87 books like Catling's Bane

I write character-driven fiction and it is always the people and their relationships that most engage me in any story. I found the characters here complex, real, engaging, and, in some instances, foul specimens demonstrating that existence for survival alone is an inadequate way of life for any person. These are fully developed people, though they are mostly unusual individuals; archetypes rather than stereotypes. The people hooked me from the start. I cared what happened to these adventurers. I also cared that those who deserved retribution would receive it.

Character-driven romance is relatively rare, but this book, essentially a complex and deep love story, is seen entirely through the eyes of lovers. The people on these pages are both exceptional and real. We’re treated to their aspirations, frailties, courage, desires, truths, and lies. These are people I’ve met and been impressed by.

When young, gifted, and hauntingly beautiful Sarah enters the hideaway of best-selling reclusive author, Jeremy, both their lives are fundamentally changed. To supply any more details of the story would be to give spoilers, and the last thing I want to do here is spoil anyone’s read.

This story begins in the first person in the company of a young boy. I lived with him through his early teens and schooling, a huge tragedy, and his fate as the isolated offspring of high-flying achievers, his early experiences, and the casual physical and mental cruelty associated with boarding schools.

Abruptly, I was plunged into the life of a young woman in her late teens, still in the first person. Surprisingly, this overnight transition, both physical and mental, caused me only a short pause to reflect on the nature of gender. I travelled with this developing young woman as she experienced love, sex, and the joys and sorrows life throws at a sensitive, intelligent, and creative soul who enters the world of writing. Her journey as a budding novelist struck a real chord with me, having travelled that difficult and demanding route.

I have written speculative fiction, and the protagonist, Angel, a feisty, courageous, enigmatic, curious survivor is placed into such a setting. Climate change, one of my personal concerns, has wreaked havoc with the geographical, and therefore the political world, as we know it. It deals with the way elites take what they see as the necessary action to continue their privileged lifestyles.

The author managed to make me empathize with almost all the characters on some level, regardless how selfish, wicked, good, generous, or courageous they may be. I encountered elderly heroes and heroines, resourceful individuals and communities, victims, self-serving demagogues, cruel leaders, uncaring servants, unquestioning followers, and a group of talented and determined resistance fighters bent on turning a terrifying world into a just and equable future.

Although this novel focuses on the world of investment banking, I list it here because it shows the difference between being a female working in finance and being a male working in finance; like This is what happens, it shows the impact of sexism on one woman's professional life, her dream, her ambition, her failure to achieve the former despite the latter.

I read it quite a while ago but was reminded of it while reading recently about the recent Martin/Nicole thing (wherein they switched email addresses, so Martin experienced what it was like to be Nicole for a couple of weeks) ("Folks, it sucked" was his summary).  

Song’s interdisciplinary work in the fields of politics, law, and philosophy explores the tensions that arise when culturally diverse democratic states pursue justice for religious and cultural minorities and justice for women. Much of Justice, Gender, and the Politics of Multiculturalism relates to North America. Song argues that egalitarian justice requires special accommodations for cultural minorities and that gender equality may restrict cultural accommodation. While we need to be sensitive to historical cultural rights, we should also protect basic human rights. Song lucidly and incisively discusses cultural defense in criminal law, aboriginal membership rules, and Mormon polygamy, examining the role of intercultural interactions in shaping such cultural conflicts. As I did in my work, Song emphasises intercultural democratic, deliberative dialogue as a means for resolving cultural conflicts.

Feminist theorist Dale Spender wrote, in Women of Ideas and What Men Have Done to Them, “We need to know how women disappear….”  Although she spoke of women who disappear from the historical record, all too many women seem to disappear from any sort of public life as soon as they leave high school: so many shine there, but once they graduate, they become invisible. What happens?  

Marriage and kids is an inadequate answer because married-with-kids straight-A boys are visible.  Everywhere. Even the straight-B boys are out there. So what happens?

This is what happens.

It’s a very clever, very funny novella about a talented literary editor, Quin, told alternately in his own voice and by a long-term friend of his, Margot.

Margot defends and normalises his behaviour towards women until she is forced to reassess his actions in the light of numerous accusations, all of which fall short of actual assault or rape, sex, or even touching. Is he an abuser? Or is he just a playful, overgrown manchild who thrives on emotionally intense and intimate friendships with women?

I loved the book because it refuses to answer the question definitively.

Kate Manne offers the best definitions of sexism (men thinking they’re better than women) and misogyny (men punishing women for displeasing them) that I’ve ever read. And she brings receipts, showing examples of how these two things play out in everything from novels to politics to crimes to classrooms.

Once I read her book, it was impossible for me not to spot more examples pretty much everywhere I went in the world.

I was a lonely child and when I discovered my uncle’s childhood adventure books at my grandmother’s house I found a world of excitement, adventure, and bravery that thrilled me to the marrow. Although all the active characters in these books were male, I managed to insert my imaginary self into the tales of shipwrecks, daredevil flights, and chases through Amazon jungles as the protagonists bravely and indefatigably fought for survival. Martin Rattler was the first of these books I read and it’s still a breathtaking read, with plenty of moments when your heart is in your mouth and you are almost too scared to read on. I recommend it as a true heart-stopper. 

You may be shocked by some of the racist and sexist attitudes in Martin Rattler. It was written in the colonialist and intolerant England of the times, and I find it heartening that no one… show more.