Category: Reviews
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Ending the Pursuit: Asexuality, Aromanticism & Agender Identity
This is an exploration of the evolution of the meanings attributed to love, sex and gender that is both readable and bursting with information and conceptualisation. It is certain to have you question the ways and reasons behind the relationships in your life, as it explains the colonial, capitalist and cisheteropatriarchal mechanisms and history behind…
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Dead Animals
It can be nerve-wracking when a well-remembered former colleague writes a book. Will we be in it? Will it be good? Declaration of interest: Phoebe Stuckes is that colleague, our former bookseller extraordinaire. And having been wowed by Phoebe’s poems in Platinum Blonde, I knew that her novel would be good. Spoiler alert: we are…
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Arrangements in Blue
In this memoir, poet Amy Key takes the lovely pretext of Joni Mitchell’s seminal album Blue to explore various aspects of her own life and relationships. Each chapter, guided by a song lyric, focuses on something different: building a home, her relationships to parents and grandparents, her friendships, her romantic and sexual relationships, and her…
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Orbital
Orbital is a novel where nothing happens, in the best way. It is meditative and lyrical. It follows 24 hours in the lives of six astronauts on an international space station orbiting around Earth. They follow their routine (exercise, science experiments). They look out the windows. They reminisce. They wonder about the people they’ve left…
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Wilding
Wilding is a stunning illustrated guide to bringing wildlife back, and is suitable for all ages. A combination of photos and gorgeous illustrations from Riverside favourite Angela Harding makes this a proper reference guide as well as a joy to sit down with. Telling the story of the rewilding project at the Knepp estate in…
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Big by Vashti Harrison
A gorgeous picture book from Little Leaders author Vashti Harrison. A little girl is happy with her body and herself, until people start to tell her that she’s too big… As Harrison explains: “In childhood, big is good. Big is impressive, aspirational. But somewhere along the way, the world begins to tell us something different:…
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Strong Female Character
Fern Brady is an unstoppable force on the British comedy scene, appearing on Taskmaster, numerous podcasts, and sold-out line ups around the UK. It is always a joy when a comic publishes a book, their writing being naturally full of wit and skill, and Strong Female Character delivers both, alongside Brady’s characteristic directness and honesty.…
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Getting Better
This is a useful and moving combination of memoir and practical guide to healing after serious illness. Rosen finds moments of joy after Covid and bereavement, and offers accessible creative ways of dealing with struggle. His writing for children and adults, while often very funny, has also dealt with difficult subjects. His Sad Book, illustrated…
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Legacy of Violence
Legacy of Violence is an extraordinary and thorough account of the use of State violence throughout the history of the British empire. This was one of the best history books I’ve read for years, and I know I’ll refer back to it often. Elkins spots trends in policy and enforcement across time and place that…
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Jamie
I was eagerly awaiting this 2023 release: a middle grade book with a non-binary main character fighting for their rights? Sign me up! I am most happy to report: the book lived up to my hype. Our charming protagonist is at a crossroads. Having come out as non-binary to their friends, parents, classmates and teachers,…
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Wild Geese
This book went on my “most anticipated” list as soon as I heard its premise: Phoebe’s somewhat settled immigrant life in Copenhagen working on a PhD she no longer cares much about, is upended when her college ex Grace unexpectedly knocks on her door. Often billed as “the first Irish trans novel” (which I cannot…
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I Could Read the Sky
Constant is my attraction to books that offer a meandering reflection on life, landscape, and communities, particularly with a focus of Irish itinerancy, and therefore I Could Read the Sky has cemented itself as an instant, incomparable favourite. The narrator, in his twilight years, lies in bed in London and begins to see visions of…
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Brainwyrms
“So… is it as good as the first one?” is what everyone asks me when I gush about Brainwyrms. The straightforward reply is “definitely yes,” but I always feel compelled to qualify my answer: “well, yes, though it’s very different.” You see, while Tell Me I’m Worthless was Rumfitt’s take on the gothic haunted house…
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Daddy Boy
I love describing this book almost as much as I loved reading it: after the dissolution of a decade-long romantic relationship with a dominatrix, Emerson Whitney embarked on a failed storm chasing tour. Interspersed with the account of this wacky road adventure are Whitney’s meditations on gender, love, family, and the physical and relational impacts…
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Exiles
I’ve read every Jane Harper crime thriller and this is the best one so far. Aaron Falk, her investigator in previous books The Dry and Force of Nature, is visiting friends in a small Australian town. It’s a year since his last visit, and a year since local woman Kim went missing from a seasonal…
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A Trans Man Walks into a Gay Bar
A memoir about a trans man coming out as gay and how he navigates dating life in London may seem niche. After all, the author himself points out that he was compelled to write this book because he couldn’t find any of its kind on the shelves. And yet, not even halfway through I found…
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Space Crone
This excellent diverse anthology includes essays and short stories from the author of speculative fiction including The Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness. I was delighted to find that it included my favourite short story of all time, Sur, in which a group of women set out to reach the south pole…
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Divided: Racism, Medicine and Why We Need to Decolonise Healthcare
This essential and well-written book is a mixture of useful history and current issues in UK healthcare. The author explores areas including eugenics, race science, development of health policies and treatments. Sowemimo brings her personal experience as NHS doctor to her analysis. Her first-hand accounts of training and practice in UK medicine map her historical…