Book after Book

Welcome to the blog tour for The God of No Good  by Sita Walker! More about the book… Traversing decades and continents – from Iran to India, Sri Lanka to the Czech Republic, Adelaide to the Torres Strait –  The God of No Good  is a beautifully lyrical and funny intergenerational memoir about six women and how their lives intertwine. Filled with wit and wisdom, it is a story that only Sita Walker could tell, but it will resonate with readers everywhere. It’s  Wild Swans  meets Nora Ephron. This is not a book about divorce. It’s not a book about God, either. You might think it is a book about goodness and what it means to be a good person, but it isn’t. Like everything else, this is about love. Sita Walker was raised by five strong matriarchs who taught her to believe in God and to be good. Her grandmother, mother and three aunts believed in their unshakeable Bahá’í faith, i...

Welcome to the blog tour for The Go-Between: A Portrait of Growing Up Between Different Worlds by Osman Yousefzada! More about the book… The Go-Between provides a window into the Pakistani/Afghan Pashtun community living in Britain: a closed world in which women can’t leave their homes, where girls can’t be educated after the point of puberty (Osman’s own sisters were taken out of school at the age of eleven), where alternative masculinities are suppressed and where the pursuit of self-expression is forbidden. In this coming-of-age story set in Birmingham in the 1980s and 1990s, British-born artist and renowned fashion designer, Osman Yousefzada, tells us about his own family living in a red-light district on the wrong side of the tracks. The adult world is seen through Osman's eyes as a child: the divide between the world of men and women, living cheek-by-jowl with other migrant communities. Children have to balance Western school teachings with cultural traditions and female er...

I don’t normally do this but today I am going to write about two books instead of one. The reason for them sharing the spotlight is double. First of all, they both are books that I wouldn’t normally be drawn to. Lastly, they both touched me in an incredibly profound way and, when this happens, my words dry up and feelings take over, making the process of writing a review slightly awkward. First up, purely based on the fact that I read it before the other, is Becoming by Michelle Obama . This is one of the few memoirs I've read and I chose it because I had heard a lot of positive feedback. I became curious and I am so happy I did. I am not what you might call a ‘political person’ so I wasn’t biased one way or the other. As I said, I don’t know how to convey what this book gave me so, please, go and read it. Or even better, listen to the audiobook because hearing it first-hand from Michelle Obama herself is a wonderfully human and humbling experience. The second book I’d li...

By Dalia Grinkeviciute Translated from the Lithuanian by Delija Valiukenas  Published by Peirene Press Synopsis: In 1941, 14-year-old Dalia and her family are deported from their native Lithuania to a labour camp in Siberia. As the strongest member of her family she submits to twelve hours a day of manual labour. At the age of 21, she escapes the gulag and returns to Lithuania. She writes her memories on scraps of paper and buries them in the garden, fearing they might be discovered by the KGB. They are not found until 1991, four years after her death. This is the story Dalia buried. The immediacy of her writing bears witness not only to the suffering she endured but also the hope that sustained her. It is a Lithuanian tale that, like its author, beats the odds to survive. How did this book end up in my hands? I received an advance reading copy from the publisher in exchange of my honest opinion. Was it a page-turner? No, I wouldn’t say it was. I did read it fairly qui...

By Jessica J. Lee Published by Virago Press Synopsis: At the age of twenty-eight, Jessica Lee, who grew up in Canada and lived in London, finds herself in Berlin. Alone. Lonely, with lowered spirits thanks to some family history and a broken heart, she is there, ostensibly, to write a thesis. And though that is what she does daily, what increasingly occupies her is swimming. So she makes a decision that she believes will win her back her confidence and independence: she will swim fifty-two of the lakes around Berlin, no matter what the weather or season. She is aware that this particular landscape is not without its own ghosts and history. This is the story of a beautiful obsession: of the thrill of a still, turquoise lake, of cracking the ice before submerging, of floating under blue skies, of tangled weeds and murkiness, of cool, fresh, spring swimming - of facing past fears of near drowning and of breaking free. When she completes her year of swimming Jessica finds she has...

Written by Emmeline Pankhurst Published by Vintage Books "I began to think about the vote in women’s hands not only as a right but as a desperate necessity." (p.27) This ye ar marks the centenary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, which granted votes to women over the age of 30 with property valued at £5 or more. It is thanks to the anniversary of this milestone in the Votes for Women campaign that I reached for my copy of My Own Story , Emmeline Pankhurst’s memoir, first published in Great Britain in 1914. The faded receipt hidden among the pages places my purchase on the 30th December 2014 in the shop of the National Portrait Gallery in London. It has taken me a while to do justice to Mrs Pankhurst’s words and I now firmly believe that everyone should read this book, regardless of sex or political beliefs. If you are looking for gossip, you will find none. What you will gain by reading this book is a clear and matter-of-fact insight into the Women’...

By Jane Lynch Published by Fourth Estate Being a bit of a Gleek, I couldn’t help but want to read Jane Lynch’s memoir. I started the book knowing her only as Sue Sylvester, the most evil cheerleading coach ever to walk the planet, and I ended it with a long list of films to watch and an even bigger respect for her. Happy Accidents takes us from Jane’s childhood and her dreams of stardom all the way through to her successful present life as an actor. We learn about the hard times – her insecurity, her alcoholism, her feelings of isolation and not belonging – as well as the good times – her flourishing career, her acceptance of her sexuality, her marriage. It seems that she holds nothing back and comes across as absolutely honest, page after page. Her memoir is moving and funny, sometimes both sad and amusing at the same time. And, as I said before, totally candid. I recommend Happy Accidents to any Glee or Jane Lynch fan, to anyone interested in acting and films, to anyone who enjoys ...

One more title from my ever-expanding reading wish list. ** The cover image is for illustrative purposes only. If you are a publisher and would kindly like to offer me a copy of this book for review, I will change the cover so as to reflect the edition received. ** Fun Home By Alison Bechdel Amazon's product description: One of the most eagerly anticipated graphic memoirs of recent years, Fun Home is a darkly funny family tale, pitch-perfectly illustrated with Alison Bechdel's sweetly gothic drawings. Like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis , it's a story exhilaratingly suited to graphic memoir form. Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high-school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and the family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately h...

One more title from my ever-expanding reading wish list. ** The cover image is for illustrative purposes only. If you are a publisher and would kindly like to offer me a copy of this book for review, I will change the cover so as to reflect the edition received. ** We Are a Muslim, Please By Zaiba Malik Amazon's product description: For Zaiba Malik, growing up in Bradford in the ‘70s and ‘80s certainly has its moments – staying up all night during Ramadan with her father; watching mad Mr Aziz searching for his goat during Eid; dancing along to Top of the Pops (so long as no-one’s watching). And, of course, there’s her mother – whether she’s writing another ingratiating letter to the Queen or referring to Tom Jones as ‘Thumb Jone’. But Zaiba’s story is also one of anxiety and seemingly irreconcilable opposites. Growing up she is constantly torn between two identities: ‘British’ and ‘Muslim’. Alienated at school and confused at home, the racism she encounters as a child mirrors the ...

One more title from my ever-expanding reading wish list. ** The cover image is for illustrative purposes only. If you are a publisher and would kindly like to offer me a copy of this book for review, I will change the cover so as to reflect the edition received. ** The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy By Rachel Cusk Amazon's product description: When prize-winning author Rachel Cusk decides to travel to Italy for a summer with her husband and two young children she has no idea of the trials and wonders that lie in store. Their journey leads them to both the expected – the Piero della Francesca trail and queues at the Vatican – and the surprising – an amorous Scottish ex-pat and a longing for home – all seen through Cusk’s sharp and humane perspective. Exploring the desire to travel and to escape, art and its inspirations, beauty and ugliness, and the challenge of balancing domestic life with creativity, The Last Supper is a wonderful travel book about life on the most famous art tra...

Two more titles from my ever-expanding reading wish list. ** The cover images are for illustrative purposes only. If you are a publisher and would kindly like to offer me a copy of any of these books for review, I will change the cover(s) so as to reflect the edition received. ** Mrs Woolf and the Servants By Alison Light Amazon’s product description: Virginia Woolf was a feminist and a bohemian but without her servants – cooking, cleaning and keeping house - she might never have managed to write. Mrs Woolf and The Servants explores the hidden history of service. Through Virginia Woolf’s extensive diaries and letters and brilliant detective work, Alison Light chronicles the lives of those forgotten women who worked behind the scenes in Bloomsbury, and their fraught relations with one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers. A Boy at the Hogarth Press By Richard Kennedy Amazon’s product description: After a rather unsuccessful education at Marlborough College, in 1926 sixteen-ye...