Borders, The Nation State and Palestine

The creation of the nation state is almost entirely an artificial construct. Creating a state that is moulded together into a single entity encouraged to share a national identity has not only been a violent process but one that was born from colonialism and one that continues to benefit colonial interests. If we look at any of the wars taking place across the globe in recent times, (Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq) all of them have to do with borders that were imposed on them by imperial powers. Iraq is an example of how the British carved out a country with their own interests in mind and no consideration for the people of the region. The three main ethnic groups, The Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shias, were divided in such a way that certain sects were given power over others therefore ensuring regional tensions and disharmony.

Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by R.F. Kuang

Since finishing Babel and professing my undying love to it, I’ve spent much of my time conversing with other readers about exactly what I loved and why, as well as trying to convince a minority of readers that this is definitely worth the time and effort. (its a whopping 560 pages or 21 hours and…

For the love of audiobooks

While I fully appreciate that audiobooks may not be for everyone, their numbers are continuing to rise, especially for people  under 35, who make up nearly half of frequent audiobook listeners. I think this is a really exciting statistic and celebrates the neurodiversity amongst readers. It makes books and reading accessible to people who have different styles of learning and living. In my home everyone listens to audiobooks and my children, aged 7 and under, all borrow books they like to listen to as well as books they like to read or be read to. We listen to audiobooks, fiction and nonfiction, on car journeys and it is a really lovely bonding experience for us a family, which I highly recommend to everyone.