Every now and then I read a book that expands my on perceptions of the world and those who dwell within it. A book that cuts through the distracting stress and division of life in the 2020s to awaken my curiosity and empathy. Joe Okonkwo's short story collection Kiss the Scars on the Back of My Neck was one of those books.
All too often social media forces us into dehumanising political categories, turning real, living, multifaceted people into simplistic caricatures. Kiss the Scars on the Back of My Neck captures all our glory, ugliness, and complexity through its beautifully interwoven stories, some of which follow characters across vast spans of their lives. Their situations can be heartbreaking, their characters flawed, and their relationships fractured, but the narrative always presents them in a manner that's compelling and it does so without judgment.
I've recommended this book to so many people in my personal life, and I'm thrilled to evangelise it to even more.
Independent Publishers Awards (IPPY) Silver Medalist in LGBT+ Fiction
The eclectic stories in this collection are bound by the threads of desire in its many forms, above all, the desire for love and a place of safety in a world where being Black and gay can thwart the fulfillment of that longing. The characters are complex, driven, difficult, and even, at times, unsympathetic, but always compelling. In other words: fully rounded human beings living complicated lives.
A proud Black woman who escaped her rural, impoverished town returns after the collapse of her marriage and faces the scorn of those she…
It's not often a character's voice sticks with you for months after finishing a book. Sometimes a voice stays with you because of its warmth and compassion. Sometimes because it's a voice that echoes your own. And sometimes it's because that voice is so wonderfully twisted that it haunts you long afterward.
The narrator of Whether Violent or Natural is the latter.
Kit endures the apocalypse in a bunker beneath a crumbling castle. Clearly traumatised by the chaos she's lived through, her disturbingly childlike tone lures you in – but don't be deceived. There's a difference between fragility and innocence, and Natasha Calder truly redefines the concept of the unreliable narrator with this work. Utterly transfixing.
In a world devastated by antimicrobial resistance, two survivors are thrown into crisis when a woman washes ashore on the remote island where they live
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Years after complete antibiotic resistance has resulted in the loss of most human life on earth, Kit and Crevan eke out an existence on a remote island. Under a collapsing castle, they spend their days in an underground bunker packed with emergency stores, venturing out only at night. They are safe.
One evening a woman washes ashore, nearly drowned. Crevan…
My reading tastes are somewhat eclectic, and I love to delve through a whole range of genres, both fiction and nonfiction. For my third recommendation of the year I'm going with a history book I'd long had on my shelves but hadn't yet reached: The Glorious Revolution by Edward Vallance.
Though I did conduct my PhD between the Literature and History departments of my university, my studies were confined more to the 18th Century, and I don't know as much about the revolution of 1688. Why do you think it stayed unread on my shelf for so long? But the truth is I should have read this years ago. The era is colourfully painted by Vallance while being skillfully related to the modern day, and I was surprised to discover how deeply I was drawn into this book.
Recommended to all history lovers. Even if you think you don't care about this particular slice of the past, you will by the time you finish.
In 1688, a group of leading politicians invited the Dutch prince William of Orange over to England to challenge the rule of the catholic James II. When James's army deserted him he fled to France, leaving the throne open to William and Mary. During the following year a series of bills were passed which many believe marked the triumph of constitutional monarchy as a system of government. In this radical new interpretation of the Glorious Revolution, Edward Vallance challenges the view that it was a bloodless coup in the name of progress and wonders whether in fact it created as…
Now with a re-edition from Amble Press, released May 2024 – with a foreword by the author and afterword by Meg-John Barker!
A touching comedy of polyamory and nonbinary life, The Giddy Death explores the ultimate boundaries of love and gender.
Caroline and Dom live out their normal lives among the poverty, alcoholics, and street preachers of Swansea. But when Dom and his straight roommate fall in love – a passionate, secret, non-sexual love – their lives are transformed into a queer chaos of cross-dressing, gender bending and free love. Will Dom hold on to his relationship? Can religious fundamentalists be adopted as pets? And just what are The Lesbians up to? The battle between preachers and drag queens, skinheads and sex workers, boyfriend and girlfriend, is set to change the city forever.
