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She-religions: Sarah Perry and Bridget Collins
There have been a flood of excellent new books this year from familiar authors, but the two I kept checking bookshops for were Bridget Collins’s The Silence Factory and Sarah Perry’s Enlightenment. These are currently only available in hardcover, but I treated myself, and was not disappointed. Both Collins and Perry have stepped into new…
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‘Amsterdam’ by Ian McEwan
Amsterdam is a swirling, disorientating swell of intrigue and betrayal. In less than 200 pages, McEwan spins a yarn which is slightly bewildering in its creative and emotional scope, whilst also maintaining an impressive degree of narrative control. Despite having died of a mysterious disease, Molly, a talented middle-aged writer, lies at the crux of…
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Review of Ondjaki’s ‘Transparent City’
Gut-wrenching and bizarre in equal measure, Transparent City is a masterful and experimental piece of fiction providing striking insight into Angola’s capital, Luanda. One of the book’s key strengths lies in its liquid relationship to reality: it moves through realist, comic and surrealist elements with seeming ease, reflecting the many tenors of city life by…
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Bertrand Russell, Islamic Coffee Culture and Idleness as Socialist Resistance
Drinking coffee, working less and illegalising private investment could prompt equality and creativity…
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10 Feminist Books I Read This Year
From witchy reads to realist writing to theory, here are ten books which uphold women’s rights and experiences.
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Daughter, Mother, Aunt: The Painful Transition to Womanhood in Studio Ghibli
The girls of Ghibli are adventurous freedom-fighters, but what about their mothers, aunts and grandmothers? In this article I chart the disempowerment of girls as they transition to womanhood in Studio Ghibli.