Infamy: The Crimes of Ancient Rome by Jerry Toner
Normally I’m always quick to pick up a book on the ancient Romans, but I grabbed this one double quick because Jerry Toner was actually one of my supervisors at university. He’s a fantastic teacher who runs a course on Roman popular culture and under his wise guidance I got to study (and write very long essays on…) everything from graffiti to spell books to collections of jokes to better understand the cultural world of the average ancient Roman, not just the elite ones we so often read about. If that sounds appealing to you but you’re not lucky enough to be in Jerry’s class, Infamy is a pretty good substitute. In his usual fashion, Jerry looks at Roman society from the bottom up and draws on a range of unorthodox sources (always a thrill to see a reference to the Testament of the Piglet) to paint a vivid portrait of crime and justice in the ancient world. While I am a total nerd for all things Roman, this book is still clear and accessible enough for anyone to make a go of it and Jerry has an informal and engaging style that stops the book feeling dry at any point. For anyone looking to better understand the Roman world beyond the verses of Ovid and the writings of Cicero, this book is a great place to start.
I was clearly on a Classics kick in July because I went straight from the back streets of Rome into the wonderful/horrifying world of Greek myth. Stone Blind is a feminist retelling of the myth of Medusa, the infamous Gorgon with snakes for hair and who could turn men to stone with a single glance. But what many don’t realise is that Medusa wasn’t always so frightening to behold and that she was cursed with snaky hair and a deadly gaze by Athena. What could possibly merit such a harsh punishment you ask? Being raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple. Ultimately this is a story about the myriad ways in which patriarchy wreaks havoc on the lives of all women, whether they are victims of violence like Medusa and Danae or whether they are seemingly insulated from harm by their privilege like Athena and Hera. Once again Haynes draws on multiple perspectives of women across a range on ancient myths the breath new life into lesser-known stories and showing that although these stories are thousands of years old, they still have something relevant and insightful to say to us now.
Emily Henry has firmly cemented herself as my go to author for light, happy reads. Her latest rom-com centres around Harriet and Wyn, a young couple who’ve been together since college and who spend every summer at an idyllic beach house in Maine with their close-knit but geographically scattered group of friends. When the friends find out that this beach house is due to be sold and that this will be the last year they can spend there, the other long-term couple in the group decide to throw a last minute surprise wedding at the beach with just their very closest pals making up the guest list. Sounds perfect, right? The catch is Wyn and Harriet broke up six months ago and had planned to use this holiday to break it gently to their friends. Now lest the death of their relationship cast a shadow not just over the holiday but also the wedding of two of their closest friends, the two resolve to spend the week pretending that they’re still together. This goes predictably and hilariously wrong and misunderstandings and miscommunications abound. Once again, Henry has crafted a charming novel that’s such easy reading you’ll scarcely notice the pages fly by but with enough heart and grit to make you really feel something.
Does anyone else get a sinking feeling in the pit of their stomach whenever they walk into an IKEA? Something about all that empty, soulless furniture, the disorientation caused by the lack of natural light and the echoing void of the warehouse just sets my teeth on edge. Clearly Hendrix agrees with me that IKEA is cursed but he has taken it to a far more frightening extreme than I ever could have dreamed! Horrorstör is set in ‘Orsk’ a totally-not-IKEA, pseudo-Skandi megastore that stocks all of your homeware needs. But recently employees have been coming in to find furniture destroyed, the store defaced and no evidence of who could be responsible on their security cameras. Three employees with nothing to lose volunteer to work an overnight graveyard shift to catch the vandals they presume are behind the destruction but they are in for a series of nasty surprises lurking behind the Kjerring bookshelves. This book scare the bejeesus out of me (DO NOT READ HOME ALONE AT NIGHT) while also keeping me so engrossed that I read it in a day. I don’t really ask too much more from a novel other than keeping me entertained and keeping me guessing but Hendrix really went above and beyond by delivering a novel that did all of the above while also asking some very interesting questions about the nature of work and what it means to be responsible. Recommended to any horror fan!
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
This is my very first time reading Anne Tyler and I have to say, I was totally and completely charmed. While this book is a little light on plot, it more than makes up for it by being heavy on character. A Spool of Blue Thread revolves around the Whitshank family, with their history across three generations unspooling at a leisurely pace. At first their problems are ordinary ones; fraught parent-child relationships, tough decisions about how to care for ageing parents and sons-in-law with harebrained business ideas. But as you get to know the family better and begin to peel back the layers of time, the unconventional nature of the Whitshanks begins to shine through and a family that once seemed utterly ordinary is rendered extraordinary. This is a perfect read for anyone looking for something that will both relax and engross you and I’ll be adding Tyler to my list of authors whose books I take on holiday with me.
The phrase ‘Y/N’ likely means ‘yes or no’ to most normal people, but to young women of my generation who grew up on Tumblr and Fanfiction.net, it will always mean ‘your name’. It refers to a specific genre of fan-fiction in which an author allows the reader to insert their own name into the story and thus live out a fantasy of being (usually) romantically linked to a fictional character or a celebrity. When our protagonist, a young Korean-American women living in Berlin, finds herself falling suddenly and obsessively in love with a member of a stratospherically popular K-Pop boyband (*cough*BTS*cough*) she gives shape to her feeling and longing by writing Y/N fan-fiction. As she sinks deeper and deeper into the world of fandom, she loses interest in her relationships, her job and anything that isn’t the object of her desire. When the news breaks that her idol is retiring from the music industry and he vanishes from the public eye, she flies to South Korea to be with him. But there is a tremendous difference between reality and fantasy, between obsession and love, between an idea and a person and all of this is thrown into sharp relief when she finally comes face to face with her beloved. This is not a book so much about obsessive fan culture as it is about love in an almost existential or spiritual sense. Her love for her idol is almost akin to a religious veneration and her quest almost feels like a pilgrimage. Although this novella is brief, it’s definitely not what I would consider a light read and packs a hell of a punch. I’d recommend this for those who are looking for philosophical musings rather than propulsive plot.
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
This series has been on my list for forever and I’m so glad I finally got around to it! When I need something to get me out of a reading slump, I reach for a fantasy novel or a detective thriller and Rivers of London seamlessly merges both into a highly readable and engrossing novel. Our protagonist is Peter Grant, a young constable with London’s Metropolitan Police who is on the brink of being banished to the Casework Progression Unit to file other detectives paperwork for the rest of his days. All of this changes when he finds himself taking evidence from a key witness to a strange and brutal murder. The catch? The witness is dead. Now awakened to a London full of ghosts, magic and gods who walk among us, Peter finds himself apprenticed to Chief Inspector Nightingale, the Met’s expert on supernatural crime. But the learning curve is steep and the bodies keep piling up, so Peter has to master magic quickly or risk losing access to this new world as quickly as he gained it. I have already downloaded the next book in this series onto my Kindle and I can’t wait to dive in.
A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power
You might not be surprised that I found a book about genocide depressing, but it’s not for the reason you think! While obviously Power’s thorough analysis of major genocides in the 20th century, including Armenia, Cambodia, the Holocaust, Srebrenica and many more. While these atrocities are horrifying in themselves (though I did appreciate that Power didn’t dwell too much on gruesome details of torture, instead relying on the emotional accounts of survivors’ trauma to give weight to the horrors they had endured), what I found most dispiriting was the international community’s seeming indifference to the suffering of those beyond their own borders. Although ‘never again’ has been the mantra of most Western governments in the aftermath of the Holocaust, well-documented cases of genocide have been allowed to continue virtually unopposed since then. Focusing on American foreign policy responses, Power analyses why this is the case, exposing the weak arguments that lie at the heart of the case for non-intervention and also presenting her own arguments for why taking a strong stance against genocide is not only the right thing to do morally but is also essential to protecting US interests in the long term. She also explores the origins of the UN Convention on Genocide and the International Criminal Court, shining a light on one of history’s lesser known heroes, Raphael Lemkin, a lawyer and a linguist who coined the term genocide and campaigned relentlessly to have it recognised as a crime under international law. His passion and single-mindedness is astounding and I couldn’t believe I had never heard of him before. He and many other passionate campaigners against atrocity were the bright spots of what could have otherwise been a bleak read. While there are still Lemkins in the world pushing governments to live up to their promises of ‘never again’, there is still hope that genocides can be stopped in their tracks.
Kindled Spirits 