Hello!! I am definitely not eating crisps. (I probably am.)
I'm Anwen. I'm 26 and I live in Wales, which is a coincidence as I am Welsh. I am also very smol.
I'm a writer and PhD student of Classical Civilisation. When I have time, I do comedy myth retellings, myth analyses and Classics trivia over at my designated mythology blog here!
You can buy my small novella, a retelling of the Medusa myth, here!
i have been fucked up ever since i took a mythology class in college and learned that the greek mythology we know today is not only deliberately patriarchal (i mean duh) but was put in place specifically to abolish the matriarchal religion that came before it, nearly all traces of which were systematically erased. AND, the reason the modern west is so obsessed with greek mythology specifically is that it aligns so closely with our own patriarchal values. like we are literally taught greek mythology IN SCHOOL, that’s how hugely important it is in our culture. (i mean think about it… there is no real benefit to placing that much emphasis on greek mythology specifically over any other part of history)
learning this literally ruined greek mythology for me lmao
artemis and aphrodite are the classic madonna (virgin) and the whore
athena is deliberately stripped of her femininity in order to be goddess of wisdom, springing fully formed from zeus’ head instead of being born from a woman
hera is the jealous, vindictive ball and chain, etc etc.
and the kicker? pandora was a revamped character from an older myth, in which she created every single thing in the universe, good and bad. she didn’t just open a box and ruin everything by not being able to follow orders. pandora literally means “all-giving”. and in the greek mythology we know today, she’s the first woman on earth and manages to fuck things up for everyone. sound familiar? like eve, maybe?
i don’t have sources because i learned this in a college class like 3 years ago but if anyone has access to their college’s academic database and wants to source this for me that’d be awesome. i haven’t tried but i’m guessing you’d be hard pressed to find info about it on google.
here’s a book i’m reading abt it that i picked up at a half-price bookstore. it’s a bittersweet read. there’s references inside the front cover, too, for further reading.
Thank you for adding this! Reblogging so y’all can see it
This book is the bomb diggety. Bittersweet read indeed.
Greek mythology is deliberately patriarchal (which should be obvious, because it was written by people living in a patriarchal culture, so of course it reflects their values)
myths changed with time
Pandora had another, more positive role
Ancient Greece is given more attention than other, equally deserving cultures
the OP doesn’t have sources
That’s it. That’s literally it. As for the things that this post gets wrong, let’s take it step by step:
1. Pre-Greek matriarchal religion, “nearly all traces of which were systematically erased”
This pre-Greek matriarchy is usually identified with the Minoans of Crete, who depicted many women in prominent positions in their art. Unfortunately, as I’ve outlined before, this isn’t enough to prove that the Minoans had a matriarchal society and religion. What’s more, the Minoan script (Linear A) remains undeciphered to this day. So until the Minoans can tell us about their myths, beliefs, and social hierarchy in their own voices, I’ll be very skeptical about anyone who claims they were definitely matriarchal (or patriarchal, for that matter).
As for their traces being “systematically erased”, I can only laugh. The Minoans (like the Pelasgians, i.e. the pre-Greek people of the Greek mainland) weren’t erased. The Mycenaean Greeks eventually took over Crete, but Minoan civilisation continued to exist, and many cultural and religious elements were incorporated into Mycenaean society - including writing. From an article about an early Mycenaean tomb:
The griffin warrior’s grave at Pylos offers a radical new perspective on the relationship between the two societies and thus on Europe’s cultural origins. As in previously discovered shaft graves, the objects themselves are a cross-cultural mix. For instance, the boar tusk helmet is typically Mycenaean, but the gold rings, which are rich with Minoan religious imagery and are on their own a hugely significant find for scholars, says Davis, reflect artifacts previously found on Crete.
(…) This has led Davis and Stocker to favor the idea that the two cultures became entwined at a very early stage. It’s a conclusion that fits recent suggestions that regime change on Crete around the time the mainland palaces went up, which traditionally corresponds to the decline of Minoan civilization, may not have resulted from the aggressive invasion that historians have assumed. The later period on Knossos might represent something more like “an EU in the Aegean,” says Bennet, of the British School at Athens. Minoans and Mycenaean Greeks would surely have spoken each other’s languages, may have intermarried and likely adopted and refashioned one another’s customs. And they may not have seen themselves with the rigid identities we moderns have tended to impose on them.
TL;DR: The Mycenaeans didn’t erase Minoan religion. They liked it, and syncretised it with their own.
The only reason many of these Minoan beliefs vanished was due to the Late Bronze Age collapse, which saw the end of Mycenaean Greece and Minoan-Mycenaean Crete. Many elements of early Greek civilisation were lost, or preserved in fragments thanks to mythology and epic poetry. This collapse was obviously not a systematic erasure, but a widespread destruction of civilisations, caused by foreign invasion, drought and famine, internal revolts, earthquakes, or a combination of the above. Eric Cline’s book 1177 BC: The Year Civilisation Collapsed(2014)is an excellent discussion of the topic.
2. Earlier versions of Greek myths
Any time someone mentions the “pre-patriarchal” or “original” version of a myth, be skeptical. Be very skeptical.
The problem with these “original” myths is that we have little to nothing to base them on. Their reconstruction is a theory - often a modern feminist theory - not a certainty. I should also point out, as @rembrandtswife did, that Lost Goddesses of Ancient Greece is “basically AU fanfic of the Greek mythology we have”. It’s retellings and speculation, not earlier myths that we can confirm existed.
You know what are earlier myths that we can confirm existed? Mesopotamian and Anatolian myths. These have been extensively studied, and it’s been shown time and time again that they influenced Greek mythology - especially Homer and Hesiod. Martin West’s The East Face of Helicon(1997)and Mary Bachvarova’s From Hittite to Homer(2016)are good introductions to the topic. Here’s a recording I made which shows obvious parallels between the Babylonian Enuma Elish, the Hurrian-Hittite Song of Kumarbi, and Hesiod’s Theogony. Looks pretty different from the modern speculative retellings, doesn’t it?
This isn’t to say that there weren’t earlier myths in which women had different, more influential and positive roles. Pandora does in fact fit into this category: her names (Pandora, “all-giving”, and Anesidora, “sending up gifts”), as well as ancient sources (scholia on Aristophanes’ Birds being one example), attest to her originally being an earth deity. Hesiod is well-known for his misogyny, so him transforming her into a mortal woman and giving her a negative role makes sense. However, I would advise against applying this theory more broadly, and taking it as proof that there was a widespread revamping of female deities to make them fit patriarchal ideals. I would especially advise against taking any of this as confirmed fact, when the “original” myths themselves are lost.
3. The Gods as archetypes
I am personally very against interpreting the Gods as archetypes (i.e. Artemis as madonna, Aphrodite as whore, etc). There are far, far more aspects to them than these, and reducing them to single-word descriptions erases the complex reality of Greek mythology (and religion, while we’re at it).
What’s more, these archetypal interpretations are incredibly modern and don’t reflect Ancient Greek perceptions. The idea that Athena is “deliberately stripped of her femininity” because she is not born from a woman, for one, sounds very much like late 20th century radical feminism. (I’d also love to know if Typhon, who was born from Hera alone (see the Homeric Hymn to Apollon), was “stripped of his masculinity” for the same reason.) But more broadly, these Jungian-like archetypes correspond perfectly to 19th century views, which liked to fit the Gods into neat categories. Most notoriously, Apollon, who represented order and enlightenment, was opposed to Dionysos, who represented chaos and madness. Thanks Nietzsche.
I’ve said this before, but to interpret Greek mythology, we need to look for Greek sources. Not the theories of a 19th century philosopher. Not the speculation of a 20th century feminist. If the Gods were viewed as complex figures in Ancient Greece, then we need to study them as complex figures. Simple as that.
4. Why we are taught Greek mythology, aka “the reason the modern West is so obsessed with Greek mythology specifically is that it aligns so closely with our own patriarchal values”
Actually, no. If you think Greek mythology aligns closely with our own values, then you’ve been reading retellings and Mythology 101 books, not the original texts. (Or, alternatively, you’re very confused about what modern society’s values are.) Here is an abridged list of gender-related values from Ancient Greece that we don’t share:
female identity is tied to weaving
rape can only happen in the countryside or in deserted places
men who cry openly are still manly
marriage is between a 15-year-old girl and a 30-year-old man
funerals are women’s business
it’s okay to have gay sex if you’re a top
wearing boots and being a shopkeeper is unmanly
and more
The more you study Ancient Greece and read the texts themselves (preferably in the original language, so as to avoid as much modern bias as possible), the more you realise how different the Ancient Greeks were from us. This is a foreign culture with foreign values. Yes, a lot of it is familiar, too - much of European civilisation has its roots in Ancient Greece, hence why it aligns with a certain number of our values. But claiming that the ideas promoted in Greek mythology are virtually identical to our own is doing a disservice to the rich, unique culture that was Ancient Greece.
So why do we focus on it so much, as opposed to other cultures? Unfortunately, this is because of how history played out. Ancient Greece highly influenced Rome, which went on to conquer most of Europe; many countries went on to claim it as their ancestor, from the Ottoman Empire to the Napoleonic Empire to Nazi Germany. Meanwhile, other cultures which had influenced Ancient Greece itself (and therefore modern Western culture) disappeared: the Hittites of Anatolia had been virtually forgotten since the Late Bronze Age, Mesopotamia was on its way out by the first century AD, and Ancient Egypt by the beginning of the Middle Ages.
As a result, a lot of emphasis is put on Ancient Greek (and Roman) culture when in reality, we don’t owe much more to it than to the Sumerians. I absolutely think that we should study other cultures more. I also absolutely think that the fact we don’t has nothing to with patriarchal values.
5. Sources, aka “I don’t have sources because I learned this in a college class like 3 years ago”
Okay, so I have nothing against people taking electives in college and posting about what they learnt. By all means, do so. But it becomes a problem when people start reblogging without fact-checking or thinking twice about information that is presented without sources, by someone with very little experience in the field, and lathered in rhetoric.
Speaking of rhetoric, other people have pointed it out in the comments, but the person who shared the Lost Goddesses of Ancient Greece book is a TERF. This obviously doesn’t mean OP is a TERF as well (I had a look through their blog and they seem not to be), but you may want to think about what ideas the LGoAG person is encouraging here, as well as what could appeal to a TERF in this post, and consider whether that’s something you want to align yourself with.
TL;DR: Don’t believe something just because it appeals to you. Check out my Layperson’s Guide to Online Research for more details on how to fact-check.
One of my reading goals this year is to read more essay anthologies by own / marginalised voices. I have a good few to get through, but couldn’t quite resist these. Oops.
Anonymous asked: "Sorry for bothering you, I just wanted to ask if you've seen that post about the 'original version of Persephone's kidnapping' myth going around, where she doesn't actually get kidnapped but just sort of... wanders into the underworld? Is that even a little accurate as far as you know or another made-up tumblr retelling?"
I have actually added this to the original post, but obviously there are about 780 versions of that post floating around at this point and nearly all of them are like ‘omg i’m so glad that this 100% unverified post about persephone proves that everyone has been wrong about the myth for the past hundreds of years… thank god for no sources <3′
But anyway, here are my thoughts on the matter. It would probably help to have the original post open at the same time, as this response does make some close references to it:
A disclaimer, first of all: any post that says THIS IS THE ORIGINAL MYTH is going to be wank, because we don’t know what the original myth was - we only have the first written sources, but without a time machine there’s just no way of finding out how the myth developed in an oral tradition. So already, we can debunk about 80% of that post. Groovy.
The first source we have for Persephone being carried away is in Hesiod’s Theogony, written in the 8th or 7th century BC. We also have the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, written in the 7th or 6th century BC, which is explicitly about her being taken away by Hades.
Hesiod is one of the oldest Greek sources that we have, roughly contemporaneous with Homer. We don’t have any earlier sources than this which say ‘hey, Persephone went to Hades because she thought it would be cool’. A lot of people have theorised that this could have been an original, or at least an earlier tradition, but it’s about 60% wishful thinking, 20% misinterpreting evidence (i.e. assuming that Persephone and Demeter used to be aspects of a great mother goddess, which they weren’t) and about 20% conjecture based on actual rational thought (i.e. the fact that the oldest written source we have is about an abduction doesn’t mean that it is the original source; there could be older non-extant written sources or just oral tales which pre-dated writing). It’s not fact.
It’s true that Homer himself never explicitly says that Persephone was abducted - he just describes her as Hades’ wife - but he also doesn’t say that she wasn’t abducted; it could well be that the myth of her abduction was so well known that he had no need to recount it.
It is true that Persephone’s name was Kore, which means ‘maiden’; however, this could be an epithet because she was unmarried. It’s also theorised that it was a euphemism of sorts for when people didn’t want to name Persephone outright; again, this is a theory. Lots of gods had epithets - basically cooler names which underlined some of their core attributes, e.g. Apollo = Loxias, which highlights Apollo’s powers of prophecy. Unlike the post claims, the name ‘Persephone’ does not definitively mean death / destroyer; the etymology is unknown. The ‘death / destroyer’ theory is just one of many, and others are based around ideas of harvest and grain.
The reason Zeus got involved wasn’t just because he was tasked with sorting out justice - it was because he had told Hades ‘hey, you want a wife? Cool! Abduct my daughter, Persephone. Her mum totally won’t mind,’ and then when Persephone’s mother did mind, Zeus was like ‘I fucked up real bad, I should sort this shit out.’ In Ancient Greece, women didn’t have to consent in the same way as we do now. Abduction marriages were actually illegal (or at least very very naughty) but the bride’s consent basically took the form of her father saying ‘you’ll marry this dude, right? Yeah, cool. She’ll marry you, dude.’ Here, Zeus gives Persephone’s consent to Hades by telling Hades that he can marry her - this is why technically she wasn’t exactly abducted, because the necessary consent - her father’s - was given. HOWEVER, let’s not get into Greek law here. She was abducted by our standards.
It is also true that Persephone became a very feared goddess and basically had a great time in the Underworld. She wasn’t exactly more terrible than Hades, though; there are certain myths (e.g. Sisyphus and Orpheus) where she’s the one who says ‘Hades, babe, shall we give this guy a chance to make his way out of the Underworld alive?’ HOWEVER, she did usually do this with the implementation of specific terms, meaning that she had a level of control in proceedings which a lot of other wife goddesses didn’t have over their respective spouses’ spheres. Most mythological canons also give her and Hades a very healthy and monogamous relationship (with the exception of Orphism, which is a bit more iffy on that front) so, disregarding the abduction part of her myth, their marriage was really relatively healthy, even by modern standards. Also, Persephone did not ‘lay the smack down on sinners’, as quoted in the original post - the whole idea of sinners is basically a Christian concept. The Underworld was not Hell. It wasn’t a place for bad people. It was just where the dead went. Tartarus was the place where the really bad guys went to be tortured and shit, and is more indicative of Christian notions of Hell. People weren’t punished in the Underworld. They just went there.
I love the idea of Persephone as a consenting wife of Hades. I am a fan of modern reinterpretations in which she chooses to eat the pomegranate seeds willingly, or where she falls in love with Hades and goes to the Underworld of her own accord. However, these are modern interpretations, based on modern gender politics and ideas of reclamation and representation. I will forever fight for people’s right to reinterpret myths however they like, but this whole idea of the ‘original myth’ of Persephone being devoid of any misogynistic undertones really needs to die.
I think it also speaks to a worrying argument that in order to empower Persephone, some people need to remove her trauma. Why can’t Persephone be a terrible dread queen of the Underworld and a survivor? Why should her experiences need to be erased in order to make her into a strong woman? If you ask me, she’s already stronger than Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. I don’t think that the modern need to reframe Persephone as architect of her own descent into the Underworld is necessarily as progressive as others think it is. I think it sends the message that a strong woman always has agency, and I actually think that a better message to send would be that it’s totally possible to lose your agency and still retain your strength, because you define yourself through your own actions, not what is done to you.
tl;dr any post that makes a broad sweeping claim like ‘hey this greek myth was originally like this and u r all wrong’ without any sources is what my tutor would call ‘specious’ and what I call ‘bollocks’.
I’m working on a rebuttal to a post that’s going around atm, and this is relevant!
This jewellery box was bought in - I quote - “one of the islands” (Hawaii) by my great uncle for my great grandma back in the ‘50s. My grandma found it cleaning out her cupboards and gave it to my dad to clean, and then he gave it back to her and she gave it to me. I love it and I love how cute my grandma is.
It’s time for 2018′s reading review! I know, I’m sure you’re all really excited. This is a long post, which you can press J to skip.
This year, I initially set myself the goal to read things which challenged me. For the first few months, I read quite a few books with a political bent, including some which I knew I would disagree with. I read some obscure fiction in translation, which I found really enlightening. Then, A Bad Personal Thing happened and I suddenly didn’t feel able to challenge myself all the time. I stopped reading for a while, because the thought of picking up a book was just a bit much. So, I changed my goal. Instead, I decided to enjoy reading. Not to pay any thought to how ‘worthy’ or ‘literary’ a book was; to choose my reading material solely by how much fun it would be to read, or how much I wanted to read it.
Hence, the majority of my reading in 2018 was queer erotica or books about mountaineering, or historical romps with female leads. Reading this way helped me immensely this year, and I was a much happier person for it.
Side goals this year were to read more books by Welsh authors or published by Welsh presses, and to read more books by authors of colour and queer authors.
The books I read were as follows, complete with a rating and a quote that I most enjoyed or felt best summed up the book:
Pop Idle - George Sandifer-Smith, 4/5 The tremendous desire to throw yourself off and become so much matter for someone else to clean up.
Passing - Nella Larsen, 4/5 In that second she saw that she could bear anything, but only if no-one knew that she had anything to bear.
The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, volume 1 - Harriette Wilson, 5/5 The soul’s fire is partly kept alive by dinner.
The Visitor - Katherine Stansfield, 5/5 It must take longer than this. There needs to be more of a leave-taking when the loss is so great.
Eileen - Ottessa Mosfegh, 3/5 People died all the time. Why couldn’t I?
The Black Spider - Jeremias Gotthelf, 4/5 Once the heart is swollen with grief, it can find words no longer.
Horses of God - Mahi Binebine, 4/5 As for us, we were dead, just dead. And I’m still waiting for the angels.
Behold the Dreamers - Imbolo Mbue, 5/5 “A man can find a home anywhere, sir.”
Ways of Going Home - Alejandro Zambo, 3/5 To read is to cover one’s face, I thought. To read is to cover one’s face. And to write is to show it.
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood - Trevor Noah, 5/5 “He’s like an exotic bird collector,” she said. “He only wants a woman who is free because his dream is to put her in a cage.”
The Good Father - Marion Husband, 4/5 People who loved their parents speak a different language from those of us who didn’t.
The Pearl that Broke its Shell - Nadia Hashimi, 2/5 I was a mother, and then I wasn’t.
Infidel - Ayaan Hirsi Ali, 4/5 If God meant only that which is good, and Satan that which is evil, then both were in me.
The Girl who Escaped ISIS - Farida Khalaf, 4/5 Sometimes people need to experience the greater evil to understand which the lesser is.
Trail of Broken Wings - Sejal Badani, 5/5 Who am I when I can’t even remember the night that defined my life?
A River in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea - Masaji Ishikawa, 4/5 A life of ‘not living’. That seems to be my curse.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Harriet Ann Jacobs, 4/5 There are wrongs which even the grave does not bury.
Nowhere to be Found - Bae Suah, 2/5 Memory finds it way back through blood, through body heat.
Pantheon: The True Story of the Egyptian Deities - Hamish Steele, 5/5 (Graphic novel)
Winters’ Snow - Carrie Hope Fletcher, 1/5 This is a memory. This is how I remember it.
Pounded In The Butt By My Irrational Bigoted Fear Of Humans Who Were Born As Unicorns Using A Human Restroom
- Chuck Tingle, 2/5 “My life is a mess, and it’s so much easier to deal with if I’m trying to project that darkness onto someone else.”
Looking for JJ - Anne Cassidy, 4/5 It wasn’t possible to have people, to own them, as though they were possessions.
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race
- Reni Eddo-Lodge, 4/5 Forget politician-speak about Britain being a tolerant country. Being constantly looked at like an alien in the country you were born in requires true tolerance.
Not Thomas - Sara Gethin, 5/5 I am nearly not here at all.
Love, Hate & Other Filters - Samira Ahmed, 3/5 Some taboos cross oceans, packed tightly into the corners of immigrant baggage, tucked away with packets of masala and memories of home.
Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions - Valeria Luiselli, 5/5 It’s strange how concepts can erode so easily, how words we once used lightly can alchemize abruptly into something toxic.
Peach - Emma Glass, 3/5 I stare at the blank wall and I could be looking in a mirror.
Juniper Lane - Dylan Morrison, 4/5 She could never have imagined the strange beauty of this world on the cusp of becoming.
Dark Days - James Baldwin, 4/5 (Borrowed book, so no access to quotes)
Africa’s Tarnished Name - Chinua Abeche, 5/5
(Borrowed book, so no access to quotes)
Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman’s Awakening
- Manal Al-Sharif, 4/5 The problems flowed together like drops of water until they became indistinguishable from one another; all that remained was the fast-moving river that formed in their wake.
The Princess Diarist - Carrie Fisher, 4/5 You see I thought I was only seeing half the man, but that was all there was to you.
Here, the World Entire - Anwen Kya Hayward, no rating (I don’t rate my own work!) (The most popular highlighted passage on Kindle:) I want to tell him that I know too well the burden of being a beautiful woman in a world full of angry men, but I don’t. I want to tell him a great many things, but I don’t.
In the Nucleus - Marisa G. Doherty, 5/5 She never believed in ghosts until she had one of her own.
Inside the O’Briens - Lisa Genova, 4/5 I don’t want to spend one more minute on this earth knowing two of my children are buried beneath it.
Ghost Boy - Martin Pistorius, 3/5 It is disorienting when your world becomes a different place almost overnight.
Country Dance - Margiad Evans, 4/5 On her temple was a great wound that cried aloud for justice.
Eunoia - Christian
Bök, 3/5 Her descent seems endless; nevertheless, she lets herself be swept wherever the gentle breeze sweeps her.
Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture - ed. Roxane Gay, 5/5 She had learned, somewhere in the interim, to do more than simply reveal what had happened to her; she had learned to tell the story of it so that it didn’t become her only story.
Cocky Romance Author - C.J. Douglass, 2/5 This asshole didn’t have a leg to stand on. As far as his argument went, at least. His actual legs seemed more than sturdy enough to keep him upright, in any activity.
Annabel vs the Internet: The time I infiltrated Google HQ and other adventures - Annabel Port, 5/5 I’m a new Furry and feeling yiffy. Here’s what I look like. I look like a hamster. A grey one that can fit all sorts in my cheeks. A mangetout and a whole floret of broccoli.
The Moor - Sam Haysom, 3/5 That strange elastic property that time has.
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion - Margaret Killjoy, 4/5 However sure you are that your side is right, keep in mind the other side is just as sure.
The Wife Between Us - Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen, 3/5 My regret is an open wound.
Cat Person - Kristen Roupenian, 3/5
Look at this beautiful girl, she imagined him thinking. She’s so
perfect, her body is perfect, everything about her is perfect, she’s
only twenty years old, her skin is flawless, I want her so badly, I want
her more than I’ve ever wanted anyone else, I want her so bad I might
die.
Yellow Crocus - Laila Ibrahim, 4/5 She thought the air would feel different in freedom land, but it didn’t. It was still hard to breathe.
Repeal the 8th - ed. Una Mullally, 5/5 This agony of water in order to hold agency over our bodies
Panty - Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay, 3/5 “You’ve spent all your life running away from death,” it told her, “now try to understand it.”
Into Thin Air
- John Krakauer, 4/5 No-one intended harm for one another. No-one wanted to die.
Into the Mountains
- Pedro Algorta, 4/5 I was prepared for something to happen with my life.
One - Sarah Crossan, 5/5 I read all these books, so many words, but I don’t own any.
Things We Haven’t Said: Sexual Violence Survivors Speak Out
- ed. Erin E. Moulton, 4/5 You are more valuable than anything that has ever happened to you.
No Way Down: Life and Death on K2 - Graham Bowley, 4/5 Some had emerged from the ordeal; others had perished. All had burned brightly in their lives.
Jungle: A Harrowing True Story of Survival in the Amazon
- Yossi Ghinsberg, 4/5 Please, God, help me. I’m afraid of dying.
Unfit to Print - K.J. Charles, 4/5 I need to scrape him off my shoes. I should have done that a long time ago.
An Unseen Attraction - K.J. Charles, 4/5 There are no degrees with life. You are or you’re not, and once it’s gone it doesn’t return.
The Kiss Quotient - Helen Hoang, 3/5 There was something novel and wonderful about being in a crowd and not feeling alone.
Salt - Nayyirah Waheed, 4/5 my mother was my first country, the first place i ever lived
An Unnatural Vice - K.J. Charles, 5/5 I’m so jealous of a dead man I could die myself.
An Unsuitable Heir - K.J. Charles, 4/5 “Either everyone in this house is called Jane, or nobody is.”
Think of England - K.J. Charles, 5/5 “I abhor violence, particularly when it’s directed at me.”
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung, 5/5 I wonder where the gods go now that their homes have been destroyed.
Left Neglected - Lisa Genova, 3/5 I’m missing a whole continent of experience, and I’m not even aware of it.
Spectred Isle - K.J. Charles, 4/5 We invent gods and monsters and gods that might as well be monsters.
Whisper of the Moon Moth - Lindsay Jayne Ashford, 4/5 “I suppose we all wish we could edit our lives. Do a few more takes and make it perfect.”
Wanted, A Gentleman - K.J. Charles, 5/5 “You’ve the world before you. It’s quite a big place, once you can raise your head and see it.”
The Magpie Lord - K.J. Charles - 4/5 This house wasn’t a dead thing moving, it was a live thing dying.
The Only Harmless Great Thing - Brooke Bolander, 5/5 They killed their own just to see time pass. That’s how it started.
Achilles - Elizabeth Cook, 5/5 What persists most is what is least alive.
A Case of Possession - K.J. Charles, 4/5 “I’ll have ideas anywhere I damned well please.”
Flight of Magpies - K.J. Charles, 4/5 “I like the way he says ‘furthermore’,” Merrick observed quietly, “cos you can tell he means ‘wankers’.”
Home Fire - Kamila Shamsie, 4/5 Do you even know the man you’re mourning?
Peter Darling - Austin Chant, 4/5 All around him, the world was still and dead, as if he were the last thing left alive.
Binti - Nnedi Okorafor, 3/5 Our ancestral land is life; move away from it and you diminish.
Ten Days in a Mad-House - Nelly Bly, 4/5 They always said God made hell, but he didn’t.
The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins - Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy, Carey Pietsch, 5/5 I’m sorry I started this whole thing.
Medea - Euripides (tr. John Harrison), 5/5 You will never lay hands on me again.
My Purple Scented Novel - Ian McEwan, 4/5 It had moments of joy and terrible grief. His prose sang more beautifully than ever.
War - Janne Teller, 3/5 Now you have nothing. You are nothing.
I
Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death
- Maggie O’Farrell, 4/5 My death felt like a person standing there next to me.
The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder
- Sarah J. Harris, 4/5 Leave or stay. Stay or leave.
The Wicked Cometh - Laura Carlin, 4/5 And, at this time of the night, when noises are culled and lights are extinguished, my day is not ending; my life is just beginning.
The Illumination of Ursula Flight - Anna-Marie Crowhurst, 5/5 I laid my head down and wept there for the loss of him, and for the loss, too, of my whole childhood, for I knew now I must go and be a grown-up, and I did not know how I would do it.
That Could Be Enough - Alyssa Cole, 4/5 You’re too cowardly to ever show your love and then you wonder why no-one gives it to you in return.
Home - Salman Rushdie, 5/5 He took the westward road and ceased to be who he might have been if he had stayed at home.
Your Life In My Hands: a Junior Doctor’s Story
- Rachel Clarke, 4/5 Hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away.
Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë, 4/5 The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!
The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir
- Alexandra Marzano-Lesnevich, 4/5 What I fell in love with about the law so many years ago was the way that in making a story, in making a neat narrative of events, it finds a beginning, and therefore cause. But I didn’t understand then that the law doesn’t find the beginning any more than it finds the truth. It creates a story. That story has a beginning. That story simplifies, and we call it truth.
Band Sinister - K.J. Charles, 5/5 I have not sacrificed my comfort in any way, except for my arm, which does feel just a little as though I will never use it again.
A Closed and Common Orbit - Becky Chambers, 5/5 You were good and brave and you tried.
The Autobiography of Cassandra, Princess & Prophetess of Troy
- Ursule Molinaro, 4/5 Injustice has an independent life and does not always die together with its victims.
A Fashionable Indulgence - K.J. Charles, 3/5 Because I love you. And you were so beautiful when you let me love you.
The Good People - Hannah Kent, 5/5 Nora Leahy, what have you done? You drowned your daughter’s only son! The lad could neither speak nor stand. Did fairies take him, hand in hand? Or did you take him to the water, the only son of your only daughter?
I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree: A Memoir of a Schindler’s List Survivor
- Laura Hillman, 4/5 “God, what have we done that you have forsaken us?”
The Henchmen of Zenda - K.J. Charles, 5/5 Love. Love. There’s a reason tennis players use that when they mean to say ‘nothing’.
The Tip of My Tongue - Trezza Azzopardi, 4/5 The people in the town all stood in their houses because they could see the sunlight flashing off the guardsmen’s blades and it looked like the sky was crying silvery tears, and they could hear the swish, swish, swish as their scythes cut through poor Nettle’s body and it sounded like the wind was wailing in sorrow. And all because one silly Lady from London thought it would be nice if she picked Nettle for her flower arrangement.
Odd Spirits - S.T. Gibson, 3/5 I think God knows better than us to separate the living from the dead.
The Green Hollow - Owen Sheers, 5/5 The way I see it, more and more, is that we’re all carbon, aren’t we?
Orphans of Eldorado - Milton Hatoum, 2/5 Your life has been wasted in this corner of the world. And now it’s too late, no boat will take you anywhere else.
The Craft of Love - E.E. Ottoman, 4/5 I have missed you so. I think of you always.
Hansen’s Children - Ognjen Spahić,
5/5 The world went still. The earth was covered by the death of one man.
Gone: A Girl, a Violin, a Life Unstrung
- Min Kym, 4/5 There was a world outside the violin, and a world inside the violin.
Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited
- Elyse Schein & Paula Bernstein, 4/5 Why am I me and not someone else?
Women & Power: A Manifesto
- Mary Beard, 5/5 When it comes to silencing women, Western culture has had thousands of years of practice.
Finding Baba Yaga - Jane Yolen, 3/5 Stories retold are stories remade.
Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident
- Donnie Eichar, 4/5 There’s nothing new in dying now.
The Housekeeper - Suellen Dainty, 4/5 “I’m not a thing,” I said. “Last time I looked, I was still a person.”
Wreckage - Emily Bleeker, 3/5 She didn’t know yet that sometimes life makes different choices than you do.
Hush Little Baby - Joanna Barnard, 4/5 There’s a singular sort of pain that comes with loving someone in such a way that you know they can never return it.
My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece - Annabel Pitcher, 4/5 Imagine a shadow without a person.
Incidents of Trespass - A.J. McKenna, 2/5 I am moved; I am shaken; the world stays as it was.
Warhorses of Letters - Robert Hudson & Marie Phillips, 4/5 On the subject of animal rights, I am forward thinking, because I am gay.
The Missing Girl - Jenny Quintana, 4/5 Grief is an unwelcome guest. The only thing you can do is let it live alongside.
The Woman in the Strongbox - Maureen O’Hagan, 3/5 Every year, another birthday, another choice not to call home.
Only Child - Rhiannon Navin, 4/5 The gap between when I was last with him and now keeps getting bigger, and I can’t stop it from happening.
Bury What We Cannot Take - Kirstin Chen, 5/5 What if a mistake was too grave to live with?
A Breath of Fresh Air - Amulya Malladi, 4/5 I didn’t know how I would live knowing this.
Cassandra’s Secret - Frances Garrood, 5/5 So quiet for such a dramatic thing. The end of someone’s life.
The Witch of Willow Hall - Hester Fox, 4/5 I am here, because it is where you are.
I Hope This Reaches Her in Time
- R.H. Sin, 1/5 you were the emptiness i felt
The Story Keeper - Anna Mazzola, 5/5 When he looked into her eyes, he seemed to like what was there. She knew now that he had been looking only at himself, reflected.
A Land So Wild - Elyssa Warkentin, 5/5 I was wrong about writing our own story. We are not writing at all, but rather learning to read it in the darkness.
The No You Never Listened To - Meggie Royer, 3/5 Please know: Your skin was not a yes.
The Medium - Bonnie Dee, 3/5 All my life is a very long time to deny the truth.
The First Men in the Moon - H.G. Wells, 4/5 Sitting there in the midst of that useless moon gold, amidst the things of another world, I took count of all my life.
Something Human - A.J. Demas, 4/5 But it didn’t feel as if he had stopped being something, rather as if he had begun to be something else.
Mr Dickens and His Carol - Samantha Silva, 4/5
There was a knowing beyond thinking, beneath words.
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens, 5/5 “Why show me this, if I am past all hope?”
The Trauma Cleaner - Sarah Krasnostein, 4/5 Absence is a presence like dark matter and black holes.
Harry’s Last Stand - Harry Leslie Smith, 4/5 Before we are no more, we should aspire to do something that makes us a better human being.
Were I asked to pick a top ten, it would be as follows (in no particular order):
The Only Harmless Great Thing - Brooke Bolander
A Land So Wild - Elyssa Warkentin
The Illumination of Ursula Flight
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Anna-Marie Crowhurst
Hansen’s Children - Ognjen Spahić
The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, volume 1 - Harriette Wilson
Trail of Broken Wings - Sejal Badani
Think of England - K.J. Charles
The Good People - Hannah Kent
Born a Crime - Trevor Noah
Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture - ed. Roxane Gay
Next year, my aim is to focus less on quantity (i.e. I don’t need to read 140 to beat this year…) and try to read more weighty books; not necessarily in terms of page count, but in terms of subject matter and influence. I’d also like to read more works in translation and keep trying to read more works by Welsh authors. Let’s see how it goes.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! Please drink lots of water today and sing along to many happy tunes and take care of yourself and remember that you are rad! Dionysus loves you!
I sure do!! She is 12 minutes older than me and never lets me forget it!! She used to do up my buttons for me when we were tiny infants!! I taught her how to tell the time!! She is hateful!! I don’t like her one bit!!
