I want to start this review of Sweet Home by mentioning video games, if you’ll indulge me. The games industry has this awkward discourse floating around it right now regarding politics. Fans are telling publishers to keep politics out of their games, and developers are putting out games that take a very clear political stance …
Willow Heath
The modern discourse between generations can be summed up by pitting a baby-boomer who’s screeching, “Millennials are killing everything!” against a twenty-something hipster groaning about how their vintage artisan flat white shipping company isn’t getting off the ground. The problem with millennials like myself making jokes like this one, however, dilutes the genuine issues of …
Denmark is a proudly bookish nation. Perhaps the true source of happiness for this happiest country on Earth is that it’s bursting at the seams with literary charm. When you do visit the overwhelmingly bookish Copenhagen, you’ll find a slew of delightful indie bookstores, book cafes to lose an afternoon relaxing in, and fairytales come …
Translated from the French by Faith Evans Just imagine being so fervently admired by someone as larger-than-life as Simone de Beauvoir and yet so under-appreciated on the grand global scale, while your contemporaries – Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf – go on being as beloved after death as they were in life. Well, no more. …
Taiwan is the most enigmatic country in East Asia. It’s constant legal and political struggles with China have been upsetting and frustrating to watch, but its close cultural and artistic ties to Japan have somewhat counterbalanced that. What can be said for certain (besides the fact that Taiwan is not China), is that Taiwan is …
It’s a curious thing to call a novel like this Exposed. It certainly deals with literal themes of exposure – as an ageing school teacher is approached by an ex -student (now a famous artist) who asks to paint him – but the title also teases a deeper subtext of exposure. Which is definitely there …
As a Brit in today’s political climate, it can sometimes be tough to find things to be proud of. One thing I always enjoy when I visit home, however, is a lovely Oxfam Bookshop. There’s at least one charity bookshop in every town, and they can be a great place to pick up a new …
The Good Omens TV adaptation hit Amazon Prime like a meteor, and it caused a tsunami of positive whoops and cheers from long-time fans of the book and newcomers alike. The show, as adaptations go, is perfect. It’s a lesson in how to use costume, set, style, dialogue, and music to mimic the tone set …
Translated from the German by Sinéad Crowe and Rachel McNicholl The Storyteller is the wheel not reinvented, but refined. It’s a straightforward road-tripping adventure peppered with themes of family bonds, betrayal, and secrecy. It will teach you about the tragic and tumultuous history of Lebanon and its people, their suffering and their survival. It’s a …
The shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019 features six books, two of which are oddly similar retellings of stories from Greek mythology, each with a feminist edge to it. Madeline Miller’s Circe reworks the little-know story of Circe, an equally little-known goddess-turned-witch. It’s a biopic narrative with a love affair thrown in. Pat Barker’s …