Archives // Books

A collection of spoiler-free reviews of the books and articles I read. I read a lot, and particularly enjoy 20th century history, graphic novels and graphic memoirs, contemporary literary fiction and the occasional bit of fantasy and horror.

I also share a list of the books I abandon without finishing, although I try not to be too negative. Books I hate might well be books other people love, and there’s enough hate on the internet without me adding to the pile.



April 2020 | Books & Links

29.04.2020

Non-fiction

Granta 146 – The Politics of Feeling – Granta

Granta is a quarterly mix of fiction, non-fiction, sequential art, photo essays and interviews, but this collection contains more non-fiction than the collection on Japan I read in December, so I’m listing it under non-fiction. I found a second-hand copy of Granta 146 on World of Books as I prefer reading physical books than a digital subscription on my phone, but all of the articles are available online with a subscription. A select few from each issue are open-access. I’d subscribe, but I am terrible at letting periodicals pile up, so it’s better for me just to buy copies of the issues I’m interested in as and when I want to read them.

Granta 146 was a mixed bag for me and I didn’t love everything, but standout pieces include Poppy Sebag-Montefiore’s ‘Touch’, Benjamin Markovits’ ‘Picking Up Nathan from the Airport’ and Joff Winterhart’s graphic story ‘B-Road Encounter’.

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Books

My Year in Books | 2019

29.12.2019

2019 was the year I fell back in love with reading. I used to read a lot as a child, but I fell out of the habit of reading fiction while I was at university. While studying and spending all day everyday reading and writing, the last thing I wanted to do at night was pick up another book and read some more. Between 2010 when I started keeping a log of my books and the start of this year I read 63 books. This is a figure I have almost matched book for book in the twelve months of 2019.

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Books