The Heart Goes Last

The Heart Goes Last is a novelisation of Margaret Atwood’s online Positron series, which appeared on the defunct Byliner website between 2012 and 2013. I dimly recall Atwood talking about the series on social media but never read it. It doesn’t matter. The novel stands alone perfectly well. Set in a near future where the aftermath of a financial crash has left the rich sequestered on the West Coast of America, the majority of society mostly jobless and homeless, and the lawless living an unfettered existence trading on a lucrative black market, the novel follows Charmaine and Stan as they try to survive the decimation of their previously average life.

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Posted on by Jan Hicks 2

Passionate Nomad: The Life of Freya Stark

Passionate Nomad recounts the life of Freya Stark, a British-Italian explorer who travelled extensively in the Middle East and Afghanistan (better described by people from the region as West Asia, which is what I’m going to call it) from 1927 until 1968. Her wanderlust took root during the First World War, when she served with a British Red Cross ambulance unit in Italy, but it was the restrictions of her sister’s life and the overbearing nature of her mother that encouraged her to make the most of her own life and take a boat from Italy to Beirut in November 1927. She wrote extensively about this and all the journeys around Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen that she made subsequently. Jane Fletcher Geniesse’s biography of this remarkable woman explores the adventure Stark’s life became.

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Posted on by Jan Hicks 7

Constance Maud’s No Surrender: A Graphic Novel

No Surrender is a women’s suffrage novel published in 1911, written by Women Writers Suffrage League member Constance Maud. The novel follows the friendship between mill worker Jenny Clegg and the middle class suffragette Mary O’Neil, whose brother is engaged to the local mill owner, Sir Godfrey Walker. It’s a novel that draws on real events and actions in the fight for women’s right to vote and features a handful of characters based on leading women in the movement. This edition is a graphic novel adaptation by sisters Sophie and Scarlett Rickard.

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Posted on by Jan Hicks 3

Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London

Lauren Elkin’s Flâneuse is more than the book I was expecting it to be. I thought it was going to be an examination of city streets and public spaces and how they welcome or exclude women, of a similar ilk to Leslie Kern’s Feminist City. It turned out to be more like Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City. Which is fortunate, because I loved Laing’s book and hated Kern’s. Elkin blends personal memoir with the stories of other women who have worked things out through walking and sought anonymity in city streets across the world. It gave me a lot to think about. This one’s going to be a long one – make yourself a brew.

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Posted on by Jan Hicks 3

Lost for Words

Lost for Words is the fifth novel by Stephanie Butland. It’s the only novel of hers that I’ve read. It was a trying things out type purchase for me. It has been on my e-reader since 2017. There were lots of things I enjoyed about it. A key factor was the main character’s love for A S Byatt’s Possession, which is a book I have read multiple times.

The story largely takes place in a bookshop and is a tale aimed at bookish readers who like quirky characters and a bit of grit in their escapism.

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Posted on by Jan Hicks 5

Resurrection Bay

Resurrection Bay is the first novel in Emma Viskic’s Caleb Zelic series. Caleb is a private security specialist and fraud investigator. Deaf since childhood, he has developed an outsider mentality and has made some poor choices in life that see him living in a poorly decorated rental at the start of this book. Before we find this out about him, though, his best friend is killed, dying in Caleb’s arms. Caleb’s presence at the scene when the police arrive places him under suspicion of being involved in the murder.

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Posted on by Jan Hicks 0

Strong Female Character

Strong Female Character is the autobiography of Fern Brady. I love Fern Brady. If you don’t know her, she’s a comedian from Bathgate in West Lothian, Scotland. I first encountered her on the Wheel of Misfortune podcast that she created with co-host Alison Spittle. I loved her blunt humour. I loved her even more when she appeared on Taskmaster and wrote a song about why she should be crowned Queen of the Taskmaster house. Her autobiography explains how she came to be the strong female character of the title. My love for her has increased now I’ve read her book. The telling is raw in its honesty, as is Brady in her comedy.

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Posted on by Jan Hicks 4