Review – Posted in the Past

Posted February 23, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Posted in the Past

Posted in the Past: Revealing the True Stories Written on a Postcard

by Helen Baggott

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 286
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

Posted in the Past - the man who helped prepare Kitchener's last meal and other true stories.

A young pupil writing to a teacher, a courting couple that might get married, a 10-year-old servant working for a laundress in 19th-century Bath, a maid who worked for Edward VII's doctor - all are connected by messages sent using the first real social media phenomenon of the 20th century.

Using a genealogist's toolbox, Posted in the Past reveals the stories behind postcards sent more than a hundred years ago. Families who emigrated across the Atlantic to America and Canada, those who returned, and those who found tragedy aboard RMS Empress of Ireland in an event that could only be eclipsed by that of Titanic's, are remembered through postcards.

The safe arrival of a precious grandchild, a train delayed by the first national rail strike, bad weather, good luck - messages that go beyond 'wish you were here?' and open the door to the past. Weavers, button makers, butlers, motor bus drivers, a fitter of sanitary appliances and even the owner of a steamship - industrious employment from mills to the sea and all revealed in Posted in the Past.

Have you ever watched Who Do You Think You Are? and A House Through Time and thought about researching your own family's history? Perhaps you've started a family tree and soon become stumped? Posted in the Past is sure to ignite your enthusiasm to learn more about your own history. As well as revealing the stories behind the postcards, Posted in the Past also shares how some of the research was completed, providing tips for the beginner genealogist.

The book is illustrated with black and white images of both sides of the postcards and can be viewed in colour on a blog that accompanies the book.

Helen Baggott’s Posted in the Past focuses more on the genealogy of the senders/recipients of the postcards she discusses rather than the actual stories of the postcards themselves. In part that makes a lot of sense — most postcards are fairly prosaic due to the small amount of space to write, and the ephemeral details they often contain are hard to track down.

Still, it doesn’t make for the most riveting reading, alas. Each story is much like the last, varying only in the details, even down to the kind of detective work needed to discover the connections between people. There were some neat connections made — a realisation that one postcard was actually related to another card in the author’s collection — but overall, I found it more interesting to look at/read the postcards and try to fill in the details a bit, rather than reading the genealogy stuff.

I’m certain it has an audience, though, it’s just not me!

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

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Fantasy With Friends: The Chosen One

Posted February 23, 2026 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Fantasy With Friends: A Disccusion Meme hosted by Pages Unbound

It’s Monday, so time for more of the Fantasy With Friends discussion meme (hosted at Pages Unbound). This week’s discussion theme iiiis:

“The Chosen One” is an often-mocked trope in fantasy literature. Do you frequently run across this trope in the books you read, or has it been a while since you encountered it? Do you dislike it, or do you think it can be done well? Are there any interesting twists on the Chosen One you’ve seen?

I think the “Chosen One” trope can be a lot of fun whether it’s played straight, subverted, or dissected. I’m actually having trouble thinking up examples right now where it’s played straight, because that was more common in a different era of my reading, and it also depends on how literal you want to be. To hark back to Tolkien, since we were talking about it last week, was Frodo chosen, as Gandalf suggests? Or did he just put his hand up and take it on because he was a good person? Is it kinda both? I know a lot of people read it as Frodo being Chosen, but does that mean he doesn’t have a choice…?

Playing it straight but digging into what it might mean to be Chosen, Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children books try to examine the impact on the the type of Chosen Ones who travel to another world (like the Pevensie kids in the Narnia books, and other portal fantasies), and what happens once their part in the stories is done. What happens if they stop fitting the role, or falter, or slip out of their world?

In more recent reading, I liked the way that Caitlin Rozakis’ The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association handled it. There’s a prophecy, there’s a constant stream of large and small disasters, and the protagonist’s kid is being whispered about as a bringer of calamity (while others are being positioned as potentially Chosen Ones to act in opposition to her). But (spoilers ahead) the prophecy isn’t like that at all, the kids are all just kids, and someone’s benefiting from pretending things might be otherwise.

Another way to play with the Chosen One trope is the accidentally Chosen One. I’m thinking of The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter, where the magical kingdom of Romany use magic to snatch a girl from modern Japan. She’s their Chosen One, but they inadvertently bring along Seiichirou Kondou as well because he sees her being dragged into a magical portal and begging for help, and goes to rescue her. In the end, he’s as instrumental as she is to solving the problem they needed a Chosen One for, if not more — and he makes sure they will never need to do so again, fixes the kingdom’s finances, and pushes along massive technological advances.

Along the way, Seiichirou also warns the girl who is the Chosen One not to blindly help the kingdom without examining what they’re asking of her, which… she doesn’t take well, but is actually a good point. What if you’re chosen for something awful? I think “the Chosen One doesn’t want to be a Chosen One” (for whatever reason) is probably a bit overplayed itself by now in simple forms, but I can think of a bunch of fun ways to play with it still…

On another tangent, I love that in Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, Huiwon gets sponsored by a righteous “constellation”, and gets a skill called “Time of Judgement”, which allows her to fight and destroy evildoers. It’s not quite the same as the Chosen One trope, but she’s chosen by the constellation and essentially becomes his incarnation, so it’s close. The problem is, “Time of Judgement” will only activate when approved by her sponsor and constellations aligned with him, and Huiwon’s definition of evil and evildoers is different from theirs. Early in the story, she frequently tries to call on “Time of Judgement” and is declined, even when she sees things she feels are deeply wrong. So what if you’re a Chosen One, but your intentions don’t fully align with those of whoever is doing the choosing?

So… I think there are reasons to mock or avoid the trope, because it can be really overused and under-examined. For me, though, there are so many ways to put a fun spin on it, or dig into what it might actually mean for the characters, and otherwise do surprising and interesting things with it. I won’t say I’d never read stuff with a Chosen One trope, but I do prefer it when people are consciously playing with it and teasing out the implications!

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Review – And Side by Side They Wander

Posted February 22, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – And Side by Side They Wander

And Side by Side They Wander

by Molly Tanzer

Genres: Science Fiction
Pages: 112
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

An intergalactic art heist by a ragtag group of underqualified misfits. What could go wrong?

For three hundred years, humanity’s greatest works of art have been on loan at the Museum of the Seed-Born. It was finally time for them to come home...but the alien curators were disinclined to return them.

Force was out of the question. Earth’s government was clear: they were not going to press the issue. So, all we had was guile and hubris to fuel our little intergalactic art heist.

My old friend Tarquin was our leader, but not the captain. That was Tchik-tchik, though whether Tchik-tchik was our insectoid pilot’s name or species is still unclear to me. Misora, with her extremely illegal biotech mods, was our muscle.

Jack was there to hack the security systems of the biggest museum in the galaxy. He was a sensynth, a sentient synthetic being, and the most powerful machine intelligence on Earth uncorrupted by alien technology.

My name is Fennel Tycho. I’d like to tell you I was there because of my expertise in Art History. Truth is, I was there because without me, Jack would not have agreed to go. He was notorious for being difficult to work with—but it was a mistake to think I could make things any easier.

A meditation on the nature of love, life, and the "culture of the copy," And Side by Side They Wander asks the question: In a future where there are clones, androids, and a sentient mycelium that creates fungal simulacra, who is real and what is fake?

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Molly Tanzer’s And Side by Side They Wander is very clearly inspired by the actions of the British Museum, and their subsequent unlikelihood of ever voluntarily returning the items that were taken, though there are a number of other themes and ideas packed in there as well. There are references to Orpheus and Eurydice, musing on whether replicas of art pieces are still as moving and important as the originals, discussion of humanity royally messing itself up, sextuplets all folded up into the same body somehow (and able to separate when needed), the Great Mycelium which is clearly somewhat negotiating with humans… Tanzer’s clearly not short on ideas.

It really worked for me, on the whole; I’ve been fussy about what I want to read lately, having trouble settling, but I slid right into this. It helps that it’s short, of course, and the chapters are short too: it moves quickly and doesn’t linger too long on any one idea. Sometimes I’d have loved more information, but I think it’s a good thing that it doesn’t linger, because that’s not what the narrator’s interested in.

Sometimes the references to the British Museum feel just a little bit too obvious — I don’t want to spoiler exactly what happens, but suffice it to say that the same arguments for not returning art, like “our accessions policy doesn’t allow for it”, are parroted back just as ever by the villain of the piece.

A lot of questions are raised which the story doesn’t even try to answer, and indeed can’t, about what art is exactly, and what it means, but it works — it didn’t feel unfinished to me. Just a glimpse of one life, one perspective, one moment in time. It didn’t need to be more.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – Wolf Worm

Posted February 21, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 10 Comments

Review – Wolf Worm

Wolf Worm

by T. Kingfisher

Genres: Horror
Pages: 288
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Something darker than the devil stalks the North Carolina woods in Wolf Worm, a new gothic masterpiece from New York Times bestselling author T. Kingfisher

The year is 1899 and Sonia Wilson is a scientific illustrator without work, prospects, or hope. When the reclusive Dr. Halder offers her a position illustrating his vast collection of insects, Sonia jumps at the chance to move to his North Carolina manor house and put her talents to use. But soon enough she finds that there are darker things at work than the Carolina woods. What happened to her predecessor, Halder’s wife? Why are animals acting so strangely, and what is behind the peculiar local whispers about “blood thiefs?”

With the aid of the housekeeper and a local healer, Sonia discovers that Halder’s entomological studies have taken him down a dark road full of parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh, and that his monstrous experiments may grow to encompass his newest illustrator as well.

"Kingfisher is not afraid to twist the knife."—The Washington Post

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I wasn’t entirely sure whether T. Kingfisher’s Wolf Worm would be for me: I’m a wuss about horror at the best of times, and given that this one is deeply focused on insects — a major fear of mine, and a particularly gross set of insects at that — it seemed like it might be a bit too much. But I did okay, actually: it’s not that it wasn’t gross/scary, and there were some really disgusting moments that made me very glad that I’m aphantasic… but something about the scientific interest of the narrator spoke to me.

The narrator’s a lone young women who has a skill as a scientific illustrator, but has struggled to find the right way to use her skills. Illustrating insects for a doctor in a half-dilapidated North Carolina manor isn’t great, but it’s the best choice she has, and I loved the descriptions of her enjoyment of and satisfaction in her work (and though I can’t say I enjoyed the portrayal of her feelings when she doesn’t match up to her own expectations, it’s well done). Insects might not be her interest, but she does a thorough job, and takes pride in it.

It quickly becomes obvious her employer’s pretty nuts and that dark and weird things are happening around the estate. I couldn’t quite sympathise with Sonia’s decision to investigate it rather than just tell Mrs Kent what’s going on, but then, I’m a known wuss.

I can’t say too much about how things turn out without spoilers, but when you get to the thing that was surely one of the core ideas, the raison d’etre of this book, it is a pretty cool moment. The science part of it is fairly handwavey, compared to the accuracy about illustrating bugs and researching bug anatomy — Kingfisher isn’t a biologist, and the cracks do show here. It’s a cool idea, though.

If you have phobias about bugs, I suggest you find someone to give some clear trigger warnings about the types of bugs and the way they’re involved in the story. Screw-worms and botflies are the main ick factor, but that’s to gloss over exactly what happens with them. Suffice it to say that your flesh probably will crawl if you imagine things in any detail.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted February 21, 2026 by Nicky in General / 24 Comments

Weekend! Whew. It’s been a rough week, and I’m glad to see my weekend and my reading time.

Books acquired this week

I didn’t really expect/intend to get books this week, but it kinda happened anyway. I’d almost forgotten my hold on Murder at Gulls Nest, a book I saw a bunch of other bloggers post about; my wife picked it up for me once I got the notification it was ready! And I got a couple of new options out from the National Poetry Library, too:

Cover of Murder at Gulls Nest by Jess Kid Cover of Black Cat Bone by John Burnside Cover of Part of a Story that Started Before Me ed. George the Poet Cover of Wain by Rachel Plummer

I also got approved for another ARC on Netgalley, oops! So there’s this to look forward to as well:

Cover of Twig's Traveling Tomes by Gryffin Murphy

Posts from this week

As ever, I’ve posted a whole bunch of reviews, so let’s start off with the roundup of those:

As ever, it’s actually been a while since I read most of these, since I try to hold reviews back and provide some variety (rather than review 40 graphic novels in a row, which I could do with my backlog of reviews!).

I have done some other posts this week, so here they are:

What I’m reading

Work’s been a little, uh, intense this week, so I didn’t get a lot of time for myself — and when I did, I found it hard to get into the mood for reading, alas. Still, I did do some reading in the last week, and as ever, here’s a sneak peek of the ones that I will review on the blog… eventually:

Cover of Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher Cover of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation manhua vol 8 Cover of Monsterland by Nicholas Jubber

Cover of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation manhua vol 9 Cover of Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke Cover of Black Cat Bone by John Burnside Cover of Wain by Rachel Plummer

As for this weekend, once I’ve managed to unwind a bit, I hope to spend more time with Julie Leong’s The Keeper of Magic Things, and continue reading the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation manhua. I settled in a bit with Amy Coombe’s Stay for a Spell, so maybe I’ll read more of that too.

It’d be lovely to get a lot of reading done, but I’m conscious of being a bit frazzled, so we’ll see!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.

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Review – Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (light novel), vol 5

Posted February 20, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (light novel), vol 5

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation

by MĂČ Xiāng TĂłng XiĂč

Genres: Fantasy, Light Novels, Romance
Pages: 489
Series: Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (LN) #5
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

THE END OF AN EPIC TALE–AND WHAT COMES AFTER

Foes, allies, and one reassembled fierce corpse converge on the Guanyin Temple for a climactic showdown. With decades-long schemes finally unveiled, and dark secrets unearthed, the events of this rain-battered night will decide not just the fate of the entire cultivation world–but also that of a love story two lifetimes in the making.

Also included are eight short stories that focus on the future and the past. From magical incense burners to tense banquets, to lotus-pod hunting and nighttime expeditions with the juniors, these stories span from dawn to dusk and so much more!

It took me a while to get into MXTX’s Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, but by book five I was definitely all in with the main pairing, and feeling a lot of affection for various characters — even Jiang Cheng, who is a brash idiot, but has a lot of love in his heart nonetheless. This book finishes off the main story and then has a bunch of extras.

So, first the main story. It felt like… there was a lot of build-up for not a lot of payoff, plot-wise? It gave time for Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian’s pining to really build itself up, and I can see that it brings all the threads together, but the ending is a lot of talking and it kind of feels like it peters out, despite the confrontations, hostage situations, etc. The fact that it wasn’t all aimed squarely at Wei Wuxian made his and Lan Wangji’s involvement feel a touch… coincidental rather than necessary? It would’ve worked out differently without them, of course — it’s not like they’re superfluous — but… it felt like it was building up to something huge, and what happened felt largely like an explosion of intense interpersonal nonsense between powerful people and… I dunno, I’d been expecting more somehow?

In any case, the relationship between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji finally reaches where it needed to go, and that part is lovely.

The extras mostly expand on that, showing us Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s married life. There are some details that I side-eye heavily (Bichen, for one thing, and self-lubrication, for another, along with Wei Wuxian’s tendency to go “no no no” when he means yes) but the emotional notes are lovely.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – Quince

Posted February 19, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Quince

Quince

by Sebastian Kadlecik, Kit Steinkellner, Emma Steinkellner

Genres: Fantasy, Graphic Novels
Pages: 164
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Lupe is just your average, insecure, well-meaning, occasionally cranky teenage girl whose life is completely turned upside down when she discovers she has superpowers at her quinceañera. Her quince powers only last as long as she’s fifteen, so over the course of this rollercoaster year, we follow the adventures of Lupe as she figures out what it really means to be a hero.

Quince is a fun project which I read in the English translation. Sebastian Kadlecik, Kit Steinkellner and Emma Steinkellner worked together, bringing it out in 15 issues, one issue at a time, on the 15th of each month… Lupe is celebrating her quinceañera when she gets superheroes, and her abuela is there to guide her, recognising her powers as being given to her because she’s going to need them for some reason.

It doesn’t dig an enormous amount into the whys and hows, but I thought the idea of a temporary superhero — with powers only for the year she’s aged 15 — was kinda neat. We don’t hear a whole lot about what her abuela did with her own powers, but the bond between the two of them drives the story… and drives Lupe to fight crime.

I’d say I wasn’t 100% happy with the fact that the story never explains how she gets the powers, why they only last a year, why a teenage girl is the most appropriate, why her abuela is so certain there’s a purpose behind it, but I mostly kinda rolled with it. I found the ending a bit trite, and the lead-in to the social responsibility, volunteering, etc, kinda… cringe? It’d have felt more natural if there was some kind of explanation, like Lupe’s quince powers are intended to instill that in her.

I wasn’t an enormous fan of the art at first, but it really grew on me, and I love Lupe’s character design. She’s a Mexican plus-size superhero with super teenage expressions, ahaha, and the art and colours ended up feeling perfect for it.

Overall, I feel like it’s probably better for younger readers, and I’m hardly the target audience, but I had fun. It was a random pick from Comics Plus to fill a bingo card I was using to prompt me to explore the Comics Plus collection (this prompt being “superheroes, but not published by Marvel or DC”), and I’m glad I gave it a shot.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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Review – Bipolar Bear and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Health Insurance

Posted February 18, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Bipolar Bear and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Health Insurance

Bipolar Bear and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Health Insurance: A Fable for Grown-Ups

by Kathleen Founds

Genres: Graphic Novels
Pages: 200
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Theodore is a bear with wild mood swings. When he is up, he carves epic poetry into tree trunks. When he is down, he paints sad faces on rocks and turtle shells. In search of prescription medications that will bring stability to his life, Theodore finds a job with health insurance benefits. He gets the meds, but when he can't pay the psychiatrist's bill, he becomes lost in the Labyrinth of Health Insurance Claims.

This witty and colorful tale follows the comical exploits of Theodore, a lovable and relatable bear, as he copes with bipolar disorder, navigates the inequities of capitalist society, founds a commune, and becomes an activist, all the while accompanied by a memorable cast of characters--fat-cat insurance CEOs, a wrongfully convicted snake, raccoons with tommy guns, and an unemployed old dog who cannot learn new tricks.

Entertaining, whimsical, and bitingly satirical, Bipolar Bear is a fable for grownups that manages the delicate balance of addressing society's ills while simultaneously presenting a hopeful vision for the world.

Bipolar Bear and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Health Insurance is an awesome concept, and it’s worth paying attention to the subtitle too (“A Fable for Grownups”), because it very much is a fable, and aimed at adults (definitely not kids). Kathleen Founds is writing with experience, very clearly, addressing some of the experiences of bipolar disorder, but also of navigating an insurance-based health system (and how bipolar disorder can add its own pitfalls to that).

Obviously it does feel very, very American; some of these problems don’t apply here in the UK, though (as I understand it from my mother, who is a psychiatrist) the problem of e.g. someone deciding they feel well and going off their medication (which is, of course, the reason they felt well) certainly does cause problems here too.

It felt maybe a little long for me, because I could see where it was going; being a fable, it could probably have simplified even more and made its point very well. Still, it’s a fun idea, and I suspect for some it would also be a way of seeing that they’re not alone.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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WWW Wednesday

Posted February 18, 2026 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Cover of Monsterland by Nicholas JubberWhat have you recently finished reading?

Other than my ongoing Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation manhua read, the last thing I finished was Nicholas Jubber’s Monsterland, which was not quite my thing. It was much more into the travelogue aspect than I was, and while I understand that it added “authenticity” and “local flavour”, and was genuinely a good way for the author to gather information from the people the customs actually belong to… it’s not something I enjoy for its own sake. I did like the folklore it picked, though, and the fact that it went on to discuss modern monsters.

As far as MDZS goes, we just had the flashback about the destruction of Jiang Cheng’s golden core, and in the present we’re heading to the Burial Mounds. Lan Xichen stubbornly believes in Jin Guangyao, and my heart hurts already, since I know the story now.

Cover of The Keeper of Magical Things by Julie LeongWhat are you currently reading?

I just started on Julie Leong’s The Keeper of Magical Things, which is fun so far, though I’m not very far into it. I really enjoyed The Teller of Small Fortunes, and I’m enjoying that the protagonist of this one also has a magic that seems quite small. I’m wondering how Leong is going to play with that, and hoping that it’s a similarly interesting take.

As ever, I have a few other books on the go at once, including Alice Roberts’ Domination, with which I’m going relatively slowly. I keep losing the thread… I like her work, but the topic just doesn’t interest me, sadly.

I’m also still reading Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter, or more accurately, I still need to get back into reading it. It’s fun! I’m enjoying it! But I put it down for a bit and then life intervened a bit, and now I need to find my way back into it.

Cover of The Brides of High Hill by Nghi VoWhat will you be reading next?

I want to keep on with rereading Nghi Vo’s Singing Hills books, since I have an ARC of the new one, so I’ll be rereading The Brides of High Hill next.

Other than that, I need to really get to work on reading the books I lined up for Book Spin Bingo this month. Maybe I’ll finally start on KJ Charles’ How to Fake it in Society, even if I’m already cringing at the idea of the fallout of the characters’ bad choices already laid out in the blurb. I know I’ll enjoy it when I get started, and that Charles likely handles it more subtly than I’m imagining, buuuut seeing the probable third act breakup coming from this far away is a bit of a kicker to me.

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Review – Afterwardness

Posted February 17, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Afterwardness

Afterwardness

by Mimi Khalvati

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 72
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

A 2019 Poetry Book Society Winter Wild Card. A Sunday Times Book of the Year 2019. Ever since her first Carcanet book, In White Ink (1991), Mimi Khalvati has been drawn to the sonnet form. In Afterwardness its pull became irresistible. She has created in this unprogrammatic series, mixing memory, history, daily life, all her intersecting geographies and cultures, a self-portrait in all her moods, anxieties and delights. The sonnet form is stretched in all sorts of fruitful directions. Just as she adapted the ghazal form to English use, here she puts the Petrarchan sonnet to striking, unfamiliar use, widening the possibilities of the form. The poems are rich with Khalvati's personal history, her Iranian origins, her long years in Great Britain. The poems play between cultures, ancestral and acquired.

I read one of Mimi Khalvati’s poems via The Guardian‘s poem of the week blog (which is as pretentious as you’d expect, in general), and decided I’d check out more. Afterwardness is a collection of sonnets, including the title poem, each one playing with the form to some extent or another.

It’s been a while since I tried to think super deeply about poetry so I’m sure I missed a lot of what Khalvati was trying to do by using the sonnet form. I think I read that they’re all Petrarchan sonnets, but I thought those were an octave and a sestet, while I picked a couple of Khalvati’s poems and they didn’t match that ABBAABBA rhyme scheme (and nor were they arranged into an octave and a sestet). So not sure about that, probably I’m missing a lot there.

All the same, I enjoyed the way Khalvati writes, and found her poems pretty accessible. I think I might’ve enjoyed them more with a tiny bit more context about Khalvati to place some of her references (like the fact that she’s Iranian) — I tend to be that kind of reader, not so much because I want to assume that the poet is always writing about personal experience, but to understand where they’re coming from, the context that shaped the poem.

I’m going to read more of Khalvati’s work for sure — this was a good experiment.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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