(Bank)notes for women!

You may have followed the Women on Banknotes campaign earlier this year (led by Caroline Criado-Perez - who received a lot of abuse on Twitter for her successful campaign). She started a petition (which garnered 35,000 signatures) to appeal the decision to replace the only representation of a woman on British banknotes currently in circulation (Elizabeth Fry, prison reformer) with yet another man (Winston Churchill). The campaign was successful, in that old WC (£5) will still be replacing Lizzie F (in 2016), but in, turn, Charles Darwin (£10) will be replaced (in 2017) by a new female person, Jane Austen.

So why am I complaining? There’s still going to be a woman on a banknote!

The thing is, including those two new, yet-to-be-released notes, there have been seventeen people on British banknotes, since the introduction of putting people on ’em, in 1970. Three of whom have been or will be women (Florence Nightingale did a long stint on the tenner 1975-1994; Elizabeth Fry rocked up on the fiver in 2002 and is still in circulation). That means that, overall, between 1970 and 2017, 17% of people on banknotes were female. Now, that is a totally stupid and useless statistic, I’ll admit. As any able-minded person can work out, from the information here given, for eight years there wasn’t a single woman on a bank note!

So I say: let’s have eight years where it’s only women on ’em!

(And then another four decades where seventy-five percent of the folk represented are women.)  After all, it’s only fair. Speaking of being fair, let’s try to steer clear of stereotypically acceptably-feminine professions such as nursing and writing Romance novels. I’ve stuck to British (obviously) and deceased as well, as, somehow, putting someone who’s still alive on a banknote feels a bit too ‘Cult of Personality’ for me.

Here are my suggestions:

The one to ease us in:

James Miranda Stuart Barry (c. 1789-1799 – 25 July 1865): after graduating from University of Edinburgh Medical School, James Barry had a fantastic career which spanned five decades as a military surgeon. When he died, the year after he retired, it transpired that he was actually a woman. Margaret Ann Bulkley had disguised herself as a man in order to get into medical school, so that she could fund her family, who had fallen on hard times. She managed to keep up the charade for her entire life. (She even snuck off to Mauritius to have a baby at one point!)  No woman before her had graduated as a doctor.

The intersectional one:

Mary Jane Seacole (1805 – 14 May 1881): the child of a Scot and a Creole, Mary Seacole, basically did what Florence Nightingale did, whilst simultaneously battling the prejudices of her peers (including Florrie N), which were aroused due to the fact that Mary was not entirely white. The British War Office refused her offer of assistance when the Crimean War broke out, so she took herself out to Balaclava and set up her own hospital (“hotel”) independently. (Okay, I said I’d steer clear of nurses, but she was awesome, and she also would be a useful play in terms of recognising that not everyone who did good stuff for Britain was an upper- or middle-class white dude or dudette.)  

The mathematician:

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852): the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, Ada Lovelace worked with Charles Babbage on his Analytical Engine. Originally charged with translating someone else’s work, she ended up developing it as well. She wrote the first algorithm intended to be read by a machine - she was the first computer programmer.

The early proponent for racial equality, AKA the one who, as she said herself, was definitely not a feminist:

Mary Henrietta Kingsley (13 October 1862 – 3 June 1900): an ethnographer who, at a time when the only women visiting Africa were the wives of missionaries, set out to explore Africa on her own, producing two works - Travels in West Africa (1897) and West African Studies (1899). She worked to raise the notion that there should be no hierarchies based on skin colour, and she died whilst volunteering as a nurse during the Second Boer War.

The Wild(ing) card:

Emily Wilding Davison (11 October 1872 – 8 June 1913): a militant activist for women’s suffrage , Emily Davison died due to injuries incurred by being trampled by King George V’s horse at the Epsom Derby, whilst attempting to promote votes for women. Once, whilst serving time in Holloway Prison (for arson - though Suffragette arson was responsible, in that they took pains only ever to damage property, not people), she threw herself down a ten-metre iron staircase in an attempt to divert the guards who were force-feeding her and her hunger-striking sisters. She also, in 1911, hid in a cupboard in the Palace of Westminster, so that she could legitimately claim, on the census of that year, to live in the House of Commons.

The jitsuka:

Edith Margaret Garrud (1872–1971): trained the Bodyguard - a thirty-woman-strong group of suffragettes charged with protecting high-profile members of the Women’s Social and Political Union once the Cat and Mouse Act had been passed. Mary was one of the first, Western, female instructors of martial arts, and practised a form of (my own, much-loved) Jiu Jitsu. She was introduced to it by Edward William Barton-Wright (founder of Bartitsu), and she, with her husband, co-ran Sadakazu Uyenishi’s jujutsu school in Soho, teaching the women’s and children’s classes, once he had returned to Japan.

The musician:

Alexandra Elene Maclean "Sandy" Denny (6 January 1947 – 21 April 1978): Sandy Denny, after a brief stint in nursing, started out performing folk songs (and accompanying herself), including appearances on the BBC. She joined the folk band Fairport Convention to stretch her vocal talent and to write her own songs, including “Who knows where the time goes”. She, later, formed her own band, Fotheringay. Sandy sadly died young, as a result of substance abuse, so perhaps is not a perfect candidate if we’re looking for a role model, but since that isn’t necessarily the case (I wouldn’t suggest anyone follow Emily Davison’s example either), I thought I’d put her on the list. I was going to add Evelyn Glennie (the profoundly deaf, virtuoso percussionist) but, happily, she’s still alive.

So, those are some of my choices, but we’re certainly not going to populate banknotes for the next forty years with only seven options; who would you like to see on our paper currency? I’d love to know of some more recent women who should be celebrated! Go on! Have a think, and let me know!

Masculine, Feminine, or Neuter?

It would have been helpful to point out when first posting that this is another guest post from Georgia. It was in the post tags, but not in the body text...

Recently I’ve been pondering some possible sexism. Those of you who know me will be aware that I do this a lot. You’ll also be aware that often little things irritate me, which, on their own seem to be insignificant. My argument is always that those little things either contribute or attest to a wider problem.

My latest irritation is just how often, linguistically, masculine is placed before feminine. I know, I know, no biggie. That’s just the way it is. I’ll get onto that in a bit, (though, historically speaking, "That’s just the way it is", can be a bad excuse for continuing to do something bad).  But first, let me illustrate my point.

It made sense to write “Dear Sir or Madam” when we lived in a time where few women worked - but why do we still always list the masculine first. ‘Ah-hah!’ I hear you say, ‘what about “Ladies and Gentlemen”, eh?’ To which, my response is, the laydeez wouldn’t come first if there were any lords around, it’s just that lords are pretty rare at the moment.

What about the fact that male people just get to be Mr (or ‘Master’, if you’re splitting hairs, but that is (a) increasingly falling out of use and (b) a purely age-based differentiator), but female people spend their lives making people feel uncomfortable as they try to guess whether they are Miss, Mrs, or Ms. (I forgot: Dr!)

Does anybody ever write “Mrs and Mr So-and-So” when addressing envelopes or joint emails?  In fact, as a female person, you never, ever get to be first on any tick-box list or survey. ‘Mr’ is always the default setting. As a young, female person you only get to be third (Miss), as opposed to your brothers and male friends who are first for all their lives. As you get older, you have the option of marrying someone and changing your name to move up to second place or (as I did, aged seventeen) decide your marital status ain’t nobody’s business and become a Ms for life (editor’s note: ‘Ms fo’ life, yo’). Or, you could spend years studying for a PhD; then you could be fourth!

“Mother and Father” is the only exception I can think of, but the sceptic in me feels that that order is probably due to women being traditionally (i.e. in terms of centuries/millenia) more involved in parenting than men. Plus, pater is still listed regularly in Latin grammar books - mater doesn’t feature at all!  In fact, looking at Kennedy’s Primer, masculine noun examples which are human beings include: judge, king, soldier, chieftain, consul and father. Feminine nouns: virgin. That’s it.

Let’s get down to linguistic brass tacks. What about “je suis, tu es, il est, elle est”. Or, for my own personal irritation, and a much more deeply discussed example, read on:

[Skip this ‘Ancient Languages 101’ section if you already know some Latin/Greek.]

In Latin and Greek, the function of a word in a sentence (subject, object etc.) is marked by the endings of the word. For example, with nouns, -m often shows the object:

puella feminam amat            The girl loves the woman

puellam femina amat   The woman loves the girl

This is great because it means you can put your words in *any* order you want - so useful for exciting prose or poetry! It also means that there are a bunch of different words with a bunch of different endings and to make it easy to learn/recognise these, words are sorted into different groups.

[Hey Skippy! Here’s where you start reading again.]

The first declension (set of nouns grouped by endings) is overwhelmingly populated by feminine nouns. Not sure why, but it is. The second declension consists of masculine and neuter nouns - whose endings are largely the same (masculine endings differ from neuter in only two cases). So why is it, when any word which can be masculine, feminine or neuter is listed, it is always listed in that order? Why, when the feminine formation is the first declension, and the masculine and neuter are so similar, do we insist on putting them in such an order? This happens with adjectives, pronouns, participles, the definite article (in Greek), it happens in German, there’s no neuter in modern Romance languages but masculine still comes before feminine… In the Latin GCSE defined vocabularies, instead of giving the fourth principal part as the supine (a formation which looks neuter) they give it as masculine (because pupils learn perfect participles but not the supine, and the first version of a perfect participle is masculine - then feminine, then neuter).

Whhhhhyyyyyy??? Is language inherently prejudiced in favour of the masculine? Does the masculine always come first? Whhhhhhyyy?

It’s easy to say that these things have always been done in that order, but does that mean we still have to keep it that way? Does the fact that, in languages, the masculine comes before the feminine, have a subconscious effect on men and women, boys and girls (ooh, look, there it goes again!)?

For example, is the phenomenon of young female students being far more reticent to volunteer than young male students (widely noted anecdotally by teachers) influenced by young women learning that they come second (third!) from a young age?  Am I the only woman who gets frustrated *waiting* for all the men to get out of the Jitsu circle so that I can get in to attack? Is there a deeper reason why George wrote his name on the lease first (even though I am older than him and have a slightly better degree, not to mention bigger ears)? Who knows! Maybe it’s something to think about though. Especially since I (a self-confessed, active feminist) had to actively think about putting “young female students” first in that first sentence and call myself a “woman” rather than a “girl” in the second one...and it felt *weird* doing so.

I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts and examples that support or contradict the theory that language privileges the masculine over the feminine. So, ladies, lords and gentlemen, girls and boys: what do you think?

How the Other Half Read: The Mortal Instruments books - read them; read them now!

The Mortal Instruments series can roughly be divided into two trilogies (book 6: Heavenly Fire is due next spring; hurry up, hurry up!) is fantastic. Thematically, it's sort of a cross between Buffy and Harry Potter, with a bunch of angelic influence thrown into the mix. The Shadow-Hunters are a race descended from a human who drank the (willingly-given) blood of the angel Raziel in order to give him and his descendants the strength to fight demons. There also exist warlocks, vampires, werewolves and fairies (known as Down-Worlders) who are descended from demons but keep an uneasy peace with the Shadow-Hunters. Since the film of the first book (City of Bones) is out this month, I don't want to say much more about the plot, because spoilers, Sweetie :) The film, incidentally, contains such acting gods as Lena Headey and Aidan Turner, and I am really looking forward to see it.

My favourite character is definitely Isabelle, not just because she's tall and has an amazing dress sense, but more because she is clearly the most sorted character of the lot - and that includes the adults; as everyone else blunders about trying not to tell their best friend/sibling that they're in love with them, trying to come out ("I'm gay!"; "I'm a vampire!") to their parents and generally wreaking bloody havoc in an exciting and violent manner, Izzy is calm, kick-ass and shod in the best heeled-boots an author can imagine.

Another fist-punching-the-air thing about this series is that there is diversity in the characters (Not like at Hogwarts where there are a pair of Patels, one Irish guy, one black guy, everyone has (or had) a pair of parents and everyone is straight; correct me if I'm wrong - it's been some time since I read it!). TMI has plenty of people of different ethnicities, a guy who loves glitter, mixed-race relationships (even including living/undead, mortal/immortal and many other combinations), single mums, girls who don't want relationships, gay guys, gay girls...basically it's not a cis-white-straight party, and that makes things more believable. This isn't to say there isn't any prejudice against a bunch of the stuff I've mentioned, but the experience of dealing with this makes the characters even more interesting.

The Classicist in me loved the occasional Latin and Greek (Shadow-Hunters are well-versed in these and well-read in their ancient authors) and I'd be curious to hear how the suspense in these sections worked for those who had to wait for a translation. The fifth book finishes with a one word cliff-hanger which is, I truly believe, the most exciting cliff-hanger I've ever read/seen. (OMG, OMG, OMG! Can't wait till next March! Thankfully, there are various other connected series of prequels to keep me going until then.)

The character-development, relationships and twists in the plot are brilliantly done and I honestly cannot conceive how one person has an imagination big enough to create five such incredible books' worth of story. Countless times I ended up kicking myself because I was so excited to find out who so-and-so was or what was about to happen that my eyes skipped down the page and spoiled the surprise (delayed gratification is difficult when the thing is right there in front of you!).

Seriously, go and read the first three books. Then KEEP READING!

Georgia's list as it stands:

Stabat Mater, Tiziano Scarpa (2011)
Facing Violence, Rory Miller (2011)
Un Lun Dun, China Mieville (2007)
Open Secrets, Alice Munro (1994)
The Dragon Queen, Alice Borchardt (2001)
Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Walters (1998)
The lost books of the Odyssey, Zachary Mason (2007)
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien, (1937)
The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman, (1991)
The Hypnotist, Lars Kepler, (2012)
The Strain (2009), The Fall (2010), The Night Eternal (2011), Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, Philip Pullman (2010)
Angry White Pyjamas, Robert Twigger (1997)
50 shades of Feminism, ed Lisa Appignanesi et al (2013)
Further Voices in Vergil's Aeneid, R O A M Lyne (1987)
The Journal of Dora Damage, Belinda Starling (2007)
Hideous Kinky, Esther Freud (1992)
Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse, Rick Riordan (2007)
Disgrace, Jussi Adler Olsen (2012)
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (1883)
Romanitas, Sophia McDougall (2005)
Selected Poems, Sophie Hannah (2013)
The Long Earth, Terry Pratchett and Steven Baxter (2012)
A very short introduction to the Roman Republic, David M Gywnn (2012)
The Gift of Rain, Tan Twan Eng (2007)
The Mortal Instruments 1: City of Bones, Cassandra Clare (2007)
The Mortal Instruments 2: City of Ashes, Cassandra Clare (2008)
The Mortal Instruments 3: City of Glass, Cassandra Clare (2009)
The Mortal Instruments 4: City of Fallen Angels, Cassandra Clare (2011)
The Mortal Instruments 5: City of Lost Souls, Cassandra Clare (2012)
The Illustrated Man, Ray Bradbury (1952)

How The Other Half Read: Trouble at the Top: Sex, Drugs and Rockin' Romans

Crikey, its been a while since my last post! I have read lots of books and am going to try to keep my discussion fairly brief, particularly as some of them are book club books, or so good you really ought to read them for yourself!

The the first group of books I'd like to talk about is linked by corruption in the aristocracy. The books involved are: The Journal of Dora Damage, set in the Victorian era; Disgrace, set in modern Copenhagen; and Romanitas, set in an alternative present where the Roman empire never fell. Dora... is not your typical Victoriana - true, it does have some wonderfully evocative scenes of what working class life in London was like for its dear protagonist, struggling to run her ailing husband's printing business without anyone finding out (Women? Working? Don't be daft, Son!) whilst caring for her epileptic daughter.

However, the premise of this book is much darker; Dora finds herself keeping her business afloat by printing pornography for a ring of upper class gentlemen, who will do anything to keep their niche, sexual interests private. Plus, Dora experiences the thrill and confusion of desires of her own which society deems inappropriate. Gripping, engaging and occasionally causing one to cross one's legs in sheer terror, this book is a real page-turner.

Disgrace IS your typical Scandi crime-thriller; blackmail, gruesome murder and very grumpy cops who reside in untidy offices and survive on poor-quality coffee. Carl Mørk is a believable (if grumpy) detective who, along with side-kicks Assad (questionable background) and Rose (maddeningly competent with a furniture fetish), has to tiptoe through his investigation of some of the most powerful families in Denmark. And, yes, something definitely is rotten in the state...

Romanitas is a dangerously enjoyable book which has all the political intrigue, suspicion and suggestion of Tacitus, coupled with freedom-fighting and rage against the oligarchy. I don't want to say too much about this one, as it may be a book-club offering, but the world-building of MacDougall is fascinating and compelling. It's the first of a trilogy, but, as you'll discover in my next post, I'm doing alright for series at the moment, so I may put the rest of this series on hold for a while!

I'm just going to slip a non-fiction book in at the end here: A very short introduction to the Roman Republic. This is a GREAT introduction to a period of Classical history which is really interesting; often people know a fair bit about the end of the first century BC (assassination of Julius Caesar, subsequent war between Octavian/Augustus and Mark Antony and the foundation of the Principate), but this book goes right back to the beginning, expanding on topics such as the Etruscan kings of Rome, the Conflict of the Orders (the unwashed masses going on a strike from military service until the patrician class gave them some rights), the rise of the war-lords such as Marius, Sulla and Pompey, right up to Augustus. This is an engaging, informative (and short!) introduction to what is often viewed as the less interesting bit of Roman history and it is well-worth reading.

Next time: a series so good I read all five books in a week!

Literary love xxx

How the Other Half Read: Children's Fiction is Not Just For Children!

George and I were exhorted by his mum to read some books written for the younger reader. I have three offerings so far, the first of which is Treasure Island. I'd never read this before, never seen a film of it, and I finally understand who Blind Pew is. This is a great swash-buckling adventure, although, I have to say, I think I enjoyed the beginning when Jim Hawkins meets his very first pirate at least as much as I enjoyed the second half of the book when he's creeping around the island humming 'fifteen men on a dead man's chest' (or so I imagine that's how he creeps). An oldie but a goodie.

Second, is a book I have read before, but could barely remember: Hideous Kinky. The title confuses everyone; yes, it *is* a children's book; the two girls in it just happen to really like those two words. This book transports you all the way to Marrakech and its young narrator tells you of her adventures with her big sister, Bea, as her mother does a whole bunch of stuff that, reading the book as an adult, seems pretty irresponsible. However, since I discovered recently that the story is actually autobiographical, I shan't publicly question the mother's actions further. I tried to list my favourite bits, but there are just too many of them; this is a great book which makes Morocco seem all the magical since its wonders are seen through the eyes of a small child.

Thirdly, (appropriately enough) comes the third book in a series: Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse.  I know, I'm a Classicist; this is probably why I find these books so enjoyable, as I notice all the little references (which are clearly put there for Classics teachers to find), but my pupils love these books too, so there must be more to them than self-congratulatory allusion-spotting, I don't want to spoil the first two books, so shan't say too much, but basically, dark forces are rising against the Olympian gods and it's up to their (very much put-upon) illegitimate, half-blood children to save the day. One of the things I really loved about this book in particular is that the gender balance was right on the money - in the previous two books there is one excellent, prominent female character, but there are two male ones - in The Titan's Curse the girls are running the show. It's a shame that we're so used to there just being the one main girl that having equal, or superior, numbers of female main characters is comment-worthy, but there you go. The whole series of books is highly enjoyable and well-worth a look; they're a quick read and a great reworking of the Classical myths.

Check in next time for some seriously screwed up fiction!

G xxx

Books completed in chronological order of reading:

Stabat Mater, Tiziano Scarpa (2011)

Facing Violence, Rory Miller (2011)

Un Lun Dun, China Mieville (2007)

Open Secrets, Alice Munro (1994)

The Dragon Queen, Alice Borchardt (2001)

Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Walters (1998)

The lost books of the Odyssey, Zachary Mason (2007)

The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien, (1937)

The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman, (1991)

The Hypnotist, Lars Kepler, (2012)

The Strain (2009), The Fall (2010), The Night Eternal (2011), Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, Philip Pullman (2010)

Angry White Pyjamas, Robert Twigger (1997)

50 shades of Feminism, ed Lisa Appignanesi et al (2013)

Further Voices in Vergil's Aeneid, R O A M Lyne (1987)

The Journal of Dora Damage, Belinda Starling (2007)

Hideous Kinky, Esther Freud (1992)

Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse, Rick Riordan (2007)

Disgrace, Jussi Adler Olsen (2012)

Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (1883)

Romanitas, Sophia McDougall (2005)

Selected Poems, Sophie Hannah (2013)

How the Other Half Read: Reality Bites

So, I have a lot of books to tell you about. As usual, I'm going to group then thematically, so this post is all about non-fiction books. I've read three and a half of these so far (the half will be explained shortly).

First up is Angry White Pyjamas, a book about a really irritating, sexist man who decides that, since he's done nothing worthwhile with his life since moving to Japan to teach English, he'll join the Japanese riot police course and learn aikido, grading from novice to black belt in nine months - and taking the exam to become an instructor (sensei) three months after that. Words cannot express how much I dislike the writer: for his portrayal of the only two female aikidoka he meets as sex-crazed loonies who are each obsessed with their sensei; for his infantilisation of his Japanese girlfriend; for his offensively generalised and objectifying assertion that what Japanese girls lack in breasts they make up for in skimpy skirts.  (Perhaps the book should be retitled Angry, Right Feminists.)

If you can see past this twattery, the discussion of his experience doing the riot police course is quite interesting. The senshusei (students on the course) are a fascinating mix of varying manifestations of crazy, and it seems the course itself, run largely by sadistic sensei (fainting will earn you burpees; leaving bloody patches on the mat is a good thing; broken bones earn you mere days of convalescence...) is designed to make you more machine than human. I found the whining of the author ("I'm in pain, but I can't quit because I hero-worship one of the sensei, and if I stop now my life means nothing") quite tedious, and his description of the injuries which were wilfully inflicted by sensei horrific; however, all in all, the huge culture shock made for fascinating reading. Seriously, what sane person puts themselves through that?!

Thankfully, the next book I read was a balm for my offended XX chromosomes: Fifty Shades of Feminism.  (When discussing this, you have to say the title really quickly, otherwise people make snap judgements about your taste in literature...). This book is fab; it's a collection of fifty very short essays, written by notable women, on women's lives and experiences in 2013. They are all great, I'll just mention two which I found pertinent to my own politics. Firstly, Juliet Stevenson's discussion of how, in acting, the older you get, the more interesting the parts - if you're a man; if you're a woman they are few and far between and pretty simple in terms of character. For studies on this, look at the Geena Davis Institute's work. The second was Jeannette Winterson's pithy and deeply uncomfortable discussion of objectification being enforced by pornography. For studies on the under- and mis-representation of women in the media, see the resources produced by the EAVES charity. Fifty Shades of Feminism's greatest achievement, in my opinion, is that it concisely and articulately provides a starting point for a huge range of issues that, really, ought to be seen as important to (and by) everybody.

Here is where I explain the half book comment, and apologise to my father. Dad recommended that I read "anything by Stephen Jay Gould". I have tried.  Honest I have.  I downloaded Leonardo's Mountain of Clams (1998) and have been working my way through it, and I have really enjoyed some bits (for example, the history of the aquarium - they started in Victorian times, before that stable, watery communities did exist but were always viewed from above, consequently diagrams of sea-creatures changed in perspective with the introduction of aquaria, there are some hilarious anecdotes about the lengths people went to to populate their glassy mini-seas...it's fascinating stuff); however, I find it really hard to read long essays about non-Classical material - I feel like I'm missing so much of the background that it takes me a long time to process. Having said that, I just looked at the contents page and the essays I have left to go seem much shorter than the first half of the book - maybe I will finish it this year!  For now, though, it is on the iBooks shelf.

The final non-fiction book so far is Further Voices in Vergil's Aeneid, which I borrowed from a library at university for an essay but only had time to read the relevant section.  This book is amazing.  The basic premise is that there is an epic voice (the one telling the story of the Trojan hero, who founds the Roman race) and then there are further voices - little hints and allusions to previous Classical authors, inviting us to question the validity of the story - saying, for example, is it all good? Is it alright to kill an enemy who has already been defeated? Is it okay to leave the woman you've been having a relationship with without so much as saying goodbye, just because your superior tells you to stop procrastinating and sod off to Italy? This is a great book, which has some really interesting ideas (eg, that bit in Aeneid IV when Aeneas is described as Apollo, looking good, with his clashing weapons, because he's so fit? Yeah, that's totally a reference to Apollo as the PLAGUE-BRINGER in Iliad I, because Aeneas is bringing DOOM to Dido. In fairness, I probably should have spotted that one myself, but it's still a great call.). I shan't go on, but if you've read the Aeneid, this is great, and if you haven't, do read the Aeneid, because it's a seminal work of literature and, although Aeneas is pretty much a dickhead (or, perhaps, *because* Aeneas is...), it's an awesome story.

To sum up, I find non-fiction slower-going but very interesting. Now, go and read Fifty Shades of Feminism. Off you go!

G xxx

Books completed in chronological order of reading:

Stabat Mater, Tiziano Scarpa (2011)

Facing Violence, Rory Miller (2011)

Un Lun Dun, China Mieville (2007)

Open Secrets, Alice Munro (1994)

The Dragon Queen, Alice Borchardt (2001)

Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Walters (1998)

The lost books of the Odyssey, Zachary Mason (2007)

The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien, (1937)

The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman, (1991)

The Hypnotist, Lars Kepler, (2012)

The Strain (2009), The Fall (2010), The Night Eternal (2011), Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, Philip Pullman (2010)

Angry White Pyjamas, Robert Twigger (1997)

50 shades of Feminism, ed Lisa Appignanesi et al (2013)

Further Voices in Vergil's Aeneid, R O A M Lyne (1987)

The Journal of Dora Damage, Belinda Starling (2007)

Hideous Kinky, Esther Freud (1992)

Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse, Rick Riordan (2007)

Disgrace, Jussi Adler Olsen (2012)

Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (1883)

Romanitas, Sophia McDougall (2005)

Selected Poems, Sophie Hannah (2013)

How the Other Half Read: She's Loving Angels Instead

George: I've been sitting on this guest post from Georgia for waaaay too long. This should be from way back in March or April, so mentally adjust any time references accordingly. Georgia, too, has been keeping up with reading, and should be doing some more guest blogs in the near future. This time, I promise to post them in a more timely fashion.

Hello again! Over the past couple of weeks I have read four books - The Strain Trilogy (Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan) and The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ (Philip Pullman). As serendipity would have it, these are connected by their reference to angels and the questioning of the existence of a Judaeo-Christian god. The trilogy weaves this into a combination of old-school vampire stories and 28 Days Later-style, virally-proliferated apocalypse - which sounds overly complicated but actually works quite well. I'm not sure that there was quite enough material to warrant the third book being as long as it was (not actually that long, to be fair) but, overall, this is a gripping story which goes well beyond the usual vampire story and proffers a compelling origin myth.

Similarly, I suppose, Pullman offers his own take on the origin story of the New Testament. A very quick read, I found this extra interesting as I read it the day before the first day of Passover, during which I also watched Giles Coren's BBC programme on a Seder where Jews from lots of different families, traditions and geographical origins were invited. Obviously, the climax of the Jesus story occurs at this time of year, so it seemed really appropriate to read the book at this point. The reason I mention the BBC programme is because both it and Pullman invite you to consider how very old stories are remembered and interpreted very differently by pretty much everyone - whether as history or parable or fiction. Speaking as someone raised by a secular, humanist mother and a practising Jew, turned C of E priest father, the book certainly prompted me to reconsider the messages within all those stories surrounding Jesus which I was taught in Primary school but never really discussed at home, and which I have not considered at all for at least a decade.  Which was refreshing, but the book also resurrected frustrations about the virulent nature of proselytism - linking us neatly back to The Strain. (I'm aware that my last comment, with some extrapolation, could perhaps be interpreted as my likening what some people believe to be god incarnate to a vampire...so I'm going to say sorry and stop talking about it.)

I'm also trying to unlock some of George's proposed achievements (having already attained my own Three is a Magic Number - read a trilogy) so I'm aiming for the Internacional (foreign language book) by reading The Eclogues and Georgics in the original Latin (some 3000 lines of hexameters). This also completes what I'm going to call the Fields, Farming and Furor achievement (aka the Why Did You Bother achievement), namely reading everything Vergil ever wrote (I read the whole Aeneid for finals). It also allows George the opportunity to keep repeating a terrible Classicist joke, which, judging by the frequency with which he is making said joke, he is very much enjoying. 

 I don't know what to read next...hmmmm...

Literary Love xxx

Books completed in chronological order of reading:

Stabat Mater, Tiziano Scarpa (2011)

Facing Violence, Rory Miller (2011)

Un Lun Dun, China Mieville (2007)

Open Secrets, Alice Munro (1994)

The Dragon Queen, Alice Borchardt (2001)

Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Walters (1998)

The lost books of the Odyssey, Zachary Mason (2007)

The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien, (1937)

The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman, (1991)

The Hypnotist, Lars Kepler, (2012)

The Strain (2009), The Fall (2010), The Night Eternal (2011), Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, Philip Pullman (2010)

Georgia's List So Far

Because it was split into two posts, I decided to put up another entry summarising Georgia's full list so far, as of week 12. She's been reading more, so she's not actually behind, but this is what's been written up so far.

Week 12
10/52

The Lost Books of the Odyssey - Zachary Mason (2007)

The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (1937)

The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes - Neil Gaiman, (1991)

Facing Violence - Rory Miller (2011)

The Hypnotist - Lars Kepler (2012)

Stabat Mater - Tiziano Scarpa (2011)
Un Lun Dun - China Mieville (2007)
Open Secrets - Alice Munro (1994)
The Dragon Queen - Alice Borchardt (2001)
Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Walters (1998)

How The Other Half Read: For All You Fellas

This time, it's another guest post from Georgia. More George updates coming soon...

One of the greatest male protagonists of all time has got to be the man of many turns: Odysseus. I've read the poem in translation and teach Armitage's version at school (for enrichment activities), though I'm still sad that I actually missed out on properly studying this epic at school and university - I was too interested in Vergil and the tragedians (both topics I do teach for A level, so it was probably a good call). I have read two great modern retellings of Classical epic: The Song of Achilles (Madeline Miller) and Lavinia (Ursula Le Guin); so I was very excited to complete the set by discovering a new take on the other one of the Big Three, namely The lost books of the Odyssey, by Zachary Mason. Rather than reworking the original, Mason works off the idea that, before Homer's epics were solidified in the eighth century BC by being written down for the first time, there may have been alternative endings and different stories told throughout the Aegean.  This collection of short stories, therefore, contains 44 apocryphal books of the Odyssey and it is brilliant. My favourites have to be The Stranger - where Odysseus meets a Trojan with the same memories as him, The Myrmidon Golem - where Achilles is literally a war-machine, The Iliad of Odysseus - painting Odysseus as the poet himself, and The Book of Winter - which has the most amazing last line. It's definitely one for those who are familiar, if not with the Odyssey itself, then at least with the main adventures of Odysseus, and it is a wonderful exploration of what-ifs.

Two books which were much better than I expected them to be were The Hobbit and The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes.  When the LOTR films came out I tried reading the books and never got past the first three pages; and so I decided not to bother with The Hobbit either. Again, Hannah is responsible for getting me to change my mind.  I loved it and sped through it. Of course, there is the irritation that there is nary a female character to be seen, but I still think it's a brilliant adventure and found myself growing to like Bilbo Baggins more and more as the tale went on.  In a strange way, it reminded me of a much-loved children's book: Pongwiffy! Must have been the goblins.  I also enjoyed The Sandman, especially for its reworking of classical mythology (yes, I'm aware I need to read American Gods) and its inclusion of John Dee, although I found the story-telling too fragmented for it to make for easy reading, and I'm not sure I'll continue with the series. (I know there may be some who would argue that a graphic novel doesn't count as a book, but I'm waving a merry two fingers at them.  If George can count audio-books, I can count graphic novels, so yah-boo-sucks to you!)

The last two books to discuss both focus on violence, but in very different ways. A really interesting book examining different types of perpetrators of violence and suggestions for what has worked for him is Sgt. Miller's Facing Violence: preparing for the unexpected. It contains more workable suggestions than the other book of his I have read (Meditations on Violence, which is still fascinating, but focuses more on the gap between martial arts training and real-life scenarios), and examines the social aspect of violent behaviour as well as the different personalities who commit violent crimes. Moving from reality to fiction, The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler (actually a pseudonym for a literary couple who have a special place in my affections, not just for their writing, but also because they're called Alexander and Alexandra) is such a gripping read that I read all c1000 pages of it in twenty-four hours. The protagonist is Joona Linna, Stockholm's answer to James Bond, though the really interesting character is the eponymous hypnotist himself, Erik Maria Bark, and his family. The story starts with Linna's investigation into the murder of an entire family, but quickly morphs into something much more personal to Bark. Typically Scandinavian in style, this is dark, gloomy and gory (fans of Stieg Larsson, Jo Nesbo and John Ajvide Lindqvist eat your hearts out - and if you're not a fan yet, you're missing out), and, most of all, this book is unputdownable. 

Next on my list of Scandi-thrillers is Disgrace by Jussi Adler-Olsen, but I've just has started The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan, so I may not get there that soon.  Please do give me your recommendations, especially if they have interesting female characters, as I fear that I've read most of them (Millenium trilogy, Sally Lockheart trilogy...) ...any ideas?

Literary Love xxx

The Lost Books of the Odyssey - Zachary Mason (2007)

The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (1937)

The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes - Neil Gaiman (1991)

Facing Violence - Rory Miller (2011)

The Hypnotist - Lars Kepler (2012)

How The Other Half Read: This One Goes Out to the Ladies

My other half, specifically. We have a guest post from Georgia, who is going through the same challenge as me. Let's hear some support!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to my guest-post which gives an update on my own 52 book challenge. At the end of week 10, I am keeping up, having just finished reading my tenth book this morning. Since I have ten books to talk about, and since George and I have had Anita Sarkeesian videos playing on the Apple TV all afternoon (these also are highly recommended - I first found out about this lady through her Tedx talk about the online harassment she suffered for her Kickstarter project - to create a series of videos exploring the role of women in video games. She has some amazing ideas; watch her stuff), I have decided to split my list into subsets based on the gender of the protagonist. First up, the ladies:

I've read some great books with female protagonists and a few really not very good ones. My favourite has to be The Dragon Queen, by Alice Borchardt. Being a Classicist, I love a good epic, and this Arthurian tale, with the eponymous hero actually being a heroine, is fascinating. Skin-changers, journeys beyond the realm of the real world, including the mandatory trip to the underworld, and a child raised by wolves all set in the Dark Age following the departure of the Romans from Britain make this a very interesting and enjoyable read - despite it being a long hefty book which required the purchase of a larger handbag to cart it around! If you like Vergil, Homer, George RR Martin, give it a try! 

The worst book in the set was Stabat Mater, by Tiziano Scarpa. I received this book as an Xmas present from my mum; she thought it would be pertinent as I love stories about Venice (Jeanette Winterson's The Passion is one of my all-time favourites), I play the violin and the title is in Latin. The book is set in an orphanage in Venice and focuses on one orphan's questions about her history and how the arrival of Vivaldi as new director of music shakes up her life. Or so the blurb says. I didn't enjoy the stream-of-consciousness style with no chapters at all, and the first fifty pages are just the protagonist complaining. I'd much rather read The Passion again. And again. 

Speaking of passion and lesbians (J Winterson's most famous work being Oranges are not the only Fruit - also brilliant), I also read Sarah Walter's Tipping the Velvet. Remember the sexy BBC adaptation a decade or so again starring the fabulous Keeley Hawes and Rachael Stirling? Yes, we all love a good Victorian, lesbian drama, but mostly this book is a love story, following the heroine, Nan as she follows her pash, Miss Kitty Butler all the way to London, onto the stage and then struggles to regain her self-belief after a huge betrayal by beloved Kitty. This is easy-to-read romantic fiction at its best.

Open Secrets by Alice Munro is a series of eight short stories loosely linked by the characters' connection to a small Canadian town called Carstairs, spanning the years ab urbe condita to the present day. I found this selection more and more enjoyable as I read on. At first, I was somewhat stumped by the way the author seems to set every story inside another story; in 50 pages this just seems too much to cram in. Especially when at least 50% of the female characters in the first half of the book have names beginning with 'M'. However, there are some great stories in here, from the tale of a woman abducted in the Albanian mountains, to the orphan who is handed over as wife to a man who needs a woman to look after him at the frontier, to the heartbroken and discarded wife who follows her cheating husband all the way to Australia so that she can inveigle her way back into his life.  All in all, if you're paying attention, there is some really enjoyable story-telling at work here.

Last, but not least, is Un Lun Dun by China Mieville. Hannah (an old friend from school and uni who works in children's publishing) suggested this when we were discussing how much we enjoyed Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. I was hooked immediately, but lost interest slightly when I got past the number of pages that Neverwhere had taken to finish the whole story and then got more and more into it towards the ending. It's a great reworking of the Buffy-style "chosen one" concept, where the heroine turns out not to be the blonde who was destined to save the world of Un Lun Dun, but her friend whose only appearance in the book of prophecies is indexed under "sidekick". Well-written, interesting and fantastical.

Stay tuned for the male protagonists section - which contains some very different books! Please do send me any recommendations you may have!

Literary Love xxx

Stabat Mater - Tiziano Scarpa (2011)

Un Lun Dun - China Mieville (2007)

Open Secrets - Alice Munro (1994)

The Dragon Queen -Alice Borchardt (2001)

Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Walters (1998)