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Reading date - May 2020 I have the exact version that is in the picture below (I use the actual covers of the books I have to show which one I have read).  I thought (and still do) that the censored cover was really cool. George Orwell is one of those authors that EVERYONE seems to love and EVERYONE has read anything he has ever written.  Or so it would seem..when I asked people closer to me about Orwell and their experiences, an altogether different story emerged..a story I could identify with.  His work is hard to read..it is dry and sometimes quite scary, but in a tension kind of way like The Shinning, not a scary kind of Poe way. Random fact: Back when Orwell was simply Eric Blair, he taught at my dad's school but years before my dad was a student there. For some reason, I thought Orwell was a staunch Socialist but he was actually just a social commentator..as I found out after reading his scathing review of the workers in Wigan in The Road to Wigan Pier. The only eve...

Reading date - May 2020 I'm writing this review in June 2020 and I thought my current book was book 10 but it's not.  Good thing the real book 10 was something worthy of being book 10.  Maybe I should start putting dates of reading on here.. The first Hubert Selby Jnr book I ever read was  Last Exit to Brooklyn .  It was 2011 and to this day, it sticks with me.  It haunted me for ages (months) because it was so graphic and covered something that I had absolutely no knowledge of..something I had never experienced nor that I knew really existed.  After reading it and getting myself over it, I was adamant I would in time, read more of his work. I get the feeling the Hubert Selby Jnr actually experiences what he writes about, unlike certain other authors who make no secret of experiencing the lifestyle they are so good at writing about (Irvine Welsh, for one..he is an amazing author but I think a fair bit more of it is the fact that he writes in dialect). Anywa...

Reading date - May 2020 Not technically a book, it's more of a, well, ballad.  Hands down my favourite author which is no secret to anyone who knows me.  I have loads of his work, sometimes in triplicate because I can never ever leave a book of his behind when I see it.   This was written by Wilde after serving time in Reading Gaol for gross indecency.  The ballad itself is about the hanging of a man who was in the gaol at the same time as Wilde. It took me about five minutes in total to read but it's a read so it's going to be reviewed.  If you really want a treat, find the audio of Simon Callow reading it..he was born to read Oscar Wilde's work.  I saw him at the Vaudeville doing de Profundis and he was amazing.  One man on stage for just talking..my attention didn't wander once, even when an old lady came in 25 minutes late.  Why do theatres not enforce that "no latecomers" policy properly?   Did I like it? Is there anything of W...

Reading date - May 2020 My mate got sent two copies of this book so she gave one copy to me.  I wasn't going to look a gift-horse in the mouth, especially when it was a book bringing gift-horse. I love this book.  It's modern, it's the life of a black woman and it tells it as it is.  There is no sugar-coating at all, you believe all the characters and I could really empathise with Queenie. This is one of the shortest reviews I've put up here because I don't want to give the story away.  The book follows Queenie dealing with a break-up, her family, her friends, finding a new boyfriend, the micro-aggressions black and brown women have to deal with at work and falling in love with someone at work.  It's about Queenie just dealing with life.  That is about as much as I can say without spoiling what happens in the book.  There were bits in the book where I got really angry, where I got really sad and small bits where I was happy.  I wouldn't say it was...

Reading date - May 2020 The second Kindle book I bought during the lockdown.  It was 99p and that was the sole reason why I bought it.  The book follows the life (from a young age) of the lead singer of Britpop band Sleeper.  You'd be forgiven for not knowing or remembering them as they weren't massive massive. My one memory of this band is getting kicked out of music class when I was in Year 7 as me and my mates were shout-singing Sale of the Century.  I've just Googled and the song came out the day before my birthday. I liked this book, it was easy to read and in places really funny.  I enjoyed the bits before she was famous more than when she was famous because it outlined the cringe fads we all go through. The book strikes me as an honest portrayal of what it was like to be in a band and further proved to me that Blur were indeed massive twats.  I am so glad my crush on Damon Albarn faded ages ago cos I'd be having to ask myself some strong questions no...

Reading date - April 2020 I realised I need to get my arse in gear and write more of these reviews because so much time is passing between my reading and then putting my reviews out...cos of course, everyone is waiting for these!! I started to write this review out as soon as I had hit "publish" on the Red Notice review and then I realised I was starving so I went to get some food and came back to this because this book deserves to be reviewed on a full stomach and with full, razor-like focus. For those of you interested, I had some goats cheese from my local cheese shop with crackers from my local European store (I believe it's called Lie-del? They spell it Lidl so my pronunciation might be a tad off).  The Patient Assassin is a book about Shaheed Udham Singh ji . I had many points to make before getting into the review but I cut them down to the following: I am Sikh Punjabi. We don't get many books written about our history that are readily available anywhere. ...

Reading date - April 2020 This is the first book I bought during lockdown and it was on the Kindle (totally different to parents saying 'the Facebook', by the way..) I read this book in April, before I even thought of keeping a blog as I didn't think we would be where we are now.  If I had known, I'd have kept notes about it! I knew very limited things about Bill Browder, but I knew about Sergei Magnitsky by virtue of the field of work I'm in..which sounds very sexy, but when you're up until four a.m. trawling through emails trying to find a smoking gun..sexy is the last thing you are. Generally, I am against Kindle books because I love the feeling of an actual book in my hand and I would say my number one hobby is spending hours and hours in old bookshops and at book markets.  Also, with a Kindle, you can't physically see the book getting thicker on the left and thinner on the right.  For me, that's a bit of the satisfaction I get with reading a book. Y...