A masterpiece of ecological fiction and an award-winning novel that gives a powerful voice to the vulnerable animals of the Americas both domesticated and wild and finds the human world in desperate need of urgent change.
Category Archives: Book Reviews
Book Review: The Mind is Flat by Nick Chater
Book Review: The Mind is Flat by Nick Chater | Forget all about the Freudian ID, Super-ego and Ego vying for your present attention. And forget about Jungian archetypes and stuff randomly bubbling up to the surface of your consciousness. According to Behavioural Psychologist Nick Chater – this doesn’t exist. Instead, what we all have is a flat mind!
Book Review: Tiny Gardens Everywhere by Kate Brown
This is an enormously important book about the history of gardening not as a placid recreational activity for the wealthy but as a practical form of survival, food security and resistance by working class people all over the world. Never has a book been more important as right now with the commodification of land and homes.
Book Review: Conquistadora by Esmeralda Santiago
A novelised tour Puerto Rico’s colonial history from the perspective of a determined and yet unlikeable heroine and the people she enslaves for a sugar hacienda in the 19th Century. It could have been improved with more focus on the lives of the slaves.
Book Review: The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier
A juicy and reverent novel about a sparkling time in #history – the #Italian #Renaissance from the perspective of a determined young female glassmaker on the island of #Murano in #Venice.
Book Review: Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Inspired by a true story, Hannah Kent has woven a remarkable tale that is totally bewitching and magical in how it draws you in. The heroine Agnus Magnusdottir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of a well-liked local man Natan Ketilsson.
Book Review: The Ideological Brain by Leor Zmigrod
A very timely and interesting book about the interplay between ideology and rigid thinking and how our psychology and neurobiology influence our personal politics. You will learn why your brain is wired to be conservative or progressive.
Book Review: All That Holds Between by S.J. Lee
A cosy and quirky mystery set in the near future in a Taiwanese town about lost memories, the bonding experience of delicious food, omnipotent technology and the human connections we all crave to be happy.
Book Review: Hungerstone by Kat Dunn
A sexy dark and glittering jewel of a novel featuring Sapphic vampires and crumbling old Victorian estates with a cast of believable and enjoyable characters. You will want to get drawn into this one, but you may not be able to stop!
Quirky insights into lost worlds: Ex Libris book plates
Passionate devotees of books from throughout history share a common thread with all of us modern-day bibiophiles, they longed to celebrate their books and mark their ownership with an Ex Libris book plate. Ever since Pharaonic Egypt, marking one’s ownership of a book has been a thing. Ex Libris bookplates are more than the stamped or printed marks denoting ownership. They represent the taste, values of their owner, how they saw themselves and the aesthetic styles of the eras when they were made.
