Book Review: Elmet by Fiona Mozley

A dark, crepuscular and gripping Yorkshire thriller about family and loyalty that is timeless, lyrical and immensely satisfying. Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Genre: Fiction, Gothic Noir, Yorkshire Noir, Thriller Publisher: Algonquin Books Review in one word: Stygian This debut book by Fiona Mozley was short-listed to win the Booker Prize in 2017 and it is easy to see why. This bookContinue reading “Book Review: Elmet by Fiona Mozley”

Book Review: Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed. Sixteen writers on the decision to not have kids

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟 Genre: Non-Fiction, Psychology, Women’s Writing, Feminism, Family, Relationships. Publisher: Picador Review in one word: Provocative This book is designed to be confronting, provocative, emotional and stirring in all of the ways that many people don’t like to discuss in polite conversation. That’s because it tackles one of the most (ridiculously) controversial taboo topicsContinue reading “Book Review: Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed. Sixteen writers on the decision to not have kids”

Book Review: Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems Vol. 1

Spiritually nourishing and grounded in the slow rumblings of nature and animals, Mary Oliver’s poems are a salve for the restless and jaded soul. Her poems are steeped in the luminescent beauty of nature and timeless wisdom of land and animals, yet she always has her bare feet planted deeply in the soil Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Genre: Poetry,Continue reading “Book Review: Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems Vol. 1”

Book Review: The Book of Symbols by the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS)

The Book of Symbols is a masterpiece of art history, philosophy, mysticism, psychology, anthropology, biology and spirituality. It brings together the history of various symbols, concepts and objects from many cultures and civilisations.

Book Review: Real Love – The Art of Mindful Connection by Sharon Salzberg

One of the most erudite, spiritually nourishing and comprehensive books on the topic of love – of self, others and the world. Encompassing romantic and platonic love, familial love, friendship and more, by one of the world’s foremost experts on Loving Kindness Meditation. Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Genre: Non-Fiction, Spirituality, Psychology, Buddhism, Self-Help Publisher: Flatiron books Review in one word: HelpfulContinue reading “Book Review: Real Love – The Art of Mindful Connection by Sharon Salzberg”

Book Review: A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

A Field Guide to Getting Lost is a collection of loosely related essays that expand upon the idea of wandering, being lost and our human sense of the unknown. The essays are insightful, vivid and at times slow-moving. This is a mosaic of cultural history, autobiography, nature writing and artistic criticism that roves far andContinue reading “Book Review: A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit”

Book Review: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Rating: 🌟🌟 Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction. Publisher: Canongate Books Review in one word: Fluff A lot of people raved and hyped about this book and a friend recommended this to me, because he spent a long night in the cafe reading it. This is an indulgent, compulsive and enjoyable read, sort of likeContinue reading “Book Review: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig”

Dissapearing into the desert

“The desert could not be claimed or owned–it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names… Its caravans, those strange rambling feasts and cultures, left nothing behind, not an ember. All of us, even those with European homes and children in the distance, wishedContinue reading “Dissapearing into the desert”

Environmentalism boils down to faith in the end

Faith in the possibility of change, the prospect of a better future. For green shoots in the rubble, fresh water in the desert. And our faith is often tested. Everywhere I have looked, everywhere I have been – places bent and broken, despoiled and desolate, polluted and poisoned, I have found new life springing fromContinue reading “Environmentalism boils down to faith in the end”

Comforting Thought: Each life is a mission of discovering the question of why you were born

According to Carl Jung, each life is an individuation process, one of discovering the particular question you were put on earth to answer. This question may have been left unanswered by an ancestor, although you must proceed with it in the manner of your own generation. But the question is not easy, or it wouldContinue reading “Comforting Thought: Each life is a mission of discovering the question of why you were born”