"Sakamochi clapped his hands a few times and admonished, 'All right, all right, all right, quiet down, everyone!' The uproar quickly subsided, and he continued. 'Okay, I'll explain. We've had you come here for one and only one reason'. Then: 'Today, you're all going to kill each other'. This time, no outburst came. The students … Continue reading Review: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
Of all the challenges that we face as individuals, grief is perhaps the most universal. There are few - if any - people able to get through life without experiencing loss, making grief an inevitability for all of us. I am lucky to have reached 30 without losing any of the people close to me … Continue reading Bibliotherapy For Grief: Fiction Recommendations For Tough Times
"He knew my work - where it was, what I did there, the hours, the days and the twenty-past-eight bus I caught every morning when it wasn't being hijacked to get me into town to it. Also he made the pronouncement that I never caught this bus home. This was true. Every weekday, rain or … Continue reading Review: Milkman by Anna Burns
April has flown by in the breathless fury that always seems to associate itself with mid-spring. Although I remain devastated at my loss of the UK's four-day Easter weekend, April remains one of my favourite months of the year. It is also just about the only mild month that the US midwest seems to get … Continue reading The Monthly Reader: April 2019
"To be a Parisian in Nablus was to be out of step with the times, locked in an old colonial formula where subjects imitated masters as if in the seams of their old garments they hoped to find some dust of power left trapped. This was not precisely the case with Midhat, who seemed rather … Continue reading Review: The Parisian by Isabella Hammad
One of the most prevalent challenges facing society today is undoubtedly loneliness. The news abounds with headlines showing that loneliness among almost all generations is on the increase. Although counterintuitive at first sight - we might expect that both the internet at large and social media in particular offer us plentiful opportunities for connection - … Continue reading Bibliotherapy For Loneliness: Fiction Recommendations For Tough Times
Stepping into spring with all things literary and a roundup of the bookish happenings from March! It's been an eventful month and there are plenty of articles, interviews, and releases to discuss - so grab some tea and biscuits, and let's get stuck right in. Articles ''One Hundred Years Of Solitude' Is Coming To Netflix' … Continue reading The Monthly Reader: March 2019
"Eh, what do you really think you know about the Central Peace Council? I bet you didn't know that it was a joke. Peace. Only one kind of peace can ever come down the ghetto. It's really simple, so simple even a retarded man can catch the drift. Even a white man. The second you … Continue reading Review: A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
"What a world it is, Cora thought, that makes a living prison into your only haven. Was she out of bondage or in its web: how to describe the status of a runaway? Freedom was a thing that shifted as you looked at it, the way a forest is dense with trees up close but … Continue reading Review: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Over the course of my life, I've faced a few different challenges with my mental health. By far the most persistent, however, has been my battle with anxiety and panic attacks. I've suffered from crippling anxiety for as long as I can remember and have lived with panic attacks since childhood. All of us have … Continue reading Bibliotherapy For Anxiety and Panic: Fiction Recommendations For Tough Times
