Two debut novels: Brown Girls, & Black Cake
Review by Liz Dexter I’d like to introduce you to two astoundingly accomplished debut novels, so well done that you would not think they were first novels; two voices we’d…
Review by Liz Dexter I’d like to introduce you to two astoundingly accomplished debut novels, so well done that you would not think they were first novels; two voices we’d…
Review by Liz Dexter As a child, I was taught that Britain had been the first nation to abolish slavery, that the effort had been led by the politician William…
Review by Liz Dexter Nightingale was the first female DJ on Radio One, having been a journalist and live TV presenter before then and ready for the tough time she…
Review by Liz Dexter “If I had any moral principles to declare, I came to realize, they were extremely simplistic. First, there was the supreme importance of kindness as a…
Review by Liz Dexter Open to global flows of capital but largely closed to political change, Singapore is a reform-minded dictator’s dream, suggesting that a country can enjoy the prosperity…
Review by Liz Dexter “For Japan’s lotus blossom, praying mantis and bear, we have bramble, wood louse and urban fox” Lev Parikian, a writer, birdwatcher and conductor, had already started…
Review by Liz Dexter How on earth did I get to where I am today? This is no overnight success story, this is not a fairy tale, not in the…
By Liz Dexter This book is primarily concerned with explaining how society, as it is currently arranged, often makes trans people’s lives unnecessarily difficult. Yet, in posing solutions to these…
Review by Liz Dexter I would like the message of this chapter to be that we should all be more tolerant of people’s voice quality and pitch ranges. As a…
Review by Liz Dexter Robyn Lea has a theory that there is a new Renaissance happening among creative women, who are expressing themselves and their creativity in every aspect of…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Stuck with a bunch of friends who seemed to think I was something other than what I was; guilty about growing up British in a Greek…
Review by Liz Dexter The processes of selection, acquisition and cataloguing, as well as of disposal and retention, are never neutral acts. They are done by human beings, working in…
Review by Liz Dexter “This place, this land, wasn’t a job or a business: it was everything – past and future, identity and rhythm, daily bread and Sunday rest.” Reading…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter “Who are we? Where do we come from? What is Britain, and what does it mean to be British?” This book opens eerily similarly to Sathnam…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter “If we don’t confront the reality of what happened in British empire, we will never be able to work out who we are or who we…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Subtitled “The stories behind the symbols on our keyboards” (the subtitle linked to the main title via an asterisk rather than a colon), this is a…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Back at the beginning of the first lockdown, Grayson Perry, potter and tapestry maker extraordinaire and no stranger to intimate and challenging TV shows, ran an…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter It used to be that we attended exhibitions and treated ourselves to the catalogue in the shop on the way out. Now, it’s more a case…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter I greatly enjoyed reading Nancy Campbell’s meditation on the icy places of the world, The Library of Ice. last year, so when I was alerted that…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter A delightful little book put out by a relatively new publisher founded in 2017 with a rather intriguing list, this would make a lovely gift for…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter I will say right away that this is probably not the book you think it will be. The subtitle suggests it will be a history of…
Paperback review by Liz Dexter Tom Mole, as Professor of English Literature and Book History at the University of Edinburgh, is certainly qualified to write this Christmas-present-worthy joy of a…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Stephen Rutt and his partner move to Dumfries, to a flat near the Solway Firth, just as he’s finishing writing his first (wonderful) book The Seafarers…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This extremely well-researched and authoritative book takes us through the Second World War, in the UK, the US, the Far and Middle East and Europe, through…