You know how you say 'I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy'? Well, I wish every single example of that on Britney's family, especially her parents. You know how you say 'I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy'? Well, I wish every single example of that on Britney's family, especially her parents. They should be in prison.
This is short as biographies go but it's unpretentious, even handed and lacks all self indulgence. Those hoping to be misery tourists are going to be disappointed because this is a clear, concise account which while it pulls no punches emotionally, is not concerned with salacious tidbits. Spears comes across as flawef but genuine. It might be an account that has been pieced together before but this is in her own words which gives it an edge. She's been misjudged as merely a frivolous celebrity, overly sexualised since she was a child and criticised from every angle in a way that a man of her generation never would be. And despite the horrific abuse she's suffered she's still standing. I didn't expect this to be an inspirational read of the year but it was....more
ARC received via Edeweiss. All opinions are my own.
Over all, I enjoyed this. This writing is very beautiful and the author's command over language andARC received via Edeweiss. All opinions are my own.
Over all, I enjoyed this. This writing is very beautiful and the author's command over language and appreciation of the immediacy and beauty of the natural world were very beguiling. That said, this is essentially a collection of random thoughts in diarised form, which means that at times it was disjointed and at others it was a little too self conscious not to be disingenuous. That's the problem with diaries and journals - self deception, exaggeration and pathos are privileges of the form. I doubt anyone sets out to be dishonest when they transcribe their thoughts however when you love words the way the author does, I don't see how you can help smoothing an edge here or sharpening one there. Every so often the lack of logical, practical thinking would intrude on me and cause irritation too, because I am what I am too. My heart goes out to anyone who wants a child of their own but finds it difficult/ impossible to conceive or carry one to term. But I am not able to fully compassionate because I have never wanted children.
However, minor gripes aside, this was a gorgeous look at the changing natural world in the year the human world (the unnatural world) stood still. I could hear about storm light and weather patterns and skylarks all day long. It really was beautifully written. I didn't realise until I was halfway through that I have the author's previous work Thin Places not only on my tbr but in my audiobook library - so I'll bump that up the list.
If you want something that is calming, poignant and lovely with plenty of nature imagery, then you'll enjoy this. If you prefer biography to be the story of someone's life, then it may well frustrate you. ...more
I'm torn on this one. It's beautifully written and I'd love to see more works that link Irish female poetry with both it's historical context and it'sI'm torn on this one. It's beautifully written and I'd love to see more works that link Irish female poetry with both it's historical context and it's relevance to modern day as well as preservation of language and cuture.
That said a lot of this is flight of fancy. It's very egocentric in its biographical portions. The aithor is at times quite self indulgent, and while that's a privelege of auto biography, I can't tell is she really means everything she says (notably about breast feeding, personal value being intrinsically linked to giving physically of one's biologically female body) or whether it's a slight exaggeration for literary tastes. Either way her husband must be an absolute saint since she flings herself into pregnancy after pregnancy on a single income and scarcely seems to have time for her children once they are weaned. It does take courage to paibt yourself warts and all, and I absolutely understand how a historical figure can speak to you so strongly it's as if they're just in the next room. But her other choices are impractical and selfish in their very performative selflessness.
A fascinating book which bewitched and irritated me by turns....more
Audio ARC provided via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
This is an absolutely fascinating account of a 19th C abortionist, which gives the reader aAudio ARC provided via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
This is an absolutely fascinating account of a 19th C abortionist, which gives the reader a snapshot of mindset and mores of the era, including what it was really like for immigrants arriving in America. Wright does an excellent job of presenting the conflict over women's rights, abortion and sexual freedom at the time without weighing in too heavily on either side - preferring to give her opinion at the end. In such a stringent era where depression, poverty, alcoholism and dissatisfaction were high even in the new world, it's nothing short of amazing that Restell became a self made millionaire. Nor was she a saint supporting the women's lib movement - she was a business woman who occasionally gave into acts of spite and revenge. (Setting out to outbid the Archbishop for land he intended to build a bishop's palace on and instead building herself a house there was a particularly entertaining example.) This was an excellent book, with thorough research and intelligent deductions. ...more
Overall, I'm giving 2023 5 stars for reading. I read 350+ books and the vast majority of them were good. Some were excellent. Some are new favourites.Overall, I'm giving 2023 5 stars for reading. I read 350+ books and the vast majority of them were good. Some were excellent. Some are new favourites. I discovered a whole bunch of new authors (especially in horror) that I love and rediscovered authors I already loved who had been sneakily putting out books in a series I thought was a trilogy a few years ago but is now 9 books long (shout out to Laura Deluca's Dark Musicals series ;) )
So, in no particular order, here are my 30 top reads of 2023:
Small Miracles - Olivia Atwater A Day of Fallen Night - Samantha Shannon How to Sell a Haunted House - Grady Hendrix Kill the Queen - Jennifer Estep The Last Tale of the Flower Bride - Roshani Chokshi The Golden Enclaves - Naomi Novak Black Sheep - Rachel Harrison Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros (I know, I was surprised too!) The Book of the Most Precious Substance - Sara Gran Blood Stein vol 4 - Linda Sejic Even though I Knew the End - C L Polk Our Share of Night - Mariana Enriquez The Book that Wouldn't Burn - Mark Lawrence A House with Good Bones - T. Kingfisher The Adventures of Armina El-Sirafi - Shannon Chakraborty Dark Water Daughter - H. M. Long The Liars of Nature and the Nature of Liars - Lixing Sun One for My Enemy - Olivie Blake Divine Rivals - Rebecca Ross Midnight is the Darkest Hour - Ashley Winsted The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida - Shehan Karunatilaka A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women - Emma Southen The Twisted Mark - Sophie Williamson The Water Outlaws - S. L. Huang The Will of the Many - James Islington Illusion - Laura Deluca Vespertine - Margaret Rogerson The Woman in Me - Britney Spears A Season of Monstrous Conceptions - Lina Rather Unbreakable - Mira Grant Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries - Heather Fawcett
If I could, I would make this required reading for everyone. Regardless of where they live in the world. (America, you probably need to read this almoIf I could, I would make this required reading for everyone. Regardless of where they live in the world. (America, you probably need to read this almost more than anyone else!) This is a painful read at times, but it's also full of transcendent beauty and hope.
James Rebank is a farmer, son and grandson of farmers. When the old style of farming - mixed and rotational - made a final shift towards industrialised farming, he had a front row seat. Some of what he recounts, I already knew. I grew up in rural Dorset, went to school with farmers' children, played on their farms and saw some of this shift for myself - although it would be many years before I really understood what I was seeing. Even after those realisations bore fruit, there was a level of nuance that I just didn't have. Like James, I am a country person. I know the plants, trees, birds, wildlife. I feel an intense connection to the land. Everything he says here lands on fertile soil with me, confirming much of what I did know and deepening my understanding in other ways.
Industrialised modern farming is unsustainable. In the pursuit of profit, in the service of greed, we are killing the very land that feeds and sustains us. All the fancy models and neat machines will be of no use when the land - once renewed by a cycle of farming that was less profitable but ultimately made far fewer incursions on our natural world - no longer grows crops or feeds livestock. And yet many farmers are forced to it - or were originally - because they could not compete in any other way with huge industrial farming complexes. Farmers are now so dramatically underpaid that most struggle with crippling debts, some lose their land, and many suffer from poor mental health. Suicide is on the rise amongst farmers. I can name two whom I personally knew who have committed suicide.
Despite this chilling essential truth, this beautifully written and searingly honest book is full of vignettes from a Fells farm, both past and present. It doesn't ever sketch over the problems with any kind of farming; ultimately the biodiversity of the land is better without any humans on it! But we are also part of nature, even if we have forgotten. Good farmers husband the land and act as caretakers. Good consumers do not seek to be so disconnected with the process of food production, with where what they eat comes from. There is a way to produce the food we need without killing our future. When we plough to the edge of the meadows, when we remove hedges, when we sow crops several times a year and make silage instead of hay, we impact nesting birds, insects, mammals, myriad plant life. We kill off the very creatures who renew the soil that will feed us again. It's time to realise that we cannot eat our profit margins. We should pay fair prices for meat and dairy and respect the animals that gave them to us. We should focus less of fast, cheap, processed food and instead (wherever possible) pay a bit more and eat a bit less, respecting the labour that went into growing crops. And we absolutely should be lobbying our government unceasingly to do something about this before it's too late. Our best hope is to return to a more mixed and rotational style of farming.
And over all of this is multiple layers of just how beautiful and fragile our countryside is. James Rebanks makes a gift of the British countryside to the reader. He does it in such a way that we cannot avoid seeing what a gift it has always been. Probably one of the most important books of the decade. Highly recommend....more
Ghostland managed to fit exactly into that space at the centre of a Venn diagram where personal experience, folklore and ghost stories and a meditatioGhostland managed to fit exactly into that space at the centre of a Venn diagram where personal experience, folklore and ghost stories and a meditation on grief and the healing power of story overlap. This was magnificent. A poignant and unflinching journey through grief by looking at our relationship with land and with the stories that shape us as we grow up.
Edward Parnell is the last of his original family unit (mother, father, sons) left alive. After his brother's death, he starts to feel he's losing the memories he has of the good times they all had - it seems and in fact is the case, that he's been dealing with one dying family member or other since his late teens. In a bid to come out of the other side of his grief, he revisits the places of significance to them as a family as well as the places featured in books and stories he grew up reading and watching. Slowly through this self imposed pilgrimage, he makes a reconnection with his past and with the British landcsape itself, all whilst examining works of literature and film that feature ghosts, folk horror and their own brand of dealing with loss.
So much of this echoed to me of my own childhood - ten years or so behind Parnell's but I read many of the same books and there was a little crossover with TV shows. Some of the places he visits are places I know well having visited them myself or grown up in the area. And his own feelings about ghost stories and the land and storytelling as a whole, strongly mirror things I feel but have never put into words in this way. This is a beautiful book. I don't think I've ever felt genuinely choked up over non fiction before. Definitely one I will read and reread. Highly recommended....more
If, like me, you came to Anne Lister, seduced by the TV show, then be aware that her character was definitely improved for the show! While Anne was unIf, like me, you came to Anne Lister, seduced by the TV show, then be aware that her character was definitely improved for the show! While Anne was unapologetic about being a lesbian - and for the time she was about as 'out and proud' as it was possible to be - she was also a serial seducer. If we read a diary by a man detailing the sort of conquests Anne lists, not to mention her careful premeditation on how to seduce, manipulate and occasionally coerce women in to her bed, we would be saying some very salty things about his morality and calling him a womaniser. Anne was very much about the chase. She often had three or four lovers on the go at a time, and while she might have been inclined towards polyamory, she rarely included her partners in the decision making. In other words, she had at least two long standing understandings of commitment with two separate women and then cheated on both of them constantly with various different woman. Excerpts of her diary would definitely seem to support the author's opinion that Anne enjoyed seduction for its own sake, and while she was hardly immune to forming long standing attachments, she fell in and out of love quickly and one person was never enough for her.
Anne was a fascinating individual. She exhibited a headstrong desire to go her own way, a very developed sense of self, intelligence and will power - and the less admirable traits of selfishness and using her cleverness to manipulate everyone around her in order to have her own way. As nice as it would be to be able to hold her up as an example of a pioneering lesbian, Anne was progressive only in so far as it suited herself. She was a life long Tory, a member of the landed gentry and very resistant to having the rights of that class curtailed, she was classist and snobbish about the nouveau riche, she happily used child labour on her farms and in her coal mines, and she was actually rather dismissive of other women; paradoxically, she adopted the attitude of Victorian men whereby women were to be discreet, humble, virtuous and chaste, while still pursuing more vigorous mental and physical stimulus herself and expecting the women she dallied with to be clever, refined and genteel. In short, it seems no one really quite met her high standards and that her love was lavished entirely on herself.
All that sounds rather damning but Anne was remarkable in that she insisted on carving out a place for herself in a society that was becoming increasingly restrictive and chauvinistic. Worth remembering that during the 18th C there was initially no ban on women voting if they happened to be the land owner of that borough. By the time Anne owned Shibden Hall, women were forbidden to vote regardless of status. No doubt some of Anne's more unattractive traits came about as a direct consequence of the time she lived in and the lengths she was forced to go to in order to act with agency on her own whims. Certainly no one would criticise a man of that time in the same way Anne was criticised!
There are lots of biographies of Anne Lister - many deal with her being a female land owner and refer to her diaries as important historical documents (having carefully repressed and ignored the coded passages which detailed her conquests, her sexual exploits and the quality of her orgasms.) I think this book is an important introduction into Anne as a whole person and certainly her diaries are at least as important as a document of LGBTQ+ history as they are of the changing times of the beginning of the industrial revolution. She may not have left the world better than she found it and she was monstrous in many ways in her treatment of her lovers and wife, but she was a vivid, strong willed person who ran at life and adventure and there's a lot to admire in that. On the whole, I found the author largely unbiased; not interested in presenting Anne as a lesbian saint or as a cliché predatory queer, but as a person with both good and bad qualities. It does a lot to restore Anne's personal life to the record and combat the erasure of lesbians from history. While it requires bravery to go against the norm, Anne wasn't facing the same oppression and risk of death that homosexual men were during the same era. It was a different set of prejudices. It was widely accepted that women would form 'romantic friendships' with other women and then marry, completely unsullied by whatever may have occurred. It was an era where unmarried women usually shared a bed with another woman - witnesses to their mutual chastity. So while Queen Victoria declared a homosexual relationship between women to be impossible and therefore not to exist, it wasn't unusual or even necessarily frowned on for such relationships to occur. ( There's a huge misogynistic mindset behind all of this which I won't get into now.) However, while women were unlikely to be hanged or imprisoned for a homosexual relationship as some men were, prejudice could take the form of complete erasure (especially historically), ostracism (this was something you could really only be open about if you were both mentally tough and wealthy enough to resist social sanction.) and of course, sadly, correctional rape.
Anne Lister's wife, Ann Walker, seems to have been an extraordinarily brave woman to have gone against her friends and family and social opinion to move in with Anne Lister having 'married' her. Especially since she was of a naturally shyer disposition than AL.
Anyway I've rambled enough. This is a very interesting book and AL's diaries are important historical documents. Don't expect the charming, headstrong but mostly likeable heroine of the TV drama but if you're interested, I definitely recommend this....more
I worked in the NHS for well over a decade and this book brought all of it back - both good and bad. Kay has a knack for presenting the horrible situaI worked in the NHS for well over a decade and this book brought all of it back - both good and bad. Kay has a knack for presenting the horrible situations Drs, nurses and other staff face with humour, wit and a certain wry compassion. So much of this rang true for me and it's well worth those on the patient side of the fence understanding what it's like to be the one treating them. By turns poignant, funny and occasionally pretty disgusting, this is a heart wrenching, laugh out loud account full of gallows humour and practical gore. Highly recommend....more
A really interesting look at the way friendships between female authors helped drive, sharpen and shape their writing. The Authors, appropriately, appA really interesting look at the way friendships between female authors helped drive, sharpen and shape their writing. The Authors, appropriately, approach this from the perspective of their own friendship in writing which gives them a depth of understanding that it would otherwise lack. I found myself nodding at several points as familiar situations arose between the four pairs discussed. It is almost impossible to produce art - whether great literature or otherwise - in isolation. (It's very noticeable that the authors who have produced deathless prose under such circumstances have only managed it once!) And yet while friendships between male authors - J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins for example - are well known and celebrated, there seems to e a burying and minimisation of great female writer friendships. As if this collaborative process that is writing is somehow diminished if a woman does not conform to the singular, oddball and isolated genius stereotype (because gods all forbid writing be as much the province of any other gender than a man's.) It's interesting to me that even when female writer friendships are acknowledged, they are subjected to harsh criticism. It's fine for male writers to snipe and disagree with each other, but any sense of competitiveness or natural rivalry or even envy between female writers is taken as evidence that they were not truly friends, and even that women cannot do anything together without quarrelling. When in actual fact, this merely illustrates that the great female writers were as driven and focused on their art as their male counterparts. Unworthy feelings of envy and even spite, differences in opinion of how to address a subject are all perfectly natural and human reactions between writers regardless of gender!
Anyway, this book is a bit scant on detail in places which I attribute to a deliberate direction taken by the authors, but is otherwise a brilliant examination and celebration of female literary friendship. Friendships which often crossed class divides, pecuniary considerations, differences of political opinion and temperament, and even moral and religious opposition. Looking at Jane Austen and Anne Sharp, Charlotte Bronte and Mary Taylor, Harriet Beecher Stowe and George Elliott, and Virginia Woolf and Catherine Mansfield, this is a great introduction to lives and friendships of these authors. Highly recommend. ...more
My rating is based solely on what enjoyment/ information I got out of this book. It's obviously a modern classic and I agree with the opinion that it'My rating is based solely on what enjoyment/ information I got out of this book. It's obviously a modern classic and I agree with the opinion that it's an important WWI document. Graves (who I have been a fan of for decades due to his Claudius books and the White Goddess) tells a plain, unvarnished tale with just a hint of cynical humour and a dose of irony. He has a knack for highlighting the ludicrous peccadilloes of others whilst not sparing himself or flinching from the same rod.
I think he perfectly captures the mindset of WWI without degenerating into useless sentiment, which makes his tale the more shocking and believable. Honestly, I've always found aspects of WWI - the strategy and command for instance - just ridiculous and after reading Graves account of having to sit in judgement over a fellow soldier accused of 'bringing disrepute on the battalion and pimping out the company goat' (the Welch Fusiliers had a long horned mountain goat as a mascot), as well as numerous other such stories, I'm inclined to think that opinion I held was correct.
Graves uses the same tone to speak of troop movement and parade drill as he does to mention illness, appalling living conditions, food shortages and 'corpses everywhere'. Oddly this one level for all narrative combined with Graves rather dense prose and the subject matter of his discussion makes this short book quite difficult to read. Not traumatic but there is never a moment when you can be off high alert, throwing your greatest concentration at it - I wonder if that was a deliberate reflection of the mental state the soldiers had to endure in the trenches?
Of particular interest was his friendship with poet, Siegfried Sassoon.
I can't say I liked the book because it's possibly not a book you like or enjoy, but it was illuminating and poignant. Definitely a classic, even if it does end somewhat abruptly.
I've mentioned my love of Lucy Worsley before so it will come as no surprise to anyone that I enjoyed this. Obviously this isn't the first biography oI've mentioned my love of Lucy Worsley before so it will come as no surprise to anyone that I enjoyed this. Obviously this isn't the first biography of Jane Austen I've read. I've been an Austen fan since I was 13 and while I wouldn't call myself an Austen scholar at all, I still know my stuff. So what does Worsley add to the legend? Quite a lot in fact. Jane Austen shares in the fate of many female authors of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in that her character was posthumously rewritten to appeal to the sensibilities of the time, portraying her writing as an odd sort of genius in which she indulged if all her other duties were done. Part of this was her brother's doing when he wrote a biography of her after her death, and partly her nephew's, who wrote an up to date though no better informed one many years later. Neither of them, nor many of those that came after, captured who she really was as a person - at least not until recently.
It's always astounded me that many of Jane Austen's biographers dismiss her letters as of only vague historical interest and not really relevant to her character due to their being full of minutiae about family and housekeeping. I can only imagine that Austen's novels went over said biographers heads in a similar fashion. At the time Austen was writing, if you put something in a novel that could be construed as disagreeing with the political opinion of the time or you offended someone important - royalty for instance - you could be summarily locked up. In fact, a woman could find herself shut up in an asylum and branded as mad if she disagreed with her male relatives. It's hardly undocumented. While Jane didn't have too much to fear of the latter - her father was a big supporter of her writing, and her elder brothers if somewhat indifferent to the subject matter, were happy to later boast of their clever sister - she certainly wasn't rich or powerful enough to risk offending anyone who was. You need to read between the lines in Austen's novels (and her letters - which were often written in the knowledge that they would be read aloud to others). They look like light tales of marriage, manners and money but actually they're deeply political and more than a little scathing! Austen's letters are crucial in showing us how she lived and what she thought on a great many subjects, not least of which was how to dress and socialise as she was expected to by society whilst living in gentile poverty. Worsley's knowledge and expertise of Georgian England - both great events and those closer to home - adds another dimension, giving you Jane Austen as best we can deduce. Not a paragon of ladylike gentility and forbearance, but a real person with opinions and intelligence, and more than a little fire. This is an excellent addition to any Austen enthusiast's library....more
After a 3.5 yr court battle, Ray and ger husband, Moth, lose their farm, their home, their livelihood and a lot of their confodence and self respect. After a 3.5 yr court battle, Ray and ger husband, Moth, lose their farm, their home, their livelihood and a lot of their confodence and self respect. Two days later they find put that Moth is slowly dying of a degenerative brain disease. So they decide to buy a tent and walk the 636 miles of the South West Coastal path.
It sounds like it should be a bleak book. It's not. It has to be one if the most uplifting hopeful memoirs I've ever read. And it is a journey if healing too, learning to rely on yourself and your partner again when the world has really shafted you. Winn doesn't mince words or sugar coat the attitudes to homelessness they faced but the story is rife with sharp and gentle humour, funny adventures, almost ecstatic moments in nature and ultimately seeing the best of humanity too. We can all manage with so much less than we think we can and in many ways we'd be richer for it. An amzingly good book. Highly recommend....more
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