Nicola Griffith, Hild
From this weekend’s column. One of the many pleasing things about Hild is that large parts of it are set quite near where I am now (or it feels that way–England isn’t very big). It is possible that I...
View ArticleTwo posts about Courtney Milan
I’ve said in the past that I like to think of the regency romance as being set in a sort of fantasy world where things like the slave trade and gross economic inequality don’t exist—because if they do,...
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Anita Nair, Idris: Keeper of the Light
Another book that I really wanted to be able to champion but ended up being very disappointed by. It’s about a jewel-eyed man named Idris, so I feel like I have exercised great restraint in not...
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Bernardine Evaristo, The Emperor’s Babe
From last weekend’s columnthing. ********************************************** Marriage is hell for Zuleika, sold off far too young to be the bride of a rich man. The daughter of immigrant...
View ArticleCourtney Milan, Talk Sweetly To Me
Because why not write the same piece over two weeks and have one half be about narrative poetry and the other be about romance? Here is that second part; it’s from last weekend’s column and much of...
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In which Rhodes falls and doesn’t, Britain faces its imperial past and...
One Year in the Afterlife Of the British Empire: April 9, 2015: A statue of Cecil Rhodes is removed from the University of Cape Town, a result of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign November 8, 2015:...
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Bulletpoints: Mohenjo Daro
Here are several thoughts on Mohenjo Daro, which was a cheesy, terrible mess which I loved. I mean: The headgear. I will come back to this, but it’s a delight. Watching the trailer some months ago, I...
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Bulletpoints: The Great Wall
You knew I wasn’t going to let something this silly and this spectacular pass. I’m fascinated by how this film negotiates its multiple audiences and contexts. I’ve (you may have heard!) spent a lot...
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Joan Aiken, The Stolen Lake
I’ve been ill, and so I’ve been comfort-rereading the Wolves Chronicles. Here is some thinking about one of them in particular. The Stolen Lake is set in an alternate history in which, during the Saxon...
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Bali Rai, City of Ghosts
I have a post about Bali Rai’s City of Ghosts on the Children’s Literature in Newcastle blog, as a way of commemorating the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Alongside the book (and since I...
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