bits in London, but there were several in here I’d never heard of. London Green Spaces offers an enticing reminder of the big places too, the ones that you know about but haven’t visited for a while, like Richmond Park or Epping Forest. Useful cover maps and suggested walks would help make a day of it.
The Red Cross Garden in London Bridge features, and I can vouch for its sanctuary-like feel as a respite from the Borough Market crowds at the weekend (https://www.bost.org.uk/). The book is good on these small places as well as the grand sweeping ones. I’d add the Crossbones Graveyard, just round the corner from the Red Cross Garden, though you always need to check the opening hours (https://crossbones.org.uk/).
Other craveable titles in the series include Vegan London, London Pubs, and Independent London. You’re in London (maybe)… it’s summer (sort of)… if you’re able to get out and about these books will help you lively up your plans.
Review by Bethan
Hamish Hamilton, Hardback, £12.99, out now
Assembly by Natasha Brown is more than deserving of the glowing reviews it has already received. It’s a slight volume, the plot unfolds over a series of fleeting but intense vignettes and each is crafted to perfection, not a single word is wasted. At times it feels reminiscent of prose poetry or maybe a sparse drama. The narrator is quiet and controlled but burns with quiet anger, acutely aware of the injustices that plague her. She is a black British woman who has found significant success in the corporate world but seemingly at significant psychological and physical cost to herself. She is often a vessel for other characters racist hang-ups, one colleague vents to her about his hatred of diversity initiatives, another calls her office phone to tell her her hair is ‘wild’ and her skin is ‘exotic’. She has a jovial posh boyfriend, who like her attended Oxford and the action unfolds as she anticipates attending his parents lavish anniversary party.
Recently a reviewer compared Assembly to Mrs. Dalloway, but I thought of Brandon Taylor whose novel Real Life has similarly exquisite prose and a protagonist who is out of place in their surroundings and also of The Great Gatsby, although while Natasha Brown’s protagonist is, like Nick Carraway, among the rich and powerful, she is not impressed. When I got to the last page I was sorry to finish Assembly I thoroughly recommend it.
Review by Phoebe
Serpents Tail, Hardback, £14.99 out now
Detransition, Baby the first full-length novel from Torrey Peters is a chaotic and heartfelt whirlwind that asks what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a mother. Katrina, a recent divorcee has discovered she is pregnant, her boyfriend and employee, Ames, formerly Amy, hasn’t told her about his past where he lived as a transgender woman but wants to involve his ex-girlfriend Reese, also a transgender woman, in the mothering of their unborn child. Their lives become intertwined in a kind of queer soap opera, can Reese and Ames resolve their past? Can Katrina co-parent with Ames and Reese? Will Reese get to be mother like she has always wanted?
The novel is rigorously plotted, Reese and Amy’s past relationship is seamlessly interspersed with Katrina and Ames relationship in the present, Reese’s history also forms part of the narrative. Torrey Peters demonstrates enormous narrative skill, her digressions on subjects that range from juvenile elephants to Reese’s large cast of friends never feel tangential to the story. The novel feels epic and complex and funny, like a sort of queer Tristram Shandy, and I thoroughly enjoyed every page.
Review by Phoebe
Daunt Books, Paperback, £9.99 out now
Real Life, the debut, Booker Prize shortlisted novel from American writer Brandon Taylor is a triumph. Real Life is a campus novel which follows Wallace, a gay black protagonist as he navigates the academic institution, a burgeoning romance and the fallout of childhood trauma. The novel takes place in a Midwestern university where Wallace is often singled out. Taylor’s depiction of racism on campus is uncompromising, a dinner party scene, in particular, reaches a striking and uncomfortable crescendo.
While reading this novel I was struck, not just by the story, by Taylor’s immense technical skill. Taylor’s prose is unparalleled, spare and focused, yet at times dreamlike, reminiscent of Virginia Woolf or Henry James. A section where the book moves, cinematically, from the protagonists present to his childhood in Alabama, took my breath away. I highly recommend this book to fans of James Baldwin and Donna Tartt, and I will be eagerly awaiting Brandon Taylor’s collection of short stories, published in June.
Review by Phoebe
Hardback, Faber and Faber, £14.99, out now
A kingfisher sat on a riverside branch, so close that I could see blackblue feathers in the early morning light. I was in a London park, near where I live, last weekend. I was alone, with no special equipment or expertise, but I was paying attention to the river. The kingfisher hunched, and tidied itself up, and after a few minutes flew off when a runner came along.
If you have found yourself noticing nature more during this year, this book of essays by Melissa Harrison is for you. Compiled from her columns in the Times, in the early pieces Harrison is living in South London and gives great descriptions of the nature and wildlife of Tooting Bec Common. Who knew you could see a hobby flying over Lambeth? “There are pockets of South London that seem utterly rural: paths edged with cow parsley and dog roses and overhung by oaks through which the sunlight filters down, green-dappled and shifting” (p. 44).
Half way through the book, Harrison relocates to rural Suffolk, and a different kind of natural life. “There are baby rabbits everywhere right now, and sitting in my oak I watched an alert doe shepherd four kits out from the warren by the path to feed… The evening sun picks them out as they play, gold-edged and painterly: humble but quite lovely in the low, warm light” (p. 174). One of the things I love about The Stubborn Light of Things is that Harrison doesn’t say that it is easier or better to be a nature watcher in one place or the other. Her curious gaze finds things to wonder at in both places, a reminder that we only ever need to start where we are.
As readers of her gripping novels At Hawthorn Time and All Among the Barley will know, she is not afraid of addressing difficult things, and here she references the climate emergency and local campaigns to protect wildlife (for a review of one of her novels, see https://riversidebookshop.co.uk/2015/05/24/at-hawthorn-time-melissa-harrison/).
After reading this, I found similar ideas in On Looking by Alexandra Horowitz (which I am half way through). Horowitz walks round her Manhattan city block with several different people who are expert at different things, and finds out how little we notice in the normal run of things (one of the people is expert at being a toddler and another is expert at being a dog – see https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/08/12/on-looking-eleven-walks-with-expert-eyes/).
Harrison’s popular lockdown podcast encouraged us to pay attention, and this book helps us do just that. Joanna Lisowiec’s exquisite illustrations and gorgeous cover art elevate a good read into a beautiful item.
Review by Bethan
Dear loyal customers of Riverside Bookshop,
unfortunately, in line with government guidelines, we will be closed from Thursday the 5th of November until further notice. If you wish to order from us in the meantime we can be found via our profile on bookshop.org here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/theriversidebookshop
Thank you for your continued support during this difficult time and we hope to be back with you soon!
Love from,
The Team at Riverside Bookshop
Granta, Hardback Fiction, £12.99, out now
A genre-defying novel from the bestselling author of Convenience Store Woman, newly translated into English. Natsuki has spent her whole life not fitting in, failing to live up to the expectations of her family. She confides in her mysterious cousin Yuu and her toy hedgehog, Piyuut, who she believes is an emissary sent by the Magic Police on Planet Popinpobopia. But a tragic event during a family vacation in the wild Nagano Mountains sets Natsuki on a path of alienation, with catastrophic consequences.
Murata’s second novel in English deals with some of the same themes as her first, but while Convenience Store Woman asks how to rebel against familial and domestic structures, Earthlings asks if these structures are necessary at all. The events of the novel are shocking and unpredictable. The structure resembles that of a horror film, Natsuki’s traumatic experiences with a neglectful mother and an abusive teacher drive her deeper and deeper into a fantasy world where she is waiting to be collected by aliens from her home planet. She attempts to escape her family through a loveless marriage, but not even this can save her from their controlling influence. Her behaviour becomes erratic, even sadistic, and culminates in a bloody conclusion, involving her cousin, her husband and a return to the mountains.
Whilst I thought this was a steep departure from Convenience Store Woman, which I thoroughly enjoyed, this second novel in English confirms that Murata is a fantastically exciting writer and I can’t wait to read what she writes next.
Review by Phoebe
We are delighted to have a bunch of lovely new Art Angels cards in store. Some offer great views of London, and others focus on the natural world. We particularly like these two local scenes.
Get them before they are gone!
This week’s bestsellers…
Sophie Ward – Love and Other Thought Experiments
Oyinkan Braithwate – My Sister the Serial Killer
Elena Ferrante – The Lying Life of Adults
Riku Onda – The Aosawa Murders
Hamish Hamilton, Hardback Fiction, £12.99, out now
An unsettling new vision from the author of The Water Cure. On the day every woman gets their first period they are assigned either a blue or a white ticket, the first signalling that they will not have children, the second indicating that they must. Calla is given a blue ticket, but later in her life she develops an intense, forbidden longing for a child. When she acts on this urge she is thrown into conflict with a mysterious and threatening regime that pushes her onto a journey into exile.
Blue Ticket takes its place in the pantheon of feminist dystopian novels, the women are central to the narrative, their dissent is not just prohibited, it is dangerous. Mackintosh deftly explores the boundaries between natural urges and the systems that constrain them. Although Mackintosh’s prose is heavy with description and poetry, I could see and touch all that she described, Blue Ticket is also surprisingly fast-paced. I found myself holding my breath towards the end, waiting to discover Calla’s fate.
Whilst the questions of the book are weighty, Mackintosh avoids addressing these to the reader directly, Blue Ticket is above all an intensely poetic exploration of freedom, choice and desire.
Review by Phoebe
Faber, Hardback, £20.00, out now
Francesca Wade’s Square Haunting is an incredible achievement, informative and detailed yet thrilling and poetic. It is a shared biography of five fascinating women: H.D., a poet, Dorothy L. Sayers, a detective novelist, Jane Ellen Harrison, a classicist and translator, Eileen Power, a historian and broadcaster and Virginia Woolf, a writer and publisher. The book is based around Mecklenburgh Square, a square on the fringes of Bloomsbury where, coincidentally, all of these accomplished women resided at one time or another. This book is not just a history of these women and their work but also of a time where women were starting to live and work independently.
The subject matter itself is fascinating but Wade’s prose is what elevates this beyond the realm of academic biography. The stories of these women’s lives while residing in Mecklenburgh Square are told with astonishing sympathy, I felt a great affinity for these women while reading about their lives, loves, and their striving to have their work recognised.
Wade has rightly gained a great deal of praise for this stunning work of biography; I would recommend it to anyone who has ever wanted A Room of One’s Own.
Review by Phoebe
Our next event will be to celebrate the launch of Unladylike: A Grrl’s Guide to Wrestling by Heather Bandenburg, on 18th July.
Unladylike like follows the story of one unlikely woman wrestler and celebrates the relationship between feminism and wrestling. Read an extract here.
Heather will answer questions and sign your books.
This event is free but we have limited space so get your tickets now.
The Riverside Way 