After #jancarson 's The Raptures, I read #MiriamToews novel, A Complicated Kindness & was surprised to find a common theme #Rapture Teenage Nomi is Mennonite trying to work out why her sister & mother have disappeared and begins to question this eternal life belief system that shuns so easily. 💙📚

I'm immersing in the riveting 'Land' by #MaggieOFarrell, the cover depicting a water source, a welcome representation on yet another very hot day. Now 34°C rising to 37°C. Incredibly descriptive, full of love for language, both Irish and English. Here, we encounter theodolite and pellucid.

Maija Isola (1927– 2001) Finnish designer of printed textiles who created over 500 patterns, including Unikko ("Poppy") #womensart

N. Ireland 1993. When children from a class in a small town begin dying from a mysterious illness, locals react, exposing the realities of family life in a community amidst "the Troubles." One family seems to be immune. A thought-provoking portrayal of an affective legacy The Raptures, #JanCarson

Kenojuak Ashevak Birds from the Sea, 1960 Inuk artist #WomensArt

"As an adoption social worker at that time, I remember the trauma suffered by birth parents when their babies were removed for adoption. However, I’m afraid that the parents of these women cannot be let off the hook." www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...?

Hattie is called back from Paris by her 11 yr old niece due to hospitalisation of unstable mother Min. When 15 yr old Logan gets expelled, they hit the road to find a long departed father. Ideal summer read, pacy, dramatic, funny, total feel good. The Flying Troutmans #MiriamToews 🇨🇦 #roadtrip 📚💙

Hattie is called back from Paris by her 11 yr old niece due to hospitalisation of unstable mother Min. When 15 yr old Logan gets expelled, they hit the road to find a long departed father. Ideal summer read, pacy, dramatic, funny, total feel good. The Flying Troutmans #MiriamToews 🇨🇦 #roadtrip 📚💙

Morning sun, 1999 by Yayoi Kusama #WomensArt #heatwave

Strategy for a heatwave. The White Book by #HanKang, evoking images of show, cold & plummeting air temperatures. Short vignettes of past & present evoking white, cold, death, memory, a dead sister, a dog named Fog. The many unanswered questions of existence, the in-between of sleep & wakefulness.

Strategy for a heatwave. The White Book by #HanKang, evoking images of show, cold & plummeting air temperatures. Short vignettes of past & present evoking white, cold, death, memory, a dead sister, a dog named Fog. The many unanswered questions of existence, the in-between of sleep & wakefulness.

A Mask the Colour of the Sky by #BassemKhandaqji Nur, an archaeologist from a refugee camp in Ramallah, finds an Israeli ID card in an old coat. Adopting the mask of the occupier he attempts to understand a mindset. Joining a dig, Nur passing as Or, grapples with inner conflict. Though provoking.

An excellent, transformative tale of Anna. She looks at her life with bafflement. How did it come to be? Well read #CarlJung #AlbertCamus lacking agency, prone to obsession, her life reaches a tipping point, a beautiful loan to herself. Perseverance rewards. A Beautiful Loan by #MaryCostello 💙📚

Unsettling, compelling, mysterious, dark. Madelaine, a foundling, enters a repressive peasant community without having been conditioned into submission. Her instincts run contrary to theirs, unsettling an unsustainable way of life lead. Brilliant. Madelaine Before the Dawn by #SandrineCollette 🇫🇷

Georgia O'Keeffe, Sunrise, 1916 #WomensArt

Rediscovering French women author voices through translation decades after initial publication, from #MarieNdiaye ’s The Witch, to #JacquelineHarpman ’s 1995 novel I Who Have Never Known Men to #HélèneBessette 's Lili is Crying (1953) and Twenty Minutes of Silence (1954)...

Excellent review of Shame by #AnnieErnaux from @jacquiwine.bsky.social "Ernaux uses these incidents as a springboard for examining how shame was embedded in the society she was raised in, encompassing the links to social class, religion and the dominant social codes of the day." wp.me/p4zVo7-3bg

Currently reading this political satire set in a futuristic New Zealand where everything familiar is renamed and Earth has been colonised by non-Humans. A mixed race young man wants to help Humans so enters the system to try and change things ftom within. Turncoat by #TihemaBaker Ockham longlisted

Reason 8: Serendipity Lives Here Online shopping gives you what you typed in. Independent bookshops give you the book you notice sideways, pick up by accident, read one page of, and suddenly cannot live without. Serendipity: still undefeated. #IndieBookshopWeek @booksaremybag.bsky.social

Currently reading this political satire set in a futuristic New Zealand where everything familiar is renamed and Earth has been colonised by non-Humans. A mixed race young man wants to help Humans so enters the system to try and change things ftom within. Turncoat by #TihemaBaker Ockham longlisted

Diana Catchpole, contemporary UK illustrator and printmaker #WomensArt

Indigenous Australian artist Judy Watson Napangardi, Snake Vine (Ngalyipi) Dreaming, 2001 #womensart

Pots, pots, pots A visit today to the wonderful provençal Poterie Ravel in Aubagne. Decided on a basilic pot and pale green water jug and matching mug. Late Christmas voucher #pottery #artisans

1920, a remote farmhouse near Avignon. Ettie lives with a reclusive tyrannical artist uncle. Joseph arrives to interview him. Mystery, romantic tension, a badly behaved, spoiled artist who has coerced his niece to take care of his needs for little in return. Unique revenge. The Artist #LucySteeds

Red Poppy No. V, 1928 by Georgia O'Keeffe #womensart

The 2026 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction is awarded to Lyse Doucet for 'The Finest Hotel In Kabul: A People's History of Afghanistan'. Congratulations Lyse!

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans is the 2026 winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction. Congratulations Virginia! @michaeljbooks.bsky.social

Immersing in the 1940's & 1950's NY city and New Eng. suburban worlds of The Street & The Narrows by #AnnPetry Centred around residential communities, survival of inhabitants confronting challenges of their birth circumstance & who they are becoming, in those environments. Highly Recommended.

Michelle Mischkulnig, contemporary Australian textile artist #womensart

What a joy to pick this up, to be completely immersed, intrigued, entertained by interlinked characters, connections, disappointments and dilemmas, navigating the lives of diverse, complex British women, each one of whom could have been a novel in herself. Girl, Woman, Other by #BernadineEvaristo 🎭

#BookReview of This is Also a Love Story by Sally Hayden www.swirlandthread.com/this-is-also... from @maireadhearne.bsky.social

Boglands/Crá It's a long long time since I heard any Irish, so it was a treat of sorts to watch this, even if I had to lean very heavily on the French subtitles to understand it. Free to watch until the end of June www.arte.tv/fr/videos/RC...

Sunday

My weekend reading, Kin by #TayariJones Motherless, childhood friends, Vernice & Annie launch into adulthood carrying abandonment wounds. One runs to Memphis to find her mother, the other to Atlanta for an education and a substitute. Alternating chapters lead them away from & back to each other.

#DoireannNiGhriofa on 'Said The Dead' true stories of patients at a Victorian psychiatric hospital; a place she may have found herself at a different time. "there’s a bruised element to living in the immediate aftermath & in the ongoingness of such institutions” www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

#BookReview of Walking to the Foot of the Sky by Miriam Mulcahy | @mirmulcahy.bsky.social www.swirlandthread.com/walking-to-t...

Walking to the Foot of the Sky, an account of my 700k walk through Ireland on the Beara Breifne Way, following the footsteps of a 17C Gaelic Chieftain who left West Cork with 1000 followers in January 1603, arrived in Leitrim 14 days later with 35 Out May 7 @edoloughlin.bsky.social

An extract from #EceTemelkuran Nation of Strangers "when my Western publishers asked me to write about why my country was so “crazy,” I did. But I went further. I also wrote about how their countries were in danger of becoming insane sooner than they might think." lithub.com/an-exiles-gu...

“Sweep the house with blossomed broom in May, And you sweep the luck of the house away.” In times past, twigs of Broom, Cytisus scoparius, were tied together to make sweeping brushes, and in the post-medieval period the word “broom” began to replace “besom” 🧹 #FolkloreThursday

Excellent review @hararereview.com "In NDiaye’s sharp, wry, tongue-in-cheek prose, she’s at no point didactic—but she manages to make salient points about the multifariousness of women’s circumstances." "a quick read, often darkly funny" International Booker Prize shortlist @thebookerprizes.com

Longtemps, la lecture des femmes a été surveillée, limitée, encadrée, voire interdite. Apprendre à lire ne signifiait pas seulement déchiffrer des mots : c’était accéder à une forme d’autonomie, de pensée et d’émancipation. ➡️ https://l.franceculture.fr/pR0

Bon 1er mai 🌱

A reminder that I have this up on the blog and you can check back every month for ... Books from African authors and authors of African descent to look forward to in 2026 hararereview.com/2026/01/12/b...

Presenting the simply stunning Exclusive Kennys Limited Edition of the new Doireann ní Ghríofa. Available only at Kennys, it will be signed by the author and contains a poem Doireann has written exclusively for this edition. We can't stop looking at it! 💙 www.kennys.ie/shop/kennys-...

'Flower Girl' by contemporary painter Julie Collins #WomensArt

Recently finished this thoroughly extraordinary account of dedication & perseverance, the journey & battle to obtain an apology, redress and restorative justice for victims + survivors of #MagdaleneLaundries in Ireland from a state whose strategy was diminish, deny, delay. A Campaign for Justice

Irish Literary News: April Irish writing + news in the literary community ▪︎French prize for The Boy From the Sea ▪︎New Island Books acquire No One Tells You: The Last Years of Edna O’Brien by #CarloGébler ▪︎Kerry Novel Prize shortlist 6 novels ▪︎Summer Literary Festivals ▪︎1926 census wp.me/p49UqI-5cL

Irish women & girls needn't become pregnant to be detained in a Magdalene laundry” The majority “were no more than the wayward & unwanted; homeless, needy, abused or rejected. It was their very existence that was treated as offensive.” The Fallen #LouiseBrangan www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...?

Will this one lure me back to fiction? Opening Line: "A swamp knows more than people about most things" THE MIRES BY #TinaMakereti Three women give birth in different countries and decades. In the near future, they become neighbours in a coastal town. The swamp beneath their feet watches, waits.