The endless triumph of hope over experience: let’s see if I remember to list a single book?
OK, here we go:
- 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.
- 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.
- The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (2019). Set fifteen years after The Handmaid’s Tale. Reading currently.
- 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.
Image by fotografierende from Pixabay