The Unravelling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq
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"As a Brit, a woman and a liberal, Emma Sky's presence and position in Iraq following the invasion...
Poetic & Real Worlds of Cesar Vallejo (18921938): A Struggle Between Art & Politics
Book
The world-renowned Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo (18921938) was also a journalist, essayist, novelist...
Scare Tactics: Supernatural Fiction by American Women, with a New Preface
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Scare Tactics identifies an important but overlooked tradition of supernatural writing by American...
Hamilton: The Revolution
Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter
10.0
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Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama Goodreads best non-fiction book of 2016 From Tony...
ClareR (5879 KP) rated A Net for Small Fishes in Books
Feb 17, 2021
This is a story that I already knew a little about: I read The Poison Bed by E. C. Fremantle on The Pigeonhole about 3 years ago, where the story was told from Frances Howards point of view, and A Net for Small Fishes does nothing to contradict that story. They both illustrate really well how women were expected to conform and be perfect, docile, brood mares for their influential husbands, and in Frankie’s case, how political marriages weren’t always happy ones. It also illustrated how desperation to escape a loveless marriage made two women take desperate action. As so often happens throughout history, the women in this story are punished for the barefaced cheek they had to want better lives for themselves. It’s a frustrating conclusion - but I could see that it was inevitable. It showed that it didn’t matter if you were a woman in one of the most influential families in the country or a doctors widow, you toed the line or suffered the consequences. But what a journey they had!
This is such a good story, as real life often is, and it’s a book that’s going on the Keeper shelf (yes, I bought a copy after I read it on The Pigeonhole - that’s how much I liked it).
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this, and to Lucy Jago for contributing to the conversation.
Joe Goodhart (27 KP) rated Faction Paradox: Newtons Sleep (Faction Paradox, #6) in Books
Nov 30, 2020
To describe it.. FWOAR! There's a heckuva lot going on, some of it will make your brain long after you're done! Set in England during the later half of the 17th Century, it deals with the effects of the "War in Heaven" (see also Lawrence Miles' 'FP: The Book of the War'), a War between Gallifrey (referred to as "the Homeworld") and the unnamed Enemy, with Faction Paradox caught in the midst of it. The story has political intrigue, metaphysics, sex, science fiction, and much that will make you scratch your head at times as well as prompting a trip to Wiki (while I have a general knowledge of that period of history, it is not something I am well-versed) now and again.
There are notable real history characters (the poetess, and spy, Aphra Behn) as well as fictional characters such as Nicholas Silver (who has SUCH a role to play!) and..well. SPOILERS! Seriously well-written characters all around, fleshed out enough to get a feel for each and every one. All had a unique voice when I read their dialogue.
The story is twisty-turny, but at the end it all comes together. I will caution you to read it carefully: this is NOT a book to run through quickly! I've been told it will altogether better the second time round, so I expect I will re-read it again sometime in the not-too-distant future.
Read it now: you won't be disappointed!
Lost Children Archive
9.0
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From the two-time NBCC Finalist, a fiercely imaginative novel about a family's summer road trip...
Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen
8.3
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Acclaimed author and historian Alison Weir continues her epic Six Tudor Queens series with this...
The pandemic of teenage suicides is disturbing, and reflects their despair at the state of the world left for them by previous generations. Parents with money think that they can prevent their childs’ suicide and cure their anxiety throwing money and anti-depressants at the ‘problem’, and sending them to an Anxiety Abatement Centre - and that’s how Simon meets the Prophet and Louise. And that’s where the quest begins.
It turns out that adults are responsible for more than Climate Change. You can add child abuse and big Pharma into the mix as well. And then there’s the political state of the country, where no party is any better than the other, and what’s more, they’re interchangeable. There was a lot of head nodding going on as I read.
And Noah Hawley breaks the 4th wall as he talks directly to the reader, talking about his thought process in writing the novel.
This book is a huge exaggeration of the state of the world, at the same time as it’s not. I hope it doesn’t come to the things that happen in Anthem, but we’ve seen snapshots of it on the news already.
It’s just the right level of crazy, believable, unbelievable, mind-blowing fiction that keeps me well-entertained. I know Noah Hawley is a screen writer, and I can see this as a film - hey, I’d watch it.
The Godmother's Secret
Book
What if you knew what happened to the Princes in the Tower. Would you tell? Or would you forever...
Biographical Historical Fiction Historical Mystery