It is! I discovered it randomly on here, and it was so much more than what I was expecting. Fiction my usual but recently I've been finding more joy in creative non-fiction.
06.03.2026 10:10
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It is! I discovered it randomly on here, and it was so much more than what I was expecting. Fiction my usual but recently I've been finding more joy in creative non-fiction.
Kinship by Dorothy Cross Featuring artists' works and essays inspired by the return of an ordinary mummified man to his homeland from Ireland to Egypt.
Kinship by #DorothyCross, because it's curated by an artist interested in the ordinary ancient, and in making things right, while also allowing others to share their thoughts as she makes her own enquiries, both practically and artistically.
Thought provoking essays and an exhibition in a book. 💙📚
The 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist is OUT!
Discover this incredible list and support indie bookshops: @womensprize.bsky.social
uk.bookshop.org/lists/the-20...
Collage resembling a walking hedgehog, side view, moving left created with different coloured patterned paper
Clare Youngs, contemporary graphic designer and artist who works with collage, paper and fabric #womensart
It’s time to reveal the 2026 #WomensPrize for Non-Fiction longlist! A hopeful list, these are 16 books that reflect the belief that every woman’s voice has the power to elicit and inspire change: youtu.be/ScHiI1saMCY
In Kinship/Home, composed by Dorothy Cross, Philippe Sands writes of a visit to the Chagos archipelago in 2021. It has been 3 yrs since the international court of justice in The Hague ruled it was part of the terrotory of Mauritius, and that Britain must end its illegal occupation. He travels with Liseby, to visit her birthplace, Île du Coin, a visit made possible by the case brought by Mauritius against the Maldives in Hamburg, at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. They film the return of the Chagossians, on an amphibious landing craft, pulling up on an old jetty. The roots of an old banyan tree have spread over the stone steps, surrounded by five decades of debris. Nature crushes the remnants of colonial civilisation.
#PhilippeSands writes of the #Chagos archipelago.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled it part of Mauritius. Britain must end its occupation.
He travels with Liseby who visits her birthplace Île du Coin, dances on sand, sings, tends family graves, watched afar by a strange ship.
Black text in a white rectangle, reading "Your imagination is not a commodity, it is a lifeline."
Tapping the sign
One Aladdin Two Lamps by Jeanette Winterson
Thought-provoking essays from #JeanetteWinterson consider the non-western structure of Arabian Nights, a British obsession with Aladdin, what we can take from these stories, looking at life today.
Engaging on life, storytelling, saviour of imagination, changing the narrative.
One Aladdin Two Lamps
The Climate Fiction Prize longlist looks fantastic 😍 A few that were on my radar and more to explore...
climatefictionprize.co.uk/longlist-2026/
Reading Tangerinn by #EmanuelaAnechoum translated by Lucy Rand.
Interesting account of voming to terms with the effect of living outside one's home and culture, understanding the inner frustrations of not belonging or making peace with being an "other".
Mimosa flowers in bloom
Mimosa flowers in the foreground, the 12 metre statue Notre Dame D'Afrique in the background. Homage to Franco-Algerian history.
It's mimosa season and there's nothing like appreciating it growing wild in the hills overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
Today's walk up to Notre Dame d'Afrique.
Kinship Home by Dorothy Cross
Sharing words, poems, short prose essays on time, loss, death and the passage of humans: invited by #DorothyCross to contribute are:
Sonali Deraniyagala, Nadra Mabrouk, Hisham Matar, Edmund de Waal, Rosemary Mahoney, Ahdaf Soueif, Philippe Sands, John Fitzgerald, Michael D.Higgins, Max Porter.
Book cover of Kinship Home (2025) by Dorothy Cross. A story through image and essay of the return of a mummified body of a man to his homeland, Egypt. Buried over 2000 years ago, he spent over 100 years in Ireland. The sarcophagus was given to University College Cork where it was stored for over a century. His return is in recognition of displaced people everywhere, especially the continued disappearance of those attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Invited authors share their perspectives on life, loss, death and moving from place to place, including Hisham Matar, Edmund de Waal, Michael Higgins, Nadra Mabrouk, Max Porter, Ahdaf Soueif. Dorothy Cross is an Irish visual artist, whose work ranges from object to opera.
Reading this stunning book of essays, poems, images in Kinship/Home by Irish visual artist #DorothyCross
It commemorates the return of the mummified body of a man in an Egyptian sarcophagus that was buried over 2000 yrs ago, that has been in Ireland since the 1920s.
For displaced peoples everwhere
The interview.
Highly recommended to learn the path from scientist to lawyer to playwright in order to effect change against rampant and sustained injustice embedded in law.
Suzie Miller: The woman behind Prima Facie, the sell-out play starring Jodie Comer
www.irishtimes.com/podcasts/the...
Book covers of two plays by Suzie Miller, Prima Facie and Inter Alia on a mosaic outdoor table with a metal time containing chess pieces.
Inspired by an interview with #SuzieMiller I read 2 plays #primafacie & #Interalia
They are a challenge to justice, the law and the way we parent, from within.
Her protagonists are schooled in the law. When they find themselves victims & parents of a perpetrator, they experience its full horror.
Book cover of the Booker shortlisted (2023) Irish novel The Bee Sting by Paul Murray In the background, a yellow, blooming mimosa plant.
"parenthood was like-it was–living with a person. A new person, with strong opinions, strong tastes, arbitrary swings of emotion, all of them addressed at you. You were the passive one: the work of care was primarily to endure, to weather the endless, buffeting storms of unmediated will"
The 🐝 Sting
Always enjoy checking out this longlist, authors to keep an eye on.
Amour, colère et folie
Love, Anger, Madness by Marie Vieux Chauvet tr. from French by Rose-Myriam Réjouis & Val Vinokur
a scathing response to the struggles of race, class & sex that ruled Haiti, a trilogy of novellas originally suppressed on publication in 1968
clairemcalpine.com/2021/08/26/l...
Segu by #MaryseConde also translated by Barbara Bray
A huge turning point in understanding her own ancestral history for the author.
clairemcalpine.com/2016/01/13/s...
The Bridge of Beyond by Simone Schwartz Bart translated from French by Barbara Bray
clairemcalpine.com/2016/08/14/t...
Reviewed on the blog now, true crime by #HelenGarner
This House of Grief
Courtroom drama in a tragic case, following the game of law, the tricks and tools of justice, evidence vs character, protocols vs truth and the insightful perceptions of a 16 yr old niece.
clairemcalpine.com/2026/01/21/t...
I know what you mean, that's why I read these two, but the diaries sounded so good!
I think this one is ok to start with, The Mushroom Tapes is more recent and a collaborative approach, but the one I really wanted to read was this, as it is the most acclaimed. I haven't read any of her fiction which is unusual for me, but for some reason I'm drawn to the true crime and diaries.
Ultimately it is for a jury to decide and a judge to sentence.
As the American writer Janet Malcolm said in her magisterial work ‘The Journalist and the Murderer,’
“Jurors sit there presumably weighing evidence but in actuality they are studying character.”
#HelenGarner This House of Grief
Reviewed on the blog now, true crime by #HelenGarner
This House of Grief
Courtroom drama in a tragic case, following the game of law, the tricks and tools of justice, evidence vs character, protocols vs truth and the insightful perceptions of a 16 yr old niece.
clairemcalpine.com/2026/01/21/t...
Abstract painting with multicoloured circular forms and diagonal line
Ukrainian-born French artist and designer Sonia Delaunay, Rythme colour, 1946 #womensart
1 night, 24 Dec 1943 in Rome, a dangerous mission, voices from
1963 transcripts. BBC research interviews of 'The Choir' a resistance group operating in Vatican City.
Taut, cinematic prose builds tension, man on a mission hunted.
My Father's House #JosephOConnor
clairemcalpine.com/2026/01/19/m...
3 literary authors take a road trip, deciding to follow a courtroom trial of murder by poison.
4 dinner guests became ill after dining on Beef Wellington.
Only 1 survived.
#HelenGarner #ChloeHooper and #SarahKrasnostein in
The Mushroom Tapes
Riveting #truecrime
clairemcalpine.com/2026/01/18/t...
1 night, 24 Dec 1943 in Rome, a dangerous mission, voices from
1963 transcripts. BBC research interviews of 'The Choir' a resistance group operating in Vatican City.
Taut, cinematic prose builds tension, man on a mission hunted.
My Father's House #JosephOConnor
clairemcalpine.com/2026/01/19/m...
"One wild domestic detail galvanises us: his dying aunt remembered that the guests ate off four grey plates, while the hostess served herself on an orange one.
On day five we get in the car."
The Mushroom Tapes: Conversations on a Triple Murder Trial ⚖️🍄
#HelenGarner #ChloeHooper #SarahKrasnostein