This review was originally published on The Indiependent Trigger warning: rape, assault Let’s play a word association game, shall we. If I say ‘model’, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Perhaps you think of a tall, leggy Victoria’s secret model. Maybe you think of transgender model Munroe Bergdorf and her racism row with L’Oreal. … Continue reading Book Review: Boy Parts // Eliza Clark
Tuesday 7 April marks the 250th anniversary since the birth of William Wordsworth. In our current climate of self-isolation, I found it interesting to return to an essay I wrote as an undergraduate about solitude in his poems... We Poets in our youth begin in gladness; But therefore come in the end despondency and madness … Continue reading Reflections on Wordsworth and Solitude
I really tried to avoid the never ending stream of tweets on my timeline obsessing about Conversations With Friends. I already fell victim to the online chatter about the profundity of Anna Burns’ 2018 Man Booker Prize winning novel, Milkman. The prose was so dense it was like trying to read treacle, and I gave up a mere … Continue reading Book Review: Conversations With Friends // Sally Rooney
Title: Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life Author: Nina Stibbe What I think so far: In 1982, Nina Stibbe moved from Leicester to London to become nanny to Mary-Kay Wilmers’s children. Working (somewhat informally, it has to be said) for the editor of the London Review of Books clearly gave this book’s twenty year old subject an invaluable … Continue reading Book By My Bedside: Love, Nina // Nina Stibbe
Written by Sue Townsend, the bestselling author of the Adrian Mole series, my expectations were high for The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year. Although the novel starts off extremely promising – inviting genuine guffaws of laughter at points – it rapidly goes downhill after the first twelve or so chapters. The novel … Continue reading Book Review: The Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year // Sue Townsend
BETH KIRKBRIDE 