Left-Hand English

My blog title comes from my love of pool, and perhaps reflects my political leanings. I'll be musing about poetry and other (non?) essentials. My most recent entry will be on top. I'd love to hear any comments you may have. You can use either the chat box below, or the contact box on my home page.

Writers worth reading

These are writers that I'll read whatever I can find by them, rather than just any specific book.

• Carolyn Forché, poet
• Margaret Atwood, author and poet
• Peng Shepherd, author
• Veronica Roth, YA and adult dystopian author
• John Burnside, poet
• Philip Schultz, poet
• Mary Doria Russell, author

Current, recent reading

• Daughter of Fire, by Sofia Robleda — About a young woman, called Catalina by the dominant Spaniards and Ab'aj Pol by the Mayans, caught between the worlds of her Mayan mother and Spanish governor father in mid-16th century Guatemala. Her mother's family, of which only she remains, was entrusted centuries before with protecting the Mayan sacred book, the Popol Vuh. which must be kept secret from the Spanish conquerors. As she tries to keep her family's duty, she finds her heart is changing and growing stronger, and discovers abilities she never knew she had. It is a beautifully written debut book from Robleda, and I highly recommend it. I look forward to reading her next book, The Other Moctezuma Girls, which she is currently writing.
• In the Heart of the Country, by J.M. Coetzee — Actually rereading this. Almost a stream-of-consciousness novel set in South Africa. The novel sometimes rewrites incidents in various ways as the narrator's mind wanders which, if any, of them is actually what happened. There's a constant question of "Is this real?" going through the narrator's, and by proxy, the reader's mind.
• Furies: Stories of the Wicked, Wild and Untamed —     Introduction by Sandi Toksvig. A collection of "feminist" writing by 15 women writers, including Margaret Atwood (the main reason I bought it). The book has short stories, fantasy, non-fiction re-tellings, even a story told as a poem. It's a good read, taking chances and new approaches, exploring often-ignored history. I'd recommend it to a friend
• Life on Mars, poems by Tracy K Smith — Pulitzer Prize winner. Not hard to see why.
• Whereas, poems by Layli Long Soldier — National Book Award finalist. I struggled a bit with some of the experimental forms and language in the first section, mostly because it's not my comfort zone as a poet and a reader. The last section (Whereas) is about the broken treaties and lies told to Native Americans, specifically the Oglala Lakota and Dakota tribes. It was both experimental and accessible. It was great reading.
• Deaf Republic, poems by Ilya Kaminsky —     National Book Award finalist. Outstanding collection of poems that tell the story of unrest in an occupied land. 
• The Country Between Us, poems by Carolyn Forché — My      introduction to this wonderful poet. It covers Forché's time in El Savador during the war and its effects on her and the people there.
• In the Lateness of the World, poems by Carolyn Forché — She's immediately become one of my favourite poets.
• The Lost Bookshop, by Evie Woods — A fascinating historical fantasy. A woman escapes her overbearing English family and an arranged marriage to Paris in the 1920s, where she connects with the owners of Shakespeare and Co. bookstore and begins to determine her own life. When her family finds her, she escapes to Dublin. There she stumbles into running a nostalgia/bookshop and flexes her growing independence. The story is told through the eyes of several characters, bouncing from the 1920s to the tale of the woman who decades later discovered The Lost Bookshop. I highly recommend it to fans of books and fantasy.