Absolutely loving the return of two of my fave shows! Such contrasts in the types of humour and settings but they have in common a feisty, unconventional and uncompromising female lead 😍💙📺

This modern rendering of the Oresteia gives voice to Clytemnestra and Electra who come across as fully formed figures but in its attempt to add Orestes to the mix it is on weaker ground and does not quite flesh out his motivations for the heinous crimes he commits 💙📚

“My sister Lisa became a woman on the 14th hole of the Pinehurst golf course” - what a riotous, transgressive line to begin one of the most memorable vignettes about sporting obsession ever, in this fun autobiographical collection of stories about growing up by Sedaris 💙📚

Taut, genre-bending thriller - while it is indeed ultraviolent in a literal sense, it pales somewhat to the cruelty dealt to its female protagonists through misogynistic norms 💙📚

A hard hitting book that makes the unequivocal case that the majority’s wilful refusal to recant and resolve the paradox between the universalism of liberty and the ethnocentrism of its founding has recurrently erupted in violence and revisionism intended to erase the gains of progressivism 💙📚

(1/3) Fresh take on the roots of Britain’s industrialisation that weaves together threads spanning tech, colonialism, slavery and changing social norms, though one quibble is that Prof Smith doesn’t quite answer what made the British so ruthless - was it a greater capacity to ‘other’ labour … 💙📚

A evocative book that brilliantly captures the sheer messiness and diversity of the lives of a myriad cast of women. Just absolutely loved the writing and the byzantine plot, which satisfyingly comes full circle at the end 💙📚

What a cracking, cackling read - to call the latest by Hanif subversive is an understatement, it’s a fantastically irreverent send-up of Pakistan, ostensibly set in the Zia era but just as relevant today 💙📚

S3 of #BlueLights was an absolute banger - as gripping as ever but with our protagonists dealing with much trauma and loss this time round. It has teed up the next season quite nicely 💙📺

(1/3) I’m all for rehabilitating the reputation of Gordon Brown whose achievements - pushing for and enacting the egalitarian impetus of New Labour and the adroit handling of the generational financial crisis of 2008 - are frequently overlooked but this comes across as slightly hagiographical … 💙📚

A rollicking memoir that is by turns poignant, more so as the narrator ages and comes to terms with grief and loss 💙📚

Lots of folks blaming England for taking too defensive an approach after scoring but it’s not like things were any better before they scored 🙈 They created next to nothing before the goal; while Argentina weren’t exactly firing either at least they had some chances

Nice read that starts slow but gets into its stride midway through with a magnetic female protagonist that doesn’t fall neatly into any of the boxes set out for her, and the railway increasingly a symbol of tenuous unity holding together an India becoming provocatively ever more fissiparous 💙📚

(1/2) Really enjoyed Haynes’ latest, coz Euripides’ Medea is amongst my favourites in the Greek canon That being said, her staging of the infamous ending, by dialing down Medea’s implacability, makes it more accessible than the original, and it’s very much in keeping with the rest of … 💙📚

An ambitious work by Dr Gibson chronicling the often ground-up fight against slavery in the Americas that began almost as soon as the first slave ships blighted the new world. Haunting, even if it proves the contagiousness and appeal of freedom 💙📚

The final season of #TheBear is an overdue return to the form of the first two seasons, filled with humour and pathos, and much deserved happy endings In particular, I was totally shipping two of the characters since S2 and it finally happened in such a charmingly understated way! 💙📺🤭😍

(1/2) Prof Kendi’s latest makes an apt case that the “grand political struggle” of our times is not amidst the conventional left-right spectrum of the last century but “between antiracist democracy and racist dictatorship”, as “great replacement” advocates for the latter enact a cycle where … 💙📚

Enjoyable read - I was reminded of Bushnell’s novel as Spufford similarly imbues his female protagonist with spunk and vulnerability. A poignant ending, for now 💙📚

Prof Dube has written an excellent primer on wage trends for the non-specialist, surveying the latest literature on minimum wages, unions and wage-setting, with practical ideas on how to reverse the wage inequality of recent decades 💙📚 #EconSky

Prof Plokhy’s book, taking in the range of nuclear accidents starting from the hydrogen bomb test, is even more chilling than Higginbottom’s, each episode prefaced by the Micawber-like optimism of those in charge they won’t repeat the mistakes of those that came before (they simply made new ones) 💙📚

(1/4) Disappointing read, as Dasgupta tilts heavily towards a transactional view of nation-states - to provide political and, more importantly, economic goods - which seems to misunderstand that they are usually a primal expression of identity rooted in place that has allowed many … 💙📚

Season 2 of #TheAgency came in stronger than the first, though I still find the main romance storyline a weak one. Difference was the belter of a cast was given a lot more to do with fairly solid Iranian and Russian subplots 💙📺

Stuart’s debut novel is wonderfully evocative of Glasgow and the Scottish brogue sounds almost lyrical in his writing, but this is a harrowing read, made more so knowing that it was based on Stuart’s experiences growing up 💙📚

The last of the late J.G. Farrell’s novels had some parallels to Némirovsky’s - a chaotic wartime collapse that baffled its complacent denizens - but I enjoyed his critique of colonialism and economic exploitation, albeit based on a toff sounding liberalism rather than from a native perspective 💙📚

(1/2)Gripping read tracing how hijackings weaponised by radical Bolshevik, pro-Palestine causes, which aimed for spectacle and were even seen as glamorous by some, degenerated over time into gritty violence that sought maximum casualties as those causes were frustrated … 💙📚

This is the first of Harrison’s books that I’ve read and it’s incredibly atmospheric and lyrical in how it describes rural sights and rhythms - the backdrop lends itself well to the plot point that fascist ideas could catch on under the cover of preserving that supposed idyll 💙📚

Ham On Rye, aka The Education of Hank Chinaski, is charged with vim and venom, a coming of age story measured out in doses of violence and vendettas. Hilarious but discomforting 💙📚

The frantic, frenetic fall of France contrasted with Némirovsky’s introspective, almost languid narrative at times, almost like a tonal chiaroscuro 💙📚

The guide for the perplexed to this most perspicacious of writers in the canon - brilliant book by Prof Serpell, wonderfully readable and evocative in its own right, and that doesn’t condescend to hagiography in the least 💙📚

#GoodOmens ends on a beautiful, wistful note. Ahhh what is this salty discharge?! 💙📺