A Ripple from the Storm by Doris Lessing My rating: 4 of 5 stars The third book in Martha Quest’s story is best read after the foregoing instalments. Here there is a shift in subject matter; previously Martha’s political activities were not a dominant part of her life, and she engaged in them alongside other… Continue reading Thistledown of History
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez My rating: 4 of 5 stars I think I’ve decided not to re-read this, so I can’t review it properly because I’ve forgotten my thoughts. I’m glad this was brought to my attention by the year of reading women selection because it’s an amazing story and… Continue reading La mariposas
Granada by Radwa Ashour My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is my second Ashour and takes its place beside The Woman from Tantoura as one of my favourite books. Once again, the author deals with tantalising and difficult material with poetic and thematic subtlety and affectionate warmth for her characters. It opens with a… Continue reading Dreams & Nightmares of Al-Andalus
Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid’s Memoir That Inspired “Upstairs, Downstairs” and “Downton Abbey” by Margaret Powell My rating: 4 of 5 stars 3.5 stars This is a brisk and efficient book full of interesting observations on interwar British society from a working class perspective. Powell grew up in a poor family in Hove, a… Continue reading How the bigger half lived
We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity by bell hooks My rating: 5 of 5 stars Hooks explains why she felt the need to write this book, rather than leaving it to Black men to speak for themselves on the topic: Many of the individual black men working in the field of ending male violence… Continue reading bell hooks on black men and masculinity
When you have emptied our calabashes Into your porcelain bowls overflowing the surplus spilling and seeping into foreign soil when you have cleaved the heads of our young and engraved upon the soft papyrus there an erasure of our past having built edifices to your lies filled them with so many bad books and distorts… Continue reading When you have Emptied our Calabashes
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie My rating: 5 of 5 stars War cuts across class, gender, race. The privileged Igbo woman. The Igbo houseboy from the village. The white Englishman in love with Igbo art. Three voices for this story, three hearts cut by the grief of a war from which… Continue reading Love in Biafra
Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur My rating: 5 of 5 stars Assata Shakur’s conviction in a joke of a trial for a murder she clearly did not commit has not been reversed. She escaped from prison and she lives in Cuba, still a fugitive. The story of how the hell this outrage came about… Continue reading She Who Struggles
Sistah Vegan: Food, Identity, Health, and Society: Black Female Vegans Speak by A. Breeze Harper My rating: 4 of 5 stars Here is a personal story, which you are welcome to skip (view spoiler)[I first read about this book in the first issue of Bitch magazine I ever read, which featured an interview with Dr… Continue reading Not on a Plate
In the Eye of the Sun by Ahdaf Soueif My rating: 4 of 5 stars After 800 pages of easy reading emotional turmoil I was so involved with the characters I wanted to read on and spend more time with Asya and her generation as they grew older – my hunger to know them better… Continue reading An intimate epic
(I am because you are) 