Book review – Ishi Robinson – “Sweetness in the Skin”

I was offered a copy of this by the publisher, and the email said it was for fans of Black Cake, The Girl with the Louding Voice and My Name is Leon: I can understand this, as it’s a lovely coming of age story about a resilient teenager carving her own way in the world like all of those, but with its own differences.

Ishi Robinson – “Sweetness in the Skin”

(24 November 2023, NetGalley)

I feel the tiniest little stab somewhere in my side at the idea that my poverty is an adventure for her, but eventually I smile back. Maybe, I think, it won’t be so bad. Maybe she’ll see me for who I really am and I can stop pretentding. Maybe this will be a good thing.

Pumkin lives in a small house half way between the near-slums and the good areas in Kingston, Jamaica, able to go to a good school because her Aunt Sophie pays her school fees, but feeling like she has to hide that she lives in a tiny house with her grandmother, her mother who wants little to do with her and resents Sophie and her sophisticated aunt who’s also teaching her ways of hiding who you are, working at the French embassy and dreaming of moving to France.

When Sophie gets her dream, she promised to send for Pumkin, but Pumkin’s mum turns on her and refuses to let her take the exam she needs, no good at standing up for her when things go wrong at school. But Pumkin has a secret weapon: two, actually – her ability to make friends and her ability to bake. Surrounded by found family and adding people to it, notably a rather scary teacher at a French language school she needs to attend to get her exam, she bakes her way to having the requisite savings and gathers folk around her who can help her when the going gets tough. Will she make it to France, and does she need to?

I was worried this was going to be a simple bootstraps out of shameful poverty story – but it’s not, she sees the value in her roots, laughs at a posh friend who can’t cope visiting her and is not ashamed of herself – or that she’d find a White boyfriend to help her – again, no, just a variety of different Jamaican friends, including older women and a lovely guy who’s just a lovely guy and nothing else. There’s an underlying strong message about colourism and class, Pumkin’s mum having darker skin than Aunt Sophie and thus being less favoured, and class distinctions being harsh.

With some borderline distressing scenes (nothing as bad as in “The Girl with the Louding Voice”) this was on the whole a lovely, positive read which was also realistic in the hard work Pumkin put in and the sometimes strained relationships with her friends and family.

Thank you to Penguin Random House for offering me a copy of this book to read via NetGalley in return for an honest review. “Sweetness in the Skin” was published on 11 April 2024.

Book review – Robin Ince – “Bibliomaniac”

Emma gave me this book for my birthday in 2023 and when I heard that Robin Ince was coming to do an event at the Kings Heath Music and Book Festival, organised by The Heath Bookshop among others, I picked it off the shelf to read. Come the event, last Thursday, I hadn’t quite finished it – as I wanted to take it to get it signed anyway, I sat there slightly self-consciously in the audience before he started and finished it off! Out of the seven books I received for that birthday, I’ve read and reviewed five, not bad! And of course it counts towards my TBR project, too.

Robin Ince – “Bibliomaniac: An Obsessive’s Tour of the Bookshops of Britain”

(21 January 2023, from Emma)

An excellent combination of a book about bookshops and a “quest” book, we read about Ince’s journey by public transport and the odd lift around over 100 bookshops in the UK in 100 days. There’s a section on each town and we also get to hear about the charity shops of the area and what he buys, and his increasingly heavy bags of books he drags around – very familiar from my trips to Hay, or, to be honest, my own high street on occasion.

I marked up references to the bookshops I knew, including The Edge of the World in Penzance, the Hospice charity shop in Stratford and The Cinema Bookshop in Hay. There appears to be a new one in my own town of origin! He does an event in Birmingham (and has a bit of a funny turn on the confusing roads) but has to do it at ThinkTank (which has a bookshop?!) because The Bookshop wasn’t open then, so it’s lovely he returned there for this event (he also bought a copy of this book in The Shop and a little pile in Oxfam Books, sadly none that I’d donated there myself!).

There were laughs – being in Stratford and getting trapped in inventing punning shop names; he apparently still gets tweets with ideas, years later – and poignant moments as he spends time with his elderly dad in lockdown: his dad passed last year and the event was on what would have been his birthday so there was sad stuff among the funny and science bits, although as he said we’re the better for talking about such things. A bit of a scattershot review, sorry, very entertaining and worthwhile as a guide to bookshops to find in various towns; his events are a blast of associations and chains of thought but he seems like a lovely chap and gave my friend a hug during his signing at the end when she got sad about lost dads.

This is Book 26 in my 2024 TBR project – 115 to go!

Book reviews – the fourth three Three Investigators Mysteries

More retro fun off the side pile though it never seems to get any smaller and I’ve already counted the trilogy while having two in it left to read. I’ll admid that I read the first of these in March and can’t remember an awful lot about it …

William Arden – “The Secret of Phantom Lake” (No 19)

(22 November 2012, charity shop)

There’s a chest with a secret sprung loaded protective device, a pirate on its trail and the first of two times the boys get locked in a bout in this trio of reads. A ghost town full of perhaps actual ghosts, a professor, a mysterious Scotsman and a love story mean the book is packed with incident but it all makes sense in the end.

M. V. Carey – “The Mystery of Death Trap Mine” (No 24)

(22 November 2012, charity shop)

Another book by M. V. Carey featuring the brave girl character Allie Jamieson Carey being a woman seems to have inspired her to add this excellent character. Off the boys go to Allie’s uncle’s Christmas tree ranch in New Mexico, where a neighbour has a mine and there’s a really chilling bit where they find an actual body. Another older female character provides clues and red herrings. This copy is notable for the back matter, with ads for Bytes Brothers novels I immediately wanted to collect (anyone read them?) and a Spectrum programming guide that matches its 1980 reprint date:

William Arden – “The Mystery of the Dancing Devil” (No 25)

(22 November 2012, charity shop)

Alerted by a small girl to a series of odd thefts, the boys are shocked to discover a terrifying dancing “devil” might not be the usual illusion things turn out to be but an actual being! Arden locks us in a boat again (is this a theme of his?) We’re enmeshed in the lives of the itinerant folk who dwell around the town (but in a positive way) and there’s an interesting point about one of them being passionate about returning Indigenous art to the people it came from, a modern theme in a 1970s book!

You can read about my first, second and third sets of these books via the links.

These are Books 23-25 in my 2024 TBR project – 116 to go!

Book review – Hunter Davies – “London Parks”

Another Emma and Liz Reads book finished (if you want to find them all, click here) I bought this one in January when we decided that, because of various life stresses, we wanted a nice easy book rather than the slightly more challenging ones we had in the pile and I’ve now read two of the books I bought that month. We’d prevoiusly read Davies book on Hampstead Heath and I’d spotted he had one about parks in the capital more generally so it seemed like a good option. Of course I ordered it from The Heath Bookshop, having bought a copy for Emma via their Bookshop.org page.

Hunter Davies – “London Parks: A Stroll Around the Capital’s Greatest Glories”

(28 January 2024, The Heath Bookshop)

And the good news is that London parks are still growing, despite the temptation to build offices and homes for mighty profit in any spare square yard. Yet I can think of five major parks that were not here before the war, which together have added over 1,000 acres to London park life. Three I have included in this book – Burgess Park, Olymipic Park and the Wetland Centre. Add to those Northala Fields and Beckenham Place Park. Amazing. Five new London parks … (p. 3)

In this likeable book, the somewhat elderly Davies chooses a number of parks to visit: he goes around himself but also chats to whoever manages the park. He divides himself between North and South London, often making a bit of a fuss about going South of the river, and covers ten main parks plus a piece about the royal parks and their chief executive. He explains that he had to choose from the parks over 20 acres (and lists all of them in the back) and there are a lot so many of them don’t make the cut (Peckham Rye, for example).

Some of the parks we know well between us, others were a mystery, and we’d certainly like to visit or revisit many of them so the book has done its job! It was nice to be reminded of St James’ Park, where we used to go when Matthew and I lived in London, and lovely to read about details like the monk who lives in Battersea Park and keeps the Peace Pagoda clean and tidy. Each chapter has a nice list of the best things about the park at the back which is a handy reminder.

Emma’s favourite chapters were the ones on Burgess and Victoria Parks, whereas I chose Burgess and The London Wetland Centre. Our favourite actual parks in London are Highgate Wood and Hampstead Heath for Emma and Highgate Wood and Telegraph Hill Park for me (that’s the nearest park to where I lived in my flat in London).

Our next book is Raynor Wynn’s third book, “Landlines” – we’ve read the first two together. We’ll start that the week after next …

Book review – Jen and Sim Benson – “Smart Running”

Offered the chance to read a running book, I rarely say no. Finding one I can happily recommend is a bonus. One published by a small independent publisher, even better! If you’re a new runner, a runner or coach looking to up your practical knowledge backed up with scientific evidence (don’t worry: it’s easy to read) or perhaps looking to explore new areas of running, this veritable encyclopaedia of running will have the information you need.

Jen and Sim Benson – “Smart Running: The Utimate Guide to Becoming a Fitter, Stronger, More Confident Runner”

(6 April 2024)

This book is aimed at anyone wanting to improve their knowldge and understanding of the art and science of running. Covering a broad range of topics, relevant to all runners, and drawing on the latest research and evidence-based practice, our aim is to privde a clear, concise, detailed, yet accessible guide to all things running. (p. ix)

Broken up into six sections and nineteen chapters, although this book looks big on the shelf, it’s easy to find the areas you need from its wide coverage. Starting off with an explanation of the types of running (road, track, cross-country, trail, fell, ultra) and a note about the authors’ running and research journeys and guiding principles (running should be fun, at least retrospectively, every runner is unique, you know you best), we start off with biomechanics and go through fuelling and hydration and the individual runner before sections on reilience, mental skills, races and adventures (races, training and environmental conditions), practicalities (kit, footcare, navigation) then training plans and workouts.

All of the sections have a good and honest emphasis on proper fuelling, rest, looking after yourself, catching problems before they become a problem, good preparation and not going beyond yourself, as well as being backed up by recent research. The individual runner chapter on women’s running: biomechanical differences, menstruation, pregnancy and menopause, all good to see in detail here, and running as you age, is welcome. I particularly liked the section on running techniques for different scenarios and it was nice to find a set of sensible and simple exercises at the back. Also very useful is a little box on whether you should run when ill!

The chapter on the individual runner also contains a welcome reminder to check your privilege and look at who is able to line up on that expensive ultramarathon starting line, reminding us to keep our eyes open to inequality. Although they don’t apper to have the room to talk about what else you can do (donating or volunteering for initiatives that support diversity in running is a good start), they do reference another book, “Running, identiy and Meaning, Baxter and Jefferson Lensky) which I have ordered and will be happy to lend out locally.

There’s a good reference list at the end so you can look up those scientific publications and learn more. There’s no index, which I think is a shame (but indexes are expensive to produce so I can understand why, especially for an indie publisher) and I would have welcomed the addition in the running kit section on kit for the modest runner, and maybe a section on biomechanical and social challenges for trans runners. Finally, the typeface is a little small to fit in all that information!

But all in all it’s a great collection for any runner and its evidence-based nature means it’s a serious resource and you can feel secure in following the advice and information within.

Thank you to Vertebrate Publishing for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review. “Smart Running” is out today (18 April 2024) and you can read more about it here.

Book review – Remi Adekoya – “Biracial Britain”

Another book from my Oxfam Books social justice book haul and another nearly new feeling one. Of the four I bought then, I have now read and reviewed three with just one more to come. I have read and reviewed the other four books acquired that month. Not many left to go from 2021 now!

Remi Adekoya – “Biracial Britain: A Different Way of Looking at Race”

(23 November 2021, Oxfam Books)

The most pressing question I see is not why racism exists but whether we are capable as humans of weaning ourselves off our addiction to these feelings of power and domination? Because if not, we will continue inventing all sorts of new ideologies in our search for that high. Racism will simply be replaced by something else. (p. 22)

I haven’t seen much chat about this book which is a shame as it’s absolutely fascinating and an important record. There are other books about being from dual (or more) heritages, such as “Mixed (Other)” which I haven’t got to yet, but this is special in being composed mainly of directly quoted oral histories of growing up in the UK.

The author himself is Nigerian-Polish and also shares his own experiences of living in both countries plus the UK; he provides a commentary at the end of each chapter pulling together the strands, mentioning similarities with and differences from others’ experiences and adding details from other people he spoke to. The three sections cover Black/White, Asian/White (South-East and East Asian) and what he calls “Mixed Other” and this allows him to compare and contrast within and between groups. His participants range from a smallish child through teenagers and students up to people in their 70s, and it’s fascinating to see how some aspects have changed and some have stayed roughly similar.

He has an interesting viewpoint that racism is caused by a need for power, to show your power over others, and as part of global capitalism, as evidenced in the quotation above, a theme that runs through the book.

Common themes in the book include being “othered” in both communities to which someone could belong, and of never feeling more British than when they’re in their other country of origin; also, people like the author who are living in the UK but of non-UK heritage can feel a bit more relaxed as they can choose one of their other countries to move to. There are experiences of racism, but also different experiences of being of more than one heritage (some good, some bad) which justify having this separate book on the subject. Adekoya also has an interesting point to make that “Westerners are focuse on escaping unhappiness; the rest of the world is focused on escaping poverty” (p. 185) which can affect familial relationships and attitudes.

A fascinating and highly readable book which deserves a larger audience.

This is Book 22 in my 2024 TBR project – 119 to go (I’ve actually already read 2.5 more but I keep track of the countdown in my reviews)!

Book review – Basil Thomson – “The Milliners’ Hat Mystery”

It’s the first day of Kaggsysbookishramblings and Stuck-in-a-Book‘s 1937 Week and I very naughtily bought a book specially for the occasion, having claimed I was going to do all my challenges this year from the TBR. But it was from Dean Street Press so that’s supporting indie publishers, right?

Basil Thomson – “The Milliner’s Hat Mystery”

(2 January 2024, Kindle)

This is one of Thomson’s Inspector Richardson Mysteries, although Richardson himself only appears every now and again, while the work of the police procedural (I have now found out I had those mixed up with courtroom dramas!) is done by his underling, the urbane and educated Vincent.

It’s hard to talk about such books without giving away the plot, and I don’t read many crime mysteries so I can’t really comment on how it fits into the genre, however all the clues are there for you if you work it back, I think. I really liked the fact it was set between the UK and France, with a good few comments contrasting the two countries’ policing and legal systems, and Vincent’s relationship with his opposite number, m. Goron, is rather sweet as they enthusiastically rendezvous in both countries. His boss, M. Verneuil, is an interesting character, and then we find the suspects in the case, many of them neither French nor English, and a web of intrigue spanning officials and the eponymous milliner.

Although the characters are a little one-dimensional, I didn’t find the extreme sexism or racism that pops up in other books of the period, and I found the plot fine to understand: I’d definitely pick up others in the series (and I love their sweet shop covers!)

This was my only book for 1937 Week. You can find out more about Basil Thomson and the books republished by Dean Street Press here.

Book review – Holly Gramazio – “The Husbands”

In an unusual move for me, my next two reviews (and I’m sorry to be so behind with reviews and with reading everyone else’s blog posts, too) are from genres I don’t habitually read – here we have, I suppose, sci fi of a sort, and on Monday a detective novel! But that’s the way the reviews are falling so let’s go with it. This was one that intrigued me on NetGalley, and it certainly kept my interest as a real page-turner. However, it’s so plot-driven that it’s a bit hard to review it, so you’ll have to excuse a short review!

Holly Gramazio – “The Husbands”

(18 January 2024, NetGalley)

Lauren is frightened when she comes home a bit drunk and discover a strange man in her flat. Then she slowly comes to realise he’s her husband. Except she isn’t married. And she didn’t have that furniture before. Or wedding picture. It’s when he pops up to the loft for something that things get really strange: there’s a flash and a sort of buzzing noise and a different man comes back down the wonky ladder! Each time a new man appears, the rest of Lauren’s life tweaks a little – sometimes she has a different job, sometimes a few different friends, she has different relationships with her downstairs neighbours; a few times, her sister doesn’t have her beloved niece and nephew and often they’re not as close as they were. Some things remain the same, including her best friend’s wedding, for which she coincidentally finds she needs that staple of romcoms, a plus-one.

Then she finds that some of the husbands (all of the husbands) still exist in whatever world she goes into – and she even gets some more than once. It takes a while to realise that they’re probably indicative of all the paths through life she could have taken, but how does she choose who to stick with, how does she stop the good one going up the ladder, and wait, who’s this one who seems to have some experiences in common?

A really fun read and I thought the ending was done well although some found it a bit abrupt.

Thank you to Vintage for selecting me to read this book in return for an honest review. “The Husbands” was published on 4 April 2024.

Book review – Jonathan Berg – “Birmingham’s Public Art”

I had had my eye on this book for a while but had to wait until after Christmas and my birthday in case someone bought it for me. Then I gleefully skipped over to The Heath Bookshop to pick up a copy using one of my book tokens (they kindly put one aside for me although they have a fairly reliable stock of them in most of the time). Of the 12 print books that arrived with me in February, I have read and reviewed three already with this one – not bad?

Jonathan Berg – “Birmingham’s Public Art”

(9 February 2024, The Heath Bookshop)

Pretty well right up to date, with the eye of Ozzie the Mechanical Bull (late of the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, now living in style in the foyer of New Street Station) on the front cover and recent street art in the back of the book, this lovely, volume heavily illustrated but also with plenty of text, takes a generally chronological journey through the art of Birmingham that is visible to the general public (occasionally through a railing or by a lift on the way to a restaurant).

After a Foreword by Gavin Wade, artist, curator and research fellow, the Introduction defines public art and talks about its variety, from statues of people (men) to street art images and discusses why we might have so much of it here (our industrial heritage, some commissioning at key times and a burgeoning of uncommissioned works) and then we’re on to 18th century carvings and statues which start our journey. I must say that although I knew quite a few of the works, there are several which have completely passed me by and I need to visit; I also learned about the background to some of them which I’ve noticed but been a little hazy about.

We read about big contributors to Birmingham’s art like William Bloye and Anuradha Patel, whose works can be seen across the city, and the book also addresses problematic issues around slave-owners, explaining that the Boulton, Watt and Murdoch (three gold men) statue now has an explanatory plaque. I was pleased to see several favourites, from the late lamented (by me, anyway) Forward statue which was burned down, through the Barbara Hepworth statues that were at the university until 2022 to the transport hub toppers and the Play Fish on Fox Hollies Road (see my photos of some favourites from over the years below).

An excellent book and a good read, which I’m very pleased to have, and to have gone through.

Book review – Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu – “This is Why I Resist”

I bought this in November 2021 (I’d really like to get into 2022’s books at some point! I just checked and I have five more to go from 2021) as part of a haul of social justice books from the local Oxfam Books – someone must have donated them pretty quickly as they were good as new. Of the four I bought then, I have now read and reviewed two and I’m reading one, with one more to come. I have read and reviewed the other four books acquired that month, so not doing tooooo badly.

Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu – “This is Why I Resist: Don’t Define my Black Identity”

(23 November 2021, Oxfam Books)

To readers looking for a dispassionate piece of writing or words sugar-coated to make you feel comfortable, this book is not it. The power of my resistance is fuelled by my passion, pride, anger, frustration, joy and authenticity. My accomplishments, as a Black woman, are not proof that racism does not exist but evidence of God’s grace and the sacrfices of giants before me, including my parents, who paved the way.” (p. 3)

This righteously and rightfully angry and forthright boook was written and then published in the heat of the post-George Floyd / Black Lives Matter times when a whole sheaf of books by Black authors were published and got onto all those reading lists. Reading it now, a few years on (following my policy of not reading everything all at once but spacing such books out to continue sharing their impact), it feels almost like a historical document – and an important one regarding several aspects.

We see a woman who has battled against systemic racism her whole life getting space to have her say and saying it. We read her talking about events that happened and personal interactions she had on UK media and social media. And we see many examples which might now even be lost, but are definitely lost back in the Twitter/X timeline, of reactions to events and articles from different sides.

I don’t suppose that at the time it was intended to provide a record of how things felt for a Black academic woman in the public eye in 2020/2021 (boldly opening with a quote from the Telegraph newspaper claiming she is “arguably one of the most toxic voices in Britain’s race relations debate”!) but it does, and that’s of value now.

The book covers the bases it was useful to explain at that time: what is racism and how was it invented and promoted / what is White privilege, useful suggested answers to common racial microaggressions, and then also looks at feminism, which isn’t always covered. I wonder if it’s achieved it’s aim, though, sadly: “This is Why I Reist is a declaration that the Black identity will no longer be defined by a prejudiced mindset steeped in institutional racism that enforces White supremacy” (p. 5). It’s very interesting that the author is at pains to emphasise that it’s not all White people / women who are racist or exclusionary: later books I’ve read go more down the route of yes, all White people are complicit, so it’s interesting as presumably a tactic or something imposed by the publisher as presumably a way to make the work more palatable to White readers.

So lots of value here both as a guide and as a document of record.

This is Book 21 in my 2024 TBR project – 120 to go!