Tag: novels

We asked some of our postgraduate researchers in Creative Writing to tell us about a few things they have read and particularly enjoyed in 2024.

RAMISHA RAFIQUE

During the summer, I found an amazing article about Nida Manzoor’s We Are Lady Parts – a TV show about a female Muslim Punk Band. Muzna Rahman’s ‘Indigestible performances: Women, punk, and the limits of British multiculturalism in Nida Mazoor’s We Are Lady Parts’, in The Journal of Postcolonial Writing (2024), was really entertaining to read. I wished she’d written it sooner, as it made me want to write about a Punk Postcolonial Flâneuse (something I’m currently working on). I also made a conscious decision to read more poetry and fiction by Palestinian writers and poets. Two poetry collections that stood out to me were Forest of Noise: Poems by Mosab Abu Toha (2024) and Hasib Hourani’s Rock Flight (2024), both beautiful expressions of resistance and empowering Palestinian voices. Hourani also visited Nottingham for a reading at Five Leaves Bookshop in December, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to him read. Links: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449855.2024.2361148 https://fiveleavesbookshop.co.uk/product/rock-flight/ https://fiveleavesbookshop.co.uk/product/forest-of-noise/

JULIE GARDNER

My supervisor once told me that I can’t just write about the poets I like, but here I am writing about two of them. Barbara Kingsolver is well-known as a novelist but I hadn’t realised until recently that she is also a poet. The poems in How To Fly (in Ten Thousand Easy Lessons) are accessible, witty and thought provoking. The first poem in the book is ‘How to Drink Water When There is Wine’. It begins, ‘How to stay at this desk when the sun / is barefooting cartwheels over the grass.’ I was hooked. Rebecca Goss is one of those poets whose name is familiar but who never seems to be in the limelight. I think she should be. Her fourth collection, Latch, was perhaps my favourite poetry find of the year and having read it I wanted to read more. Since then, I have also read two of her earlier collections, Her Birth and Girl. They didn’t disappoint.

LUCY GRACE

Two short novels I’ve enjoyed recently are Clear by Carys Davies (Granta, 2024) and Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Vintage, 2024). At 146 and 136 pages respectively, they could be seen as quick reads, but it is worth lingering over the carefully crafted sentences. Clear is set in 1843 on a small island between Shetland and Norway, and Orbital is set on an orbiting space station. Both have limited characters with different languages and ways of being, both describe the natural world, and both have a ‘ticking clock’ device – over a period of four weeks and over a single day. The concise writing is an excellent model for my own fiction. Orbital is available to listen to here. In my thesis, I’m writing about literature concerned with geology, deep-time and Iceland. Here, artist Ilana Halperin discusses ‘the idea of living in geologic solidarity. We are part of a growing geosocial family with shared responsibility that extends across the surface of the Earth.’ I first came across her work in Nottingham Contemporary Gallery in this 2022 exhibition.

STEVE KATON

Two of the favourite things I read last year were Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain and Wild: Tales from Early Medieval, both written by the historian Amy Jeffs. Storyland starts with an origin story for Albion, describing how it was populated by Syrian refugees, all women, who were washed up in a small boat on the Kent coast. (Anyone sensing the irony there?) They gave birth to giants after coupling with fallen angels! Each chapter in both books begins with one of Jeffs’ excellent retellings of an old myth, followed by a critical analysis talking about her sources, her travels and any liberties she may have taken with each tale. As a critical/creative PhD student myself, I found her writing and presentation inspiring, but to be honest I just love the way she tells stories. Also, I reread Lord of the Rings fairly regularly, so finding Andy Serkis’ audiobook versions to listen to on long car journeys made me very happy!