Review: Chinglish by Sue Cheung
March 15, 2021
As the new year unfolds, to ‘read more’ is undoubtedly many of our new year’s resolution, mine included. However, for us English students this goal becomes far greater since we aim to read more content not related to our course. My personal challenge of this year being to read more works by BAME authors. Having …
Rethinking the World with Chick Lit
February 19, 2021
This Christmas, I was gifted Cecelia Ahern’s One Hundred Names from a family member – with their flawed logic being that if I like the Bridget Jones movies, then romance fiction should be right up my street. But when I accidentally packed it to bring back to Uni alongside all my other books, giving it …
Review: Dark Wonders by Joshua Helmer
February 12, 2021
Dark Wonders is a set of three linked dystopian short stories from Nottingham-based writer Joshua Helmer. Comparisons to Black Mirror are easy to make, as the three stories involve a dark insight into a near future in which different forms of technology have an impact on humans and the world. However, underneath this genre similarity, …
Review: Someone Who Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
January 22, 2021
Few things pack an emotional punch the way Bojack Horseman, the animated TV show about a depressed talking horse, does. When it ended at the beginning of the year, I was looking for something to fill the void; luckily, creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg had written a new short story collection published last year. Someone Who Will …
Catharsis, Comfort and the Contemporary Poetry of Rupi Kaur
May 28, 2020
Reception of Rupi Kaur’s pared-down poetry divides her readership into those who celebrate her popularisation of poetry (Kaur sold more copies of her debut collection in 2016 than the other top ten poets combined) and those who decry her work as somehow lazy in its brevity, and lacking the vocabulary and sophistication of traditional poetry. …
Review: The Emotional Impact of Pale Blue Dot
March 5, 2020
In times of stress or worry, I think it’s important to read literature that puts things into perspective. I am always drawn to “YOU ARE HERE”, a chapter in Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, the most reflective and emotionally impactful work of non-fiction I have read. The chapter describes the journey NASA’s Voyager was making …
Review: Ted Chiang’s Short Story Collections
January 30, 2020
Reading short stories is a satisfying use of leisure time for when you’re busy or just have a short attention span. It’s also vital to getting through the Creative Writing module. For me, there is no greater master of short stories than Chinese-American sci-fi author Ted Chiang. One of the most prestigious, least prolific authors …
Book review on Slavery in Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved’
June 10, 2019
This blog was written by first year English student, Harriet Mills. Morrison gives the voice to the people who didn’t have one and for me this is what made her tale on the impact of slavery, such an interesting and eye opening read. True, we cannot empathise with the characters but such a detail on …
Summer reading check list…
June 3, 2019
This blog was written by second year English student, Emily Hall. As the expanse of summer stretches out before us, many people will look forward to different things. Holidays, parties, weddings; all of the summer fun you can imagine. Perhaps something less common, but a relief for English students is knowing that you can finally …
Book Review: Rachael Allen’s Kingdomland
May 16, 2019
This blog was written by second year English with Creative Writing student, Bethany Mitchell. Rachael Allen’s much anticipated first full collection of poetry (published in January this year by Faber and Faber) does not disappoint. With characteristic bluntness and fantastic attention to imagery, her poems are luminous and astonishing. At times, Allen’s poems are abstract, …
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