‘I have lost plenty of people. Every loss is a lessening. Every loss makes one more aware of how much there is to lose. But the death of my mother was something else. I don’t know when she died. She had dementia. For ten years she was among us in the midst of life cut off. An island going down under rising sea-levels. A skyscraper collapsing in a decade-long earthquake. A sunset sleepier than a druid’s daydream. It began in her mid-sixties. It was over before her seventy-fifth birthday. It wasn’t like an island or a skyscraper or a sunset. These similes are to no purpose. Nothing captures the pace of her descent into where she went.’
Bookanista shares Marbles, a chapter from Mother: A Memoir by Nicholas Royle (available to order now).
Bernardine Evaristo, contributor to 
Margaret Busby
To celebrate the launch of 
Nobel-prize winning author Toni Morrison has died at the age of 88. She was the first black woman to receive the Nobel Prize for literature, awarded in 1993.
‘Kate Charlesworth’s
The Murder of Harriet Monckton
The Lady Doctor
The 
PassBlue, an independent, women-led journalism site, shares excerpts from
Sensible Footwear: A Girl’s Guide featured in The Irish Times article,
‘I am strongly opposed to capital punishment in any form, for anyone. As for hanging rapists, it just seems stupid to assume that this will change anything, except make a statement that we are a barbaric society. ‘
Sohaila was invited to Politics and Prose bookstore to discuss What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape in front of a live audience. Watch her
Gareth Brookes’ graphic novel, 
‘Now, my heroes are less likely to perform the blatant prodigies of Baun-Bligh-Duc and more likely to manifest the quiet radiance of a skinny, white-haired woman I will call Joan. Joan is in her early 70s. Apart from her dark-framed glasses, she has no features that would make her stand out in a crowd – which is just as well, as she is, and would no doubt like to remain, a hero in hiding.’
‘I wanted this balance: rape is serious but, like everything else in life, you can be light. In fact, part of the whole problem, certainly in India, is that if you’re raped, you’re supposed to be overcome with heaviness and die.’