NW: a couple of miles south of what I wanted to read

Fun fact: the fastest way to make sure I will not be reading a book? Making it required reading. Which is exactly what happened with Zadie Mith’s NW. I mean, it didn’t help that it was for a course I didn’t really like taking all that much, but still. That professor had hardly finished sayingMeer

The Guilty Feminist: hello, it is I

Hi, my name is Saar and I’m a feminist. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way – let’s see why exactly I loved The Guilty Feminist so much that I flew through it in about 3 hours, shall we? About the book “In 2015 I described myself as ‘guilty feminist’ for the firstMeer

The Vanishing Half: book club win

Sometimes, you’ve got to read something that’s just way beyond your usual comfort zone. And luckily, I now have a book club that forces me to do just that. Last month, we read I Am Pilgrim, which was… an experience. This month? Well, let’s just say The Vanishing Half’s author didn’t do anything by halves!Meer

2020 in numbers and books

2020’s been a bit of a doozy, hasn’t it? The entire world seemed to shift every other day, which meant we didn’t go on a holiday this year – and I spent 6 months at home on sick leave. All together? It’s made for a year with some new discoveries, some old loves returning, andMeer

Lives and Death: Tolstoy, but shorter

Every once in a while, it’s nice to be pleasantly surprised by a classic. Or at least – to be reminded, again, that “classic” doesn’t automatically mean “boring”. In the case of Tolstoy’s Lives and Deaths? Quite the opposite turned out to be true! About the book Tolstoy’s stories contain many of the most acutelyMeer

Queerbaiting and Fandom: fandom-baiting the reader

A definite advantage of having my sister as my sister: I’ve certainly become more socially aware because of her. One of the elements in which that was most the case? The representation and diversity that is (or – more often – isn’t) present in consumables. So, when I came across this book, which promised toMeer

Tuesdays with Morries: no thinking necessary

When I first read a book by Mitch Albom, I didn’t quite expect to fall in love with his writing as much as I did. Or to end up slowly buying all of his work. Well – very slowly, I should say. But so far, I’ve bought, read and loved three of his works. And obviously:Meer

Isolde, go light on the Tristan

Every once in a while, I need some Literature-with-a-capital-L. And in my case, in particular, that tends to mean something a little bit depressing. And what’d’ya know… Isolde fits the bill perfectly. About the book Left to her own devices in Biarritz, fourteen-year-old Russian Liza meets an older English boy, Cromwell, on a beach. HeMeer

2018 in books and numbers

So… Happy New Year? Ish? I can honestly say that December has completely flown by, and suddenly I realised that *this* was probably the last book I would get to finish this year. In other words: time for a round-up! What I read A grant total of 195 books Which, you have to admit -Meer