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.
Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City – Guy Delisle
Ed bought me this for my birthday back in September and I’ve been saving it for a quiet month as I usually always have a big pile of library books to get through. The library has been closed for over two months now, and so I now only have my own books to read and I gave myself permission to start this one which I’ve been looking forward to for so long.
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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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