The endless triumph of hope over experience: let’s see if I remember to list a single book?

OK, here we go:

1. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Thought I’d grab it hot off the press (1985), or at least before reading The Testaments and watching Series 6 of Elizabeth Moss. Prescient, terrifying, relevant, beautifully executed, relatable, timeless, OF COURSE.
2. An Inspector Calls by JB Priestley (1945). The speedy shame-read of a mum who didn’t pick it up in 45 years of reading, and whose child is now studying it. Play written in the 40s, set in 1912: whose fault is it that a young woman died, back in the time of workhouses and pre-widespread minimum wage, NHS or welfare? Clear depiction of the arrogance and coldness of the wealthier characters, less effective evidence of the warmer characters achieving anything notable; a skewed range of humanity giving insight into the 40s as well as Edwardian era. Good read.
3. The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (2019). Set fifteen years after The Handmaid’s Tale. Reading currently.
4. The Silent Twins by Marjorie Wallace (1986). An uncomfortable read on every level — how the bullied, silent young Gibbons twins were studied and separated in 1970s Wales, before being sent to Broadmoor as its youngest occupants. In addition to the already disturbing story, I also find the tone strange (exploitative? rubbernecking?). Feel like I’d be more comfortable reading the twins’ own accounts, rather than a journalist’s account using the twins’ material. Still reading.

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