books
Finished reading: Africonomics: A History of Western Ignorance by Bronwen Everill 📚
Good overview of the misunderstandings and incorrect assumptions that have blighted Western economic interventions in Africa.
Finished reading: The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong 📚
Heartbreaking yet strangely comforting. Connection and community across age, gender, race and surrounded by addiction and poverty.
Finished reading: Our New Gods by Thomas Vowles 📚
Well that was nasty. But excellently written.
Finished reading: Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil by Oliver Darkshire 📚
A fun but thought provoking romp with an assortment of odd folk, wizards, fungus goblins, talking donkeys and basil plants, and plenty of murder. And all kinds of transitions.
Finished reading: The World After Gaza by Pankaj Mishra 📚
A challenging but ultimately somewhat nihilistic take on the atrocity of Gaza. Some important points but fails to see a way forward.
Finished reading: Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza by Peter Beinart 📚
An inspiring and surprisingly hopefully assessment of what it is to be Jewish in the aftermath of Gaza (and indeed decades of the denial of Palestinian rights). Suggests that there is still - that there is always - opportunity for collective liberation of both Israelis and Palestinians. That, in fact, this is the only future where liberty is possible.
Finished reading: Change by Édouard Louis 📚
Extraordinary. A brutally honest memoir of the desperate need to change to escape, to be renewed. Hit me like a sledgehammer.
Finished reading: A Radical Act of Free Magic by H. G. Parry 📚
Excellent conclusion to the duology; loved the intertwining of historical events and fantasy elements.
Finished reading: With Love From France by Vlad Zorin 📚
Great photography and social commentary.
Finished reading: The End of Eddy by Édouard Louis 📚
Harrowing story of Édouard Louis’ childhood in dank, grey and poor northern France.
Finished reading: Native Nations by Kathleen DuVal 📚
Brilliant new history of native North America that reveals the resilience, vibrancy, and ongoing self-determination of indigenous North Americans in the face of colonialism.
Finished reading: A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H. G. Parry 📚
Excellent alternative fantasy history of the French and Haitian Revolutions. Magic, vampires, slavery, liberty and radicalism make for a tense and dark story, that moves along at a cracking pace. Read it in a couple of days.
Edmund White
Vale Edmund White (1940-2025), prolific, highly talented and sex-positive gay author. His “A Boy’s Own Story” was seminal for many of us in the 1980s. His most recent memoir “The Loves of My Life”, published only this year, is a perfect capstone for a man who loved men, and wrote about them so well.
Finished reading: The Devils by Joe Abercrombie 📚
A fabulous and hugely enjoyable fantasy romp through an alternative medieval Europe with a female pope, an Empress of Troy, and ravaging hordes of human eating elves. Plus a vampire, werewolf, necromancer and a crusader who can’t die - amongst other treasures.
Double Mesopotamian Read
Currently reading two related books about Mesopotamia - one about the deciphering of cuneiform by divers colonial chaps; in the other historian Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid reveals what these ancient people chose to record about their lives using cuneiform.
First book: The Mesopotamian Riddle by Joshua Hammer 📚
Second book: Between Two Rivers by Moudhy Al-Rashid 📚
Finished reading: The Far Edges of the Known World by Owen Rees 📚
An innovative look at the boundaries and intersections of the ancient world and lesser known but equally vital and fascinating regions ‘beyond’.
Finished reading: Proto by Laura Spinney 📚
Extremely well written overview of the development and evolution of Indo-European languages - connecting linguistics, archaeology, history and geography.